Chemical Complexity Quotes

From a chemist's point of view, the surface or interior of a star…is boring—there are no molecules there.

I believe that the science of chemistry alone almost proves the existence of an intelligent creator.

It is more likely that more than a century will pass before we know the structure of the chemical atoms as thoroughly as we do our solar system.

I think chemists always think they know more than they know, because nature has a lot of possible pathways it can try.

There is a lot of interesting product coming to market already. Bags and bottles and cups and such made of potato starch and other fully biodegradable materials. In some sense, plastic is more chemically complex. We ought to be able to simplify.

Life is extremely resilient once it takes hold, but it requires rich chemistry, large energy sources, and stability, right from the beginning. The comparative planetology of our solar system makes it seem like those initial conditions are hard to come by.

The chemistry from compounds in the environment is orders of magnitude more complex than our best chemists can produce.

Still I had a lurking question. Would it not be better if one could really 'see' whether molecules as complicated as the sterols, or strychnine were just as experiment suggested?

You see, proteins, as I probably needn't tell you, are immensely complicated groupings of amino acids and certain other specialized compounds, arranged in intricate three-dimensional patterns that are as unstable as sunbeams on a cloudy day. It is this instability that is life, since it is forever changing its position in an effort to maintain its identity--in the manner of a long rod balanced on an acrobat's nose.