"If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis... that all things are made of atoms — little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, you will see, there is an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Richard Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964) Vol. I; Lecture 1, "Atoms in Motion"; section 1-2, "Matter is made of atoms"; p. 1-2
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Atomic_theory
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Atomic theory
71 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Atomic theory →
Related Quotes
"We have come a long way from the classical ideal of objective descriptions. In quantum mechanics the departure from t…"
"Who sees the future? Let us have free scope for all directions of research; away with dogmatism, either atomistic or …"
"It seems not absurd to conceive that at the first Production of mixt Bodies, the Universal Matter whereof they among …"
"Neither is it impossible that of these minute Particles divers of the smallest and neighbouring ones were here and th…"
"I shall not peremptorily deny, that from most of such mixt Bodies as partake either of Animal or Vegetable Nature, th…"
"It may likewise be granted, that those distinct Substances, which Concretes generally either afford or are made up of…"
"And, to prevent mistakes, I must advertize You, that I now mean by Elements, as those Chymists that speak plainest do…"
"Fraunhofer's publication of 1814 did not receive prompt recognition, nor did his papers of 1821 and 1823. Physicists …"
"To try to make a model of an atom by studying its spectrum is like trying to make a model of a grand piano by listeni…"
"In 1763 a Croatian Jesuit named Roger Joseph Boscovich (1711 - 1787) identified the ultimate implication of this mech…"