It’s clear that the universe is full of powerful black holes. The densities are so great that the laws of physics break down as we know them. Lawrence Krauss
Nothing is not exactly what they thought it was. It was a little bit different – the laws of Physics tell you even empty space is much more interesting than you thought it was: empty space is a boiling, bubbling brew of stuff that’s popping in and out of existence every second. And what’s more amazing is that we’re learning if you take just a bit of space and get rid of all the particles and all the radiation and everything, that it still weights something and we don’t understand why. Lawrence Krauss, The Unbelievers 2013, with Richard Dawkins
The whole thing is held together by entities which we don’t know exist at all and they have no real physical basis. Mike Disney
The question that’s been really exciting me is whether the universe will last for ever ... or will some day come to an end. Saul Perlmutter
For almost a century, the Universe has been known to be expanding as a consequence of the Big Bang about 14 billion years ago. However, the discovery that this expansion is accelerating is astounding. If the expansion will continue to speed up, the Universe will end in ice. Saul Perlmutter
The original project began because we know the universe is expanding. Everybody had assumed that gravity would slow down the expansion of the universe and everything would come to a halt and collapse. The big surprise was it was actually speeding up. Saul Perlmutter
We do not know why they [elementary particles] have the masses they do; we do not know why they transform into another the way they do; we do not know anything! The only concept that stands like the Rock of Gibraltar in our sea of confusion is the Pauli principle. George Gamow, cited Scientific American July 1959
If the expansion of the space of the universe is uniform in all directions, an observer located in anyone of the galaxies will see all other galaxies running away from him at velocities proportional to their distances from the observer. George Gamow
The knowledge that the atoms that comprise life on earth – the atoms that make up the human body – are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core under extreme temperatures and pressures. These stars – the high mass ones among them – went unstable in their later years – they collapsed and then exploded – scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy – guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and all the fundamental ingredients of life itself. These ingredients become part of gas clouds that condense, collapse, form the next generation of solar systems – stars with orbiting planets. And those planets now have the ingredients for life itself. So that when I look up at the night sky, and I know that yes we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up – many people feel small, ’cause they’re small and the universe is big. But I feel big because my atoms came from those stars. Neil deGrasse Tyson
My view is that if your philosophy is not unsettled daily then you are blind to all the universe has to offer. Neil deGrasse Tyson
The atoms of our bodies are traceable to stars that manufactured them in their cores and exploded these enriched ingredients across our galaxy, billions of years ago. For this reason, we are biologically connected to every other living thing in the world. We are chemically connected to all molecules on Earth. And we are atomically connected to all atoms in the universe. We are not figuratively, but literally stardust. Neil deGrasse Tyson
10th July 1962: The real Telstar satellite was built by AT&T, the phone company. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Nova: Origins: Back to the Beginning, PBS 2005
Penzias & Wilson ... picked up a faint microwave signal apparently coming from empty space. ibid.
In this version of the WMap picture the peaks are hot-spots that show where the super-cluster of galaxies were formed. ibid.
While the Copernican principle comes with no guarantees that it will forever guide us to cosmic truths, it’s worked quite well so far: not only is Earth not in the center of the solar system, but the solar system is not in the center of the Milky Way galaxy, the Milky Way galaxy is not in the center of the universe, and it may come to pass that our universe is just one of many that comprise a multiverse. And in case you’re one of those people who thinks that the edge may be a special place, we are not at the edge of anything either. Neil deGrasse Tyson
Recognize that the very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules, are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas clouds with the chemistry of life. So that we are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically. That’s kinda cool! That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It’s not that we are better than the universe, we are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us. Neil deGrasse Tyson
Beyond the outermost planet there’s a swarm of tens of thousands of frozen worlds. And Pluto is one of them. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey I: Standing Up in the Milky Way, Fox 2014
Why are there so many different kinds of life on this small planet? Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey II: Some of the Things That Molecules Do
We are each of us a living universe. ibid.
We were born into a mystery, one that has haunted us since at least as long as we’ve been human. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey III: When Knowledge Conquered Fear
Comets were portents of doom. ibid.
Newton: he could write the laws of Nature in perfect mathematical sentences. ibid
A Synopsis of the Astronomy of Comets. ibid. Edmund Halley
Seeing is not believing ... Realities which lie beyond human experience. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey IV: A Sky Full of Ghosts
The age and size of the cosmos are written in light. The nature of beauty and the substance of the stars, the laws of space and time, they were there all along. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey V: Hiding in the Light
Arabic astronomy was so influential that we still call most of the bright stars by their Arabic names ... Arabic was the language of science. ibid.
‘Finding truth is difficult. And the road to it is rough. As seekers of the truth you will be wise to withhold judgment and not simply put your trust in the writings of the ancients. You must question and critical examine those writings from every side. You must submit only to argument and experiment and not to the sayings of any person. For every human being is vulnerable to all kinds of imperfection. As seekers of the truth we must also suspect and question our own ideas as we perform our investigations to avoid falling into prejudice or careless thinking. Take this course and truth will be revealed to you.’ ibid. Ibn Alhazen
We don’t even know why there is a cosmic speed limit ... What is light anyway? ibid.
We live on one level of existence but there are others. These hidden dimensions of reality are everywhere. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey VI: Deeper, Deeper, Deeper Still
Plants: We’d be toast without them ... The plants are softly breathing. ibid.
In order for an idea to become a scientific law, it has to be unbreakable. That’s why I was willing to bet this face on the laws of the conservation of energy. ibid.
In some radioactive atoms the nucleus is spontaneously ejecting electrons: this transforms the atom to a different element ... Where did the missing energy go? ibid.
Physicists discovered that the atoms of each unstable element decay at a constant rate. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey VII: The Clean Room
Pickering assembled a team of women to map and classify the types of stars. One of them provided the key to our understanding of our substance of the stars. And another devised a way for us to calculate the size of the universe. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey VIII: Sisters of the Sun
Eventually, there were hundreds of billions of trees entombed in the Earth … Those trees had turned into immense deposits of coal. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey IX: Lost Worlds of Planet Earth IX
It all began in the mind of one person ... If this man had not lived, the world we know might not exist today: Michael Faraday. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey X: The Electric Boy
Must we die? Are there beings in the cosmos who live for ever? Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey XI: The Immortals
What is the life expectancy of a civilisation? ibid.