Great Throughts Treasury

"I'm optimistic. I see no longer people accepting fuzzy thinking in the world. The change is not that people aren't still saying under-informed things. The change is that if you're in power and you say something under-informed, there are people out there with a voice who will take you to task for having done so."

"I'm on a crusade to get movie directors to get their science right because, more often than they believe, the science is more extraordinary than anything they can invent."

"I'm perennially intrigued how people who lead largely evidence-based lives can, in a belief-based part of their mind, be certain that an invisible, divine entity created an entire universe just for us, or that the government is stockpiling space aliens in a secret desert location."

"Imagine a life-form whose brainpower is to ours as ours is to a chimpanzee?s. To such a species, our highest mental achievements would be trivial. Their toddlers, instead of learning their ABCs on Sesame Street, would learn multivariable calculus on Boolean Boulevard. Our most complex theorems, our deepest philosophies, the cherished works of our most creative artists, would be projects their schoolkids bring home for Mom and Dad to display on the refrigerator door."

"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 a class on the evaluation of evidence and the relative unreliability of eyewitness testimony. Five minutes later, I?m on the street. A few years later, jury duty again. The judge states that the defendant is charged with possession of 1,700 milligrams of cocaine. It was found on his body, he was arrested, and he is now on trial. This time, after the Q and A is over, the judge asks us whether there are any questions we?d like to ask the court, and I say, Yes, Your Honor. Why did you say he was in possession of 1,700 milligrams of cocaine? That equals 1.7 grams. The ?thousand? cancels with the ?milli-? and you get 1.7 grams, which is less than the weight of a dime. Again I?m out on the street."

"In 5-billion years the Sun will expand and engulf our orbit as the charred ember that was once Earth vaporizes. Have a nice day."

"In any city with lots of skyscrapers, lots of skyline, the moon seems bigger than it is. It's called the moon illusion."

"In all civilizations we've studied, all cultures that we know of across the Earth and across time have invested some kind of attempt to understanding where, where they come from, and where they are going."

"In modern times, if the sole measure of what?s out there flows from your five senses then a precarious life awaits you."

"In nature, when you conduct science, it is the natural world that is the ultimate decider in what is true and what is not."

"In the beginning, there was physics."

"In science, if you don't do it, somebody else will. Whereas in art, if Beethoven didn't compose the 'Ninth Symphony,' no one else before or after is going to compose the 'Ninth Symphony' that he composed; no one else is going to paint 'Starry Night' by van Gogh."

"In my NCAA wrestling days I dreamt of a hold I called the ?Double Tidal Lock? inspired by Earth-Moon physics."

"In short, were it not for our ability to analyze spectra, we would know next to nothing about what goes on in the universe."

"In the animal kingdom, one of the keys to survival is to outwit your enemies. And when you're surrounded by carnivores, one of the best strategies is to fade into the background and disappear."

"In Terminator, only living things can time-travel. But hair is dead. So Arnold should?ve landed in LA not only naked but bald"

"In the beginning, there was physics. ?Physics? describes how matter, energy, space, and time behave and interact with one another. The interplay of these characters in our cosmic drama underlies all biological and chemical phenomena. Hence everything fundamental and familiar to us earthlings begins with, and rests upon, the laws of physics. When we apply these laws to astronomical settings, we deal with physics writ large, which we call astrophysics."

"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, and Neptune. American probes have also landed on Mars and on the asteroid Eros. And American astronauts have walked on the Moon. Nowadays most Americans take all this for granted, which is practically a working definition of culture: something everyone does or knows about, but no longer actively notices. While shopping at the supermarket, most Americans aren?t surprised to find an entire aisle filled with sugar-loaded, ready-to-eat breakfast cereals. But foreigners notice this kind of thing immediately, just as traveling Americans notice that supermarkets in Italy display vast selections of pasta and that markets in China and Japan offer an astonishing variety of rice. The flip side of not noticing your own culture is one of the great pleasures of foreign travel: realizing what you hadn?t noticed about your own country, and noticing what the people of other countries no longer realize about themselves."

"Informed ignorance provides the natural state of mind for research scientists at the ever-shifting frontiers of knowledge. People who believe themselves ignorant of nothing have neither looked for, nor stumbled upon, the boundary between what is known and unknown in the cosmos."

"In the movie [Titanic], the stars above the ship bear no correspondence to any constellations in a real sky. Worse yet, while the heroine bobs... we are treated to her view of this Hollywood sky?one where the stars on the right half of the scene trace the mirror image of the stars in the left half. How lazy can you get?"

"It is the destiny of stars to collapse."

"Innovations in science and technology are the engines of the 21st-century economy; if you care about the wealth and health of your nation tomorrow, then you'd better rethink how you allocate taxes to fund science. The federal budget needs to recognize this."

"It was unthinkable not long ago that a biologist or paleontologist would be at the same conference as an astrophysicist. Now we have accumulated so much data in each of these branches of science as it relates to origins that we have learned that no one discipline can answer questions of origins alone."

"It took the mind of Albert Einstein, the twentieth century?s most brilliant and influential, to show that we can more accurately describe gravity?s action-at-a-distance as a warp in the fabric of space-time, produced by any combination of matter and energy."

"It has been said that every great emerging scientific truth goes to three phases: First people say: "It can't be true". Second they say: "It conflicts with the bible." Third they say: "It's true all along.""

"It turns out our brain is sensitive, maybe too sensitive, to motion. It's a survival mechanism."

"It may be that our cosmic curiosity... is a genetically-encoded force that we illuminate when we look up and wonder."

"It's always interesting just to see how the human mind is relating to the natural universe, and what we try to make of it just so we can believe we understand what's going on."

"It's actually the minority of religious people who rejects science or feel threatened by it or want to sort of undo or restrict the... where science can go. The rest, you know, are just fine with science. And it has been that way ever since the beginning."

"It?s OK not to know all the answers. It?s better to admit our ignorance, than to believe answers that might be wrong. Pretending to know everything closes the door to finding out what?s really there."

"It's okay not to know all the answers. It's better to admit our ignorance than to believe answers that might be wrong. Pretending to know everything closes the door to finding out what's really there."

"Italy valued cathedrals while Spain valued explorers. So worldwide, five times as many people speak Spanish than Italian"

"It's part of our pop culture to give animals human personalities and talents."

"I've known from long ago that the universe was calling me. If you were one of those annoying adults that said, 'Oh, what are you gonna be when you grow up?' I would say, 'Astrophysicist.' And then they'd walk away real quickly."

"I've been a minimalist my whole life, even if you wouldn't know it from my office."

"It's quite literally true that we are star dust, in the highest exalted way one can use that phrase...I bask in the majesty of the cosmos. I use words, compose sentences that sound like the sentences I hear out of people that had revelation of Jesus, who go on their pilgrimages to Mecca."

"It's the great tragedy - people employed in ways that don't fully tap everything they do best in life."

"Just an FYI: ?Thursday the 12th? is just as rare as ?Friday the 13th?."

"Just an FYI: Roman Numerals have no zero because it was not yet invented, allowing year 2000 to be written efficiently as MM."

"Just an FYI: It takes twice as much energy to throw a baseball 100mph than it does to throw one at 70mph. Do the Physics"

"I've spent quality time in the aerospace community, with my service on two presidential commissions, but at heart, I'm an academic. Being an academic means I don't wield power over person, place or thing. I don't command armies; I don't lead labor unions. All I have is the power of thought."

"Just an FYI: There are 2 kinds of people in the world ? those who divide everybody into 2 kinds of people and those who don?t."

"Just an FYI: If scientists invented the legal system, eye witness testimony would be inadmissible evidence."

"Just an FYI: Within two minutes of flight, the Shuttle?s air-speed exceeds that of a bullet fired from an M16 assault rifle."

"Just an observation: I?ve never, ever, ever, ever, ever, heard a female voice as the narrator of a movie trailer."

"Just to settle it once and for all: Which came first the Chicken or the Egg? The Egg ? laid by a bird that was not a Chicken"

"Kids are born curious about the world. What adults primarily do in the presence of kids is unwittingly thwart the curiosity of children."

"Keep in mind that if you take a tour through a hospital and look at every machine with on and off switch that is brought into the service of diagnosing the human condition, that machine is based on principles of physics discovered by a physicist in a machine designed by an engineer."

"Just think for how long humanity was controlled by mystical, magical thinking - the diseases and suffering that led to. We managed to survive, but just barely. It wasn't pretty."

"Kids are never the problem. They are born scientists. The problem is always the adults. They beat the curiosity out of the kids. They out-number kids. They vote. They wield resources. That's why my public focus is primarily adults."