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“If I have seen further [than others], it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
– Sir Isaac Newton PRS (25 December 1642 – 1726/27)* Newton was relatively modest about his achievements, writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” In a later memoir, Newton wrote, “I do not know what I may appear…
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“There is no easy way from the earth to the stars”
― Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC – 65 AD) usually known as Seneca, was a Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman, dramatist, and, in one work, satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature. The quote is translated from Seneca’s tragedy Hercules furens (The Mad Hercules): “non est ad astra mollis e terris…
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“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
― Carl Sagan. Spoken during the first episode of the 1980 landmark science series “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage” titled “The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean” An earlier version of the “we are made of star-stuff” quote, was made in the 1973 Carl Sagan publication “The Cosmic Connection: An Extra-terrestrial Perspective”: “All of the rocky and…
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How many star signs are there?
We all know there are 12 star signs or signs of the zodiac. The 12 astrological star signs are evenly spread across the calendar: The date of your birth is meant to have an impact on your personality, behaviours, love life, career, etc. – every newspaper carries a horoscope trying to predict your destiny! But…
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“Moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars.”
– J.R.R. Tolkien (3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) An interesting quote, apparently from the Lord of the Rings, but it doesn’t stand up to a Google search! Even if its in one of the movies, this is a misattributed quote. Even more interesting (in my opinion), it isn’t true – moonlight doesn’t technically…
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“The stars are the land-marks of the universe.”
— Sir John Frederick William Herschel (7 March 1792 – 11 May 1871) According to Wikipedia, Herschel, was an English polymath active as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor, experimental photographer who originated the use of the Julian day system in astronomy. He named seven moons of Saturn and four moons of Uranus – the seventh…
Stargazing Guy 