“Einstein died at Princeton Hospital, so I headed there first. But it was chaos — journalists, photographers, onlookers. So I headed over to Einstein’s office at the Institute for Advanced Studies.
When Morse walked into Einstein’s office, he snapped a photo of the desk where Einstein had been working just hours before.
Albert Einstein’s office just hours after his death on April 18, 1955. (Photographer: Ralph Morse. Image Source: Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.)
“I have done my share.
Hours before his death, Einstein’s doctors proposed trying a new and unproven surgery as a final option for extending his life. Einstein simply replied, “I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.
We cannot predict the value our work will provide to the world. That’s fine. It is not our job to judge our own work . It is our job to create it…
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1939 was awarded to Ernest Orlando Lawrence “for the invention and development of the cyclotron and for results obtained with it, especially with regard to artificial radioactive elements.”
“Ernest Orlando Lawrence discovery of cyclotron is to nuclear science what Galileo’s telescope was to astronomy … his buoyant optimism spread to everyone around him and accounted for the attainment of many an ‘impossible’ objective.”
GLENN SEABORG ( Nobel Prize in Chemistry Winner 1951 }
I am mindful that scientific achievement is rooted in the past, is cultivated to full stature by many contemporaries and flourishes only in favorable environment. No individual is alone responsible for a single stepping stone along the path of progress, and where the path is smooth progress is most rapid. In my own work this has been particularly true.
— Ernest Orlando Lawrence ( Nobel Prize banquet speech (29 Feb 1940) )
Enrico Fermi, (born Sept. 29, 1901, Rome, Italy—died Nov. 28, 1954, U.S.), Italian-born American scientist who was one of the chief architects of the nuclear age. He developed the mathematical statistics required to clarify a large class of subatomic phenomena , explored nuclear transformations caused by neutrons, and directed the first controlled chain reaction involving nuclear fission . He was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize for Physics, and the Enrico Fermi Award of the U.S. Department of Energy is given in his honour. Femilab the National Accelerator Laboratory, in Illinois, is named for him, as is Fermium , element number 100.
Experimental confirmation of a prediction is merely a measurement. An experiment disproving a prediction is a discovery. Enrico Fermi
When asked what he meant by a miracle: Oh, anything with a probability of less than 20%. Enrico Fermi
It is not good to try to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never…
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1937 was awarded jointly to Clinton Joseph Davisson and George Paget Thomson “for their experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals.”
We think we understand the regular reflection of light and X rays – and we should understand the reflections of electrons as well if electrons were only waves instead of particles … It is rather as if one were to see a rabbit climbing a tree, and were to say ‘Well, that is rather a strange thing for a rabbit to be doing, but after all there is really nothing to get excited about. Cats climb trees – so that if the rabbit were only a cat, we would understand its behavior perfectly.’ Of course, the explanation might be that what we took to be a rabbit was not a rabbit at all but was actually a cat. Is it possible that…
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1936 was divided equally between Victor Franz Hess “for his discovery of cosmic radiation” and Carl David Anderson “for his discovery of the positron.”
From a consideration of the immense volume of newly discovered facts in the field of physics, especially atomic physics, in recent years it might well appear to the layman that the main problems were already solved and that only more detailed work was necessary.
Victor Franz Hess
In order to make further progress, particularly in the field of cosmic rays, it will be necessary to apply all our resources and apparatus simultaneously and side-by-side; an effort which has not yet been made, or at least, only to a limited extent.
Victor Franz Hess
The atom can’t be seen, yet its existence can be proved. And it is simple to prove that it can’t ever be seen. It has to be studied…
Since the atom, as a whole, is neutral, there must be a positive charge associated with the atom equal in amount to the sum of the negative charges. The electrical forces between the positive and negative charges preserve the equilibrium of the atom. James Chadwick
I think we shall have to make a real search for the neutron. James Chadwick
Feb. 27, 1932: Neutron Discovered; A-Bomb on the Way
1932: English physicist James Chadwick publishes a letter on the existence of the neutron. His discovery helps clear the way for splitting the nuclei of even the heaviest atomic elements, making possible the development of the atomic bomb.
Unlike the proton, the other large subatomic particle that helps form the nucleus of an atom, the neutron contains no electric charge. This enables it to pass through the electric barrier of heavy atoms to penetrate and split their nuclei, the basis of the…