Category: Cosmos
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“Planetary Chauvinism.”
– Isaac Asimov 2 January 1920 – 6 April 1992 As quoted by Gerrard O’Neill: In a roundtable TV interview, Isaac Asimov and I were asked why science-fiction writers have, almost without exception, failed to point us toward that development. Dr. Asimov’s reply was a phrase he has now become fond of using: “Planetary Chauvinism.”…
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“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
— Oscar (Fingal O’Fflahertie Wills) Wilde, 16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900 To many this quip, as spoken by a character in Wilde’s play Lady Windermere’s Fan subtitled A Play About a Good Woman, represents humanity’s need to aim higher and do better. It doesn’t matter where you are (or even, who you are)…
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“I am a child of the Milky Way. The night is my mother. I am made of the dust of stars. Every atom in my body was forged in a star.”
― Chet Raymo, The Soul of the Night: An Astronomical Pilgrimage Probing the depths of science and faith, scientist Chet Raymo investigates the mysteries of human spirituality and meaning contained in astronomy. Ranging through the stars and the myths humans have told about them for millennia, Raymo delves into “a pilgrimage in quest of the…
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“As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 1 (http://www.literaturepage.com/read/mobydick-16.html) “For all its material advantages, the sedentary life has left us edgy, unfulfilled. Even after 400 generations in villages and cities, we haven’t forgotten. The open road still softly calls, like a nearly forgotten song of childhood. We invest far-off places with a certain romance. This appeal,…
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“Sometimes we focus too much on our differences, but when we all look up into space, we see the same stars and we see the same sun. It really can be unifying.”
– Anne Charlotte McClain, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, engineer and a NASA astronaut During an interview with We Are The Mighty, McClain said, “You get this overview effect where you realize how small we are and how fragile our planet is and how we’re really all in it together,” she said. “You…
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“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the drug store, but that’s just peanuts to space.”
– Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is one of the classic science fiction novels. Its the original book, BBC radio and then TV series and an average movie version. I’ll leave you to discover the joy … ____________________________________________________________________ PS: I love coffee. BuyMeACoffee, leave a message with…
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“Glance at the night sky and what you see is history and lots of it – not the stars as they are now but as they were when their light left them.”
― Bill Bryson, A Really Short History of Nearly Everything This quote was taken from Chapter 3, of A Really Short History of Nearly Everything, The Reverend Evans’s Universe, which tells us, in Bryson’s usual chummy way about the unassuming Bob Evans, who he describes as a titan of the skies. For the Reverand Evans…
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“Space, let me repeat, is enormous.”
― Bill Bryson, A Really Short History of Nearly Everything The full quote is as follows: “Space, let me repeat, is enormous. The average distance between stars out there is 20 million million miles. Even at speeds approaching those of light, these are fantastically challenging distances for any traveling individual.” ____________________________________________________________________ PS: I love coffee. BuyMeACoffee,…
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“And yet it moves.”
Attributed to Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) “And yet it moves.” (“Eppur si muove”) Even if Galileo never spoke those words, they have much relevance for us currently, when even provable facts are under attack by science deniers. Galileo’s legendary intellectual defiance — “in spite of what you believe, these are…
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#The sun, the sky, the moon, the stars; Jupiter, Neptune and Mars; All these things I clearly see; It don’t take a telescope for you to love me#
– Dumb, Beautiful South Songwriters: Dave Rotheray / Paul Heaton Dumb lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group Full lyrics: #It doesn’t take a mathematician To add a simple sum Either you are simply beautiful Or I am simply dumb Dumb, dumb, dumb #It doesn’t take Robert The Bruce To see the web…
Stargazing Guy 