Category: quotes
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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…
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“Do not look at stars as bright spots only. Try to take in the vastness of the universe.”
– Maria Mitchell (1818-1889) – attributed 1 October 1847 is the day Maria Mitchell swept the sky with her telescope and discovered the comet of 1847 (comet Mitchell 1847VI). Honoured and recognized internationally for her discovery, Mitchell, who lived from 1818 to 1889, became one of the most famous American scientists of her day. Vassar…
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“Space isn’t remote at all. It’s only an hour’s drive away, if your car could go straight upwards.”
– Sir Fred Hoyle FRS (24 June 1915 – 20 August 2001) Observer 9 September 1979 ‘Sayings of the Week’ Where does space start? It’s ‘up there’, but where? Most people would say it’s above the atmosphere, but where does the atmosphere stop? There is no sharp boundary line, like the equator, where you can…
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“Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science.”
– Edwin Hubble (20 November 1889 – 28 September 1953), from “The Exploration of Space“. Harper’s Magazine 158: 732 (the May 1929 issue) An astrophysicist who was, amongst other things, able to determine that there were other galaxies and that they are all receding from us. He was famously named after the Hubble Space telescope,…
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“If the earth were flat from east to west …”
Claudius Ptolemy, c. 100 – c. 170 AD The full quote is here: “If the earth were flat from east to west, the stars would rise as soon for westerners as for Orientals, which is false. Also, if the earth were flat from north to south and vice versa, the stars which were always visible to anyone would continue…
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“Nuclear fusion makes stars to shine …”
— Isaac Asimov (2 Jan 1920 – 6 Apr 1992) American author (of Russian parentage) and professor of biochemistry at Boston University who was a prolific author and editor of science fiction and non-fiction. He was a regular commentator on science and society and atheism and developed the three laws of robotics. Asimov was also…
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“At night the stars put on a show for free … And darling, you can share it all with me”
– Gerry Goffin, Carole King The great song writing duo Goffin and King with Up on the Roof, first recorded by Little Eva, the Drifters and many others. Do the lyrics “evinces a quiet sense of sadness, an urban dissatisfaction that moves beyond anything conceived by the rose-spectacled Tin Pan Alley writers of the early…
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“The wondrous thing about science is that nobody knows the right answer.”
Dr. Becky Smethurst, Astrophysicist. Science Communicator. Author. The full quote from the preface of her book (Space at the Speed of Light: The History of 14 Billion Years for People Short on Time) is: “The wondrous thing about science is that nobody knows the right answer. This is not how we are taught science as…
Stargazing Guy 