Some of the greatest poetry is revealing to the reader the beauty in something that was so simple you had taken it for granted.
If all that you see, do, measure and discover is the will of a deity, then ideas can never be proven wrong, you have no predictive power, and you are at a loss to understand the principles behind most of the fundamental interconnections of nature.
Not only are we in the universe, the universe is in us. I don’t know of any deeper spiritual feeling than what that brings upon me.
I believe that the manned space program can engage the public by advancing the space frontier. Every next mission takes you farther out in space than you were before, either technologically or in terms of distance.
I can’t think that leaving Earth once is enough.
Doing what has never been done before is intellectually seductive, whether or not we deem it practical.
There are countless space activities that would be no less exciting than the moon missions were, I have no doubt. The search for life on Mars, for example.
When scientifically investigating the natural world, the only thing worse than a blind believer is a seeing denier.
Where ignorance lurks, so too do the frontiers of discovery and imagination.
My view is that if your philosophy is not unsettled daily then you are blind to all the universe has to offer.
If there’s something that someone else can do, let them do it. If I couldn’t do it uniquely, let someone else do it and I would get back to the lab.
Italy valued cathedrals while Spain valued explorers. So worldwide, five times as many people speak Spanish than Italian.
The more I learn about the universe, the less convinced I am that there’s any sort of benevolent force that has anything to do with it, at all.
If there’s some kind of rock star status, would I be irresponsible if I didn’t somehow use it for a continued greater good? I’m always involved in some way with reaching the public.
The universe is hilarious! Like, Venus is 900 degrees. I could tell you it melts lead. But that’s not as fun as saying, ‘You can cook a pizza on the windowsill in nine seconds.’ And next time my fans eat pizza, they’re thinking of Venus!
Some morning while your eating breakfast and you need something new to think about, though, you might want to ponder the fact that you see your kids across the table not as they are but as they once were, about three nanoseconds ago.
Perhaps we’ve never been visited by aliens because they have looked upon Earth and decided there’s no sign of intelligent life.
I don’t have specific television ambitions in the sense that I remain fundamentally and academic, and so, my innermost ambitions are what’s the next discovery I can make; that’s in my direct center.
Kids are never the problem. They are born scientists. The problem is always the adults. They beat the curiosity out of kids. They outnumber kids. They vote. They wield resources. That’s why my public focus is primarily adults.
Many people feel small because they’re small and the universe is big, but I feel big.