Atomic Physics Quotes

#1. Fine Structure Constant: Fundamental numerical constant of atomic physics and quantum electrodynamics, defined as the square of the charge of the electron divided by the product of Planck's constant and the speed of light.

Steven Weinberg

#2. Ernest Rutherford's 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry wasn't given for the nuclear power station - he wouldn't have survived that long - it was given for showing how interesting atomic physics could be.

Andre Geim

#3. A careful analysis of the process of observation in atomic physics has shown that the subatomic particles have no meaning as isolated entities, but can only be understood as interconnections between the preparation of an experiment and the subsequent measurement.

Erwin Schrodinger

#4. Musically, swing pretty much dominated in the '30s. And into the late '30s, swing is beginning to change over to bebop in the early '40s, which is exactly when this new science of theoretical physics, particularly theoretical atomic physics, was really coming to the fore.

Chris Eigeman

#5. From a consideration of the immense volume of newly discovered facts in the field of physics, especially atomic physics, in recent years it might well appear to the layman that the main problems were already solved and that only more detailed work was necessary.

Victor Francis Hess

#6. There are relatively few experiments in atomic physics these days that don't involve the use of a laser.

Eric Allin Cornell

#7. Energy is liberated matter, matter is energy waiting to happen.

Bill Bryson

#8. [About describing atomic models in the language of classical physics:]
We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections.

Niels Bohr

#9. Sloane slipped an arm around my waist. "There are fourteen varieties of hugs," she said. "This is one of them.

Jennifer Lynn Barnes

#10. At the atomic level, matter does not even exist with certainty; it only exists as a tendency to exist.

Bruce H. Lipton

#11. Sommerfeld's fine-structure theory was generally considered to be excellently and unambiguously confirmed by experiment. Because the theory rested on the foundation provided by Bohr, the experiments were also taken as strong support for his theory of atomic structure.

Helge Kragh

#12. [The fine structure constant] ... defines how firmly atomic nuclei bind together and how all the atoms on Earth were made. Its value controls the power from the Sun and, more sensitively, how stars transmute hydrogen into all the atoms of the periodic table.

Martin J. Rees

#13. In my opinion, Jackie is the greatest female athlete ever.

Marion Jones

#14. Any account of science which does not explicitly describe it as something we believe in is essentially incomplete and a false pretense. It amounts to a claim that science is essentially different from and superior to all human beliefs that are not scientific statements
and this is untrue.

Richard Rhodes

#15. Subatomic particles do not exist but rather show 'tendencies to exist', and atomic events do not occur with certainty at definite times and in definite ways, but rather show 'tendencies to occur'.

Fritjof Capra

#16. Nobody knows how the stand of our knowledge about the atom would be without him. Personally, Bohr is one of the amiable colleagues I have met. He utters his opinions like one perpetually groping and never like one who believes himself to be in possession of the truth.

Albert Einstein

#17. Women seem not to understand, or underestimate, the profound power they have over their husbands.

Laura Schlessinger

#18. A billion neutrinos go swimming in heavy water: one gets wet.

Michael Kamakana

#19. Now we see evolutionary trends in a variety of areas ranging from atomic and molecular physics through fluid mechanics, chemistry and biology to large scale systems of relevance in environmental and economic sciences

Ilya Prigogine

#20. All the quantum physics experiments have occurred chiefly on the atomic scale and we are taught to believe that nature's laws are consistent.

Mitch Horowitz

#21. Most of the great problems we face are caused by politicians creating solutions to problems they created in the first place.

Walter E. Williams

#22. President Gerald R. Ford was never one for second-guessing, but for many years after leaving office in 1977, he carried in his wallet a scrap of a 1915 Supreme Court ruling. 'A pardon,' the excerpt said, 'carries an imputation of guilt,' and acceptance of a pardon is 'a confession of it.'

Scott Shane

#23. I have a fun time, doing the meet and greets, the pictures and the autographs. Every show I've ever done, lends itself to that kind of thing. My convention life has legs.

David Anders

#24. The atomic hypothesis which had worked so splendidly in Physics breaks down in Psychics.

John Maynard Keynes

#25. We're all odd balls; some people are just better at pretending to be even

Benny Bellamacina

#26. We could present spatially an atomic fact which contradicted the laws of physics, but not one which contradicted the laws of geometry.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

#27. The release of atomic power has changed everything except our way of thinking ... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker. (1945)

Albert Einstein

#28. The whole edifice of modern physics is built up on the fundamental hypothesis of the atomic or molecular constitution of matter.

C. V. Raman

#29. Those crazy physicists that spend all day cooking themselves under an atomic reactor and all night writing stories for Weird World have done it. Spoiled my day completely. One of those idiots has hung the world up like a celluloid ball in an airstream.

Shirley Jackson

#30. All integral laws of spectral lines and of atomic theory spring originally from the quantum theory. It is the mysterious organon on which Nature plays her music of the spectra, and according to the rhythm of which she regulates the structure of the atoms and nuclei.

Arnold Sommerfeld

#31. But even physics cannot be defined from an atomic topography.

Michael Polanyi