Philip Ball Quotes

8 Sourced Quotes

Origins are seldom uncontentious. Current fashion sometimes has it that the idea of a cosmic Big Bang is best regarded as our latest cultural myth, as much a social construct as the slaying of Ymir. On the one hand, it can only be arrogant to suggest otherwise; on the other, it's this particular kind of confidence that makes science possible.

Philip Ball
The stars are more than mere fireballs - they are engines of creation, and out of their fiery hearts come the elements needed to make the worlds.

Philip Ball
In the water molecule, oxygen hogs the electrons like a selfish lover stealing most of the duvet.

Philip Ball
Geologists brave the awesome fury of volcanoes and earthquakes; oceanographers plumb the hidden depths of the world. What do chemists do? Well, they make paint, among other things.

Philip Ball
We call our home Earth - but Water would be more apt.

Philip Ball
Molecules are the smallest units of meaning in chemistry. It is through molecules, not atoms, that one can tell stories in the sub-microscopic world. They are the words: atoms are just the letters... And in molecules, as in words, the order in which the component parts are put together matters: "save" and "vase" do not mean the same thing.

Philip Ball
As far as atoms are concerned, protons and electrons are like knives and forks at the dinner table; no matter how big the table, there are equal numbers of each.

Philip Ball
That we live on land is, in the grander scheme of things, best regarded as an anomaly, or even an eccentricity — albeit with sound evolutionary justification. The story of life is, if we retain a true sense of proportion, a story of life at sea.

Philip Ball