Beep glagga beep wonk beep beep.
New generations grew to maturity wholly ignorant of the sky that had transfixed their ancestors and that had stimulated the modern age of science and technology.
She was determined to be as tough-minded as possible, without abandoning the sense of wonder that was driving her in the first place.
All three of Kepler’s laws of planetary motion can be derived from Newtonian principles. Kepler’s laws were empirical, based upon the painstaking observations of Tycho Brahe. Newton’s laws were theoretical, rather simple mathematical abstractions from which all of Tycho’s measurements could ultimately be derived. From these laws, Newton wrote with undisguised pride in the Principia, “I now demonstrate the frame of the System of the World.
Scepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer: there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged for fidelity and happiness. – GEORGE SANTAYANA Scepticism and Animal Faith, IX.
At depth on Jupiter and Saturn, the pressures are so great that atoms sweat electrons, and the air becomes a metal.
ELLIE IGNORED random access and advanced sequentially through the television stations. Lifestyles of the Mass Murderers and You Bet Your Ass were on adjacent channels. It was clear at a glance that the promise of the medium remained unfulfilled.
You’d be surprised how rarely something like that happens. In the long run, the aggressive civilizations destroy themselves, almost always. It’s their nature. They can’t help it. In such a case, our job would be to leave them alone. To make sure that no one bothers them. To let them work out their destiny.
It is a little unfair, I think, to criticize a person for not sharing the enlightenment of a later epoch, but it is also profoundly saddening that such prejudices were so extremely pervasive.
The fact that atoms are composed of three kinds of elementary particles – protons, neutrons and electrons – is a comparatively recent finding. The neutron was not discovered until 1932. Modern physics and chemistry have reduced the complexity of the sensible world to an astonishing simplicity: three units put together in various patterns make, essentially, everything.
Some people might kill it.” “It’s hard to kill a creature once it lets you see its consciousness.” He continued to carry both twig and larva.
From the surface of the Earth the Sun would have seemed to be flickering, as in a time-lapse movie. So there was a time when sunlight first broke through the dust pall, when the Sun, Moon and stars could first be noticed had there been anyone there to see them. There was a first sunrise and a first nightfall.
She was reasonably sure her remarks were not entirely foolish, and did not wish to be ignored, much less ignored and patronized alternately. Part of it – but only a part – she knew was due to the softness of her voice. So she developed a physics voice, a professional voice: clear, competent, and many decibels above conversational. With such a voice it was important to be right. She had to pick her moments.
The book was better than the movie. For one thing, there was a lot more in it. And some of the pictures were awfully different from the movie.
As ages passed, people learned from their ancestors. The more accurately you knew the position and movements of the Sun and Moon and stars, the more reliably you could predict when to hunt, when to sow and reap, when to gather the tribes. As precision of measurement improved, records had to be kept, so astronomy encouraged observation and mathematics and the development of writing.
The visions we offer our children shape the future. It matters what those visions are. Often they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Dreams are maps. Should I do something with this?
Einstein had been fascinated by Bernstein’s People’s Book of Natural Science, a popularization of science that described on its very first page the astonishing speed of electricity through wires and light through space. He wondered what the world would look like if you could travel on a wave of light. To travel at the speed of light? What an engaging and magical thought for a boy on the road in a countryside dappled and rippling in sunlight.
The Cardiff Giant that most Americans have seen is this copy. Barnum exhibited a fake fake.
What did she expect? It was like trying to visualize a new primary color or a world in which you could recognize several hundred acquaintances individually only by their smells... She could talk about this, but she couldn’t experience it.
Both Barnum and H. L. Mencken are said to have made the depressing observation that no one ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American public.