If only theorists would know what goes into an experimental data
point and if only experimenters would know what goes into a theoretical
calculation, they both would take each other much less serious.
Fritz Zwicky 1957, in Morphological Astronomy, Berlin - quoted in Ruth Durrer, astro-ph/0205101.
Three quarks for Muster Mark!
Sure he hasn't got much of a bark
And sure any he has it's all beside the mark
But O, Wreneagle Almighty, wouldn't un be a sky of a lark
To see that old buzzard whooping about for uns in the dark
And he hunting around for uns speckled trousers around by Palmerstown Park?
James Joyce, Finnegans Wake
If they existed, they would be here.
Enrico Fermi
The elements were cooked in less time than it takes to cook a dish of duck and roast potatoes.
George Gamow
I believe there are 15,747,724,136,275,002,577,605,653,961,181,555,468,044,717,
914,527,116,709,366,231,425,076,185,631,031,296 protons in the Universe
and the same number of electrons.
A.S. Eddington
The future is not what it was.
B. Levin
Can we actually "know" the universe? My God, it's hard enough finding your
way around in Chinatown.
Woody Allen
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very
angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
Douglas Adams
When you look at yourself from a universal standpoint, something inside always
reminds or informs you that there are bigger and better things to worry about.
Albert Einstein, The World as I See It.
Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.
Plato, The Republic
For me the loss of the steady-state theory has been a cause of great sadness. The steady-state theory
has a sweep and beauty that for some unaccountable reason the architect of the universe appears to have
overlooked. The universe is in fact a botched job, but I suppose we shall have to make the best of it.
Dennis Sciama, (as quoted in Wrinkles in Time, by George Smoot and Keay Davidson)
The definitive study of the herd instincts of astronomers has yet to be
written, but there are times when we resemble nothing so much as a herd of
antelope, heads down in tight formation, thundering with firm
determination in a particular direction across the plain. At a given
signal from the leader we whirl about, and, with equally firm
determination, thunder off in a quite different direction, still in tight
parallel formation.
Fernie J D, Fernie J D (1969) "The period-luminosity relation: a historical review." Publ. Astron. Society Pacific, vol. 81 p707-731.
Listen, there's a hell of a good universe next door: let's go!
e.e. Cummings
As we look out into the Universe and identify the many accidents
of physics and astronomy that have worked together to our benefit,
it almost seems as if the Universe must in some sense have known that we were coming.
Freeman Dyson
Isn't it too much of a coincidence that the Earth is exactly 1 AU from the
Sun and the Sun is exactly 1 solar mass?
Anon.
