Telescope Quotes - page 4
Guru: Today I will discourse upon the violence in astronomy.
Disciple: Revered Sir! Will you be describing the violent phenomenon in the Universe?
Guru: Yes, and I will also dwell upon the controversies amongst the astronomers about what these events imply – controversies which are no less violent than the phenomena themselves
The one aspect of the star-studded night sky which impresses the casual observer most is its tranquility. The peace and quiet of the heavens with the marked contrast to the hurly burly of life on the earth have inspired poets, philosophers, and religious thinkers from time immemorial. Even the amateur astronomer viewing the night sky from his proverbial roof top telescope sees a picture which changes very slowly from night to night. The occasional visit of comet, the fall of a meteorite, or in these modern times the passing of a man made satellite are examples of events which introduce transitory variation on an apparently steady cosmic theme.
Jayant Narlikar
I was really into sci-fi books as a kid. My dad is a physicist and he used to take my brothers and I into his lab when we were little. We played games with liquid nitrogen and Van de Graaff generators. He had the keys to the observatory at St Andrew's University and he'd get us up in the middle of the night to show us Halley's Comet. That's partly why the album is called Eye To The Telescope.
KT Tunstall
In the future equilibrium of spirit and matter a clear vision may be obtained. But now only fragments are to be seen. That is why the ancients guarded this natural telescope so cautiously. The most powerful telescopes were women, and the first requisite for their protection was quietude.
Helena Roerich
One man said, 'I looked at my brother through the microscope of criticism, and I said, 'How coarse my brother is.' Then I looked at my brother through the telescope of scorn, and I said, 'How small my brother is.' Then I looked into the mirror of truth and I said, 'How like me my brother is.'
Thomas S. Monson
Ironically, it is only when disaster strikes that the shuttle makes the headlines. Its routine flights attracted less media interest than unmanned probes to the planets or the images from the Hubble Telescope. The fate of Columbia (like that of Challenger in 1986) reminded us that space is still a hazardous environment.
Martin Rees
We have tested, in matters where ordinary intelligence and knowledge are competent to judge, the logical methods and intellectual honesty of the foremost of those who in the name of science eliminate God and degrade man, taking from human life its highest dignity and deepest hope. Now, if in simple matters we find such confusion, such credulity, such violation of every canon of sound reasoning as we have found here, shall we blindly trust in deeper matters - in those matters which always have and always must perplex the intellect of man?
Let us rather, as I said in the beginning, not too much underrate our own powers in what is concerned with common facts and general relations. While we may not be scientists or philosophers we too are men. And as to things which the telescope cannot resolve, nor the microscope reveal, nor the spectrum analysis throw light on, nor the tests of the chemist discover, it is as irrational to accept blindly the dictum of those who say, "Thus saith science!"
Henry George
In one of my early books I suggested that the potential significance of LSD and other psychedelics for psychiatry and psychology was comparable to the value the microscope has for biology or the telescope has for astronomy. My later experience with psychedelics only confirmed this initial impression. These substances function as unspecific amplifiers that increase the cathexis (energetic charge) associated with the deep unconscious contents of the psyche and make them available for conscious processing. This unique property of psychedelics makes it possible to study psychological undercurrents that govern our experiences and behaviours to a depth that cannot be matched by any other method and tool available in modern mainstream psychiatry and psychology. In addition, it offers unique opportunities for healing of emotional and psychosomatic disorders, for positive personality transformation, and consciousness evolution.
Stanislav Grof
What is God? The telescope by which we hold converse with the stars, the microscope which unveils the secrets of nature, the crucible of the chemist, the knife of the anatomist, the reflective faculties of the philosopher, all the common instruments of science, avail not here. On the threshold of that impenetrable mystery, a voice arrests our steps. From out the clouds and darkness that are round about God's throne, the question comes, "Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?"
Thomas Guthrie
Herschel's argument was... Since with such a telescope one can see a star ten times as far off as is possible to the naked eye, this telescope has the power of penetrating into space ten times farther than the eye alone. But this number ten, also, expresses the ratio of the diameter of the objective to that of the pupil of the eye, consequently the general law is that the space-penetrating power of a telescope is found by dividing the diameter of the mirror in inches by two-fifths. The diameter of the pupil of the eye (two fifths of an inch) Herschel determined by many measures.
William Herschel
In America you can ease into middle age with the accoutrements of adolescence still prominent and suffer relatively minor embarrassment: okay, so the guy's still got his sideburns and rod and beer and beergut and wife and three kids and a duplex and never grew up. So what? You're not supposed to grow up in America. You're supposed to consume. But in Britain it seems there is some ideal, no, some dry river one is expected to ford, so you can enter that sedate bubble where you raise a family, contributing in your small way to your society and keep your mouth shut. Until you get old, that is, when you can become an "eccentric" - do and say outrageous things, naughty things, because it's expected of you, you've crossed to the other mirror of the telescope of childhood.
Lester Bangs
Galileo is the founder of the science of dynamics. Among his contemporaries it was chiefly the novelties he detected in the sky that made him celebrated, but Lagrange claims that his astronomical discoveries required only a telescope and perseverance, while it took an extraordinary genius to discover laws from phenomena, which we see constantly and of which the true explanation escaped all earlier philosophers. The first contributor to the science of mechanics after Galileo was Descartes.
Galileo Galilei
