TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “I believe that this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index A > Category: Astrophysics

Astrophysics Quotes (15 quotes)

[My favourite fellow of the Royal Society is the Reverend Thomas Bayes, an obscure 18th-century Kent clergyman and a brilliant mathematician who] devised a complex equation known as the Bayes theorem, which can be used to work out probability distributions. It had no practical application in his lifetime, but today, thanks to computers, is routinely used in the modelling of climate change, astrophysics and stock-market analysis.
Quoted in Max Davidson, 'Bill Bryson: Have faith, science can solve our problems', Daily Telegraph (26 Sep 2010)
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Application (257)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Century (319)  |  Change (639)  |  Climate (102)  |  Climate Change (76)  |  Complex (202)  |  Computer (131)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Equation (138)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Known (453)  |  Market (23)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Model (106)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Practical (225)  |  Practicality (7)  |  Probability (135)  |  Routine (26)  |  Royal (56)  |  Royal Society (17)  |  Society (350)  |  Thank (48)  |  Thanks (26)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Today (321)  |  Work (1402)

All our knowledge has been built communally; there would be no astrophysics, there would be no history, there would not even be language, if man were a solitary animal. What follows? It follows that we must be able to rely on other people; we must be able to trust their word. That is, it follows that there is a principle, which binds society together because without it the individual would be helpless to tell the truth from the false. This principle is truthfulness.
In Lecture at M.I.T. (19 Mar 1953), collected in 'The Sense of Human Dignity', Science and Human Values (1956, 1990), 57.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Bind (26)  |  Build (211)  |  Communal (7)  |  False (105)  |  Follow (389)  |  Helpless (14)  |  History (716)  |  Individual (420)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Language (308)  |  Man (2252)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Principle (530)  |  Rely (12)  |  Society (350)  |  Solitary (16)  |  Tell (344)  |  Together (392)  |  Trust (72)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Word (650)

How then did we come to the “standard model”? And how has it supplanted other theories, like the steady state model? It is a tribute to the essential objectivity of modern astrophysics that this consensus has been brought about, not by shifts in philosophical preference or by the influence of astrophysical mandarins, but by the pressure of empirical data.
In The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe (1977), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Consensus (8)  |  Data (162)  |  Empirical (58)  |  Empiricism (21)  |  Essential (210)  |  Influence (231)  |  Model (106)  |  Modern (402)  |  Objectivity (17)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Preference (28)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Shift (45)  |  Standard Model (2)  |  State (505)  |  Steady (45)  |  Steady-State (7)  |  Supplanting (2)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Tribute (10)

I have no trouble publishing in Soviet astrophysical journals, but my work is unacceptable to the American astrophysical journals.
[Referring to the trouble he had with the peer reviewers of Anglo-American astrophysical journals because his ideas often conflicted with the generally accepted or “standard"” theories.]
Quoted in Anthony L. Peratt, 'Dean of the Plasma Dissidents', Washington Times, supplement: The World and I (May 1988),197.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  American (56)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Idea (881)  |  Journal (31)  |  Publication (102)  |  Soviet (10)  |  Standard (64)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Unacceptable (3)  |  Work (1402)

I know all about neutrinos, and my friend here knows about everything else in astrophysics.
His standard phrase when introducing himself and a colleague to a new acquaintance.
Sky and Telescope (Jan 1990)
Science quotes on:  |  Acquaintance (38)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Everything (489)  |  Friend (180)  |  Himself (461)  |  Know (1538)  |  Neutrino (11)  |  New (1273)  |  Phrase (61)

If I were working in astrophysics I would find it quite hard to explain to people what I was doing. Natural history is a pretty easy thing to explain. It does have its complexities, but nowhere do you speak about things that are outside people’s experience. You might speak about a species that is outside their experience, but nothing as remote as astrophysics.
From interview with Michael Bond, 'It’s a Wonderful Life', New Scientist (14 Dec 2002), 176, No. 2373, 48.
Science quotes on:  |  Complexity (121)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Easy (213)  |  Experience (494)  |  Explain (334)  |  Find (1014)  |  Hard (246)  |  History (716)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Outside (141)  |  People (1031)  |  Remote (86)  |  Speak (240)  |  Species (435)  |  Thing (1914)

If the observation of the amount of heat the sun sends the earth is among the most important and difficult in astronomical physics, it may also be termed the fundamental problem of meteorology, nearly all whose phenomena would become predictable, if we knew both the original quantity and kind of this heat.
In Report of the Mount Whitney Expedition, quoted in Charles Greeley Abbot, Adventures in the World of Science (1958), 17. Also quoted and cited in David H. Devorkin, 'Charles Greeley Abbot', Biographical Memoirs (1998), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Become (821)  |  Both (496)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Heat (180)  |  Important (229)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Meteorology (36)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Observation (593)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Predictable (10)  |  Problem (731)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Sun (407)  |  Term (357)

If this plane were to crash, we could get a new start on this quasar problem.
Said to colleagues, dramatically cupping his hand over his brow, shortly after the take-off of a propeller plane leaving Austin, Texas, after the Second Texas Symposium for Relativistic Astrophysics in Dec 1964. Various different theories had been presented at the conference. The flight passengers included many of the major scientists in quasar research, including Margaret and Geoffrey Burbridge, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, John Wheeler and Maarten Schmidt.
As quoted by Arthur I. Miller, Empire of the Stars (2005), 226.
Science quotes on:  |  Airplane (43)  |  Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (8)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Conference (18)  |  Crash (9)  |  Different (595)  |  Flight (101)  |  Major (88)  |  New (1273)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Quasar (4)  |  Research (753)  |  Maarten Schmidt (2)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Small (489)  |  Start (237)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Various (205)  |  John Wheeler (40)

My observations of the young physicists who seem to be most like me and the friends I describe in this book tell me that they feel as we would if we had been chained to those same oars. Our young counterparts aren’t going into nuclear or particle physics (they tell me it’s too unattractive); they are going into condensed-matter physics, low-temperature physics, or astrophysics, where important work can still be done in teams smaller than ten and where everyone can feel that he has made an important contribution to the success of the experiment that every other member of the collaboration is aware of. Most of us do physics because it’s fun and because we gain a certain respect in the eyes of those who know what we’ve done. Both of those rewards seem to me to be missing in the huge collaborations that now infest the world of particle physics.
Alvarez: Adventures of a Physicist (1987), 198.
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Both (496)  |  Certain (557)  |  Collaboration (16)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Counterpart (11)  |  Describe (132)  |  Do (1905)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Eye (440)  |  Feel (371)  |  Friend (180)  |  Gain (146)  |  Know (1538)  |  Low (86)  |  Matter (821)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Missing (21)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Physics (6)  |  Observation (593)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Particle Physics (13)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Research (753)  |  Respect (212)  |  Reward (72)  |  Still (614)  |  Success (327)  |  Team (17)  |  Tell (344)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)  |  Young (253)

One of the great triumphs of 20th Century astrophysics, was tracing the elements of your body, of all the elements around us, to the actions of stars—that crucible in the centers of stars that cooked basic elements into heavier elements, light elements into heavy elements. (I say “cooked”—I mean thermonuclear fusion.) The heat brings them together, gets you bigger atoms, that then do other interesting chemical things, fleshing out the contents of the Periodic Table.
From interview, The Science Studio video series of The Science Network website, episode 'The Moon, the Tides and why Neil DeGrasse Tyson is Colbert’s God' (20 Jan 2011), time 20:53-21:25.
Science quotes on:  |  20th Century (40)  |  Action (342)  |  Atom (381)  |  Basic (144)  |  Body (557)  |  Center (35)  |  Century (319)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Cook (20)  |  Crucible (8)  |  Do (1905)  |  Element (322)  |  Fusion (16)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heat (180)  |  Heavy (24)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Light (635)  |  Mean (810)  |  Other (2233)  |  Periodic Table (19)  |  Say (989)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Table (105)  |  Thermonuclear (4)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Together (392)  |  Trace (109)  |  Triumph (76)

Students using astrophysical textbooks remain essentially ignorant of even the existence of plasma concepts, despite the fact that some of them have been known for half a century. The conclusion is that astrophysics is too important to be left in the hands of astrophysicists who have gotten their main knowledge from these textbooks. Earthbound and space telescope data must be treated by scientists who are familiar with laboratory and magnetospheric physics and circuit theory, and of course with modern plasma theory.
[Lamenting the traditional neglect of plasma physics]
Quoted in Anthony L. Peratt, 'Dean of the Plasma Dissidents', Washington Times, supplement: The World and I (May 1988),197.
Science quotes on:  |  Astrophysicist (7)  |  Century (319)  |  Circuit (29)  |  Concept (242)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Course (413)  |  Data (162)  |  Earthbound (4)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Modern (402)  |  Must (1525)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Plasma (8)  |  Remain (355)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Space (523)  |  Student (317)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Theory (1015)

The greatest of all spectral classifiers, Antonia Maury had two strikes on her: the biggest one was, she was a woman. A woman had no chance at anything in astronomy except at Harvard in the 1880’s and 1890’s. And even there, things were rough. It now turns out that her director, E.C. Pickering, did not like the way she classified; she then refused to change to suit him; and after her great publication in Harvard Annals 28 (1897), she left Harvard—and in a sense, astronomy. ... I would say the most remarkable phenomenological investigation in modern astronomy is Miss Maury’s work in Harvard Annals 28. She didn’t have anything astrophysical to go on. Investigations between 1890 and 1900 were the origin of astrophysics. But these were solar, mostly. And there Miss Maury was on the periphery. I’ve seen pictures of groups, where she’d be standing away a little bit to one side of the other people, a little bit in the background. It was a very sad thing. When Hertzsprung wrote Pickering to congratulate him on Miss Maury’s work that had led to Hertzsprung’s discovery of super giants, Pickering is supposed to have replied that Miss Maury’s work was wrong — could not possibly be correct.
'Oral History Transcript: Dr. William Wilson Morgan' (8 Aug 1978) in the Niels Bohr Library & Archives.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Background (44)  |  Chance (244)  |  Change (639)  |  Classification (102)  |  Congratulation (5)  |  Correctness (12)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Giant (73)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Group (83)  |  Harvard (7)  |  Ejnar Hertzsprung (2)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Little (717)  |  Antonia Maury (2)  |  Miss (51)  |  Modern (402)  |  Most (1728)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Periphery (3)  |  Phenomenology (3)  |  Photograph (23)  |  Edward Charles Pickering (2)  |  Picture (148)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Publication (102)  |  Reply (58)  |  Research (753)  |  Sadness (36)  |  Say (989)  |  Sense (785)  |  Side (236)  |  Spectrum (35)  |  Strike (72)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)  |  Woman (160)  |  Work (1402)  |  Wrong (246)

Until 1930 or thereabout biologists [using microscopes], in the situation of Astronomers and Astrophysicists, were permitted to see the objects of their interest, but not to touch them; the cell was as distant from us, as the stars and galaxies were from them.
Nobel Lecture, The Coming Age of the Cell, 12 Dec 1974
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Astrophysicist (7)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Biology (232)  |  Cell (146)  |  Galaxies (29)  |  Interest (416)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Object (438)  |  See (1094)  |  Situation (117)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Touch (146)

We have learned that there is an endocrinology of elation and despair, a chemistry of mystical insight, and, in relation to the autonomic nervous system, a meteorology and even... an astro-physics of changing moods.
Literature and Science (1963), 90.
Science quotes on:  |  Autonomic (2)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Despair (40)  |  Endocrinology (2)  |  Insight (107)  |  Joy (117)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Meteorology (36)  |  Mood (15)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Nervous System (35)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  System (545)

Who can fail to be uplifted by the kind of vision that the laureates in physics have provided into the outer reaches of space?
Speech at the Nobel Banquet (10 Dec 1983) for his Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In Wilhelm Odelberg (ed.), Les Prix Nobel: The Nobel Prizes (1984), 43.
Science quotes on:  |  Fail (191)  |  Kind (564)  |  Laureate (2)  |  Outer Space (6)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Space (523)  |  Uplift (6)  |  Vision (127)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.