No new creation or destruction of matter is within the reach of chemical agency. We might as well attempt to introduce a new planet into the solar system, or to annihilate one already in existence, as to create or destroy a particle of hydrogen.
Interpretation
Matter cannot be created or destroyed through chemical processes, similar to how planets cannot be added or removed from the solar system.
This quote by John Dalton asserts the principle of conservation of mass, which states that during a chemical reaction, the total mass of the reactants equals the total mass of the products. Dalton emphasizes the impossibility of creating or destroying matter at a fundamental level, reinforcing the understanding that matter is neither generated nor eliminated, akin to the fixed nature of celestial bodies within our solar system.
In practice
This quote can be used in a science class when discussing the laws of chemistry.
Matter, though divisible in an extreme degree, is nevertheless not infinitely divisible. That is, there must be some point beyond which we cannot go in the division of matter. ... I have chosen the word “atom” to signify these ultimate particles.
The Press, Watson, is a most valuable institution, if you only know how to use it.
The supreme task of the physicist is to arrive at those universal elementary laws from which the cosmos can be built up by pure deduction. There is no logical path to these laws; only intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding of experience, can reach them.
First you guess. Don't laugh, this is the most important step. Then you compute the consequences. Compare the consequences to experience. If it disagrees with experience, the guess is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn't matter how beautiful your guess is or how smart you are or what your name is. If it disagrees with experience, it's wrong. That's all there is to it.
At long last, we may be returning to the original two-sided sense of the word virus, which originally signified either a life-giving substance or a deadly venom. Viruses are indeed exquisitely deadly, but they have provided the world with some of its most important innovations. Creation and destruction join together once more.
Everyone in the astronaut program has a degree in a science field. The crew are the ones who do the experiments, help to design some of the experiments that come from other primary researchers. So it becomes very important that you have a science background.
There is, however, another subject on which the Queen feels most strongly, and that is this horrible, brutalizing, un-Christian-like vivisection…It must really not be permitted. It is a disgrace to a civilized country.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.