Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Chemistry Quotes

I found some chemistry quotes today. I thought they were interesting.

It is disconcerting to reflect on the number of students we have flunked in chemistry for not knowing what we later found to be untrue.
- Weber, Science With a Smile, 1992

We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power.
- Bertrand Russell

I remember when I was an undergrad, and my professor stopped talking right in the middle of his lecture on atomic orbital theory. Dr. Baxter said in effect, "When we get to Heaven, God could tell us that we had it all wrong about this stuff...of course you still will be tested over it." And then he continued lecturing. That thought always stuck with me. There's so much knowledge that we "think" we know and then find out later it was incorrect or not entirely true. Scientists can study down to subparticles, but we can't fully comprehend it all. We say, "Oh, it's just chaos after that." I think there's still order to it; we just aren't smart enough yet to figure it out.

Well, I just thought I would offer a little food for thought. It's things like this in science that confirm my faith in God. Everything is too complex to have just "come about."

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