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
Imagination alone is not enough, because the reality of nature is far more wondrous than anything we can imagine
I've never been the critic of reality TV that others have, especially many of my colleagues who wonder if it's just the end of America. It's a free market and you just put it on. The fact that science has not been on neck-and-neck with it means that people believe science could not compete on that level.
... science is not there for you to cherry pick ... You can decide whether or not to believe in it but that doesn't change the reality of an emergent scientific truth.
Would a NASA reality show "Lunar Shore" be more popular than "Jersey Shore?" Civilization's future depends on that answer.
I have found that when calculating what no one has calculated before, like my observing sessions on the mountain, my mental acuity peaks. Ironically, these are the times that I would flunk the reality check normally reserved for mental patients and dazed boxers: What is your name? What day is it? Who is the president of the United States?... I do not know, and I do not care. I am at peace with my equations as I connect to the cosmic engines that drive our universe.
If your belief system is not founded in an objective reality, you should not be making decisions that affect other people.
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.