20th-century Astronomer Quotes

We became astronomers thinking we were studying the universe, and now we learn that we are just studying the 5 or 10 percent that is luminous.

Newton's own motto, "hypotheses non fingo" was, in a sense, disregarded by Newton himself: he rejected hypotheses only where they violated his own "regula philosophandi", that is to say, his principle of their strict parsimony. In terms of present-day methodology, we reject hypotheses as scientifically meaningless if they are incapable even of indirect test; and we reject them as superfluous or as implausible if they are too complex and artificial to conform with well established canons of inductive probability. But freedom of scientific theorizing must be preserved wherever the conditions of meaningfulness and of economy appear to be satisfied.

We have to beef up our searches, which are now pretty dismal, so we can find out about these things before we get hit. … It takes a dramatic event to get people's attention, and we thought the comet crash with Jupiter might have done the job. … we tend to ignore an extraterrestrial hazard that could reduce the planet to rubble. … What we really need is a good scare.

Brian G. Marsden

If a little kid ever asks you just why the sky is blue, you look him or her right in the eye and say, "It's because of quantum effects involving Rayleigh scattering combined with a lack of violet photon receptors in our retinae."

We live in an era when it seems legitimate to try everything conceivable within the known laws of physics, particularly in the absence of data.

Geoffrey Burbidge

The development of human awareness of the Universe evolved from the geocentric cosmology of the ancient world via the heliocentric cosmology of the Renaissance and the egocentric cosmology of the nineteenth century, to the ultimate destination of the Big-Bang theory of the expanding Universe.

People have been looking for this dark matter because there is a Nobel prize, for sure, waiting for whoever discovers it.

I have long believed that an experimentalist should not be unduely inhibited by theoretical untidyness. If he insists in having every last theoretical T crossed before he starts his research the chances are that he will never do a significant experiment. And the more significant and fundamental the experiment the more theoretical uncertainty may be tolerated. By contrast, the more important and difficult the experiment the more that experimental care is warranted. There is no point in attempting a half-hearted experiment with an inadequate apparatus.

Robert H. Dicke

The nation that neglects creative thought today will assuredly have its nose ground into the dust of tomorrow.

We do not know the truth. But sometimes we get a glimpse of the shadow of the truth. And where there is a shadow, somewhere there must be light.

Eric Mervyn Lindsay

Look at how perfect this thing is. It's like a jewel. You've got circular orbits. They're all in the same plane. They're all going around in the same direction... It's perfect, you know. It's gorgeous. It's almost uncanny.

The Mars we are trying to explore does not exist.

Michael C. Malin

The erection of artificial worlds in space is inevitable. Once man's breakthrough into space has begun, it will be as inversible as the discovery, colonization, and exploration of new countries during the age of great historical discoveries.

Iosif Shklovsky

So clear and sparkling is this autumn night that, with averted vision, I can see quite readily the wraithlike wisps of nebulosity that festoon and enmesh this entire little cluster.

Like cats' eyes gleaming in the gloom, the precious diamonds rest.

Robert B. Leighton

Thus, the very chance and randomness that prevent man from predicting the future are the tools that nature uses to insure not only the emergence of life in each expansion cycle of the universe but also the approach to perfection and complete harmony as more and complex forms of life evolve.

Theory may often delay understanding of new phenomena observed with new technology unless theorists are quite open-minded as to what types of physical laws may need to be applied: conservatism is unsafe...In astrophysics, historically, theories have only seldom had predictive usefulness as guides to experimenters.

Jesse L. Greenstein

The whole procedure [of shooting rockets into space]. presents difficulties of so fundamental a nature, that we are forced to dismiss the notion as essentially impracticable, in spite of the author's insistent appeal to put aside prejudice and to recollect the supposed impossibility of heavier-than-air flight before it was actually accomplished.

Richard van der Riet Woolley

If Copernicus taught us the lesson that we are not at the center of things, our present picture of the universe rubs it in.

Robert Kirshner

Beeping on and on you sing — Are you saying anything? Twinkle, twinkle more, pulsar, How I wonder what you are.

Victory loses its meaning without the memory of what you've vanquished.

Alastair Reynolds

… one of the most detrimental (and least discussed) effects of the crisis in science education in the world today is that we are creating a population increasingly unable to think skeptically about a wide range of issues.

Every object in the Universe with a temperature above absolute zero radiates in the infrared, so this part of the spectrum contains a great deal of information.

Astronomy differs from most sciences in that we cannot do experiments; the astronomer must build up from his existing observations a picture or "model" of the Universe, and then look for further effects which should be observable if his model is correct.

Only by doing the best we can with the very best that an era offers, do we find the way to do better in the future.