Sam Kean Quotes

These experiments might make it possible to produce power by means of nuclear energy and radioactive elements. Unfortunately also perhaps atomic bombs.

By developing atomic energy for peaceful purposes, you reach the nuclear option. There are no two atomic energies.

We hope that this honor you have done us will bring the time of further realization of these benefits closer and will help all mankind to live better and be happier through the atom and isotopes.

My job was to produce plutonium that was used for atomic bomb.

Nuclear energy is the scientific achievement of the Iranian nation.

Unlike uranium, plutonium was created in an American lab in 1940, but scientists soon realized that it could produce even wilder chain reactions and even bigger explosions. In fact, fearing another country would create it, too, the American government went to great lengths to keep even the existence of plutonium a secret.

Fission is like kissing your wife. Fusion is like kissing your mistress.

Nuclear fission

I love nuclear.

We should be building more nuclear today.

I think, for me, nuclear is just the power, the devastation is very important to me.

What's all this fuss about plutonium? How can something named after a Disney character be dangerous?

Other paths would include making nuclear fission cheap enough and safe enough that people broadly embrace it, so that could be scaled up.

I am afraid of radium and polonium ... I don't want to monkey with them.

The future of the world, dependent as it is upon atomic energy, requires more understanding and knowledge about the atom.

Encouraging underground uranium mining on the Colorado Plateau um, the federal government was the only purchaser of uranium ore to try to manufacture uh, atomic bombs.

The mystique associated with the bomb, the role that scientists played in it, and its general importance could not fail to impress even a six-year old.

We should remember that there are nations which meet more than 30 to 60% of their power requirements through the nuclear power system.

In 1947 I defended my thesis on nuclear physics, and in 1948 I was included in a group of research scientists whose task was to develop nuclear weapons.

Nuclear physics is interesting but it is unlikely to help society.

The whole nuclear thing is a terrible mess and it's hard for me to understand why it is that we, the United States, seem to be the only ones that are really particularly concerned about it and prepared to do something.

Connection between life and radioactive nuclei is straightforward. No life without tectonic activity, without volcanic activity. And we know very well that geothermal energy is mostly produced by decay of uranium, thorium, and potassium.

After the Cold War ended, there was an agreement between the former Soviet Union and America to convert weapons-grade nuclear materials into reactor-grade materials. So disarmament and nuclear energy actually are strongly linked.

Nuclear energy is a baseload - meaning it's power that you can run any time you want, day or night - and carbon-free.

I also was producing, working on other materials for the hydrogen bomb. They call it lithium-6 and tritium. I was working on these and the only use for lithium-6 is the hydrogen bomb.