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Light Years Quotes

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Light Years Quotes

“I think that the event which, more than anything else, led me to the search for ways of making more powerful radio telescopes, was the recognition, in 1952, that the intense source in the constellation of Cygnus was a distant galaxy—1000 million light years away. This discovery showed that some galaxies were capable of producing radio emission about a million times more intense than that from our own Galaxy or the Andromeda nebula, and the mechanisms responsible were quite unknown. ... [T]he possibilities were so exciting even in 1952 that my colleagues and I set about the task of designing instruments capable of extending the observations to weaker and weaker sources, and of exploring their internal structure.”

ScienceUniverseSpacePowerPossibilitySourceStructureAstronomyObservationIntensityMechanismTelescopeMilky WayNobel LaureateLight YearsGalaxiesAndromedaAndromeda GalaxyRadio AstronomyRadio Telescope
Author:Martin Ryle
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“The problem here is that a civilization that is 1,000 light years away doesn't know we exist. They don't know that we have radio telescopes here on Earth because they see Earth as it was 1,000 years ago. Nothing can travel faster than light, so however good their instruments they can't see in affect the future. So there is no particular reason they should be sending us messages at this time.”

KnowsShouldYearsReasonProblemLightEarthParticularCivilizationMessagesYears AgoInstrumentsRadioFasterTelescopesLight Years
Author:Paul Davies
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“The Tyranni rule fifty worlds; they are outnumbered hundreds to one. In such a position, simple force is insufficient. Devious methods, intrigue, assassination are their specialties. The net they weave across space is a wide one, and close-meshed. I can well believe that it extends across five hundred light-years to Earth.”

WorldYearsBelieveWellsI CanLightEarthForceSimpleSpaceFivePositionHundredMethodWideFiftyIntrigueAssassinationInsufficientSpecialtyDeviousLight Years
Book:The Stars, Like Dust
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“Our soldiers did not go to some foreign country and risk their lives in vain and defend our Constitution so that decades later you can tell me it's a living document ever changing and is open to interpretation. The guys who wrote it were light years ahead of anyone today, and they meant what they said - now leave the document alone, or there's going to be trouble.”

YearsSaidCountryLightTodayGuyRiskTroubleAtheismConstitutionSoldierPositive AtheismDecadesVainInterpretationDocumentsThey SaidForeign CountriesLight Years
Author:Ted Nugent
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“In any case, the leading edge of our "on purpose" radio signals is 30 light-years away and, if intercepted, may mend the aliens' image of us based on the radio bubble of our television shows. But this will happen only if the aliens can somehow determine which type of signal comes closer to the truth of who we are, and what our cosmic identity deserves to be.”

IfsYearsMayShowsLightHappensPurposeCasesIdentityTelevisionTypeDeserveEdgesDetermineRadioAliensWho We AreCosmicBubblesSignalsTelevision ShowsLight Years
Book:Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries
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“The United States of America is a flawed society. As it comprises human beings, it must be flawed. But in terms of the goodness achieved inside its borders and spread elsewhere in the world, it has been the finest country that ever existed. If you were to measure the moral gulf between America and those who despise it, the divide would have to be calculated in light-years.”

IfsWorldYearsHumansHas BeensCountryStatesLightAmericaTermHuman BeingsUnitedMoralUnited StatesGoodnessSpreadBordersDividesDespiseElsewhereUnited States Of AmericaFinestFlawedLight Years
Author:Dennis Prager
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“The thing is too that when you sell people a false reality and they take that to be the norm, when that false reality is light-years from what’s really happening, that in itself is a tremendous defense mechanism because when you start talking about what is actually happening, it is so different from what people perceive to be happening. They just can’t make that jump; it’s too insane for them.”

PeopleYearsDifferentRealityLightTalkingHappeningsSellsDefenseInsanePerceiveMechanismNormDefense MechanismsLight YearsFalse Reality
Author:David Icke
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“At 17, the smallest crises took on tremendous proportions; someone else's thoughts could take root in the loam of your own mind; having someone accept you was as vital as oxygen. Adults, light years away from this, rolled their eyes and smirked and said, 'This too shall pass' - as if adolescence was a disease like chicken pox, something everyone recalled as a milk nuisance, completely forgetting how painful it had been at the time.”

IfsYearsMindSaidLightEyeForgetAcceptingDiseaseAdultsRootsCrisisPainfulProportionChickensMilkSmallestAdolescenceOxygenNuisanceLight YearsPoxThis Too Shall Pass
Author:Jodi Picoult
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“To the philosophers of India, however, Relativity is no new discovery, just as the concept of light years is no matter for astonishment to people used to thinking of time in millions of kalpas, (A kalpa is about 4,320,000 years). The fact that the wise men of India have not been concerned with technological applications of this knowledge arises from the circumstance that technology is but one of innumerable ways of applying it.”

PeopleThinkingMenWayYearsMatterFactsLightUsedMillionsTechnologyWiseCircumstancesConceptsDiscoveryConcernedIndiaPhilosopherAriseApplicationTechnologicalRelativityAstonishmentNew DiscoveriesLight Years
Author:Alan Watts
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“And when you look at the sky you know you are looking at stars which are hundreds and thousands of light-years away from you. And some of the stars don’t even exist anymore because their light has taken so long to get to us that they are already dead, or they have exploded and collapsed into red dwarfs. And that makes you seem very small, and if you have difficult things in you life it is nice to think that they are what is called negligible, which means they are so small you don’t have to take them into account when you are calculating something.”

IfsThinkingKnowsYearsLooksMeanLongLightSeemsScienceStarsDifficultTakenNiceSkyRedAccountsAstronomyDifficult ThingsCosmologyAway From YouDwarfsCalculatingLight Years
Author:Mark Haddon
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“The near side of a galaxy is tens of thousands of light-years closer to us than the far side; thus we see the front as it was tens of thousands of years before the back. But typical events in galactic dynamics occupy tens of millions of years, so the error in thinking of an image of a galaxy as frozen in one moment of time is small.”

ThinkingYearsMomentsLightSidesMillionsFrontsEventsErrorsTypicalFrozenGalaxyDynamicsLight YearsFar Side
Book:Cosmos
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“When I moved to Brighton from London in 1995, I was struck by what I thought of as its townliness. A town, it seemed to me, was that perfect place to live, neither city nor country, both of which like to think they are light years apart but actually have a great deal in common.”

ThinkingYearsCountryLightPerfectDealsCommonCitiesTownsMovedLondonPlaces To LiveLight YearsBrighton
Book:Made in Brighton: From the Grand to the Gutter: Modern Britain as Seen from Beside the Sea
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“When we gaze at a star in the Milky Way which is 50,000 light-years away from our sun, we are looking back 50,000 years in time." "The idea is much too big for my little head." "The only way we can look out into space, then, is to look back in time. We can never know what the universe is like now. We only know what it was like then. When we look up at a star that is thousands of light-years away, we are really traveling thousands of years back in the history of space.”

KnowsWayYearsLooksLittlesIdeasBigsLightUniverseStarsSpaceSunLook UpLooking BackBack In TimeMilky WayLight Years
Author:Jostein Gaarder
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“There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now... What do you mean you’ve never been to Alpha Centauri? Oh, for heaven’s sake, mankind, it’s only four light years away, you know. I’m sorry, but if you can’t be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, that’s your own lookout. Energize the demolition beams.”

IfsKnowsYearsMeanHas BeensLightEarthOrderHeavenInterestActingFourMankindLateSorryAffairSakePlanningLocalsPlentyDepartmentToo LateDisplayFormalComplaintsI'm SorryNo PointBotheredBeamAlphasLodgesLight YearsDemolition
Author:Douglas Adams
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“There is much that science doesn't understand, many mysteries still to be resolved. In a Universe tens of billions of light-years across and some ten or fifteen billion years old, this may be the case forever. We are constantly stumbling on new surprises”

YearsMayStillsLightUniverseCasesForeverMysteryTenSurpriseBillionsFifteenStumblingLight Years
Book:Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
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“I focused on the passing houses filled with couples who’d somehow survived this teenage craziness of ‘he likes her but she likes him and he likes somebody else, you just can’t win.’ How did they do it? How did they end up in their golden, warm and cozy living rooms with their 2.3 children and dogs and cats? Because getting from where I was to where they were seemed millions of light years away.”

YearsChildrenEndsLightHouseWinningRoomsMillionsDogCoupleCatFilledWarmFocusedLikesPassingPassingsGoldenSurvivedTeenageLiving RoomCrazinessCan't WinCozyCat And DogLight Years
Author:Sarah Strohmeyer
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“Sarcastic Science, she would like to know, In her complacent ministry of fear, How we propose to get away from here When she has made things so we have to go Or be wiped out. Will she be asked to show Us how by rocket we may hope to steer To some star off there, say, a half light-year Through temperature of absolute zero? Why wait for Science to supply the how When any amateur can tell it now? The way to go away should be the same As fifty million years ago we came- If anyone remembers how that was I have a theory, but it hardly does.”

IfsKnowsWayShouldYearsMayDoeMadeShowsLightRememberScienceStarsWaitingHalfMillionsTheoryYears AgoAccountsAbsolutesFiftyGet AwaySarcasticGoing AwayZeroMinistryTemperatureProposeRocketsSteersComplacentLight Years
Author:Robert Frost
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“Our life as consumers seems light years away from that of our grandparents. But you don't change human nature. Optimism, for me, is the belief that we can spread the opportunity for everyone to be fully human. Sustainability, like music, is an impulse to make sense of the world around us. It is core to our humanity. If you only like one composer, or think all the best music has already been written, you have reason for pessimism. If not, it is within us to have good reason for hope”

IfsThinkingWorldYearsHumansReasonLightSeemsHumanityOpportunityBeliefVisionOur LivesWrittenHuman NatureFutureMusic IsOptimismSpreadCoreConsumersImpulseMake SensePessimismComposerSustainabilityGrandparentDon't ChangeSustainable DevelopmentAll The BestLight Years
Author:Ed Mayo
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“Time, we know, is relative. You can travel light years through the stars and back, and if you do it at the speed of light then, when you return, you may have aged mere seconds while your twin brother or sister will have aged twenty, thirty, forty or however many years it is, depending on how far you traveled. This will come to you as a profound shock, particularly if you didn't know you had a twin brother or sister.”

IfsKnowsYearsMayLightTimeStarsBrotherReturnTwentiesMereProfoundSpeedThirtyShockFortySecondsRelativeTwinsTraveledSisterSpeed Of LightLight YearsTwin BrotherTravel Light
Book:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
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“For Star Trek proves, as faulty as individual episodes could be, is that the much-maligned common man and common woman has an enormous hunger for brotherhood. They are ready for the twenty-third century now, and they are light-years ahead of their petty governments and their visionless leaders.”

MenYearsLightGovernmentIndividualStarsCommonLeaderProgressCenturyReadyProveThirdsTwentiesHungerImprovementEnormousBrotherhoodEpisodesPettyCommon ManLight Years
Author:Gene Roddenberry
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“Only man is a narcissistic enough species to think that a highly evolved alien life force would travel across billions and billions of light-years- a group of aliens so intelligent, so insouciant, so utterly above it all, they feel no need whatsoever to equip their spacecraft with windows so that they can gaze out on all that celestial beauty-but then immediately upon landing, their first impulse is to get in some hick's ass with a flashlight.”

ThinkingMenNeedsFeelsYearsFirstsEnoughLightForceGroupsWindowIntelligentSpeciesBillionsAssAliensImpulseNarcissismNarcissisticCelestialLandingFlashlightsSpacecraftLight YearsHicksAlien Life
Author:Dennis Miller
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