Astrophysics Quotes - Page 2

• It is only myth that attempts to say how the universe came to be, either four thousand or twenty billion years ago.

  Hannes Alfven

  Years, Infinite Time, Twenties

  "The World & I", Volume 3, Issues 5-6, May 1988.

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• Anyone who has wrestled knows that it's the hardest thing in the world to do. Anyone who says something else is the hardest thing has never wrestled. That's what I have found. ... You don't wrestle because it's easy, you wrestle because it's hard. I don't do astrophysics because it's easy, I do it because it's hard. And I juxtapose the two in my mind, body, and soul all the time.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Two, Found You, Soul

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• Some people seek meaning in life through personal gain, through personal relationship, or through personal experiences. However, it seems to me that being blessed with the intellect to divine the ultimate secrets of nature gives meaning enough to life.

  Michio Kaku

  Blessed, People, Giving

  FaceBook post by Dr. Michio Kaku from Feb 16, 2010

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• In our civilization, there are permanent forms which are part of every epoch and every culture. They are not especially difficult to detect. A minimal knowledge of physics, astrophysics, and perhaps mathematics, brings to light certain patterns that make these subjects easier to understand. It is striking to see the extreme similarity between these scientific propositions and the forms that recur in all times, places and civilizations.

  Philippe Starck

  Light, Civilization, Design

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• At the fourth grade level, girls at the same percentages of boys say they're interested in careers in engineering or math or astrophysics, but by eighth grade that has dropped precipitously.

  Chelsea Clinton

  Girl, Math, Boys

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• Mathematics is not something that you find lying around in your back yard. It's produced by the human mind. Yet if we ask where mathematics works best, it is in areas like particle physics and astrophysics, areas of fundamental science that are very, very far removed from everyday affairs.

  Paul Davies

  Lying, Everyday, Mind

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• The problem in society is not kids not knowing science. The problem is adults not knowing science. They outnumber kids 5 to 1, they wield power, they write legislation. When you have scientifically illiterate adults, you have undermined the very fabric of what makes a nation wealthy and strong.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Strong, Writing, Kids

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• We in astrophysics we think of the universe all the time. So to us, Earth is just another planet. From a distance, it's a speck. And I'm convinced that if everyone had a cosmic perspective you wouldn't have legions of armies waging war on other people because someone would say, "Stop, look at the universe."

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  War, Distance, Army

  "Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson's one-man mission". "60 minutes" with Charlie Rose, www.cbsnews.com. March 22, 2015.

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• Not only are we in the universe, the universe is in us. I don't know of any deeper spiritual feeling than what that brings upon me.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Spiritual, Religious, Science

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• Students using astrophysical textbooks remain essentially ignorant of even the existence of plasma concepts, despite the fact that some of them have been known for half a century. The conclusion is that astrophysics is too important to be left in the hands of astrophysicists who have gotten their main knowledge from these textbooks. Earthbound and space telescope data must be treated by scientists who are familiar with laboratory and magnetospheric physics and circuit theory, and of course with modern plasma theory.

  Hannes Alfven

  Knowledge, Science, Hands

  "Hannes Alfvén: Dean of the Plasma Dissidents". Book by Anthony L. Peratt, p. 197, 1998.

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• My favourite fellow of the Royal Society is the Reverend Thomas Bayes, an obscure 18th-century Kent clergyman and a brilliant mathematician who devised a complex equation known as the Bayes theorem, which can be used to work out probability distributions. It had no practical application in his lifetime, but today, thanks to computers, is routinely used in the modelling of climate change, astrophysics and stock-market analysis.

  Bill Bryson

  Science, Work Out, Royal

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• I have no trouble publishing in Soviet astrophysical journals, but my work is unacceptable to the American astrophysical journals.
  [Referring to the trouble he had with the peer reviewers of Anglo-American astrophysical journals because his ideas often conflicted with the generally accepted or “standard"” theories.]

  Hannes Alfven

  Ideas, Peers, Conflict

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• It is often stated that of all the theories proposed in this century, the silliest is quantum theory. In fact, some say that the only thing that quantum theory has going for it is that it is unquestionably correct.

  Michio Kaku

  Science, Facts, Going For It

  FaceBook post by Dr. Michio Kaku from Mar 02, 2010

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• By analyzing data from Greenwich Observatory in the period 1836-1953, John A. Eddy [Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and High Altitude Observatory in Boulder] and Aram A. Boornazian [mathematician with S. Ross and Co. in Boston] have found evidence that the sun has been contracting about 0.1% per century during that time, corresponding to a shrinkage rate of about 5 feet per hour. And digging deep into historical records, Eddy has found 400-year-old eclipse observations that are consistent with such a shrinkage.

  Jonathan Sarfati

  Years, Data, Feet

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• I was there when Abbe Georges Lemaître first proposed this [Big Bang] theory. ... There is no rational reason to doubt that the universe has existed indefinitely, for an infinite time. .... It is only myth that attempts to say how the universe came to be, either four thousand or twenty billion years ago.

  Hannes Alfven

  Time, Science, Years

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• Scientists willing to risk their reputations on higher dimensions soon found themselves ridiculed by the scientific community. Higher-dimensional space became the last refuge for mystics, cranks, and charlatans.

  Michio Kaku

  Space, Community, Risk

  Michio Kaku (1995). “Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension”, p.23, OUP Oxford

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• Civilization just takes it as a given that the whole world was flooding. Then science came and you had geology and modern astrophysics, and time became well understood going back billions of years. So enlightened religious people, as a necessity, had to shed the magical elements of the Bible. A little known fact is that Thomas Jefferson did just that. There's something called the Jefferson Bible. It's not widely publicized because it sort of conflicts with certain people's ideas of what the founding fathers were.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Religious, Father, Years

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I will stress once again that we do not know the source from which the UFOs or the alien beings come whether or not, for example, they originate in the physical universe as modern astrophysics has described it). But they manifest in the physical world and bring about definable consequences in that domain.

  Jacques Vallee

  Stress, Example, World

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• At one point I wanted to work for NASA and be an astrophysicist, so I did physics, math, and chemistry before realizing I probably wasn't quite smart enough to do that. But I am still hugely interested in cosmology and astrophysics. That is my geeky subject area.

  Gemma Chan

  Smart, Math, Chemistry

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Hoyle's enduring insights into stars, nucleosynthesis, and the large-scale universe rank among the greatest achievements of 20th-century astrophysics. Moreover, his theories were unfailingly stimulating, even when they proved transient.

  Fred Hoyle

  Stars, Achievement, Century

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• I've had young women come to me and say that before they watched 'Voyager' it didn't really occur to them that they could be successful in a higher position in the field of science; girls going to MIT, girls pursuing astrophysics with a view to a career in NASA.

  Kate Mulgrew

  Girl, Successful, Views

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• I gained a first class degree in Physics at Imperial College London in 1968 and did research in solid state physics, but did not pursue meteorology matters until gaining an M.Sc. in astrophysics from Queen Mary College London in 1981, after which I investigated and attempted to construct theories of solar activity.

  Piers Corbyn

  Queens, College, Class

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• Plainly, such an approach does not exclude other ways of trying to comprehend the world. Someone committed to it (as I am) can consistently believe (as I do) that we learn much more of human interest about how people think and feel and act by reading novels or studying history than from all of naturalistic psychology, and perhaps always will; similarly, the arts may offer appreciation of the heavens to which astrophysics cannot aspire.

  Noam Chomsky

  Appreciation, Art, Reading

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• General relativity is the cornerstone of cosmology and astrophysics. It has also provided the conceptual basis for string theory and other attempts to unify all the forces of nature in terms of geometrical structures.

  Paul Davies

  Structure, Strings, Force

  " Einstein, the first spin doctor" by Paul Davies, www.theguardian.com. April 9, 2004.

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• Like no other science, astrophysics cross-pollinate s the expertise of chemists, biologists, geologists and physicists, all to discover the past, present, and future of the cosmos-and our humble place within it.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Humble, Science, Past

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