January 5, 2005
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With every passing hour our solar system comes forty-three thousand miles closer to globular cluster 13 in the constellation Hercules, and still there are some misfits who continue to insist that there is no such thing as progress.
- Ransom K. Ferm
God is infinite, so His universe must be too. Thus is the excellence of God magnified and the greatness of His kingdom made manifest; He is glorified not in one, but in countless suns; not in a single earth, a single world, but in a thousand thousand, I say in an infinity of worlds.
- Giordana Bruno, 1584, “On the Infinite Universe and Worlds”, Burned to death by the Inquisition.
Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World.
- Inscription on Columbus’ caravels
But does Man have any “right” to spread through the universe? Man is what he is, a wild animal with the will to survive, and (so far) the ability, against all competition. Unless one accepts that, anything one says about morals, war, politics, you name it, is nonsense. Correct morals arise from knowing what man is, not what do-gooders and well-meaning old Aunt Nellies would like him to be. The Universe will let us know – later – whether or not Man has any “right” to expand through it.
- Robert A. Heinlein, “Starship Troopers”
We have your satellite if you want it back send 20 billion in Martian money. No funny business or you will never see it again.
- Seen on a hall wall at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Labs
From now on, we live in a world where man has walked on the moon. It wasn’t a miracle, we just decided to go.
- Jim Lovell,”Apollo 13″
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
- Arthur C. Clarke’s First Law
When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion : the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right.
- Isaac Asimov, In answer to Clarke’s First Law
But the only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
- Clarke’s Second Law
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
- Clarke’s Third Law
Wormholes were first introduced to the public over a century ago in a book written by an Oxford mathematician. Perhaps realizing that adults might frown on the idea of multiply connected spaces, he wrote the book under a pseudonym and wrote it for children. His name was Charles Dodgson, his pseudonym was Lewis Carroll, and the book was Through The Looking Glass.
- Michio Kaku, “Visions – How science will revolutionize the 21st century”
Every so often, I like to go to the window, look up, and smile for a satellite picture.
– Steven Wright
