Sam Kean Quotes

• Because our lungs regularly deal with carbon dioxide, they see nothing wrong with absorbing its cousin, SiO2, which can be fatal. Many dinosaurs might have died this way when a metropolis-sized asteroid or comet struck the earth 65 million years ago.

  Sam Kean

  Cousin, Years, Earth

  6 Copy quote

• Never underestimate spite as a motivator for genius.

  Sam Kean

  Genius, Underestimate, Spite

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• If anything runs deeper than a mathematician’s love of variables, it’s a scientist’s love of constants.

  Sam Kean

  Running, Variables, Scientist

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• Iron is the final peal of a star’s natural life.

  Sam Kean

  Stars, Iron, Finals

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• Lithium tweaks many mood-altering chemicals in the brain, and its effects are complicated. Most interesting, lithium seems to reset the body’s circadian rhythm, its inner clock. In normal people, ambient conditions, especially the sun, dictate their humors and determine when they are tuckered out for the day. They’re on a twenty-four-hour cycle. Bipolar people run on cycles independent of the sun. And run and run.

  Sam Kean

  Running, Independent, People

  Sam Kean (2011). “The Disappearing Spoon...and other true tales from the Periodic Table”, p.252, Random House

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• So if big enough droplets fell far enough fast enough, someone floating right near the metallic hydrogen layer inside Jupiter maybe, just maybe, could have looked up into its cream and orange sky and seen the most spectacular show ever--fireworks lighting up the Jovian night with a trillion streaks of brilliant crimson, what scientists call neon rain.

  Sam Kean

  Rain, Night, Orange

  44 Copy quote

• In these days before antiseptics, doctors themselves also suffered high mortality rates. Florence Nightingale, a nurse during the Crimean War (1853-1856), watched one particularly inept surgeon cut both himself and, somehow, a bystander while blundering about during an amputation. Both men contracted an infection and died, as did the patient. Nightingale commented that it was the only surgery she'd ever seen with 300 percent mortality.

  Sam Kean

  War, Cutting, Men

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• Mendeleev, unlike the squeamish Meyer, had balls enough to predict that new elements would be dug up. Look harder, you chemists and geologists, he seemed to taunt, and you’ll find them.

  Sam Kean

  Would Be, Balls, Looks

  "The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements". Book by Sam Kean, July 12, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

• Art, in other words, betrays a sexy mental fitness.

  Sam Kean

  Sexy, Art, Betray

  4 Copy quote

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