George Ellery Hale Quotes

11 Sourced Quotes

Like buried treasures, the outposts of the universe have beckoned to the adventurous from immemorial times. Princes and potentates, political or industrial, equally with men of science, have felt the lure of the uncharted seas of space, and through their provision of instrumental means the sphere of exploration has made new discoveries and brought back permanent additions to our knowledge of the heavens.

George Ellery Hale
It is a far cry from the facile imaginings of the philosopher to the rigorous demonstrations of exact science, and the true structure of the universe is not yet known.

George Ellery Hale
Thanks to Zeeman's discovery of the effect of magnetism on radiation, it appeared that the detection of such a magnetic field should offer no great difficulty, provided that it were sufficiently intense.

George Ellery Hale
The joys of the pioneer, the excitement that comes to him who looks for the first time upon an unknown land, the intense satisfaction of discovery, all belong to the successful investigator.

George Ellery Hale
An observatory, like any other laboratory of research, may concentrate its attention upon either one of two widely different objects: the accumulation of great stores of data in existing departments of knowledge, or the opening up and exploration of new fields of investigation.

George Ellery Hale
No archaeologist, whether Young or Champollion deciphering the Rosetta Stone, or Rawlinson copying the cuneiform inscription on the cliff of Behistun, was ever faced by a more fascinating problem than that which confronts the solar physicist engaged in the interpretation of the hieroglyphic lines of sun-spot spectra.

George Ellery Hale
We need the ideas of men from all parts of the world; we need the contributions they can make; and we need them more than we need larger instrumental means than we now possess.

George Ellery Hale
Scattered over the heavens are millions of stars, each representing a certain degree of development. The cloud forms of the nebulae tell us of stellar origins; the white, yellow, and red stars illustrate the rise and decline of stellar life; and the Earth itself affords a picture of what may remain after light and heat have been extinguished.

George Ellery Hale
According to the old view, the astronomer, soon after the setting of the Sun, retires to a lofty tower, from whose summit he gazes at the heavens throughout the long watches of the night. His eye, fixed to the end of a telescope tube, perceives wonders untold, while his mind sweeps with his vision through the very confines of the universe.

George Ellery Hale
Light is the most universal of all languages. Its messages reach us with equal faculty from the depths of the universe and from the electrons whirling in the nearest atom. Like the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, its tones are silent, but unlike them, it tells of the present as well as of the past.

George Ellery Hale
Starlight is falling on every square mile of the earth's surface, and the best we can do at present is to gather up and concentrate the rays that strike at area 100 inches in diameter.

George Ellery Hale