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Quote by Dennis Overbye

“Cosmology is serious business and in our hearts we are nothing if not cosmologists, hanging in a cold cage sifting the ruthless jewels of existence.”

Quote by Dennis Overbye

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Dennis Overbye
Dennis Overbye

Dennis Overbye is a renowned science writer, born on June 2, 1944. His works span a wide range of fields including science, technology, and culture, and are appreciated for their engaging style and imaginative approach. more

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“I never said it. Honest. Oh, I said there are maybe 100 billion galaxies and 10 billion trillion stars. It's hard to talk about the Cosmos without using big numbers. I said "billion" many times on the Cosmos television series, which was seen by a great many people. But I never said "billions and billions." For one thing, it's too imprecise. How many billions are "billions and billions"? A few billion? Twenty billion? A hundred billion? "Billions and billions" is pretty vague. When we reconfigured and updated the series, I checked-and sure enough, I never said it.”

“They have likewise discovered two lesser stars, or satellites, which revolve around Mars, whereof the innermost is distant from the center of the primary exactly three of his diameters, and the outermost five: the former revolves in the space of ten hours, and the latter in twenty-one and a half, so that the squares of their periodical times are very near in the same proportion with the cubes of their distances from the center of Mars; which evidently shows them to be governed by the same Law of Gravitation that influences the other heavenly bodies.”

“From the moment they had left the Earth, their own weight, and that of the Projectile and the objects therein contained, had been undergoing a progressive diminution. . . . Of course, it is quite clear, that this decrease could not be indicated by an ordinary scales, as the weight to balance the object would have lost precisely as much as the object itself. But a spring balance, for instance, in which the tension of the coil is independent of attraction, would have readily given the exact equivalent of the loss.”

“The distance between the earth and her satellite is a mere trifle, and undeserving of serious consideration. I am convinced that before twenty years are over one-half of our earth will have paid a visit to the moon.”