Electron Quotes

The removal of an electron from the surface of an atom - that is, the ionization of the atom - means a fundamental structural change in its surface layer. ~ Johannes Stark

Because you are my sister in every fiber of my being ... but there are aother strands that link us, that wouldn't be seen by even the strongest electron microscope ... We are conjoined by hundreds os thousands of memories that silt down into you and stop being memories and become a part of who you are. ~ Rosamund Lupton

Throughout these lectures I have delighted in showing you that the price of gaining such an accurate theory has been the erosion of our common sense. We must accept some very bizarre behavior: the amplification and suppression of probabilities, light reflecting from all parts of a mirror, light travelling in paths other than a straight line, photons going faster or slower than the conventional speed of light, electrons going backwards in time, photons suddenly disintegrating into a positron-electron pair, and so on. That we must do, in order to appreciate what Nature is really doing underneath nearly all the phenomena we see in the world. ~ Richard Feynman

To resolve the discrepancy between waves of probability and our commonsense notion of existence, Bohr and Heisenberg assumed that after a measurement is made by an outside observer, the wave function magically "collapses," and the electron falls into a definite
state - that is, after looking at the tree, we see that it is truly standing. In other words, the process of observation determines the final state of the electron. Observation is vital to existence. ~ Michio Kaku

I subscribe to the anthropic principle: there are an infinite number of infinite universes, each with slightly different physical laws.

Only some of them have the right parameters, such as gravity the right strength to allow stars to be born and live long. Where the charge on the electron is right to allow complex molecules to form, etc.

Ours is one that allows intelligent life to form, so that the universe may wonder at itself. We *are* the universe, in wonder of itself. -- Google: "Anthropic principle ~ William Donelson

The electron: may it never be of any use to anybody! ~ Joseph John Thomson

Reagents are regarded as acting by virtue of a constitutional affinity either for electrons or for nuclei ... the terms electrophilic (electron-seeking) and nucleophilic (nucleus-seeking) are suggested ... and the organic molecule, in the activation necessary for reaction, is therefore required to develop at the seat of attack either a high or low electron density as the case may be. ~ Christopher Kelk Ingold

The uncertainty relation does not refer to the past; if the velocity of the electron is at first known and the position then exactly measured, the position for times previous to the measurement may be calculated. ~ Werner Heisenberg

When I was 16 years old, I assembled a 2.3 million electron volt beta particle accelerator. I went to Westinghouse, I got 400 pounds of translator steel, 22 miles of copper wire, and I assembled a 6-kilowatt, 2.3 million electron accelerator in the garage. ~ Michio Kaku

Indeed, nothing more beautifully simplifying has ever happened in the history of science than the whole series of discoveries culminating about 1914 which finally brought practically universal acceptance to the theory that the material world contains but two fundamental entities, namely, positive and negative electrons, exactly alike in charge, but differing widely in mass, the positive electron-now usually called a proton-being 1850 times heavier than the negative, now usually called simply the electron. ~ Robert Andrews Millikan

An electron accelerated to .9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 9999999999999 times the speed of light would hit you with the same impact as a Mack truck traveling at normal speed. ~ Lawrence M. Krauss

Getting closer to someone doesn't necessarily clarify anything. It's like staring at an electron micrograph. You're closer but nothing's any simpler. ~ Sonja Yoerg

Albert Szent-Györgyi, a Hungarian physiologist who won the Nobel Prize in 1937 for the discovery of vitamin C, once offered the opinion that "life is nothing but an electron looking for a place to rest. ~ Sean Carroll

The vibration of Spirit is at such an infinite rate of intensity and rapidity that it is practically at rest - just as a rapidly moving wheel seems to be motionless. And at the other end of the scale, there are gross forms of matter whose vibrations are so low as to seem at rest. Between these poles, there are millions upon millions of varying degrees of vibration. From corpuscle and electron, atom and molecule, to worlds and universes, everything is in vibratory motion. This is also true on the planes of energy and force (which are but varying degrees of vibration); and also on the mental planes (whose states depend upon vibrations); and even on to the spiritual planes. An understanding of this Principle, with the appropriate formulas, enables Hermetic students to control their own mental vibrations as well as those of others. The Masters also apply this Principle to the conquering of Natural phenomena, in various ways. "He who understands the Principle of Vibration, has grasped the sceptre of Power," says one of the old writers. ~ Three Initiates

Dirac found that the ratio of the electric force to the gravitational force of an electron-proton pair is roughly equal to the ratio of the age of the universe to the time it takes light to traverse an atom. ~ Michael Flynn

We have shriveled down the notion of what constitutes "a family unit" to such a tiny scale that it would probably be unrecognizable as a family to anybody in one of those big, loose, enveloping Hmong clans. You almost need an electron microscope to study the modern Western family these days. What you've got are two, possibly three, or maybe sometimes four people rattling around together in a giant space, each person with her own private physical and psychological domain, each person spending large amounts of the day completely separated from the others. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

The bridge between the electron and the other elementary particles is provided by the fine structure constant, a ~ 1/137, as manifested in the factor-of-137 spacings between the classical electron radius, electron Compton radius, and Bohr orbit radius. ... An a-quantized mass-generation grid extends accurately from the electron all the way to the top quark t, and leads to a corresponding a-quantized particle lifetime grid. ~ Malcolm H. Mac Gregor

when does an electron know when to jump, and how does it decide where to jump? Reasonably enough, Rutherford wanted to know what underlying process controlled the quantum jumping: "Bohr's answer was remarkable. Bohr suggested that the whole process was fundamentally random, and could only be considered by statistical methods: every change in the state of an atom should be regarded as an individual process, incapable of more detailed description. We are here so far removed from a causal description that an atom may in general even be said to possess a free choice between various possible transitions. ~ Andrew Thomas

I'm usually homeboys with the same ni**as I'm rhyming wit/But this is hip-hop and them ni**as should know what time it is/And that goes for Jermaine Cole, Big KRIT, Wale/Pusha T, Meek Millz, A$AP Rocky, Drake/Big Sean, Jay Electron', Tyler, Mac Miller/I got love for you all but I'm tryna murder you ni**as/Tryna make sure your core fans never heard of you ni**as/They dont wanna hear not one more noun or verb from you ni**as ~ Kendrick Lamar

In the early 1950s, during the near avalanche of discoveries, rediscoveries, and redefinitions of subcellular components made possible by electron microscopy, those prospecting in this newly opened field were faced with the problem of what to do with their newly acquired wealth. ~ George Emil Palade

As long as one egg looks pretty much like another, all the chickens like chicken, and beef beef, the substitution of quantity for quality will go unnoticed by most consumers, but it is becoming increasingly apparent to anyone with an electron microscope or a mass spectrometer that, truly, this is not the same food. ~ Michael Pollan

Also unlike a planet, an electron - if excited by heat or light - can leap from its low-energy shell to an empty, high-energy shell. The electron cannot stay in the high-energy state for long, so it soon crashes back down. But this isn't a simple back-and-forth motion, because as it crashes, the electron jettisons energy by emitting light. ~ Sam Kean

If Feynman could see beauty as the inspiration for the theory of the rainbow, and if an electron could behave like a wave, and light like a particle, then the little contradiction of Leonard flitting among different subfields of physics, or even among varied careers, would not shake the universe. ~ Anonymous

The electron is first of all your concept of the electron. ~ Nhat Hanh

Boron is carbon's neighbor on the periodic table, which means it can do a passable carbon impression and wriggle its way into the matrix of a diamond. But it has one fewer electron, so it can't quite form the same four perfect bonds. ~ Sam Kean

Infrared satellite imagery, optical telescopes, and the Hubbell space telescope bring vastness within our visual sphere. Electron microscopes let us wander the remote universe of our own cells. But at the middle scale, that of the unaided eye, our senses seem to be strangely dulled. With sophisticated technology, we strive to see what is beyond us, but are often blind to the myriad sparkling facets that lie so close at hand. We thing we're seeing when we've only scratched the surface. Our acuity at this middle scale seems diminished, not by any failing of the eyes, but by the willingness of the mind. Has the power of our devices led us to distrust our unaided eyes? Or have we become dismissive of what takes no technology but only time and patience to perceive? Attentiveness alone can rival the most powerful magnifying lens. ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer

Strong, deeply rooted desire is the starting point of all achievement. Just as the electron is the last unit of matter discernible to the scientist. DESIRE is the seed of all achievement; the starting place, back of which there is nothing, or at least there is nothing of which we have any knowledge. ~ Napoleon Hill

Looking ahead to future applications of electronics, [de Forest] grew even gloomier. He believed that 'electron physiologists' would eventually be able to monitor and analyze 'thought or brain waves', allowing 'joy and grief to be measured in define, quantitative unit.' Ultimately, he concluded, 'a professor may be able to implant knowledge into the reluctant brains of his 22nd century pupils. What terrifying political possibilities may be lurking there! Let us be thankful that such things are only for posterity, not for us. ~ Nicholas Carr

The math says you can either know the position of an electron or the momentum, but never both. ~ Ted Kosmatka

He believes the relationship
between particle and quantum wave is more like a ship on automatic
pilot guided by radar waves. A quantum wave does not push an electron
about any more than a radar wave pushes a ship. Rather, it
provides the electron with information about its environment which
the electron then uses to maneuver on its own.
In other words, Bohm believes that an electron is not only mindlike,
but is a highly complex entity, a far cry from the standard view that
an electron is a simple, structureless point. The active use of information
by electrons, and indeed by all subatomic particles, indicates that
the ability to respond to meaning is a characteristic not only of consciousness
but of all matter. It is this intrinsic commonality, says
Bohm, that offers a possible explanation for PK. He states, "On this
basis, psychokinesis could arise if the mental processes of one or more
people were focused on meanings that were in harmony with those
guiding the basic processes of the material systems in which this
psychokinesis was to be brought about. "4
It is important to note that this kind of psychokinesis would not be
due to a causal process, that is, a cause-and-effect relationship involving
any of the known forces in physics. Instead, it would be the result
of a kind of nonlocal "resonance of meanings, " or a kind of nonlocal
interaction similar to, but not the sam ~ Michael Talbot

The Undivided Wholeness of All Things
Most mind-boggling of all are Bohm's fully developed ideas about wholeness. Because everything in the cosmos is made out of the seamless holographic fabric of the implicate order, he believes it is as meaningless to view the universe as composed of "parts, " as it is to view the different geysers in a fountain as separate from the water out of which they flow. An electron is not an "elementary particle. " It is just a name given to a certain aspect of the holomovement. Dividing reality up into parts and then naming those parts is always arbitrary, a product of convention, because subatomic particles, and everything else in the universe, are no more separate from one another than different patterns in an ornate carpet. This is a profound suggestion. In his general theory of relativity Einstein astounded the world when he said that space and time are not separate entities, but are smoothly linked and part of a larger whole he called the space-time continuum. Bohm takes this idea a giant step further. He says that everything in the universe is part of a continuum. Despite the apparent separateness of things at the explicate level, everything is a seamless extension of everything else, and ultimately even the implicate and explicate orders blend into each other. Take a moment to consider this. Look at your hand. Now look at the light streaming from the lamp beside you. And at the dog resting at your feet. You are not merely made of the s ~ Michael Talbot

But if electrons can exist in parallel states hovering between existence and nonexistence, then why can't the universe? After all, at one point the universe was smaller than an electron. Once we introduce the possibility of applying the quantum principle to the universe, we are forced to consider parallel universes. ~ Michio Kaku

What we learn is that the scientist is as important a part of this experiment as the electron, and that the scientist and the electron are in fact connected. This experiment is the cornerstone of the holistic universe theory. ~ Danny Scheinmann

I hitched my wagon to an electron rather than the proverbial star. ~ David Sarnoff

From that night on, the electron-up to that time largely the plaything of the scientist-had clearly entered the field as a potent agent in the supplying of man's commercial and industrial needs ... The electronic amplifier tube now underlies the whole art of communications, and this in turn is at least in part what has made possible its application to a dozen other arts. It was a great day for both science and industry when they became wedded through the development of the electronic amplifier tube. ~ Robert Andrews Millikan

The magnetic cleavage of the spectral lines is dependent on the size of the charge of the electron, or, more accurately, on the ratio between the mass and the charge of the electron. ~ Pieter Zeeman

If we shuffle three colored quarks and the equations remain the same, then we say that the equations possess something called SU(3) symmetry. The 3 represents the fact that we have three types of colors, and the SU stands for a specific mathematical property of the symmetry. We say that there are three quarks in a multiplet. The quarks in a multiplet can be shuffled among one another without changing the physics of the theory. Similarly, the weak force governs the properties of two particles, the electron and the neutrino. The symmetry that interchanges these particles, yet leaves the equation the same, is called SU(2). This means that a multiplet of the weak force contains an electron and a neutrino, which can be rotated into each other. Finally, the electromagnetic force has U(1) symmetry, which rotates the components of the Maxwell field into itself.

Each of these symmetries is simple and elegant. However, the most controversial aspect of the Standard Model is that it "unifies" the three fundamental forces by simply splicing all three theories into one large symmetry. SU(3) X SU(2) X U(1), which is just the product of the symmetries of the individual forces. (This can be compared to assembling a jigsaw puzzle. If we have three jigsaw pieces that don't quite fit, we can always take Scotch tape and splice them together by hand. This is how the Standard Model is formed, by taping three distinct multiplets together. This may not be aesthetically pleasing, but at lea ~ Michio Kaku

There can never be two or more equivalent electrons in an atom, for which in a strong field the values of all the quantum numbers n, k1, k2 and m are the same. If an electron is present, for which these quantum numbers (in an external field) have definite values, then this state is 'occupied.' ~ Wolfgang Pauli

In the 1920s, a generation before the coming of solid-state electronics, one could look at the circuits and see how the electron stream flowed. Radios had valves, as though electricity were a fluid to be diverted by plumbing. With the click of the knob came a significant hiss and hum, just at the edge of audibility. ~ James Gleick

To the electron: May it never be of use to anyone ~ J.J. Thomson

My aunt Julie was a production manager, and she heard of an opening. Some show was looking for children to run around the house or whatever. I auditioned and got the part, and I showed up in all of my monstrous energy, bouncing everywhere like an electron. ~ Xavier Dolan

An electron is real; a probability is not. ~ Hans Christian Von Baeyer

The color of the emitted light depends on the relative heights of the starting and ending energy levels. A crash between closely spaced levels (such as two and one) releases a pulse of low-energy reddish light, while a crash between more widely spaced levels (say, five and two) releases high-energy purple light. ~ Sam Kean

If dimensions are virtual like the particles in quantum foam are virtual then, entanglement is information that is in more than one location (hologram).
There are no particles, they may be wave packets but the idea of quantum is, a precise ratio of action in relationship to the environment.
Feynman's path integral is not infinite, it is fractal.
If you look at a star many light years away, the photon that hits your eye leaves the star precisely when the timing for the journey will end at your eye because the virtual dimension of the journey is zero distance or zero time. Wheeler said that if your eye is not there to receive the photon then it won't leave the star in the distant past. If the dimension in the direction of travel is zero, you have a different relationship then if it is zero time in terms of the property of the virtual dimensions.

Is a particle really a wave packet?
Could something like a "phase transition" involve dimensions that are more transitory then we imagined.
Example; a photon as a two dimensional sheet is absorbed by an electron so that the photon becomes a part of the geometry of the electron in which the electrons dimensions change in some manner.
Could "scale" have more variation and influence on space and time that our models currently predict?
Could information, scale, and gravity be intimately related? ~ R.A. Delmonico

Like a black hole, NSA pulls in every signal that comes near, but no electron is ever allowed to escape. ~ James Bamford

Now all oscillatory movements of such an electron can be conceived of as being split up into force, and two circular oscillations perpendicular to this direction rotating in opposite directions. ~ Pieter Zeeman

In the absence of a magnetic field the period of all these oscillations is the same. But as soon as the electron is exposed to the effect of a magnetic field, its motion changes. ~ Pieter Zeeman

An electron is an electron, but you can decide where to send your electric-bill payment. You can't redirect the electrons, but you can your dollars. The dollars will drive generation choices. ~ Ralph Cavanagh

What is meant by 'position' in the quantum realm? Nothing more or less, Heisenberg answered, than the result of a specific experiment designed to measure, say, the 'position of the electron' in space at a given moment, 'otherwise this word has no meaning'.46 For him there simply is no electron with a well-defined position or a well-defined momentum in the absence of an experiment to measure its position or momentum. A measurement of an electron's position creates an electron-with-a-position, while a measurement of its momentum creates an electron-with-a-momentum. The very idea of an electron with a definite 'position' or 'momentum' is meaningless prior to an experiment that measures it. Heisenberg had adopted an approach to defining concepts through their measurement that harked back to Ernst Mach and what philosophers called operationalism. But it was more than just a redefinition of old concepts. ~ Manjit Kumar

Evolution endowed us with intuition only for those aspects of physics that had survival value for our distant ancestors, such as the parabolic orbits of flying rocks (explaining our penchant for baseball). A cavewoman thinking too hard about what matter is ultimately made of might fail to notice the tiger sneaking up behind and get cleaned right out of the gene pool. Darwin's theory thus makes the testable prediction that whenever we use technology to glimpse reality beyond the human scale, our evolved intuition should break down. We've repeatedly tested this prediction, and the results overwhelmingly support Darwin. At high speeds, Einstein realized that time slows down, and curmudgeons on the Swedish Nobel committee found this so weird that they refused to give him the Nobel Prize for his relativity theory. At low temperatures, liquid helium can flow upward. At high temperatures, colliding particles change identity; to me, an electron colliding with a positron and turning into a Z-boson feels about as intuitive as two colliding cars turning into a cruise ship. On microscopic scales, particles schizophrenically appear in two places at once, leading to the quantum conundrums mentioned above. On astronomically large scales… weirdness strikes again: if you intuitively understand all aspects of black holes [then you] should immediately put down this book and publish your findings before someone scoops you on the Nobel Prize for quantum gravity… [also,] the leading theory for wha ~ Max Tegmark

It also predicted that the electron should have a partner: an antielectron, or positron. The discovery of the positron in 1932 confirmed Dirac's theory and led to his being awarded the Nobel prize for physics in 1933. ~ Stephen Hawking

We have learnt through experience that when an electrical ray strikes the surface of an atom, an electron, and in some circumstances a second and even a third electron, can be detached. ~ Johannes Stark

Most American homes have alternating current, which means that the electricty goes in one direction for a while, then goes in the other direction. This prevents harmful electron buildup in the wires. ~ Dave Barry

You will get your difficulties with the point electron. ~ Paul Ehrenfest

The chemist in America has in general been content with what I have called a loafer electron theory. He has imagined the electrons sitting around on dry goods boxes at every corner [viz. the cubic atom], ready to shake hands with, or hold on to similar loafer electrons in other atoms. ~ Robert Andrews Millikan

Sir Arthur Eddington summed up the situation brilliantly in his book The Nature of the Physical World, published in 1929. "No familiar conceptions can be woven around the electron," he said, and our best description of the atom boils down to "something unknown is doing we don't know what". ~ John Gribbin

Hey, Hiro," the black-and-white guy says, "you want to try some Snow Crash?"
A lot of people hang around in front of The Black Sun saying weird things. You
ignore them. But this gets Hiro's attention.
Oddity the first: The guy knows Hiro's name. But people have ways of getting
that information. It's probably nothing.
The second: This sounds like an offer from a drug pusher. Which would be normal
in front of a Reality bar. But this is the Metaverse. And you can't sell drugs
in the Metaverse, because you can't get high by looking at something.
The third: The name of the drug. Hiro's never heard of a drug called Snow Crash
before. That's not unusual -- a thousand new drugs get invented each year, and
each of them sells under half a dozen brand names.
But a "snow crash" is computer lingo. It means a system crash -- a bug -- at
such a fundamental level that it frags the part of the computer that controls
the electron beam in the monitor, making it spray wildly across the screen,
turning the perfect gridwork of pixels into a gyrating blizzard. Hiro has seen
it happen a million times. But it's a very peculiar name for a drug.
The thing that really gets Hiro's attention is his confidence. He has an
utterly calm, stolid presence. It's like talking to an asteroid. Which would
be okay if he were doing something that made the tiniest little bit of sense.
Hiro's trying to read some clues in the ~ Neal Stephenson

If we ask, for instance, whether the position of the electron remains the same, we must say 'no'; if we ask whether the electron's position changes with time, we must say 'no'; if we ask whether the electron is at rest, we must say 'no'; if we ask whether it is in motion, we must say 'no'. ~ J. Robert Oppenheimer

One day I went up to my mom and I said, 'Mom, can I have permission to build a 2.3-million electron-volt atom smasher - a betatron - in the garage?' And my mom stared at me, and she said, 'Sure. Why not? And don't forget to take out the garbage.' ~ Michio Kaku

There is a most profound and beautiful question associated with the observed coupling constant, e - the amplitude for a real electron to emit or absorb a real photon. It is a simple number that has been experimentally determined to be close to 0.08542455. (My physicist friends won't recognize this number, because they like to remember it as the inverse of its square: about 137.03597 with about an uncertainty of about 2 in the last decimal place. It has been a mystery ever since it was discovered more than fifty years ago, and all good theoretical physicists put this number up on their wall and worry about it.) Immediately you would like to know where this number for a coupling comes from: is it related to pi or perhaps to the base of natural logarithms? Nobody knows. It's one of the greatest damn mysteries of physics: a magic number that comes to us with no understanding by man. You might say the "hand of God" wrote that number, and "we don't know how He pushed his pencil." We know what kind of a dance to do experimentally to measure this number very accurately, but we don't know what kind of dance to do on the computer to make this number come out, without putting it in secretly! ~ Richard P. Feynman

[E]ven laws of Nature are not absolutely certain. There may be new circumstances never before examined – inside black holes, say, or within the electron, or close to the speed of light – where even our vaunted laws of Nature break down and, however valid they may be in ordinary circumstances, need correction. ~ Carl Sagan

Thoughts are no more than electrical surges in the brain. Sexual arousal is no more than a flow of chemicals to certain nerve endings. Sadness is no more than a bit of acid transfixed in the cerebellum. In short, the body is a machine, subject to the same laws of electricity and mechanics as an electron or clock. ~ Alan Lightman

I was struck - not for the first time in my years of travel - by how isolating contemporary American society can seem by comparison. Where I came from, we have shriveled down the notion of what constitutes 'a family unit' to such a tiny scale that it would probably be unrecognizable as a family to anybody in one of these big, loose, enveloping Hmong clans. You almost need an electron microscope to study the modern Western family these days. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

You'd need a very specialized electron microscope to get down to the level to actually see a single strand of DNA. ~ Craig Venter

We had to understand things like why the top quark was so heavy and the electron is so light. The Higgs is a big, important step. ~ Fabiola Gianotti

Bohm and Aharonov found that under the right circumstances an electron is able to "feel" the presence of a magnetic field that is in a region where there is zero probability of finding the electron. This phenomenon is now known as the Aharonov-Bohm effect, and when the two men first published their discovery, many physicists did not believe such an effect was possible. Even today there is enough residual skepticism that, despite confirmation of the effect in numerous experiments, occasionally papers still appear arguing that it doesn't exist. ~ Michael Talbot

One might talk about the sanity of the atom the sanity of space the sanity of the electron the sanity of water- For it is all alive and has something comparable to that which we call sanity in ourselves. The only oneness is the oneness of sanity. ~ D.H. Lawrence

My four things I care about are truth, meaning, fitness and grace. [...] Sam [Harris] would like to make an argument that the better and more rational our thinking is, the more it can do everything that religion once did. [...] I think about my personal physics hero, Dirac – who was the guy who came up with the equation for the electron, less well-known than the Einstein equations but arguably even more beautiful...in order to predict that, he needed a positively-charged and a negatively-charged particle, and the only two known at the time were the electron and the proton to make up, let's say, a hydrogen atom. Well, the proton is quite a bit heavier than the electron and so he told the story that wasn't really true, where the proton was the anti-particle of the electron, and Heisenberg pointed out that that couldn't be because the masses are too far off and they have to be equal. Well, a short time later, the anti-electron -- the positron, that is -- was found, I guess by Anderson at Caltech in the early 30s and then an anti-proton was created some time later. So it turned out that the story had more meaning than the exact version of the story...so the story was sort of more true than the version of the story that was originally told. And I could tell you a similar story with Einstein, I could tell it to you with Darwin, who, you know, didn't fully understand the implications of his theory, as is evidenced by his screwing up a particular kind of orchid in his later work...no ~ Eric R. Weinstein

The electron is a theory. But the theory is so good we can almost consider them real. ~ Richard P. Feynman

I used to say the evening that I developed the first x-ray photograph I took of insulin in 1935 was the most exciting moment of my life. But the Saturday afternoon in late July 1969, when we realized that the insulin electron density map was interpretable, runs that moment very close. ~ Dorothy Hodgkin

The rigid electron is in my view a monster in relation to Maxwell's equations, whose innermost harmony is the principle of relativity ... the rigid electron is no working hypothesis, but a working hindrance. Approaching Maxwell's equations with the concept of the rigid electron seems to me the same thing as going to a concert with your ears stopped up with cotton wool. We must admire the courage and the power of the school of the rigid electron which leaps across the widest mathematical hurdles with fabulous hypotheses, with the hope to land safely over there on experimental-physical ground. ~ Hermann Minkowski

It is remarkable that mind enters into our awareness of nature on two separate levels. At the highest level, the level of human consciousness, our minds are somehow directly aware of the complicated flow of electrical and chemical patterns in our brains. At the lowest level, the level of single atoms and electrons, the mind of an observer is again involved in the description of events. Between lies the level of molecular biology, where mechanical models are adequate and mind appears to be irrelevant. But I, as a physicist, cannot help suspecting that there is a logical connection between the two ways in which mind appears in my universe. I cannot help thinking that our awareness of our own brains has something to do with the process which we call "observation" in atomic physics. That is to say, I think our consciousness is not just a passive epiphenomenon carried along by the chemical events in our brains, but is an active agent forcing the molecular complexes to make choices between one quantum state and another. In other words, mind is already inherent in every electron, and the processes of human consciousness differ only in degree but not in kind from the processes of choice between quantum states which we call "chance" when they are made by electrons. ~ Freeman Dyson

His listening intensified day by day until he could hear the adagio movement of a nucleus inside an electron aria that floated through the operatic galaxy inside a single atom. And then he began to hear extra ... In the case of the marmalade spoon, the whir of the bluebottle fly was more than a buzzing, it also spoke of the splendor of courage. That was the extra part. ~ Rita Leganski

It is said, for example, that dragons can sometimes have seven heads. This is sheer nonsense. A dragon can have only one head, for the simple reason that having two leads to disagreements and violent quarrels; the polyhydroids, as the scholars call them, died out as a result of internal feuds. Stubborn and headstrong by nature, dragons cannot tolerate opposition, therefore two heads in one body will always bring about a swift death: each head, purely to spite the other, refuses to eat, then maliciously holds its breath - with the usual consequences. It was this phenomenon which Euphorius Cloy exploited when he invented the anticapita cannon. A small auxiliary electron head is discharged into the dragon's body. This immediately gives rise to unreconcilable differences of opinion and the dragon is immobilized by the ensuing deadlock. Often it will stand there, stiff as a board, for a day, a week, even a month; sometimes a year goes by before the beast will collapse, exhausted. Then you can do with it what you will. ~ Stanisław Lem

Two atoms are walking down the street. One says, "Wait, I think I lost an electron." The other says, "Are you sure?" The first one says, "Yes, I'm positive. ~ Greg Ross

In basic research, the use of the electron microscope has revealed to us the complex universe of the cell, the basic unit of life. ~ Gunter Blobel

Can quantum mechanics represent the fact that an electron finds itself approximately in a given place and that it moves approximately with a given velocity, and can we make these approximations so close that they do not cause experimental difficulties? ~ Werner Heisenberg

The leptons most familiar to the non-physicist are the electron and perhaps the neutrino; and the most familiar quarks are . . . well, there are no familiar quarks. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

For example, Bohm believes an electron is not one thing but a totality or ensemble enfolded throughout the whole of space. When an instrument detects the presence of a single electron it is simply because one aspect of the electron's ensemble has unfolded, similar to the way an ink drop unfolds out of the glycerine, at that particular location. When an electron appears to be moving it is due to a continuous series of such unfoldments and enfoldments. ~ Michael Talbot

electron-beam lithography, ~ Ray Kurzweil

It seems sensible to discard all hope of observing hitherto unobservable quantities, such as the position and period of the electron ... Instead it seems more reasonable to try to establish a theoretical quantum mechanics, analogous to classical mechanics, but in which only relations between observable quantities occur. ~ Werner Heisenberg

On the basis of Lorentz's theory, if we limit ourselves to a single spectral line, it suffices to assume that each atom (or molecule) contains a single moving electron. ~ Pieter Zeeman

We compel the electron to assume a definite position. We ourselves produce the results of the measurement. ~ Dean Radin

If he would just work with pure ideas like a proper mathematician he could go as fast as thought. As it happens, Alan has become fascinated by the incarnations of pure ideas in the physical world. The underlying math of the universe is like the light streaming in through the window. Alan is not satisfied with merely knowing that it streams in. He blows smoke into the air to make the light visible. He sits in meadows gazing at pine cones and flowers, tracing the mathematical patterns in their structure, and he dreams about electron winds blowing over the glowing filaments and screens of radio tubes, and, in their surges and eddies, capturing something of what is going on in his own brain. Turing is neither a mortal nor a god. He is Antaeus. That he bridges the mathematical and physical worlds is his strength and his weakness. ~ Neal Stephenson

The electron is a theory we use; it is so useful in understanding the way nature works that we can almost call it real. ~ Richard P. Feynman

I always imagined myself somehow as an electron around some atom, and you're just, like, bouncing around and spinning. There was a never-ending supply of places to go, people to see, things to do, and fitting it all in became kind of an art. ~ Tom Freston

I sing to you of many more gods, gods of wind and water, gods of each mineral and the events that created them. I sing to you of the gods of protons, of quarks, of atomic forces binding and holding. I sing to you of the god of the dust that flies off the ice-burned comet, and the god of the spaces in between. I sing to you of the god that twists like a serpent at the center of every sun and is found again coiled within every electron, shared by both and worshiped by each in its own way. I sing to you of the god that collects asteroids together in mockeries of his sister's solar systems, jealous of his elder sibling's power. I sing to you of all these, and many, many more." - Lupa, "The Forgotten Gods of Nature ~ John Halstead

Then solar systems, galaxies, supernovas, infinite space itself will become elements of a final masterwork
a never-ending festival, a celestial amusement park in which every exploding star and spinning electron is part of the empyreal choreography. ~ Steven Millhauser

Now if this electron is displaced from its equilibrium position, a force that is directly proportional to the displacement restores it like a pendulum to its position of rest. ~ Pieter Zeeman

Everything in this world, as well as the world itself, strives for balance and harmony. Electron reaches proton, male tends to female, light replaces darkness, life is balanced by death, and vice versa. And evil on one scale will inevitably lead to the appearance of good on the other. ~ Alexandr Iscenco

Supersymmetry is a theory which stipulates that for every known particle there should be a partner particle. For instance, the electron should be paired with a supersymmetric 'selectron,' quarks ought to have 'squark' partners, and so on. ~ Brian Greene

Take this neat little equation here. It tells me all the ways an electron can make itself comfortable in or around an atom. That's the logic of it. The poetry of it is that the equation tells me how shiny gold is, how come rocks are hard, what makes grass green, and why you can't see the wind. And a million other things besides, about the way nature works. ~ Richard Feynman

It was not until some weeks later that I realized there is no need to restrict oneself to 2 by 2 matrices. One could go on to 4 by 4 matrices, and the problem is then easily soluable. In retrospect, it seems strange that one can be so much held up over such an elementary point. The resulting wave equation for the electron turned out to be very successful. It led to correct values for the spin and the magnetic moment. This was quite unexpected. The work all followed from a study of pretty mathematics, without any thought being given to these physical properties of the electron. ~ Paul Dirac

I find the idea quite intolerable that an electron exposed to radiation should choose of its own free will not only its moment to jump off but its direction. In that case I would rather be a cobbler, or even an employee in a gaming house, than a physicist. ~ Albert Einstein

Nine out of ten humans killed? And you're not bothered."
A look of mysterious thoughtfulness crossed his face. "A virus can be useful to a species by thinning it out," he said.
A scream cut the air. It sounded nonhuman.
He took his eyes off the water and looked around. "Hear that pheasant? That's what I like about the Bighorn River," he said.
"Do you find viruses beautiful?"
"Oh, yeah," he said softly. "Isn't it true that if you stare into the eyes of a cobra, the fear has another side to it? The fear is lessened as you begin to see the essence of the beauty. Looking at Ebola under an electron microscope is like looking at a gorgeously wrought ice castle. The thing is so cold. So totally pure." He laid a perfect cast on the water, and eddies took the fly down. (92) ~ Richard Preston

It's one thing when you plug into a socket in the wall and electrons flow," said Bob Kahn. "It's another thing when you have to figure out, for every electron, which direction it takes. ~ Katie Hafner

The Tao can't be perceived. Smaller than an electron, it contains uncountable galaxies. If powerful men and women could remain centered in the Tao, all things would be in harmony. The world would become a paradise. All people would be at peace, and the law would be written in their hearts. When you have names and forms, know that they are provisional. When you have institutions, know where their functions should end. Knowing when to stop, you can avoid any danger. All things end in the Tao as rivers flow into the sea. ~ Laozi

There are limitless futures stretching out in every direction from this moment - and from this moment and from this. Billions of them, bifurcating every instant! Every possible position of every possible electron balloons out into billions of probabilities! Billions and billions of shining, gleaming futures! ~ Douglas Adams

But it is necessary to insist more strongly than usual that what I am putting before you is a model-the Bohr model atom-because later I shall take you to a profounder level of representation in which the electron instead of being confined to a particular locality is distributed in a sort of probability haze all over the atom. ~ Arthur Eddington

When, in 1949, I decided to join the little band of early explorers who had followed Albert Claude in his pioneering expeditions, electron microscopy was still in its infancy. ~ Christian De Duve