He [Democritus] is probably best known for two of the most scientifically intuitive quotes ever uttered by an ancient: 'Nothing exists except atoms and space, everything else is opinion'.

Theorists tend to peak at an early age; the creative juices tend to gush very early and start drying up past the age of fifteen-or so it seems. They need to know just enough; when they're young they haven't accumulated the intellectual baggage.

He [Democritus] is probably best known for two of the most scientifically intuitive quotes ever uttered by an ancient: 'Nothing exists except atoms and space, everything else is opinion'.

The real goal of physics is to come up with an equation that could explain the universe but still be small enough to fit on a T-shirt

The history of atomism is one of reductionism – the effort to reduce all the operations of nature to a small number of laws governing a small number of primordial objects.

The British philosopher Bertrand Russell said that philosophy went downhill after Democritus and did not recover until the Renaissance.

The physicists defer only to mathematicians, and the mathematicians defer only to God.