Nitrogen Quotes

“Before artificial nitrogen fertilizer became widely available, the world's population was around 2 billion. When we no longer have it - or if we ever decide to stop using it - that may be the number to which our own naturally gravitates.”
― Alan Weisman, Countdown: Our Last Best Hope for a Future on Earth?

“Asking someone else to drive your sports car is like asking someone else to kiss your girlfriend.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“21. Take in a great breath of air and then blow it out. Contained in that single breath were at least three nitrogen atoms that were breathed by every human being who ever lived, including Jesus Christ, William Shakespeare, Winston Churchill, and every president of the United States. This illustrates the fact that everything we do affects other people, positively or negatively. That’s why it is foolish to say, “Do your own thing if it doesn’t hurt anybody else.” Everything we do affects other people.”
― James C. Dobson, Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future

“A small bubble of air remained unabsorbed... if there is any part of the phlogisticated air [nitrogen] of our atmosphere which differs from the rest, and cannot be reduced to nitrous acid, we may safely conclude that it is not more than 1/120 part of the whole.

[Cavendish did not realize the significance of the remaining small bubble. Not until a century later were the air’s Noble Gases appreciated.]”
― Henry Cavendish

“In high altitude astronomical facilities we routinely discharged large amounts of nitrogen gas into closed spaces. We were never informed by the astronomy management team about the abnormally low oxygen environments that the use of liquid nitrogen creates, how long term exposure to it manifests itself in human health and the resulting abnormal mental behaviors.”
― Steven Magee

“My memories of my time in high altitude astronomy indicate that there were no oxygen concentration monitors or alarms in the areas that liquid nitrogen was in use at the high altitude astronomical facilities where I had worked.”
― Steven Magee

“When I worked at the W. M. Keck Observatory on the 13,796 feet very high altitude summit of Mauna Kea, we would routinely be engulfed in cold clouds of helium and nitrogen gas as we discharged it into the video camera systems daily. The management team never warned us that we were in a hazardous oxygen deprived environment during this activity that was known for its ability to adversely affect physical and mental health, and possibly bring on death by asphyxiation.”
― Steven Magee

“During my time in high altitude astronomy, I routinely witnessed workers breathing medical oxygen, industrial carbon dioxide, nitrogen and helium gas as part of their daily work routine.”
― Steven Magee

“When I worked in astronomy, I routinely observed young college and university students working with liquid nitrogen and breathing nitrogen gas as they discharged it into the indoor environment at high altitude.”
― Steven Magee

“One of my astronomy managers used to tell me that liquid nitrogen was harmless and was just liquid air. He would pour it onto his bare hands to demonstrate how safe he thought it was. I was later to realize that incompetence was a feature of high altitude astronomy.”
― Steven Magee

“I regard breathing industrial gas to be as harmful as heavy smoking.”
― Steven Magee

“Nitrogen gas has killed and maimed many people.”
― Steven Magee

“My memories of high altitude astronomy indicate that up to four liquid nitrogen flasks were left venting gas into a small indoor workshop and office area where workers were permanently stationed.”
― Steven Magee

“My memories of my time in high altitude astronomy indicate that there were no oxygen concentration monitors or alarms in the areas that liquid nitrogen was in use inside of the high altitude astronomical facilities where I had worked.”
― Steven Magee

“A visiting student in La Palma was working with astronomical detector engineer and routinely breathing nitrogen gas. He later unexpectedly fainted, collapsed to the ground and went to hospital.”
― Steven Magee

“I made the mistake of taking a past girlfriend up to Kitt Peak National Observatory to fill the instrument cryostat with liquid nitrogen. It was one of the largest cryostats at the facility and took a long time to fill. The entire time there was a huge plume of cold nitrogen gas coming out of it, visible for several feet. After we were finished, she started complaining of feeling sick to the point that she thought she was going to vomit. It lasted for several hours. A few years later she started showing signs and symptoms of fatigue and depression and was being medically treated for it. I always felt guilty that I exposed her to the nitrogen gas, as I had no idea how toxic it was because I had never been sent on an OSHA approved cryogenic liquid training course.”
― Steven Magee

“Nitrogen gas has killed many workers and has maimed far more!”
― Steven Magee, Toxic Altitude

“My neurological doctor thought I had a brain tumor before I self-diagnosed and treated for ‘Magee's Disease’. He sent me through CT and MRI brain scanners looking for it. I later discovered I had ‘Altitude Hypersensitivity' and I was very reactive to altitudes above 1,000 feet, bringing on severe altitude sickness symptoms that were affecting the brain. I had been breathing oxygen, nitrogen, helium, carbon dioxide and mercury polluted air at high altitude during a decade of working in professional astronomy.”
― Steven Magee