“‘We need numbers, letters, maps, graphs. We need scientific formulas
to understand the structure of matter. E equals MC squared.’
    He wrote the equation on the blackboard.
    ‘How is it that a few marks chalked on a blackboard, a few little
squiggly signs can change the shape of human history? Energy, mass,
speed of light. Protons, neutrons, electrons. How small is the atom? I
will tell you. If people were the size of atoms—think about it,
Gagliardi—the population of the earth would fit on the head of a pin.
Never mind the vast amounts of energy stored in matter. Matter.
Something that has mass—a solid, a liquid, a gas. Never mind what
happens when we split the atom and release this energy. Energy. The
capacity of a physical system to do work. I want to know how it is that
a few marks on a slate or a piece of paper, a little black on white, or
white on black, can carry so much information and contain such
shattering implications. Never mind the energy packed in the atom. What
about the energy contained in this equation? This is the real power.
How the mind operates. How the mind identifies, analyzes and
represents. What beauty and power. What marvels of imagination does it
require to reduce the complex forces of nature, all those unseeable
magical actions inside the atom—to express all this with a bing and a
bang on a black board. The atom. The unit of matter regarded as the
source of nuclear energy. The Greeks of the fifth century B.C. proposed
the idea of the atom. B.C., Miss Innocenti. Before Chewing Gum. Small,
small, small. Something inside something else inside something else.
Down, down, down. Under, under, under. Next time, chapter seven. Be
prepared for an oral quiz.’”

—Don DeLillo, Underworld, 1997.