Quotation about early nuclear physics research
December 22, 2019 11:46 AM   Subscribe

I'm trying to find the source of a half-remembered quotation from (or about) an early nuclear physics researcher, talking about how they didn't initially realize that their work would lead to the development of nuclear weapons. It's along the lines of: "We were innocent, like children playing in a sandbox, with no idea of what would come after."

I initially thought it was from Michael Frayn's 1998 play Copenhagen, but I can't find it there. Anyone have any ideas?
posted by leslietron to Science & Nature (4 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Perhaps you’re thinking of Newton?

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
posted by zamboni at 1:43 PM on December 22, 2019 [1 favorite]


This sounds like something that J. Robert Oppenheimer might have said, but I don't see any actual quotations that are a close match for your description.
posted by alex1965 at 3:27 PM on December 22, 2019 [1 favorite]




Response by poster: Thanks, everyone! I think I must have been combining the Newton and Weinberg quotes in my head.
posted by leslietron at 9:36 AM on December 23, 2019


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