Neil deGrasse Tyson
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Neil deGrasse Tysonis an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, and science communicator. Since 1996, he has been the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City. The center is part of the American Museum of Natural History, where Tyson founded the Department of Astrophysics in 1997 and has been a research associate in the department since 2003...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth5 October 1958
CountryUnited States of America
Any astrophysicist does not feel small looking up at the universe; we feel large.
So this show [Cosmos] does not only operate on you intellectually, because telling you stories of how science works and why it works and what was discovered and why it matters, but combines that with stunning visualizations of the cosmos. This has the chance of affecting you intellectually and emotionally, and as well as even spiritually, because the wonder and awe of the universe are especially potent when presented in this way."
'Boldly going where hundreds have gone before' does not make headlines.
Any time scientists disagree, it's because we have insufficient data. Then we can agree on what kind of data to get; we get the data; and the data solves the problem. Either I'm right, or you're right, or we're both wrong. And we move on. That kind of conflict resolution does not exist in politics or religion.
Also, where does your identity come from? Your memory, of course.
Ever since there have been people, there have been explorers, looking in places where other hadn't been before. Not everyone does it, but we are part of a species where some members of the species do-to the benefit of us all.
I'm not as famous as Stephen Hawking, but certainly in the U.S., I have a very high profile for a scientist. It is an awesome responsibility, one that I don't shoulder lightly.
The need to create a new taxonomy that isn't just applying to our own solar system will become so evident and apparent that something will come out of it. I'm sure of it, even if it's not tomorrow.
I'm perennially intrigued how people who lead largely evidence-based lives can, in a belief-based part of their mind, be certain that an invisible, divine entity created an entire universe just for us, or that the government is stockpiling space aliens in a secret desert location.
I'm on a crusade to get movie directors to get their science right because, more often than they believe, the science is more extraordinary than anything they can invent.
I'm often asked by parents what advice can I give them to help get kids interested in science? And I have only one bit of advice. Get out of their way. Kids are born curious. Period.
I'm often asked - and occasionally in an accusatory way - 'Are you atheist?' And it's like, 'You know, the only 'ist' I am is a scientist, all right?' I don't associate with movements. I'm not an 'ism.' I just - I think for myself.
Not enough people in this world, I think, carry a cosmic perspective with them. It could be life-changing.
It turns out our brain is sensitive, maybe too sensitive, to motion. It's a survival mechanism.