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Astrophysics Quotes

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Astrophysics Quotes

“All the scientists were upstaged at least 2,500 years earlier by Job, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other Bible authors. The Bible’s prophets and apostles stated explicitly and repeatedly the two most fundamental properties of the big bang, a transcendent cosmic beginning a finite time ago and a universe undergoing a general expansion.”

BibleAstrophysicsBig BangBig Bang Theory
Book:The Creator and the Cosmos: How the Greatest Scientific Discoveries of the Century Reveal God
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“In high altitude astronomical facilities we routinely discharged large amounts of nitrogen gas into closed spaces. We were never informed by the astronomy management team about the abnormally low oxygen environments that the use of liquid nitrogen creates, how long term exposure to it manifests itself in human health and the resulting abnormal mental behaviors.”

HealthHumanManagementAstronomyGasAltitudeMentalOxygenExposureLiquidHighAbnormalAstrophysicsBehaviorsAstronomicalNitrogenAstronomerAstrobiologyEnvironmentsAstrosociobiologyFacilitiesAbnormally
Author:Steven Magee
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“God of The Blue Rock (Sonnet) God of the gaps cannot be God of the world, and God of the world should not be abused as god of the gaps. As puny apes on an insignificant blue rock in a tiny backwater of the galaxy, we know nothing about the origin of the universe, but I can tell you one thing for a fact of earth biology, it has nothing to do with the anthropomorphic god of all the scriptures. If all it takes is a couple of burning bushes, magic tricks and fairytales to quench your quest for truth, you have neither the brain, nor the backbone, or the heart to explore truth. Fairytales provide nourishment for the mind, but only as tales of fantasy, not of truth. Myths are crucial part of the social fabric, but they must never become the backbone of society.”

GodMythologyFundamentalismScience And ReligionIndoctrinationBlind FaithDogmatismPursuit Of TruthAstrophysicsNeurotheology
Book:Sonnets From The Mountaintop
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“If you ask people where they're from, they will typically say the name of the city where they were born, or perhaps the place on Earth's surface where they spent their formative years. Nothing wrong with that. But an astrochemically richer answer might be, "I hail from the explosive jetsam of a multitude of high-mass stars that died more than 5 billion years ago.”

ScienceStarsAstrophysics
Book:Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries
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“When the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) found out that Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) were going to visit the site to assist in bringing it into legal compliance, they freaked out! They insisted that the visit had to be canceled and the result was that I eventually became so sick from the toxic workplace environment that I had no option but to leave.”

EnvironmentHealthSickSafetyAstronomyAdministrationOshaToxicSiteWorkplaceLeaveLegalComplianceObservatoryOutResultAstrophysicsOccupationalAstronomicalVisitOptionAstronomerNationalEventuallyAssistAstrobiologyAstrosociobiologyCanceledNoaoInsistedOpticalFreaked
Author:Steven Magee
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“I have been through the OSHA system twice and I can confirm that I did not have the right to a safe workplace or whistle-blower protection on either occasion.”

RightsHealthSafeMountainSafetyWorkersProtectionAstronomyOshaAltitudeMaunaKeaElectricRightElectricityWorkplaceTelescopeElectricalSystemTelescopesSolarSolar SystemRetaliationAstrophysicsWorkplace PoliticsSolar EnergyWorkerAstronomicalSolar PowerWhistleblowerMountaintopRights Of ManWhistleAstrobiologySystemic FailureOccasionTwiceConfirmSafe PlaceElectricidadBlowerSolar SystemsSolar PvWorker RightsWhistle Blower
Author:Steven Magee
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“In the meantime, we'll continue on, making new pathc through the woods to see what we might find hiding there. Someday, deep in the unknown wilderness of the distant future, the Sun will expand, the Earth will die, and the cosmos itself will come to an end. In the meantime, we have the entire universe to explore, pushing our creativity to its limits to find new ways of knowing our cosmic home. We can learn and create extraordinary things, and we can share them with each other. And as long as we are thinking creatures, we will never stop asking: "What comes next?”

LifeUniverseCosmosAstrophysics
Book:The End of Everything
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“At least once a week, if not once a day, we might each ponder what cosmic truths lie undiscovered before us, perhaps awaiting the arrival of a clever thinker, an ingenious experiment, or an innovative space mission to reveal them. We might further ponder how those discoveries may one day transform life on Earth. Absent such curiosity, we are no different from the provincial farmer who expresses no need to venture beyond the county line, because his forty acres meet all his needs. Yet if all our predecessors had felt that way, the farmer would instead be a cave dweller, chasing down his dinner with a stick and a rock. During our brief stay on planet Earth, we owe ourselves and our descendants the opportunity to explore—in part because it’s fun to do. But there’s a far nobler reason. The day our knowledge of the cosmos ceases to expand, we risk regressing to the childish view that the universe figuratively and literally revolves around us. In that bleak world, arms-bearing, resource-hungry people and nations would be prone to act on their “low contracted prejudices.” And that would be the last gasp of human enlightenment—until the rise of a visionary new culture that could once again embrace, rather than fear, the cosmic perspective.”

UniverseAstrophysicsCosmic Perspective
Book:Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
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“There were no witnesses to what was about to happen. 'Happen' didn't yet exist. Reality was timeless. Space also didn't exist. The distance between two points was immeasurable. The points themselves could be anywhere, hovering and bouncing. Infinity tangled into itself. There was no here and now. Only Being.”

LifeMatterRealityTimeUniverseSpaceCreationCosmologyAstrophysicsCosmo
Book:The Dancing Universe: From Creation Myths to the Big Bang
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“Since only a narrow range of the allowed values for, say, the fine structure constant will permit observers to exist in the Universe, we must find ourselves in the narrow range of possibilities which permit them, no matter how improbable they are. We must ask for the conditional probability of observing constants to take particular ranges, given that other features of the Universe, like its age, satisfy necessary conditions for life.”

LifeScienceUniverseAstrophysicsFine Structure ConstantConstants Of Nature
Book:The Constants of Nature: The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe
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“Oxygen deprivation and supplemental oxygen are both bio-hazards for Mauna Kea workers”

SickWorkersIllIllnessAstronomyOshaSicknessBiologyMaunaKeaOxygenDeprivedSupplementsBiologistBiologicalAstrophysicsWorkerAstronomicalSickness And HealthSupplementAstronomerAstrobiologySickness And DiseasesSuffocationAstrosociobiologySuffocateDepriveSickness Of The MindBiological TerrorismSickeningBiological NeedsWorker RightsDolOxygen Of LifeOxygen Theory
Author:Steven Magee
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“Snow cleaning of the world's largest telescope mirrors was an impressive sight. The optics technicians would climb into a huge telescopic boom lift and spray immense clouds of cold carbon dioxide snow and gas onto the ten meter diameter mirrors high above the floor indoors. It would cause some of the accumulated dirt to magically fall off, leaving it less dirty.”

WorldHugeColdSightCloudsAstronomySnowDirtyGasImmenseDirtCarbonCleaningImpressiveTelescopeMirrorSprayObservatoryTechniciansAstrophysicsClimbAstronomicalKeckOpticsAstronomerBoomAstrobiologyLiftAstrosociobiologyLargestDioxideAccumulatedMagicallyDiameterTelescopic
Author:Steven Magee
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“Space Exploration Ethics 101 If we can colonize Mars, we can heal the Earth. But that's not the point here. The point is, we gotta explore space just like we gotta explore anything unknown - but we must do so as humble scientists, not as steroid-pumped, illegitimate offspring of musky retards like Columbus. We gotta explore space just like we explore the Arctic. Humankind has several outposts in the Arctic, dedicated solely to research - our endeavors into other planets oughta be exactly like that. Otherwise, what starts out as space exploration will soon turn into space imperialism, and will do to other planets what white terrorists have been doing to the indegenous people on earth for ages. Therefore, focus on space exploration, not on space colonization. Let me put this into perspective. NASA, ISRO, CNSA, ESA, KARI, JAXA (and more) - these represent the real democratic aspirations of humankind's endeavors of curiosity into space, whereas SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic these are the new-age posterboys of space imperialism. All I say is this, O Brave Explorers of Space - your mission is to explore the universe to facilitate human welfare, not to be some retarded billionaire's backboneless underwear. Beware, I repeat - space exploration doesn't turn into space imperialism!”

AstronomySpace ExplorationNasaAstrophysicsRocket ScienceAstronautsSpace RaceSpace TourismIsroRocket Scientist
Book:Tum Dunya Tek Millet: Greatest Country on Earth is Earth
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“NASA, ISRO, CNSA, ESA, KARI, JAXA (and more) - these represent the real democratic aspirations of humankind's endeavors of curiosity into space, whereas SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic these are the new-age posterboys of space imperialism.”

Space ExplorationNasaAstrophysicsRocket ScienceAstronautsSpace RaceSpace TourismIsroSpace ResearchRocket Scientist
Book:Tum Dunya Tek Millet: Greatest Country on Earth is Earth
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“We use the effect of centrifugal forces on matter to offer insight into the rotation rate of extreme cosmic objects. Consider pulsars. With some rotating at upward of a thousand revolutions per second, we know that they cannot be made of household ingredients, or they would spin themselves apart. In fact, if a pulsar rotated any faster, say 4,500 revolutions per second, its equator would be moving at the speed of light, which tells you that this material is unlike any other. To picture a pulsar, imagine the mass of the Sun packed into a ball the size of Manhattan. If that’s hard to do, then maybe it’s easier if you imagine stuffing about a hundred million elephants into a Chapstick casing. To reach this density, you must compress all the empty space that atoms enjoy around their nucleus and among their orbiting electrons. Doing so will crush nearly all (negatively charged) electrons into (positively charged) protons, creating a ball of (neutrally charged) neutrons with a crazy-high surface gravity. Under such conditions, a neutron star’s mountain range needn’t be any taller than the thickness of a sheet of paper for you to exert more energy climbing it than a rock climber on Earth would exert ascending a three-thousand-mile-high cliff. In short, where gravity is high, the high places tend to fall, filling in the low places—a phenomenon that sounds almost biblical, in preparing the way for the Lord: “Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain” (Isaiah 40:4). That’s a recipe for a sphere if there ever was one. For all these reasons, we expect pulsars to be the most perfectly shaped spheres in the universe.”

InspirationalPhysicsCosmosGeekCelestialAstrophysicsNeil Degrasse TysonPulsar
Book:Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
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“Industrial liquid gas containers were left open and venting gas into the indoor environment in high altitude astronomy. On reflection, I realized that I routinely observed mental and physical effects that match those of a low oxygen environment in staff that I supervised.”

EnvironmentEffectsReflectionAstronomyOshaGasAltitudeStaffMentalOxygenLiquidHighPhysicalContainersAstrophysicsAstronomicalLowIndustrialVentingAstronomerAstrobiologyIndoorAstrosociobiologyObservedSupervised
Author:Steven Magee
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“From a philosophical point of view, Leibniz's most interesting argument was that absolute space conflicted with what he called the principle of the identity of indiscernibles (PII). PII says that if two objects are indiscernible, then they are identical, i.e. they are really one and the same object. What does it mean to call two objects indiscernible? It means that no difference at all can be found between them--they have exactly the same attributes. So if PII is true, then any two genuinely distinct objects must differ in at least one of their attributes--otherwise they would be one, not two. PII is intuitively quite compelling. It certainly is not easy to find an example of two distinct objects that share all their attributes. Even two mass-produced factory goods will normally differ in innumerable ways, even if the differences cannot be detected with the naked eye. Leibniz asks us to imagine two different universes, both containing exactly the same objects. In Universe One, each object occupies a particular location in absolute space.In Universe Two, each object has been shifted to a different location in absolute space, two miles to the east (for example). There would be no way of telling these two universes apart. For we cannot observe the position of an object in absolute space, as Newton himself admitted. All we can observe are the positions of objects relative to each other, and these would remain unchanged--for all objects are shifted by the same amount. No observations or experiments could ever reveal whether we lived in universe One or Two.”

LovePhilosophyScienceSpacePhysicsNewtonAstrophysicsLeibnizThought ExperimentsPiiPrinciple Of Indiscernibles
Book:Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction
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“Professor Napier and his colleague Victor Clube, formerly dean of the Astrophysics Department at Oxford University, go so far as to describe the 'unique complex of debris' within the Taurid stream as 'the greatest collision hazard facing the earth at the present time.' Coordination of their findings with those of Allen West, Jim Kennett, and Richard Firestone, as led both teams--the geophysicists and the astronomers--to conclude that it was very likely objects from the then much younger Taurid meteor stream that hit the earth around 12,800 years ago and caused the onset of the Younger Dryas. These objects, orders of magnitude larger than the one that exploded over Tunguska, contained extraterrestrial platinum, and what the evidence from the Greenland ice cores seems to indicate is an epoch of 21 years in which the earth was hit every year, with the bombardments increasing annually in intensity until the fourteenth year, when they peaked and then began to decline before ceasing in the twenty-first year.”

AstronomyEpochAstrophysicsYounger DryasBombardmentsGeophysicsCollision HazardTaurid Stream
Book:America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization
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