American Chemist Quotes

Chemists think in the highly visual nanoscopic world of atoms and molecules, but they work in the tangible world of macroscopic laboratory apparatus. These two approaches to the chemical sciences cannot be divorced.

David W. Oxtoby

We can put it down as one of the principles learned from the history of science that a theory is only overthrown by a better theory, never merely by contradictory facts.

James Bryant Conant

A child of the new generation Refused to learn multiplication. He said 'Don't conclude That I'm stupid or rude; I am simply without motivation.'

Joel Henry Hildebrand

The history of science has something to offer to the humblest intelligence. It is a means of imparting a knowledge of scientific facts and principles to unschooled minds.

The field was essentially stuck, but following the well known scientific approach known as "sheer blind luck," we stumbled upon the protein that is the answer to the question: do water channels exist?

The achievement of the objective in itself cannot but thrill all chemists, who even before they know the details of the journey can apprehend from their own experience the joys and elations, the disappointments and false hopes, the obstacles overcome, the frustrations subdued, which they experienced who traversed a road to the goal.

Robert Burns Woodward

See all electrons are alike, and presumably leave no trail behind them, we cannot say that atom A loses an electron to atom B and atom C to atom D, but only that Atoms A and C have each lost an electron and atoms B and D have each gained one.

Gilbert N. Lewis

Boyle entertains the hypothesis of a universal matter, the concept of atoms of different shapes and sizes, and the possibility of existence of substances that might properly be called elements... The atomic theory as originally conceived by Democritus and Epicurus, developed by Lucretius, and resurrected by Gassendi from about 1647 on, was doubtless the source from which Boyle derived his ideas,...as he cites both Epicurus and Gassendi. Boyle, however... avoids any dogmatic assertion of these hypotheses. It is plain, however, that these atoms or "corpuscles" as he calls them are a constant element of his thought.

John Maxson Stillman

No one can predict how far we shall be enabled by means of our limited intelligence to penetrate into the mysteries of a universe immeasurably vast and wonderful; nevertheless, each step in advance is certain to bring new blessings to humanity and new inspiration to greater endeavor.

Theodore William Richards

Be a physical chemist, an analytical chemist, an organic chemist, if you will; but above all, be a chemist.

To many physical chemists in the 1920's and early 1930's, the organic chemist was a grubby artisan engaged in an unsystematic search for new compounds, a search which was strongly influenced by the profit motive.

Louis Plack Hammett

... when I started doing chemistry, I did it the way I fished – for the excitement, the discovery, the adventure, for going after the most elusive catch imaginable in uncharted seas.

K. Barry Sharpless

To those of us who spend our lives working on scientific problems, science is a great intellectual adventure of such interest that nothing else we ever do can compare with it. We are attempting to understand the order of a physical universe, vast in extent in space and time, and most complicated and beautiful in its details.

Our life would be what we made of it—nothing more, nothing less.

Surprisingly, history is much more difficult than chemistry.

Frank Westheimer

Some sort of false logic has crept into our schools, for the people whom I have seen doing housework or cooking know nothing of botany or chemistry, and the people who know botany and chemistry do not cook or sweep. The conclusion seems to be, if one knows chemistry she must not cook or do housework.

Ellen Swallow Richards

Scientists need to exchange ideas in an informal place.

Anyone who wishes to grow over their lifetime needs criticism.

Te reaction types used for functional group exchanges are collected into seven traditional categories [Acid-base reactions, Substitution reactions, Elimination reactions, Addition reactions, Nucleophilic acyl addition, Oxidation reactions, Reduction reactions].

Michael B. Smith

An aromatic compound may be defined as a cyclic compound with a large resonance energy where all the annular atoms take part in a single conjugated system.

Michael J. S. Dewar

In science, conjecture drives both experiment and theory for it is only by forming conjectures (hypotheses) that we can make the direction of our experiments and theories informed. If such and such is true, then I should be able to do this experiment and look for this particular result or I should be able to find this theoretical formulation. Conversely, experiment and theory drive conjecture. One makes a startling observation or has a sudden insight and begins to speculate on its significance and implications and to draw possible conclusions (conjecture).

What does one have to do to be called a scientist? I decided that anyone who spent on science more than 10% of his waking, thinking time for a period of more than a year would be called a scientist, at least for that year.

Joseph Edward Mayer