(?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)
Caleb Scharf

“At this scale what you actually sense is a space of possibilities, of ethereal electrostatic pushes and pulls. The closest comparison we can make to this experience is a blindfolded tasting of unknown foods and flavors. There is a menu of such sensations here, unique flourishes lined up end to end. Here's an entity we call a carbon atom. Here are ones called oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen. They're clumped together as other recognizable things, relatively simple molecules called nucleotides: adenine, thymine, guanine, cytosine, arrayed along a pair of sugar-phosphate rails that curve off into the distance in either direction. But what any of these look like is no longer entirely meaningful. What is meaningful is the "state" of these entities, their electromagnetic energies, their vibrations and rotations, their still-intangible patterns of presence. Walking among them you are buffeted by a multitude of calls and entreaties in the form of attractions and repulsions, yet this seemingly disordered cacophony is shot through with regularity and information.”

Caleb Scharf, The Zoomable Universe: An Epic Tour Through Cosmic Scale, from Almost Everything to Nearly Nothing
Read more quotes from Caleb Scharf


Share this quote:
Share on Twitter

Friends Who Liked This Quote

To see what your friends thought of this quote, please sign up!

0 likes
All Members Who Liked This Quote

None yet!


This Quote Is From

The Zoomable Universe: An Epic Tour Through Cosmic Scale, from Almost Everything to Nearly Nothing The Zoomable Universe: An Epic Tour Through Cosmic Scale, from Almost Everything to Nearly Nothing by Caleb Scharf
201 ratings, average rating, 33 reviews
Open Preview

Browse By Tag