Radium Quotes
Sam Treiman... has quoted something he called Treiman's theorem... Impossible things usually don't happen. ...With the discovery of radioactivity... it suddenly became apparent that the "impossible" was happening all the time. Uranium, thorium, radium... fit all the requirements of chemical elements. They could not be broken down by any of the standard methods... But occasionally... atoms of these elements spontaneously changed into other kinds of atoms. ...So what is left of the doctrine of the elements? Is alchemy reinstated? Not at all. The point is that the doctrine fails only under rare or special conditions. ...We can isolate the conditions in which they do, and retain a more restricted but still useful concept of the "impossible."
Frank Wilczek
Rutherford's discovery was the beginning of the science that came to be called nuclear physics. ... The projectiles that he used to explore the nucleus were particles produced in the disintegration of radium ... discovered by Marie Curie in 1898. The particles are helium nuclei that are emitted at high speed when radium atoms decay ... The twenty years between 1909 and 1929 were the era of tabletop nuclear physics. ... Small and simple experiments were sufficient to establish the basic laws of nuclear physics.
Freeman Dyson
[ Futurism's].. superficial expression of velocity, the aeroplane, the racing-car and so on, is but a weak expression of the inner velocity of thought compared to which the velocity of radium represents nothing but inertia... The mimetic expression of velocity (whatever its form may be: the aeroplane, the automobile, and so on) is diametrically opposed to the character of painting, the supreme origin of which is to be found in inner life.
Theo van Doesburg
I came into the room which was half-dark and presently spotted Lord Kelvin in the audience, and realised that I was in for trouble at the last part of my speech dealing with the age of the Earth, where my views conflicted with his.
To my relief, Kelvin fell fast asleep, but as I came to the important point, I saw the old bird sit up, open an eye and cock a baleful glance at me.
Then a sudden inspiration came, and I said Lord Kelvin had limited the age of the Earth, provided no new source [of heat] was discovered. That prophetic utterance referred to what we are now considering tonight, radium! Behold! The old boy beamed upon me.
Ernest Rutherford
![I have satisfied myself that the [cosmic] rays are not generated by the formation of new matter in space, a process which would be like water running up a hill. Nor do they come to any appreciable amount from the stars. According to my investigations the sun emits a radiation of such penetrative power that it is virtually impossible to absorb it in lead or other substances.... This ray, which I call the primary solar ray, gives rise to a secondary radiation by impact against the cosmic dust scattered through space. It is the secondary radiation which now is commonly called the cosmic ray, and comes, of course, equally from all directions in space. [The article continues: The phenomena of radioactivity are not the result of forces within the radioactive substances but are caused by this ray emitted by the sun. If radium could be screened effectively against this ray it would cease to be radioactive, he said. ]. (Nikola Tesla)](https://cdn.quotesdtb.com/img/quotes_images_webp/06/nikola-tesla-amount-article-323606.webp)
Through and through the world is infested with quantity To talk sense is to talk quantities. It is no use saying the nation is large.... How large It is no use saying the radium is scarce.... How scarce You cannot evade quantity. You may fly to poetry and music, and quantity and number will face you in your rhythms and your octaves.
Alfred North Whitehead
Nothing in life is more wonderful than faith - the one great moving force which we can neither weigh in the balance nor test in the crucible. Intangible as the ether, ineluctable as gravitation, the radium of the moral and mental spheres, mysterious, indefinable, known only by its effects, faith pours out an unfailing stream of energy while abating nor jot nor tittle of its potency.
William Osler
The atom is now being studied along a newer line, that of radio-activity, and it is becoming apparent in many cases there is an active radiation going on. Just where this discovery is going to lead it is impossible to tell, for the study of radio-active substances is as yet in its infancy, and little is actually known. Much of the earlier teaching of physical science has been revolutionised by the discovery of radium, and the more scientists find out, the more it becomes apparent (as they themselves realise), that we are standing on the threshold of very great discoveries, and are on the eve of profound revelations.
Alice Bailey
Fifty years ago, science took for granted that the rate of acceleration could not last. The world forgets quickly, but even today the habit remains of founding statistics on the faith that consumption will continue nearly stationary. Two generations, with John Stuart Mill, talked of this stationary period, which was to follow the explosion of new power. All the men who were elderly in the forties died in this faith, and other men grew old nursing the same conviction, and happy in it; while science, for fifty years, permitted, or encouraged, society to think that force would prove to be limited in supply. This mental inertia of science lasted through the eighties before showing signs of breaking up; and nothing short of radium fairly wakened men to the fact, long since evident, that force was inexhaustible.
Henry Adams
