QuoteProject
The stars are laboratories in which the evolution of matter proceeds in the direction of large molecules.
Pierre Teilhard De Chardin
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote suggests that stars play a crucial role in the formation and evolution of complex matter, particularly large molecules.

In this quote, Pierre Teilhard De Chardin emphasizes the importance of stars as sites of scientific activity where the processes of evolution occur on a cosmic scale. He highlights that in these celestial 'laboratories', the transformation and complexity of matter evolve, showcasing the universe's capacity to create intricate structures from simpler elements over time. This notion reflects a deep connection between the cosmos and the fundamental processes of life and matter.

Themes

StarsEvolutionMatterMoleculesCosmos

In practice

Example use cases

In a lecture about astrophysics, one might use this quote to illustrate the significance of stars in the chemical evolution of the universe.

More from Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

The whole life lies in the verb seeing.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead
Religion and science are the two conjugated faces or phases of one and the same complete act of knowledge - the only one which can embrace the past and future of evolution and so contemplate, measure and fulfil them.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead
The mineral world is a much more supple and mobile world than could be imagined by the science of the ancients. Vaguely analogous to the metamorphoses of living creatures, there occurs in the most solid rocks, as we now know, perpetual transformation of a mineral species.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead
We may, perhaps, imagine that the creation was finished long ago. But that would be quite wrong. It continues still more magnificently, and at the highest levels of the world.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead
Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves. All we need is to imagine our ability to love developing until it embraces the totality of men and the earth.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead
If there is one thing I fear less than everything else, it is, I believe, persecution for my opinions. There are a good many points about which I may be diffident, but when it comes to questions of Truth and intellectual independence, there is no holding me - I can envisage no finer end than to sacrifice oneself for a conviction.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead

Similar quotes

Eureka! Eureka!_x000D_ _x000D_ Supposed to have been his cry, jumping naked from his bath and running in the streets, excited by a discovery about water displacement to solve a problem about the purity of a gold crown.
ArchimedesRead
Accurate and minute measurement seems to the non-scientific imagination, a less lofty and dignified work than looking for something new. But nearly all the grandest discoveries of science have been but the rewards of accurate measurement and patient long-continued labour in the minute sifting of numerical results.
Lord KelvinRead
I'm afraid that it's not possible to design a defense against every conceivable threat that you can think of.
Steven WeinbergRead
We often say that our science is objective and accurate, but we don't often say that our science is incomplete - that although the established parts of natural science are very well tested and the evidence makes a compelling case for things being as they've been described, there nevertheless are open questions that we cannot answer.
Jim PeeblesRead
No longer is science asked to understand the world, or to improve any part of it. It is asked instead to immediately justify everything that happens... spectacular domination has cut down the vast tree of scientific knowledge in order to make itself a truncheon.
Guy DebordRead
The best way to conduct research on a larger scale is to make sure everyone knows what everyone else is doing... The sooner the better - start talking to other people about what you're doing. Because that's what will stimulate things the fastest.
James Harris SimonsRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.