English Astronomer Quotes

James Bradley
William Henry Smyth
Richard Anthony Proctor
Edward Walter Maunder

Science deals with the finite though it may carry our thoughts to the infinite.

Richard Anthony Proctor
Richard Anthony Proctor
In fabricating new constellations, puerility and meanness aided blind zeal in ransacking the heavens for amorphotae, or unformed stars, wherewith to wheedle accidental rulers of the hour, by exalting them and a heterogeneous assemblage of modern implements, among the heroes and classical symbols of remote ages.

William Henry Smyth
William Henry Smyth
Comets cannot be homes of life; they are not sufficiently condensed; indeed, they are probably but loose congeries of small stones. But even if comets were of planetary size it is clear that life could not be supported on them; water could not remain in the liquid state on a world that rushed from one such extreme of temperature to another.

Edward Walter Maunder
Edward Walter Maunder
Hitherto we have considered the apparent motion of the star about its true place, as made only in a plane parallel to the ecliptic, in which case it appears to describe a circle in that plane; but since, when we judge of the place and motion of a star, we conceive it to be in the surface of a sphere, whose centre is our eye, 'twill be necessary to reduce the motion in that plane to what it would really appear on the surface of such a sphere, or (which will be equivalent) to what it would appear on a plane touching such a sphere in the star's true place.

James Bradley
James Bradley
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.

Hail! then, ye eyes that penetrate the inmost recesses of the heavens, and gazing upon the bosom of the sun with your sight-assisting tube, have dared to point out the spots on that eternal luminary !

In giving birth to us, the universe has performed its most astonishing creative act. Out of a hot, dense melee of subatomic particles... it has fashioned intelligence and consciousness... Somehow the anarchy of genesis has given way to exquisite, intricate order, so that now there are portions of the universe that can reflect upon themselves..