Quote of the day, mostly related to astronomy.

[messier 111]

"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." - Carl Sagan.

[messier 111]

“Astronomy is useful because it raises us above ourselves; it is useful because it is grand… It shows us how small is man’s body, how great his mind, since his intelligence can embrace the whole of this dazzling immensity, where his body is only an obscure point, and enjoy its silent harmony.”

– Henri Poincaré,
in La Valeur de la Science (1904)

[messier 111]

"You will certainly not doubt the necessity of studying astronomy and physics, if you are desirous of comprehending the relation between the world and Providence as it is in reality, and not according to imagination."

 

- Maimonides

[messier 111]

The time will come when diligent research over long periods will bring to light things which now lie hidden. A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the investigation of so vast a subject... And so this knowledge will be unfolded only through long successive ages. There will come a time when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them... Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come, when memory of us will have been effaced.”

 

― Seneca, Natural Questions

[messier 111]

“In the beginning there were only probabilities. The universe could only come into existence if someone observed it. It does not matter that the observers turned up several billion years later. The universe exists because we are aware of it.” - Martin Rees

[messier 111]

"There is a coherent plan to the universe, though I don't know what it's a plan for." - attributed to Fred Hoyle

[messier 111]

"The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one."

— Albert Einstein, Astrophysici

[messier 111]

“Philosophy [nature] is written in that great book which ever is before our eyes -- I mean the universe -- but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols in which it is written. The book is written in mathematical language, and the symbols are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without whose help it is impossible to comprehend a single word of it; without which one wanders in vain through a dark labyrinth.”

 

― Galileo

[messier 111]

"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit."

— Stephen Hawking, Astrophysicist

[messier 111]

"Hoyle's enduring insights into stars, nucleosynthesis, and the large-scale universe rank among the greatest achievements of 20th-century astrophysics. Moreover, his theories were unfailingly stimulating, even when they proved transient." - Martin Rees (referring to Fred Hoyle)

[messier 111]

“The reappearance of the crescent moon after the new moon; the return of the Sun after a total eclipse, the rising of the Sun in the morning after its troublesome absence at night were noted by people around the world; these phenomena spoke to our ancestors of the possibility of surviving death. Up there in the skies was also a metaphor of immortality.”

 

― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

[messier 111]

"To be the first to enter the cosmos, to engage, single-handed, in an unprecedented duel with nature—could one dream of anything more?"

— Yuri Gagarin, Russian Cosmonaut

[messier 111]

“Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are ‘patches of Godlight’ in the woods of our experience.”

 

― C.S. Lewis

[messier 111]

"The Moon is the first milestone on the road to the stars."

— Arthur C. Clarke, Science Fiction Writer

[Ylem]

“Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are ‘patches of Godlight’ in the woods of our experience.”

 

― C.S. Lewis

You can actually safely view a solar eclipse by looking at the little patches of the Sun.

[messier 111]

For my part, I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream. Van Gogh.

[messier 111]

"Comets are like cats: they have tails, and do precisely what they want." (David H. Levy).

[messier 111]

"The Cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be."

[messier 111]

Mortal as I am, I know that I am born for a day. But when I follow at my pleasure the serried multitude of the stars in their circular course, my feet no longer touch the earth.


- Ptolemy,c.150 AD

[messier 111]

If there is anything that can bind the heavenly mind of man to this dreary exile of our earthly home and can reconcile us with our fate so that one can enjoy living,—then it is verily the enjoyment of the mathematical sciences and astronomy.



– Johannes Kepler