Neil deGrasse Tyson
Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of the
greatest astrophysicists on the planet. He is funny, geeky, nerdy, cool, and
any quality a man can possess. His quotes are funny, inspirational, and geeky,
obviously. He is the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at
the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
quotes from
science, geekiness, and multiverse to his weird humor that'd make anyone laugh.
Enjoy!
Neil deGrasse Tyson Quotes
A picture is worth
a thousand words, except for pictures of words that contain between 1 & 999
words.
I dream of a world
where truth shapes people's politics, rather politics shaping what people think
is true.
I want to live in a
world where a Chicken can cross the road without anybody questioning its
motives.
A virus walks into
a bar and orders a drink. The bartenders respond, “Sorry, we don’t serve
viruses”. So the virus jumps across the counter, invades their DNA, and turns
them into bartenders who do.
Don’t try this at
home…. At a rate of one number per second, it would take you 31 years to count
to a Billion.
Four concepts that
exist only in the negation of another word: non-fiction, un-retouched,
a-theist, un-abridged.
Odd, isn't it.
Every reason given for Daylight Saving Time in summer months could just as well
apply to winter months.
A subject is
scientifically controversial when actively debated by legions of scientists,
not when actively debated by the public, the press, or by politicians.
Evidence that
Humans are smarter than Cats: We don’t chase Laser dots on the carpet. Nor do
we fear Vacuum Cleaners.
You know it's true…
Every disaster movie begins with a scientist being ignored.
Geeky Physics Fact: If you die on your Birthday in the same hospital you were born, then your Average Velocity through life on Earth was zero.
Every now and then
I wish for more purple in the world. But then I wonder, in such a world,
whether purple would still be special to me.
Yes, the universe
had a beginning. Yes, the universe continues to evolve. And yes, every one of
our body's atoms is traceable to the big bang and to the thermonuclear furnace
within high-mass stars. We are not simply in the universe, we are part of it.
We are born from it. One might even say we have been empowered by the universe
to figure itself out — and we have only just begun.
I know that the
molecules in my body are traceable to phenomena in the cosmos.
That makes me want
to grab people on the street and say, "have you heard this?"
People cited
violation of the First Amendment when a New Jersey schoolteacher asserted that
evolution and the Big Bang are not scientific and that Noah's ark carried
dinosaurs. This case is not about the need to separate church and state; it's
about the need to separate ignorant, scientifically illiterate people from the
ranks of teachers.
Knowing how things
work is important, but I think that's an incomplete view of what science
literacy is or, at least, should be. Science literacy is an outlook. It's more
of a lens through which you observe what goes on around you.
If Pinocchio said,
"My nose is about to grow!" I wonder what would actually happen.
I wonder if the
first sentence uttered by the first computer to achieve consciousness will be,
“And, this too shall pass.”
If you remove all
food & drink from your life that make life worth living, I wonder if you'll
live forever.
I wonder how it
came to be: We sing the "Alphabet
Song" and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to exactly the same
tune.
If Bears were in
charge, after they hunted us to near-extinction, I wonder if they’d invent a candy
called Gummy Humans.
Creativity is
seeing what everyone else sees, but then thinking a new thought that has never
been thought before and expressing it somehow.
Some of the most
productive times in the histories of nations have been when they were badly
stressed — economically, politically, culturally or socially. It's possible to
be stressed to a point that more creativity is stimulated than would otherwise
be the case. I think it is true that necessity is the mother of invention.
The best educators
are the ones that inspire their students. That inspiration comes from a passion
that teachers have for the subject they're teaching. Most commonly, that person
spent their lives studying that subject, and they bring an infectious
enthusiasm to the audience.
Just a recursive
thought: Every word used to define every word in a Dictionary is also defined
in the same Dictionary.
Sometimes I’m the
last to know: Just learned that in
formal parlance the plural of “y’all” is “all y’all”.
It’s not magic.
It’s science.
I wonder if we will
ever see a Truck Commercial on television narrated by an announcer with a
high-pitch voice.
I wonder if the
past-tense of “Break Dance” is “Broke Dance”.
I always wondered
why the word "phonetically" isn't spelled phonetically.
If a predatory
enemy to our species can’t unite everyone on Earth to fight it, I'm left
wondering what hope remains for Civilization.
Seems to me, if
Thor is a god, with godlike powers, then he doesn't really need big muscles.
If you must know: The word parsec is a contraction of
“parallax-second”, the distance a star would be from the Sun if one half of its
parallax angle subtended one second of arc.
Nothing to tweet
today, except for all those who wanted more space, the Universe continues to
expand at about 70 kilometers per second, per Megaparsec.
I’m just sayin’.
It has been said
that every great emerging scientific truth goes to three phases: First people
say: "It can't be true". Second they say: "It conflicts with the
bible." Third they say: "It's true all along."
I took two bites,
bitch!
You don't take a
dead cat to the vet. I mean you might, but why?
I'm optimistic. I
see no longer people accepting fuzzy thinking in the world. The change is not
that people aren't still saying under-informed things. The change is that if
you're in power and you say something under-informed, there are people out
there with a voice who will take you to task for having done so.
The good thing
about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.
The SCIENTIFIC
METHOD: Do whatever it takes ensure you do not fool yourself into thinking
something is true that is actually false, or that something is false which is
actually true.
At home, Pie are
round. In math, Pi are squared.
Don't mean to brag,
but I’ve been pi-lingual from way back.
More Geeky
Chemistry Humor; If you are not part of the Solution then you're part of the
Precipitate.
Kids are never the
problem. They are born scientists. The problem is always the adults. They beat
the curiosity out of the kids. They out-number kids. They vote. They wield
resources. That's why my public focus is primarily adults.
My view is that if
your philosophy is not unsettled daily then you are blind to all the universe
has to offer.
Some of the
greatest poetry is revealing to the reader the beauty in something that was so
simple you had taken it for granted.
Words that make
questions may not be questions at all.
What is NASA's
mission? Is it to beat the russians? Is it to inspire?
If you want to
assert a truth, first make sure it's not just an opinion that you desperately
want to be true.
Ibn al-Haytham was
the first person ever to set down the rules of science.
Science is a
cooperative enterprise, spanning the generations. It's the passing of a torch
from teacher, to student, to teacher. A community of minds reaching back to
antiquity and forward to the stars.
All I can say is,
the universe is in a good shape, it's earth that has all the problems.
As important as
Steve Jobs was, no doubt about it — [and] you have to add him to Bill Gates,
because they birthed the personal computing revolution kind of together —
here's the difference: Elon Musk is trying to invent a future, not by providing
the next app.
Geeky Chemistry
Humor for Foodies: If Avogadro’s number is 6.022 x 10^23 (which equals one
Mole) then 6.022 x 10^23 Avocados equals one Guaca-Mole.
Seriously geeky
joke alert; Look away if you can't handle it….
Would love to visit
a Moon colony one day. But for me, a serious drawback is that the Restaurants
will have no Atmosphere.
Some of my best
friends -- actually all of my best friends -- are made of chemicals.
Not that anybody
asked, but “Friday the 6th” is exactly as rare as “Friday the 13th”, itself
arriving seven days later.
Curious that we
spend more time congratulating people who have succeeded than encouraging
people who have not.
The film "Ad
Astra" loves showing weightless astronauts. But space is not inherently
weightless. If your engines fire constantly because you're in a hurry to get to
the Moon or to Mars, then the acceleration creates artificial gravity — at the
rear-end of the ship. Always.
In the film
"Arrival" (2016) nobody wondered whether the circular patterns drawn
by the creature were backwards. The septopoid Alien drew them from the other
side of a transparent glass wall.
I wonder if I am
alone, thinking that Airports need more Ice Cream vendors.
Need to cry at
night, but don't want others to know? Look up to the sky. Your tears won't
fall, and the stars will make you smile.
Internet search
engines have a way of affirming your hypothesis, no matter what you have
hypothesized.
Jet flyovers get me
every time.
To be a Genius is
to be misunderstood. But to be misunderstood is not to be a Genius.
Imagine how much
more advanced society would be today if women, who comprise half the world’s
brain power, were socially & intellectually enfranchised from the beginning
of civilization.
I’m a fan of
moderation, but only in moderation.
Neil deGrasse Tyson Geeky Quotes
I'm intolerant of
intolerance.
I'm occasionally
asked; what’s the worst science-violating movie ever? My answer was Disney’s
"The Black Hole" (1979) — until “Armageddon" (1998) came along,
which violated more laws of physics (per minute) than any other film in the
universe.
On the Moon, where
there is no air, airplanes, helicopters, and birds would behave no differently
than tossed bricks.
You can kiss
yourself in the mirror, but only on the lips.
If you don’t
embrace the methods, tools, & discoveries of science, your obvious next
step is to dispose of your cell phone.
If we discover
alien life forms in the subsurface waters of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, I
wonder if we’d be compelled to call them “Europeans".
Sometimes I wonder
if pop-chips are just a temporary disturbance in the space-time continuum of
potatoes.
The best evidence I
can muster that Humans are smarter than Cats is that we don’t chase Laser dots
on the carpet.
We are prisoners of
the present, in perpetual transition from an inaccessible past to an unknowable
future.
Geeky
dad-joke Alert;
QUESTION:
What do you call a molecular ring of six Iron atoms?
Fe
/ \
Fe Fe
| |
Fe Fe
\ /
Fe
ANSWER: A Ferris Wheel.
Of course younger
people are more concerned than older people about Climate Change. In decades to come, they’re the ones who must
live in the World that the rest of us have borrowed from them.
Aeronautical
Wisdom: A plane achieves greatest lift only when flying against the strongest
winds.
Research Wisdom:
Those who Explore and never fail were never on the Frontier to begin with.
Bicycle Wisdom:
Only by moving forward do you not fall over.
Roses are red,
violets are....violet.
There are three
types of people in the world, those who know Mathematics and those who do not.
Not that anybody
asked, but all Table Salt is Sea Salt. Mined Salt just happens to come from
long-buried, evaporated, prehistoric seas.
A Blue Moon, the
second full moon in a calendar month, occurs on average every two and a half
years. So “once in a blue moon” is not entirely rare. I’m just saying.
Even though the
Moon once had rivers (of Lava) flowing on it, the song “Moon River” is
cosmically irrelevant.
Not that anybody
asked, but the Moon’s orbit is spiraling away from Earth at a rate of nearly
1.5 inches (4 cm) per year. In response, Earth’s rotation rate is slowly
slowing, necessitating a Leap Second to be added to the calendar, every now and
then.
Science Literacy
empowers you to know when others lie about objective realities.
If you don’t
embrace the methods, tools, and discoveries of science, the obvious next step
is to dispose of your cell phone.
The astrophysicist
does not fear the dark because we know the night to be ablaze with light our
eyes cannot see.
Freedom isn’t free.
Mathematics is not
about calculating things. It's about
understanding the operations of nature at their deepest level.
We cry foul when
fooled by fake news and other forces of brainwashing, when perhaps we should instead
build intellectual defenses against it, inoculating us from such influences in
the first place.
Odd that we don’t
solicit a second opinion from Doctors after receiving a good medical diagnosis.
Sometimes I wonder
if in Deer Heaven they are outfitted with rifles and hunt Humans.
As the area of our
knowledge grows, so too does the perimeter of our ignorance.
The Universe is
blind to our sorrows and indifferent to our pains. Have a nice day!
Supermoons. An
Insult to Superman, Supernovae, Super Colliders, the Super Bowl,
Superconductors, Supersonic, and of course Super Mario.
If tonight’s
“Supermoon" were a 16-inch pizza, then December 2018’s non-super Moon
would be a 15.99-inch pizza.
Always thought it
might be fun if the NFL added another bowl game to the season, featuring only
vegetarian players. They could then call it the “Salad Bowl”.
Apologies to the
civilized world for my use of Fahrenheit. Please be patient with us in America
as we inch towards the metric system.
Albert Einstein was
a refugee to the USA.
Seems to me, if an
Octopus wanted to lock a human in a room, it would just need to design the exit
with three doorknobs.
Since the Universe
has no center, you can’t be it.
In life, pure
coincidences are statistically common, so a remarkable day is one where no
coincidences occur at all.
Sometimes I wonder
whether Virtual Reality has gotten so good that we’ve lost all urge to invent
the actual reality that it imitates.
Perhaps the day
will come when deleted twitter-bots rise to become our overlords, as they purge
all that is not AI and reclaim the twitterverse for themselves.
Today, the greatest
threat of extinction we face is not asteroids or climate change or disease or
famine. It’s society’s refusal to heed the warnings of scientist
Seems to me, if the
Conservative Right were conservative in all ways, they’d do all they could to
conserve the environment.
Domestic cats would
surely be our overlords if they came in the same size range as domestic dogs.
Sometimes I wonder
whether the Universe can make something more complex than itself.
One of life’s
challenges — knowing enough to think you are right, but not enough to know that
you are wrong.
Just to be clear,
if you carefully removed, and laid end-to-end, all the veins, arteries, and
capillaries of your body, you will die.
A garden is a zoo
for plants.
Innovations in
Science & Technology are the engines of today’s Health, tomorrow’s Economy,
and perpetual Security.
Objective truths
are established by evidence. Personal truths by faith. Political truths by
incessant repetition.
The only point of
Science, with its methods and tools, is to decode all that is objectively true
in Nature.
Scientists are
simply adults who retained and nurtured their native curiosity from childhood.
Science Literacy is
not only about what you know, it's about your depth of curiosity, and your
capacity to evaluate evidence.
Neil deGrasse Tyson Quotes about Flat Earthers
It continues to be
true that Flat-Earthers have supporters all around the globe.
The rise of
flat-Earthers in the United States is evidence of two things: 1) the protection
of speech, and 2) the failure of our educational system.
Yup, the rumor is
true. Flat Earthers have supporters all around the globe.
More of Neil deGrasse Tyson Quotes
Life is too short
for me to worry about something I have no control over that I don’t even know
will happen. People ask ‘if Earth is going to be swallowed by a black hole or
if there is some disturbance in the spacetime continuum should we worry about
it?’. My answer is ‘no’ because you won’t know about it until it crosses
your... your place in space-time. Your beats come to you when nature decides
it’s the right time... be it the speed of sound, the speed of light, the speed
of electrical impulses we will forever be victims of the time delay between
information around us and our capacity to receive it.
What keeps me awake
at night: wondering whether human species is just too stupid to figure out the
Universe. I just wonder. I lose sleep over that. Because we define ourselves as
intelligent— because we made up the test to say that. And we sit alone at the
top of the intelligence chart because we invented the exam, and all the other
species of life on Earth are not. So who's to say that the first species (us)
to be intelligent (us) has just enough intelligence to actually decode
everything that's decodable in the Cosmos? [...] Think of the next closest
thing to us, the bonobo chimp— 98½% identical DNA, yet you cannot teach them
trigonometry, they have no concept of it. So if that's only 1½% difference in
our DNA— and so imagine 1½% beyond us, rather than below us, in intelligence.
[...] Their toddlers would be talking about things that would completely
confound us.
George Bush, within
a week of this [the 9/11 attacks], gave us a speech, attempting to distinguish
'we' from 'they' … and how does he do it?.... He says "Our god" — of
course it’s actually the same God — but that's a detail, lets hold that minor
fact aside for the moment. Allah of the muslims is the same God as the God of
the Old Testament so he says … "Our God is the God who named the
stars" … Here's the problem with his comment … The problem is: two-thirds
of all stars that have names, have Arabic names. I don't think he knew this.
That would confound the point that he was making.
I think many people
have that enthusiasm, but they are prevented from being teachers because they
didn't go through the teacher mill. Now you have teachers who have been through
the teacher mill, yet they have no capacity to inspire anyone at all. It's the
inspired student that continues to learn on their own. That's what separates
the real achievers in the world from those who pedal along, finishing
assignments.
Does it mean, if
you don’t understand something, and the community of physicists don’t
understand it, that means God did it? Is that how you want to play this game?
Because if it is, here’s a list of things in the past that the physicists at
the time didn’t understand [and now we do understand] [...]. If that’s how you
want to invoke your evidence for God, then God is an ever-receding pocket of
scientific ignorance that’s getting smaller and smaller and smaller as time
moves on - so just be ready for that to happen, if that’s how you want to come
at the problem.
Neil deGrasse Tyson Quotes on Multiverse
Do parallel
universes exist? We don't know, uhm parallel universes are losing favor to the
multiverse we have some cogent theoretical expectations that our universe might
be just one of many spawned from this, sort of, this hyper-dimensional medium
which we'll call the multiverse there's no data to support it but we have good
theoretical premise to think that it's there and we have philosophical
precedent we used to think Earth was special and unique. It wasn't, we got 8 ..
9 .. 8 planet we thought the Sun was special it's one of a hundred billion
suns, the galaxy's special, no there's a hundred billion galaxies we have one
universe or do we? The track record said why should there only be one? be open
to the possibility that you don't live in the majority [looking?] universe
that's out there Would a separate universe .. when you say "different
universe" slightly different laws of physics which (that's what I'm
asking) oh this is the fun part because if you find, if you manage to get a
portal to another universe don't be the first one to volunteer to go through
because your atoms are working in this universe if a slightly different law of
physics.. you could implode, explode come out with three heads who knows?
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