Ernest Rutherford

"Every scientist has a responsibility to seek truth."

"The greatest gift to future generations is our accumulated knowledge."

"We must never stop wondering about the natural world."

"Science teaches us that the universe is interconnected."

"I believe that human ingenuity knows no bounds."

"The pursuit of truth transcends all boundaries."

"If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to do a better experiment."

"We haven't got the money, so we've got to think."

"All science is either physics or stamp collecting."

"When you fire a bullet through a wall, it makes a hole. When you fire an alpha particle through atoms, it bounces back and hits you on the nose."

"The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible."

"In science there is only physics; all the rest is stamp collecting."

"It is the duty of the experimenter to do a good job and the duty of the theorist to make the experiment unnecessary."

"I have received the neutrons for which I thank you."

"You look at things that are and ask why. I dream things that never were and ask why not."

"A man that does anything because it is the custom is a fool."

"The reward of the young scientist is the emotional thrill of being the first person in the history of the world to see something or to understand something."

"Of all the various kinds of knowledge which we term science, there is none, I presume, more interesting or more important than that which treats of the properties, constitution, and uses of water."

"Physics is the only real science. The rest are just collections of empirical facts."

"Before an experiment, you may have 50% chance of being right. After an experiment, you're always 100% right, either it confirms your hypothesis or it doesn't."

"The splitting of the atom represents the greatest achievement of science, but humanity is not yet mature enough to use it wisely."

"Science is the systematic study of those branches of knowledge which are capable of being brought under general laws and theories."

"The energy produced by the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who looked for a source of power in the transformation of the atom was talking moonshine."

"I do not believe that any discovery of mine has wrought such change in the world as the discoveries of radium and of atomic energy."

"In the coming years nuclear energy will provide the world with electricity too cheap to meter."

"The work was carried out by myself and my colleagues, but the credit belongs to those who came before us."

"When you're doing research, sometimes you find something unexpected, and that's when the real science begins."

"You cannot expect to get a good education in such circumstances."

"Scientific research is the one great human activity in which man appears as his finest, the very opposite of war."

"The present time is highly favorable for the development of radio-activity."