In my view the structure of the whole atom was that of an individual, with all its parts interconnected, and the emission of a spectral line appeared to me to be the result of the coherence and co-operation of several electric quanta.

By recognizing that the chemical atom is composed of single separable electric quanta, humanity has taken a great step forward in the investigation of the natural world.

The question of the composition of perceptible objects is one which already occupied the mind of the ancient Greeks.

The emitters of the spectral series are without exception single atoms, not compounds of atoms.

The removal of an electron from the surface of an atom - that is, the ionization of the atom - means a fundamental structural change in its surface layer.

The most common and most important result of them is that the nature and size of the effect on corresponding series of different elements are largely an expression of the peculiarity of their atomic structure - or, at least, of the structure of the surface.

At the head of these new discoveries and insights comes the establishment of the facts that electricity is composed of discrete particles of equal size, or quanta, and that light is an electromagnetic wave motion.