Neil deGrasse
Neil deGrasse
certainly famous profile shoulder
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.
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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.
almost apollo became case certainly goal nations progress project reaching reaction space states united
If the United States commits to the goal of reaching Mars, it will almost certainly do so in reaction to the progress of other nations - as was the case with NASA, the Apollo program, and the project that became the International Space Station.
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When you put money directly to a problem, it makes a good headline. It makes a good campaign slogan. You get to claim that you've engaged in these activities within an election cycle. But certain investments take longer than an election cycle.
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Modern-day access has completely changed how we talk about and think about the frontier of the cosmos. This is a modern-day incarnation of what used to be a team of artists who would sit there with a canvas and sort of paint up something that was described to them, to be photographed and put in the sky. This is a new generation of the representation of the frontier of science.
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It's a bullet that will just miss us.
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It's a collaboration that goes clear to Japan. It's a new generation of representations of the sky.
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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.
science
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.
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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.
people perspective
Not enough people in this world, I think, carry a cosmic perspective with them. It could be life-changing.
maybe turns
It turns out our brain is sensitive, maybe too sensitive, to motion. It's a survival mechanism.
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You can't come away with this cosmic perspective thinking that you are better than others and want to fight. That's why you'll never have astrophysicists leading nations into war.