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Quote by Primo Levi

“Chemistry, for me, had stopped being such a source. It led to the heart of Matter, and Matter was our ally precisely because the Spirit, dear to Fascism, was our enemy; but, having reached the fourth year of Pure Chemistry, I could no longer ignore the fact that chemistry itself, or at least that which we were being administered, did not answer my questions. To prepare phenyl bromide according to Gatterman was amusing, even exhilarating, but not very different from following Artusi's recipes. Why in that particular way and not in another? After having been force fed in liceo the truths revealed by Fascist Doctrine, all revealed, unproven truths either bored me stiff or aroused my suspicion. Did chemistry theorems exist? No; therefore you had to go further, not be satisfied with the quia go back to the origins, to mathematics and physics. The origins of chemistry were ignoble, or at least equivocal: the dens of the alchemists, their abominable hodgepodge of ideas and language, their confessed interest in gold, their Levantine swindles typical of charlatans or magicians; instead, at the origin of physics lay the strenuous clarity of the West – Archimedes and Euclid.”

Quote by Primo Levi

Book:The periodic table
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Work

The periodic table

This book provides an in-depth exploration of the periodic table, covering the history of its development, the characteristics of each element, and their applications in various fields such as chemistry, physics, and engineering. more

Author

Primo Levi
Primo Levi

Chemist and Italian Jewish author, known for his dual identity as a survivor of Nazi concentration camps and a chemist. His works profoundly reflect the moral dilemmas and psychological states of humans in extreme environments. more

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