Quotes by Neil Degrasse Tyson - Page 18

They all knew the mothership was coming, they all knew it was a flying saucer, they all knew it came from another planet through the vacuum of space. And so what do they do, to the left of that monument? They set up runway lights. And I'm thinking, if you could travel through the vacuum of space, you don't need runway lights. Runway lights are if you're using air for lift. Aliens would not need air for lift.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Air
Light
Thinking
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Essentially every scientist, when posed with the question, "If you want to get science knowledge from Mars, do you want to send a geologist or do you want to send a robot?" Well, the real answer is, you can send 100 robots for the price of sending one geologist, so let's send 100 robots to 100 different locations, and then we would all benefit. So that's the answer you would get. And I agree with that answer.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Location
Real
Want
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Astrophysicists perfected navigation. We perfected all these things that matter to the power of nations manifest on the world stage. So we want to go into space. That's the new high ground, right? We care about multispectral imaging of things. Well, that's what reconnaissance wants to do. So our expertise has been in bed with national security needs forever. So maybe, secretly, that's why they keep us employed.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Space
Bed
Forever
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I was raised Catholic. But if someone says I was raised in some religion, that's insufficient information to actually know what was going on. The real question is Was the religion in the household? The answer is no. Important decisions in the household were executed rationally and secularly. So as a result, the foundations of my reasoning derive not from religion but from the rational analysis of circumstances.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Catholic
Decision
Real
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As religion is now practiced and science is now practiced, there is no intersection between the two. That is for certain. And it’s not for want of trying. Over the centuries, many people—theologians as well scientists - have tried to explore points of intersection. And anytime anyone has declared that harmony has risen up, it is the consequence of religion acquiescing to scientific discovery. In every single case.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Discovery
People
Two
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I don't know why a beauty salon would have a cop's hat and the curling irons are not deadly unless they're still plugged in and they're hot. So I'm not quite sure about that. But I don't know who remembers anymore that you can ignite spray cans, plus there aren't really any spray cans anymore 'cause that was destroying the ozone layer. So I'm - actually, I'll have to go with they chased him with the curling irons.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Hot
Iron
Ozone
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I want upon death to be buried, just like in the old days, where I decompose by the action of microorganisms, and I am dined upon by any form of creeping animal or root system that sees fit to do so.... I will have recycled back to the universe at least some of the energy that I have taken from it. And in so doing, at the conclusion of my scientific adventures, I will have come closer to the heavens than to Earth.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Adventure
Animal
Taken
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These are two different exercises. One of them is, "You don't know and I know, so just shut up and listen," and the other one is, you're curious and you're learning, and I have a way where you can learn this so you'll know it as well. And when you know it, and know why you know it, then you don't have to reference me ever again because you take ownership of the knowledge, and you can then share it with someone else.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Different
Exercise
Shut Up
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The atoms of our bodies are traceable to stars that manufactured them in their cores and exploded these enriched ingredients across our galaxy, billions of years ago. For this reason, we are biologically connected to every other living thing in the world. We are chemically connected to all molecules on Earth. And we are atomically connected to all atoms in the universe. We are not figuratively, but literally stardust.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Molecules
Stars
Years
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As an educator, I try to get people to be fundamentally curious and to question ideas that they might have or that are shared by others. In that state of mind, they have earned a kind of inoculation against the fuzzy thinking of these weird ideas floating around out there. So rather than correct the weird ideas, I would rather them to know how to think in the first place. Then they can correct the weird idea themselves.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Ideas
People
Thinking
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By the way, were we to find life-forms on Venus, we would probably call them Venutians, just as people from Mars would be Martians. But according to rules of Latin genitives, to be “of Venus” ought to make you a Venereal. Unfortunately, medical doctors reached that word before astronomers did. Can’t blame them, I suppose. Venereal disease long predates astronomy, which itself stands as only the second oldest profession.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Doctors
Latin
Long
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Our entire universe emerged from a point smaller than a single atom. Space itself exploded in a cosmic fire, launching the expansion of the universe and giving birth to all the energy and all the matter we know today. I know that sounds crazy, but there’s strong observational evidence to support the Big Bang theory. And it includes the amount of helium in the cosmos and the glow of radio waves left over from the explosion.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Space
Crazy
Strong
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Do you realize that the 850 billion dollar bank bailout, that sum of money is greater than the entire 50 year running budget of NASA. And so when someone says, 'We don't have enough money for this space probe.' No, it's not that you don't have enough money. It's that the distribution of money that you're spending is warped in some way that you are removing the only thing that gives people something to dream about tomorrow.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Dream
Running
Future
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That is a cosmic perspective, that's correct. And in tandem with that, you will never find people who truly grasp the cosmic perspective such as the entire community of astrophysicists leading nations into battle. No, that doesn't happen. When you have a cosmic perspective, there's this little speck called Earth and you say you're going to do what? You're on this side of a line in the sand and you want to kill people for what?
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Community
People
Perspective
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In whatever you choose to do, do it because it's hard, not because it's easy. Math and physics and astrophysics are hard. For every hard thing you accomplish, fewer other people are out there doing the same thing as you. That's what doing something hard means. And in the limit of this, everyone beats a path to your door because you're the only one around who understands the impossible concept or who solves the unsolvable problem.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Doors
Math
Mean
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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 therefore beyond their intellectual capacity. The day that happens, Americans will just sit in awe of what we don't understand, while we watch the rest of the world boldly go where no mortal has gone before.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Space
Intellectual
Watches
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So this show [Cosmos] does not only operate on you intellectually, because telling you stories of how science works and why it works and what was discovered and why it matters, but combines that with stunning visualizations of the cosmos. This has the chance of affecting you intellectually and emotionally, and as well as even spiritually, because the wonder and awe of the universe are especially potent when presented in this way."
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Doe
Matter
Way
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There are no wild, seedless watermelons. There's no wild cows... You list all the fruit, and all the vegetables, and ask yourself, is there a wild counterpart to this? If there is, it's not as large, it's not as sweet, it's not as juicy, and it has way more seeds in it. We have systematically genetically modified all the foods, the vegetables and animals that we have eaten ever since we cultivated them. It's called artificial selection.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Animal
Sweet
Vegetables
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When I wrestled, I would set aside the time to wrestle, so that in my mind it didn't interfere with my study time. If I'd say, "I'm going to study this many hours, then I'm going to go work out and wrestle," then when that time comes, you don't feel like you should be doing something else. That helped me psychologically. But otherwise? When I'm wrestling, I'm not studying the universe. And when I'm studying the universe, I'm not wrestling.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Mind
Work Out
Wrestling
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When NASA makes discoveries they are profound and they make headlines, everyone takes notice. It drives dialogue and, today, it would drive the blogosphere. It would drive the projects the kids do in school. So you wouldn't even need programs to try and stimulate curiosity. You wouldn't need programs to try to convince people that science literacy is good. Because they're going to want to participate on this epic adventure that we call space exploration.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Kids
Adventure
School
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There are photons that have been traveling for 30,000 years, and I'm... snatching them from this journey and planting them into my digital detector. And then I started feeling bad for the photon, and I said maybe it wanted to continue but I got in its way. But then I said, no, those are probably happier photons than the one that slammed into the mountainside that will go unanalyzed and will not contribute to the depth of our understanding of the universe.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Journey
Science
Years
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Robots are important also. If I don my pure-scientist hat, I would say just send robots; I'll stay down here and get the data. But nobody's ever given a parade for a robot. Nobody's ever named a high school after a robot. So when I don my public-educator hat, I have to recognize the elements of exploration that excite people. It's not only the discoveries and the beautiful photos that come down from the heavens; it's the vicarious participation in discovery itself.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Beautiful
Discovery
School
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I have found that when calculating what no one has calculated before, like my observing sessions on the mountain, my mental acuity peaks. Ironically, these are the times that I would flunk the reality check normally reserved for mental patients and dazed boxers: What is your name? What day is it? Who is the president of the United States?... I do not know, and I do not care. I am at peace with my equations as I connect to the cosmic engines that drive our universe.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Names
President
Reality
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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.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Dad
Mom
Philosophy
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Scientific truth is not what any one scientist puts forth. It can be that, but it is generally not. It is the sum of multiple studies that all lean in the same direction in their results conducted by different people at different times of different nationalities with different competitive urges who all end up getting the same result. Then you have an emerging scientific truth, and then you put that in the textbooks, and that will never be shown to be wrong later on.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Different Nationalities
People
Textbooks
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'As a fraction of your tax dollar today, what is the total cost of all spaceborne telescopes, planetary probes, the rovers on Mars, the International Space Station, the space shuttle, telescopes yet to orbit, and missions yet to fly?' Answer: one-half of one percent of each tax dollar. Half a penny. I'd prefer it were more: perhaps two cents on the dollar. Even during the storied Apollo era, peak NASA spending amounted to little more than four cents on the tax dollar.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Space
Bad Ass
Two
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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 the proverbially peabrained dinosaurs.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Moon
Museums
Skeletons
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I knew Pluto was popular among elementary schoolkids, but I had no idea they would mobilize into a 'Save Pluto' campaign. I now have a drawer full of hate letters from hundreds of elementary schoolchildren (with supportive cover letters from their science teachers) pleading with me to reverse my stance on Pluto. The file includes a photograph of the entire third grade of a school posing on their front steps and holding up a banner proclaiming, 'Dr. Tyson - Pluto is a Planet!'
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Teacher
Hate
School
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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: sure signs of the absence of intelligence.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Air
Ozone
Water
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To view space as, "Well, let's go to Mars now," or "Let's do this now," maybe we should rethink of space as our backyard and have a suite of launch vehicles that can enable any ambition a person has regarding space. It's the same way you can go to buy a car: I want to go offroading, I'll buy this model. I'm a city driver, that's this model. I want to use less fuel, well, that's this model. They're not selling you one car, you have options. So when I think of space, I think of having options.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Ambition
Cities
Thinking
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We went to the moon using just Newton's laws of motion and gravity. Newtonian dynamics we call it. So then we find out, "Well, this works because there's certain regimes we've never tested it in." Had we done so, we would show that it didn't work: For example, at very high speeds, very high gravity, Newton's laws fail. They just fail. You need Einstein's laws of motion and gravity. Those would be his special theory of relativity and general theory of relativity. Now you invoke those and it works.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Law
Moon
Special
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Civilization just takes it as a given that the whole world was flooding. Then science came and you had geology and modern astrophysics, and time became well understood going back billions of years. So enlightened religious people, as a necessity, had to shed the magical elements of the Bible. A little known fact is that Thomas Jefferson did just that. There's something called the Jefferson Bible. It's not widely publicized because it sort of conflicts with certain people's ideas of what the founding fathers were.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Father
Religious
Years
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Many people are unhappy because there was some point in their past where there was some glory day, and as they get older they're not creating more glory days. They reflect on a time that they will never reach again, and it brings some level of dissatisfaction into their lives. I have circumvented that by simply making incumbent upon myself to always be productive in ways that are consistent with my physical body, my mental state of knowledge, but more important, my presumed growth in wisdom that would come with age.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Growth
Past
People
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The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation. For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And along the way, lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Motivational
Happy Life
Philosophy
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There was a transition going on - Baghdad being the intellectual capital of the world where major advances were made in agriculture and mathematics and engineering and medicine and astronomy, and then that all sort of collapsed. And I was trying to understand how such a intellectually fertile environment can lose its compass bearing. Because I think about the creative centers today - countries, or even regions. Will Silicon Valley always be as innovative? Will the United States be innovative, or will we become complacent?
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Country
Engineering
Thinking
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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 people who thinks that the edge may be a special place, we are not at the edge of anything either.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Science
Guarantees That
Thinking
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Creativity is seeing what everyone else sees, but then thinking a new thought that has never been thought before and expressing it somehow. It could be with art, a sculpture, music or even in science. The difference, however, between scientific creativity and any other kind of creativity, is that no matter how long you wait, no one else will ever compose "Beethoven's Ninth Symphony" except for Beethoven. No matter what you do, no one else will paint Van Gogh's "Starry Night." Only Van Gogh could do that because it came from his creativity.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Art
Smile
Creativity
Night
Thinking
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During the 1970s and 1980s, the popular television soap opera As The World Turns portrayed sunrise during the opening credits and sunset during the closing credits... The soap-opera sunrise showed the sun moving toward the left as it rose rather than to the right. They obviously had gotten a piece of film showing a sunset and played it in reverse... Had they called their local astrophysicists, any one of us might have recommended that if they needed to save money, they could have shown the sunset in a mirror before they showed it running backward.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Running
Moving
Sunset
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There's no greater sign of the failure of the American educational system than the extent to which Americans are distracted by the possibility that Earth might end on December 21, 2012. It's a profound absence of awareness of the laws of physics and how nature works. So they're missing some science classes in their training in high school or in college that would empower them to understand and to judge when someone else is basically just full of it. Science is like an inoculation against charlatans who would have you believe whatever it is they tell you.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Believe
Educational
School
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Part of what it is to be scientifically-literate is how you think about information that's presented in front of you. I think that's the great challenge. You have people who believe they do know how to think about the information, but don't, and they're in the position of power and legislation. You can't base a society on non-objectively verifiable truth. Otherwise, it's a fantasy land and science is the pathway to those emerging truths that are hard-earned and that some have taken decades, if not centuries, to emerge from experiments all around the world.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Believe
Taken
Thinking
Copy Quote
Does it mean, if you don't understand something, and the community of physicists don't understand it, that means God did it? Is that how you want to play this game? Because if it is, here's a list of things in the past that the physicists at the time didn't understand [and now we do understand] [...]. If that's how you want to invoke your evidence for God, then God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller and smaller as time moves on - so just be ready for that to happen, if that's how you want to come at the problem
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Ignorance
Mean
Moving
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When you advance a frontier and you do tomorrow what's never been done today, you have to innovate to make that happen. You become an innovation culture. When I grew up, every time I turned around it was, "Oh, here's the longest bridge or the deepest tunnel or the fastest airplane." And I originally thought that was just kind of like a pissing contest with men with too much testosterone. And then I realized that to make the tallest building you have to innovate. To make the fastest train you have to design the train in a way that it's never been designed before.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Men
Airplane
Bridges
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To assert that the universe has a purpose implies the universe has intent. And intent implies a desired outcome. But who would do the desiring? And what would a desired outcome be? That carbon-based life is inevitable? Or that sentient primates are life's neurological pinnacle? Are answers to these questions even possible without expressing a profound bias of human sentiment? Of course humans were not around to ask these questions for 99.9999% of cosmic history. So if the purpose of the universe was to create humans then the cosmos was embarrassingly inefficient about it.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Cosmos
Profound
Purpose
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I grew up in New York City where there is no night sky. Nobody has a relationship with the sky, because, particularly in the day, there was air pollution and light pollution, and you look up, and your sight line terminates on buildings. You know the sun and maybe the moon, and that's about it. So what happens is that I am exposed to the night sky as you would see it from a mountaintop, and I'm just struck by it. Suppose I grew up on a farm where I had that sky every night of my life - then you're not going to be struck by it. It's just the wallpaper of your nighttime dome.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
New York
Moon
Night
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I don't have an issue with what you do in the church but I'm going to be up in your face if you're going to knock on my science classroom and tell me I got to teach what you're teaching in your Sunday school. That's when we're going to fight... There's no tradition of scientists knocking down the Sunday school door, telling the preacher 'that might not necessarily be true.' That's never happened. There are no scientists picketing out front of churches. There's been this coexistence forever, so to have religious communities knocking down the science door, there's something wrong there.
Neil Degrasse Tyson / Astrophysicist
Fear
Religious
Teaching
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Neil Degrasse Tyson Quotes - Page 18

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