Frederick Soddy Quotes About Energy

Quotes about: Energy

• I believe that there have been civilisations in the past that were familiar with atomic energy, and that by misusing it they were totally destroyed.

  Frederick Soddy

  Believe, Past, Energy

• The fact remains that, if the supply of energy failed, modern civilization would come to an end as abruptly as does the music of an organ deprived of wind.

  Frederick Soddy

  Failure, Future, Science

  Frederick Soddy (1912). “Matter and energy”

• The history of man is dominated by, and reflects, the amount of available energy

  Frederick Soddy

  Men, Energy, Available

  Frederick Soddy (1920). “Science and Life: Aberdeen Addresses”

• For a modern ruler the laws of conservation and transformation of energy, when the vivifing stream takes its source, the ways it wends its course in nature, and how, under wisdom and knowledge, it may be intertwined with human destiny, instead of careering headlong to the ocean, are a study at least as pregnant with consequences to life as any lesson taught by the long unscientific history of man.

  Frederick Soddy

  Ocean, Destiny, Men

• Mankind has always drawn from outside sources of energy. This island was the first to harness coal and steam. But our present sources stand in the ratio of a million to one, compared with any previous sources. The release of atomic energy will change the whole structure of society.

  Frederick Soddy

  Islands, Coal, Atomic Energy

• The energy available for each individual man is his income, and the philosophy which can teach him to be content with penury should be capable of teaching him also the uses of wealth.

  Frederick Soddy

  Philosophy, Teaching, Science

• The laws expressing the relations between energy and matter are, however, not solely of importance in pure science. They necessarily come first in order ... in the whole record of human experience, and they control, in the last resort, the rise or fall of political systems, the freedom or bondage of nations, the movements of commerce and industry, the origin of wealth and poverty, and the general physical welfare of the race.

  Frederick Soddy

  Freedom, Fall, Science

• There has been no discovery like it in the history of man. It puts into man's hands the key to using the fundamental energy of the universe.

  Frederick Soddy

  Science, Men, Discovery

• Physical science enjoys the distinction of being the most fundamental of the experimental sciences, and its laws are obeyed universally, so far as is known, not merely by inanimate things, but also by living organisms, in their minutest parts, as single individuals, and also as whole communities. It results from this that, however complicated a series of phenomena may be and however many other sciences may enter into its complete presentation, the purely physical aspect, or the application of the known laws of matter and energy, can always be legitimately separated from the other aspects.

  Frederick Soddy

  Science, Law, Community

• Heat energy of uniform temperature [is] the ultimate fate of all energy. The power of sunlight and coal, electric power, water power, winds and tides do the work of the world, and in the end all unite to hasten the merry molecular dance.

  Frederick Soddy

  Hard Work, Fate, Science

  Frederick Soddy (1912). “Matter and energy”

• In so far as such developments utilise the natural energy running to waste, as in water power, they may be accounted as pure gain. But in so far as they consume the fuel resources of the globe they are very different. The one is like spending the interest on a legacy, and the other is like spending the legacy itself. ... [There is] a still hardly recognised coming energy problem.

  Frederick Soddy

  Running, Nature, Science

• It is probable that all heavy matter possesses - latent and bound up with the structure of the atom - a similar quantity of energy to that possessed by radium. If it could be tapped and controlled what an agent it would be in changing the world's destiny! The man who put his hand on the lever by which a parsimonious nature regulates so jealously the output of this store of energy would possess a weapon by which he could destroy the earth if he chose.

  Frederick Soddy

  Destiny, Men, Hands

• [The human control of atomic energy could] virtually provide anyone who wanted it with a private sun of his own.

  Frederick Soddy

  Energy, Want, Sun

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