Here's the seal
with the motto. That surpirsed me because it seems a much more
appropriate motto for particle physics. On a visit to Argonne
laboratory they explained the idea of "atom smashing" with the metaphor of a
sealed watch which is thrown against a wall : to understand how the watch
works we look at the pieces that fly out.
The idea of breaking things to find out how they work would apply to a great
deal of chemistry and especially biochemistry as well. The
structures ( or more properly the chemical sequences) of many enzymes, etc.
were figured out by snipping the compounds into fragments in various ways,
analyzing the fragments , and then figuring out the overlaps in the
fragments. The result is a linear chain of amino acids.
I wonder if Tolkien's comment was also meant as an indictment of the physical
sciences in general
!
The woods of Arcady are dead,
And over is their antique joy;
Of old the world on dreaming fed;
Grey Truth is now her painted toy...
W.B. Yeats
