Atomic Scale Quotes

Over the years, humans have managed to incorporate nearly every element, light and weighty, common and obscure, into our daily lives. And given how small atoms are and how many of them there are all around us, it's almost certain that your body has at least brushed against an atom of every single natural element on the periodic table.

If we are ever to cross the 100-nano barrier in electronics, we need to develop nano structures that let electrons move through, as they do through wires and semiconductors. And these structures must survive in the real world of air, water, boiling temperatures.

If an apple was magnified to the size of the Earth, then the atoms in the apple would be approximately the size of the original apple.

Our brains have evolved to help us survive within the orders of magnitude of size and speed which our bodies operate at. We never evolved to navigate in the world of atoms.

Why are atoms so small? ... Many examples have been devised to bring this fact home to an audience, none of them more impressive than the one used by Lord Kelvin: Suppose that you could mark the molecules in a glass of water, then pour the contents of the glass into the ocean and stir the latter thoroughly so as to distribute the marked molecules uniformly throughout the seven seas; if you then took a glass of water anywhere out of the ocean, you would find in it about a hundred of your marked molecules.

With crystals we are in a situation similar to an attempt to investigate an optical grating merely from the spectra it produces... But a knowledge of the positions and intensities of the spectra does not suffice for the determination of the structure. The phases with which the diffracted waves vibrate relative to one another enter in an essential way. To determine a crystal structure on the atomic scale, one must know the phase differences between the different interference spots on the photographic plate, and this task may certainly prove to be rather difficult.

The waves are subtle, altering spacetime and the distance between objects as far apart as the Earth and the Moon by much less than the width of an atom. As such, gravitational radiation has not been directly detected yet. We hope to change that soon.

The paradox of knowledge is not confined to the small, atomic scale; on the contrary, it is as cogent on the scale of man, and even of the stars.

Quantum fiction is any story that witnesses life and the human experience on a subatomic level.

To trace in Nature's most minute design The signature and stamp of power divine. ... The Invisible in things scarce seen revealed, To whom an atom is an ample field.