American Scientist Quotes

Every time we get slapped down, we can say, Thank you Mother Nature, because it means we're about to learn something important.

John N. Bahcall

What will prove altogether remarkable is that some very simple schemes to produce erratic numbers behave identically to some of the erratic aspects of natural phenomena.

Mitchell Feigenbaum

The Universe is one indivisible, dynamic whole in which energy and matter are so deeply entangled it is impossible to consider them as independent elements.

Darwin applied a consistent philosophy of materialism to his interpretation of nature. Matter is the ground of all existence; mind, spirit, and God as well, are just words that express the wondrous results of neuronal complexity.

Stephen Jay Gould

Although quantum theory involves the use of nonlocal states, such as wave packets and entangled states, there is nothing in the theory, or in the real world so far as it is accurately described by quantum theory, that corresponds to the sorts of instantaneous nonlocal influences which have often been thought to arise in the situation envisaged in the EPR paradox, or implied by the fact that quantum theory violates Bell inequalities.

Robert Griffiths

There is not a "pure" science. By this I mean that physics impinges on astronomy, on the one hand, and chemistry and biology on the other. And not only does each support neighbors, but derives sustenance from them. The same can be said of chemistry. Biology is, perhaps, the example par excellence today of an "impure" Science.

The limited imagination of physicists: When we see a new phenomenon we try to fit it into the framework we already have... It's not because Nature is really similar; it's because the physicists have only been able to think of the same damn thing, over and over again.

Richard Feynman

Productive stupidity means being ignorant by choice. Focusing on important questions puts us in the awkward position of being ignorant.

Martin A. Schwartz

The downside of skepticism: it can easily turn into an arrogant position of a priori rejection of any new phenomenon or idea, a position that is as lacking in critical thinking as the one of the true believer, and that simply does not help either science or the public at large.

Massimo Pigliucci

The universe did not become sterile with the first production of life. It is continuously creative now as in the past.

Herbert Spencer Jennings

The awkward richness of possibilities seems to shatter any possible coherent theory of simplicity...

Lawrence B. Slobodkin

Ex libro lapidum historia mundi — from the book of rocks comes the history of the Earth.

Luis Walter Alvarez

The concept of "free radicals" was not known in 1920 — well perhaps in politics, but not in chemistry.

Herman Francis Mark

The atoms become like a moth, seeking out the region of higher laser intensity.

Science, in its pure form, is not concerned with where discoveries may lead; its disciples are interested only in discovering the truth.

Alan Tower Waterman

Having presented all the relevant nanoscale mechanisms, thus laying down a firm background for the readers' understanding, the author moves to the topic of architectural challenges in Chapter 7. This field is claimed still to be an unsolved problem so the author gives examples of currently used technologies and points out potential architectural solutions such as self-assembly, carbon nanotubes, or quantum systems. That is why it makes the book even more valuable for those who intend to involve nanonetworks in their research.

We look to medical research to discover remedial measures to insure better health and more happiness for mankind.

Thomas Hunt Morgan

Increased knowledge clearly implies increased responsibility.

Nicolaas Bloembergen

Modern physics often advances only by sacrificing some of our traditional philosophical convictions.

Education of both men and women is a wonderful contraceptive.

Henry Way Kendall

Practically everything your eat, taste, wear, smell and see has resulted in some way from the ingenuity of chemists.

Marston T. Bogert

"All is fair in love and war" and, I might add, in theoretical physics.

To believe something strongly when it is clearly hard to define and prove, and has not been proven, is to be prejudiced.

It has been thought since physics began that matter was made up of particles. We had changed that point of view now. We now think that matter is made up of little strings.

Epidemiology is like a bikini: what is revealed is interesting; what is concealed is crucial.