Quote #13

The energy produced by breaking down the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformations of these atoms is taking moonshine.

More from Ernest Rutherford

  1. That's the last potato I will ever dig.
  2. The more physics you have the less engineering you need.
  3. That man is an Euclidian point: position without substance.
  4. The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't.
  5. It was as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a sheet of tissue paper and it came back to hit you.
  6. We don't have the money, so we have to think. (or 'We didn't have the money, so we had to think.')
  7. If your result needs a statistician then you should design a better experiment.
  8. You should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than about 10 or 12 to 1.

All Ernest Rutherford quotes