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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index W > George Wald Quotes > Universe

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George Wald
(18 Nov 1906 - 12 Apr 1997)

American biochemist who shared the 1967 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his work on the chemistry of vision.


George Wald Quotes on Universe (8 quotes)

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Four elements, hydrogen, carbon, oxygen and nitrogen, also provide an example of the astonishing togetherness of our universe. They make up the “organic” molecules that constitute living organisms on a planet, and the nuclei of these same elements interact to generate the light of its star. Then the organisms on the planet come to depend wholly on that starlight, as they must if life is to persist. So it is that all life on the Earth runs on sunlight. [Referring to photosynthesis]
— George Wald
In lecture, 'Life and Mind in the Universe', versions of which George Wald delivered throughout the 1980s. On the website of his son, Elijah Wald, who states it was the last of his father’s major lectures.
Science quotes on:  |  Astonishing (29)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Depend (238)  |  Dependence (46)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Fusion (16)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Living (492)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nitrogen (32)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organism (231)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Photosynthesis (21)  |  Planet (402)  |  Run (158)  |  Star (460)  |  Starlight (5)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunlight (29)  |  Universe (900)  |  Wholly (88)

I tell my students, with a feeling of pride that I hope they will share, that the carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen that make up ninety-nine per cent of our living substance were cooked in the deep interiors of earlier generations of dying stars. Gathered up from the ends of the universe, over billions of years, eventually they came to form, in part, the substance of our sun, its planets, and ourselves. Three billion years ago, life arose upon the earth. It is the only life in the solar system.
— George Wald
From speech given at an anti-war teach-in at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, (4 Mar 1969) 'A Generation in Search of a Future', as edited by Ron Dorfman for Chicago Journalism Review, (May 1969).
Science quotes on:  |  Billion (104)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Cooking (12)  |  Death (406)  |  Deep (241)  |  Earth (1076)  |  End (603)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Form (976)  |  Formation (100)  |  Gather (76)  |  Generation (256)  |  Hope (321)  |  Interior (35)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Nitrogen (32)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Planet (402)  |  Pride (84)  |  Share (82)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Student (317)  |  Substance (253)  |  Sun (407)  |  System (545)  |  Tell (344)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

It would be a poor thing to be an atom in a universe without physicists, and physicists are made of atoms. A physicist is an atom’s way of knowing about atoms.
— George Wald
In lecture, 'Life and Mind in the Universe', versions of which George Wald delivered throughout the 1980s. On the website of his son, Elijah Wald, who states it was the last of his father's major lectures.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Made (14)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Poor (139)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Universe (900)  |  Way (1214)

Judging from our experience upon this planet, such a history, that begins with elementary particles, leads perhaps inevitably toward a strange and moving end: a creature that knows, a science-making animal, that turns back upon the process that generated him and attempts to understand it. Without his like, the universe could be, but not be known, and this is a poor thing. Surely this is a great part of our dignity as men, that we can know, and that through us matter can know itself; that beginning with protons and electrons, out of the womb of time and the vastnesses of space, we can begin to understand; that organized as in us, the hydrogen, the carbon, the nitrogen, the oxygen, those 16-21 elements, the water, the sunlight—all having become us, can begin to understand what they are, and how they came to be.
— George Wald
In 'The Origins of Life', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (1964), 52, 609-110.
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Our challenge is to give what account we can of what becomes of life in the solar system, this corner of the universe that is our home; and, most of all, what becomes of men—all men, of all nations, colors, and creeds. This has become one world, a world for all men. It is only such a world that can now offer us life, and the chance to go on.
— George Wald
From speech given at an anti-war teach-in at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, (4 Mar 1969) 'A Generation in Search of a Future', as edited by Ron Dorfman for Chicago Journalism Review, (May 1969).
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Become (821)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Chance (244)  |  Color (155)  |  Corner (59)  |  Creed (28)  |  Existence (481)  |  Home (184)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nation (208)  |  Offer (142)  |  Solar System (81)  |  System (545)  |  Universe (900)  |  World (1850)

The thought that we’re in competition with Russians or with Chinese is all a mistake, and trivial. We are one species, with a world to win. There’s life all over this universe, but the only life in the solar system is on earth, and in the whole universe we are the only men.
— George Wald
From speech given at an anti-war teach-in at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, (4 Mar 1969) 'A Generation in Search of a Future', as edited by Ron Dorfman for Chicago Journalism Review, (May 1969).
Science quotes on:  |  China (27)  |  Chinese (22)  |  Competition (45)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Russia (14)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Species (435)  |  System (545)  |  Thought (995)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Universe (900)  |  Whole (756)  |  Win (53)  |  World (1850)

We are not alone in the universe, and do not bear alone the whole burden of life and what comes of it. Life is a cosmic event—so far as we know the most complex state of organization that matter has achieved in our cosmos. It has come many times, in many places—places closed off from us by impenetrable distances, probably never to be crossed even with a signal. As men we can attempt to understand it, and even somewhat to control and guide its local manifestations. On this planet that is our home, we have every reason to wish it well. Yet should we fail, all is not lost. Our kind will try again elsewhere.
— George Wald
In 'The Origin of Life', Scientific American (Aug 1954), 191, No. 2, 53.
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Years ago I used to worry about the degree to which I specialized. Vision is limited enough, yet I was not really working on vision, for I hardly made contact with visual sensations, except as signals, nor with the nervous pathways, nor the structure of the eye, except the retina. Actually my studies involved only the rods and cones of the retina, and in them only the visual pigments. A sadly limited peripheral business, fit for escapists. But it is as though this were a very narrow window through which at a distance, one can only see a crack of light. As one comes closer the view grows wider and wider, until finally looking through the same narrow window one is looking at the universe. It is like the pupil of the eye, an opening only two to three millimetres across in daylight, but yielding a wide angle of view, and manoeuvrable enough to be turned in all directions. I think this is always the way it goes in science, because science is all one. It hardly matters where one enters, provided one can come closer, and then one does not see less and less, but more and more, because one is not dealing with an opaque object, but with a window.
— George Wald
In Scientific American, 1960s, attributed.
Science quotes on:  |  Angle (25)  |  Business (156)  |  Closer (43)  |  Cone (8)  |  Contact (66)  |  Crack (15)  |  Daylight (23)  |  Dealing (11)  |  Degree (277)  |  Direction (185)  |  Distance (171)  |  Enough (341)  |  Enter (145)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fit (139)  |  Grow (247)  |  Involved (90)  |  Light (635)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Looking (191)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Object (438)  |  Opaque (7)  |  Opening (15)  |  Pathway (15)  |  Peripheral (3)  |  Pigment (9)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Really (77)  |  Retina (4)  |  Rod (6)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Signal (29)  |  Structure (365)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)  |  View (496)  |  Vision (127)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wide (97)  |  Window (59)  |  Year (963)


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  • 18 Nov - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Wald's birth.

Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
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