|
878af63
|
For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.
|
|
compassion
learning
inspiration
science
philosophy
inspirational
knowledge
values
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
0ab0fdd
|
there is no shame in not knowing. The problem arises when irrational thought and attendant behavior fill the vacuum left by ignorance.
|
|
knowledge
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
b806e68
|
There's as many atoms in a single molecule of your DNA as there are stars in the typical galaxy. We are, each of us, a little universe.
|
|
universe
stars
science
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
9abea30
|
In 2002, having spent more than three years in one residence for the first time in my life, I got called for jury duty. I show up on time, ready to serve. When we get to the voir dire, the lawyer says to me, "I see you're an astrophysicist. What's that?" I answer, "Astrophysics is the laws of physics, applied to the universe--the Big Bang, black holes, that sort of thing." Then he asks, "What do you teach at Princeton?" and I say, "I teach ..
|
|
universe
science
eyewitness
jury-duty
voir-dire
astrophysics
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
afa40af
|
Not only do we live among the stars, the stars live within us.
|
|
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
9dcb293
|
The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you. --NDT
|
|
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
e07ca2a
|
I am convinced that the act of thinking logically cannot possibly be natural to the human mind. If it were, then mathematics would be everybody's easiest course at school and our species would not have taken several millennia to figure out the scientific method.
|
|
science
logical-thinking
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
9828ab7
|
I know that the molecules in my body are traceable to phenomena in the cosmos. That makes me want to grab people on the street and say: 'Have you HEARD THIS?
|
|
science
philosophy
inspirational
connectedness
perspective
knowledge
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
5f2815b
|
We are stardust brought to life, then empowered by the universe to figure itself out--and we have only just begun.
|
|
science
astrophysics
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
9689cda
|
When scientifically investigating the natural world, the only thing worse than a blind believer is a seeing denier.
|
|
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
1d9a4a9
|
So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?
|
|
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
81f24b0
|
The power and beauty of physical laws is that they apply everywhere, whether or not you choose to believe in them. In other words, after the laws of physics, everything else is opinion.
|
|
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
c291f17
|
We do not simply live in this universe. The universe lives within us.
|
|
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
5b081f5
|
Down there between our legs, it's like an entertainment complex in the middle of a sewage system. Who designed that?
|
|
science
stupid-design
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
a9835cc
|
Dinosaurs are extinct today because they lacked opposable thumbs and the brainpower to build a space program.
|
|
future
extinction
space
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
91e5f89
|
As a child, I was aware that, at night, infrared vision would reveal monsters hiding in the bedroom closet only if they were warm-blooded. But everybody knows that your average bedroom monster is reptilian and cold-blooded.
|
|
science
monsters-in-the-dark
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
39dd405
|
But you can't be a scientist if you're uncomfortable with ignorance, because scientists live at the boundary between what is known and unknown in the cosmos. This is very different from the way journalists portray us. So many articles begin, "Scientists now have to go back to the drawing board." It's as though we're sitting in our offices, feet up on our desks--masters of the universe--and suddenly say, "Oops, somebody discovered something!..
|
|
science
drawing-conclusions
scientists
ignorance
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
b219cef
|
People who believe they are ignorant of nothing have neither looked for, nor stumbled upon, the boundary between what is known and unknown in the universe.
|
|
science
astrophysics
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
a677f51
|
Scientific inquiry shouldn't stop just because a reasonable explanation has apparently been found.
|
|
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
976b9b7
|
The remarkable feature of physical laws is that they apply everywhere, whether or not you choose to believe in them. After the laws of physics, everything else is opinion.
|
|
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
c103b04
|
Again and again across the centuries, cosmic discoveries have demoted our self-image. Earth was once assumed to be astronomically unique, until astronomers learned that Earth is just another planet orbiting the Sun. Then we presumed the Sun was unique, until we learned that the countless stars of the night sky are suns themselves. Then we presumed our galaxy, the Milky Way, was the entire known universe, until we established that the countl..
|
|
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
2f47a23
|
Yes, Einstein was a badass.
|
|
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
368919f
|
Looking more closely at Earth's atmospheric fingerprints, human biomarkers will also include sulfuric, carbonic, and nitric acids, and other components of smog from the burning of fossil fuels. If the curious aliens happen to be socially, culturally, and technologically more advanced than we are, then they will surely interpret these biomarkers as convincing evidence for the absence of intelligent life on Earth.
|
|
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
531c6df
|
Our nation is turning into an idiocracy.
|
|
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
f2df499
|
Allow intelligent design into science textbooks, lecture halls, and laboratories, and the cost to the frontier of scientific discovery--the frontier that drives the economies of the future--would be incalculable. I don't want students who could make the next major breakthrough in renewable energy sources or space travel to have been taught that anything they don't understand, and that nobody yet understands, is divinely constructed and ther..
|
|
reason
research
intelligent-design
intellect
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
c684f31
|
I'm often asked by parents what advice can I give them to help get kids interested in science? And I have only one bit of advice. Get out of their way. Kids are born curious. Period. I don't care about your economic background. I don't care what town you're born in, what city, what country. If you're a child, you are curious about your environment. You're overturning rocks. You're plucking leaves off of trees and petals off of flowers, look..
|
|
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
20cb812
|
Some morning while your eating breakfast and you need something new to think about, though, you might want to ponder the fact that you see your kids across the table not as they are but as they once were, about three nanoseconds ago.
|
|
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
d67fcb1
|
Science needs the light of free expression to flourish. It depends on the fearless questioning of authority, and the open exchange of ideas.
|
|
science
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
8352514
|
Science is a philosophy of discovery. Intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance.
|
|
religion
science
philosophy
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
2af55ab
|
In modern times, if the sole measure of what's out there flows from your five senses then a precarious life awaits you.
|
|
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
6a33b4b
|
While the Copernican principle comes with no guarantees that it will forever guide us to cosmic truths, it's worked quite well so far: not only is Earth not in the center of the solar system, but the solar system is not in the center of the Milky Way galaxy, the Milky Way galaxy is not in the center of the universe, and it may come to pass that our universe is just one of many that comprise a multiverse. And in case you're one of those peop..
|
|
universe
science
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
2729dc8
|
You know that passage in the Bible that says, "And the meek shall inherit the Earth"? Always wondered if that was mistranslated. Perhaps it actually says, "And the geek shall inherit the Earth."
|
|
funny
quote
meek
geek
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
6ef5c0f
|
If humans one day become extinct from a catastrophic collision, there would be no greater tragedy in the history of life in the universe. Not because we lacked the brain power to protect ourselves but because we lacked the foresight. The dominant species that replaces us in post-apocalyptic Earth just might wonder, as they gaze upon our mounted skeletons in their natural history museums, why large-headed Homo sapiens fared no better than th..
|
|
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
95d4ff4
|
Every cup that passes through a single person and eventually rejoins the world's water supply holds enough molecules to mix 1,500 of them into every other cup of water in the world. No way around it: some of the water you just drank passed through the kidneys of Socrates, Genghis Khan, and Joan of Arc. How about air? Also vital. A single breathful draws in more air molecules than there are breathfuls of air in Earth's entire atmosphere. Th..
|
|
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
a20a417
|
Some molecules - ammonia, carbon dioxide, water - show up everywhere in the universe, whether life is present or not. But others pop up especially in the presence of life itself. Among the biomarkers in Earth's atmosphere are ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons from aerosol sprays, vapor from mineral solvents, escaped coolants from refrigerators and air conditioners, and smog from the burning of fossil fuels. No other way to read that list..
|
|
intelligence
life
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
b0a3774
|
There are no limits when you are surrounded by people who believe in you, or by people whose expectations are not set by the short-sighted attitudes of society, or by people who help to open doors of opportunity, not close them.
|
|
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
13f5e84
|
In the twentieth century, astrophysicists in the United States discovered galaxies, the expanding of the universe, the nature of supernovas, quasars, black holes, gamma-ray bursts, the origin of the elements, the cosmic microwave background, and most of the known planets in orbit around solar systems other than our own. Although the Russians reached one or two places before us, we sent space probes to Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus..
|
|
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
ab1aa3f
|
At least once a week, if not once a day, we might each ponder what cosmic truths lie undiscovered before us, perhaps awaiting the arrival of a clever thinker, an ingenious experiment, or an innovative space mission to reveal them. We might further ponder how those discoveries may one day transform life on Earth. Absent such curiosity, we are no different from the provincial farmer who expresses no need to venture beyond the county line, bec..
|
|
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
f8a3832
|
What are the lessons to be learned from this journey of the mind? That humans are emotionally fragile, perennially gullible, hopelessly ignorant masters of an insignificantly small speck in the cosmos. Have a nice day.
|
|
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
fdf5f24
|
Let's grant that the stars are scattered through space, hither and yon. But how hither, and how yon? To the unaided eye the brightest stars are more than a hundred times brighter than the dimmest. So the dim ones are obviously a hundred times farther away from Earth, aren't they? Nope. That simple argument boldly assumes that all stars are intrinsically equally luminous, automatically making the near ones brighter than the far ones. Stars, ..
|
|
physics
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
7225e84
|
In the beginning, there was physics.
|
|
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
85cae2a
|
For reasons I have yet to understand, many people don't like chemicals, which might explain the perennial movement to rid foods of them. <...> Personally, I am quite comfortable with chemicals, anywhere in the universe. My favorite stars, as well as my best friends, are all made of them.
|
|
popular-science
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
a09ae1a
|
Science is not just about seeing, it's about measuring, preferably with something that's not your own eyes, which are inextricably conjoined with the baggage of your brain. That baggage is more often than not a satchel of preconceived ideas, post-conceived notions, and outright bias.
|
|
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |
|
0fae399
|
The gravitational waves of the first detection were generated by a collision of black holes in a galaxy 1.3 billion light-years away, and at a time when Earth was teeming with simple, single-celled organisms. While the ripple moved through space in all directions, Earth would, after another 800 million years, evolve complex life, including flowers and dinosaurs and flying creatures, as well as a branch of vertebrates called mammals. Among t..
|
|
evolution
science
interconnection
einstein
the-universe
gravity
connection
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson |