#universe

It is my hope that during my brief passage through this universe, that I may share with you the joy of hearing the music of the stars... knowing that the composer was from a distant place and the songs were written eons ago, which now fall gently on this place for all to hear. ↗

— Richard H. Baker

#brief #composer #distant #during #fall

I am of the African race, and in the colour which is natural to them of the deepest dye; and it is under a sense of the most profound gratitude to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe. ↗

— Benjamin Banneker

#am #colour #deepest #dye #gratitude

This fact immediately suggested a singular event - that at some time in the distant past the universe began expanding from an extremely small size. To many people this inference was loaded with overtones of a supernatural event - the creation, the beginning of the universe. ↗

— Michael Behe

#beginning #creation #distant #event #expanding

A universe that came from nothing in the big bang will disappear into nothing at the big crunch. Its glorious few zillion years of existence not even a memory. ↗

— Paul Davies

#big #big bang #came #crunch #disappear

For those who believe in God the matter is simpler still and clearly than anything else: because those who believe in God believe that God is the Creator of the whole Universe and there is nothing that does not come from Him. ↗

— Morarji Desai

#because #believe #clearly #come #creator

God may not play dice with the universe, but something strange is going on with the prime numbers. ↗

— Paul Erdos

#god #going #may #numbers #play

Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow. ↗

— William Blake

#eternal world #faint #imagination #real #shadow

Those who have wrought great changes in the world never succeeded by gaining over chiefs; but always by exciting the multitude. The first is the resource of intrigue and produces only secondary results, the second is the resort of genius and transforms the universe. ↗

— Martin Van Buren

#changes #chiefs #exciting #first #gaining

Be universal in your love. You will see the universe to be the picture of your own being. ↗

— Sri Chinmoy

#love #our love #own #picture #see

In 2002, having spent more than three years in one residence for the first time in my life, I got called for jury duty. I show up on time, ready to serve. When we get to the voir dire, the lawyer says to me, “I see you’re an astrophysicist. What’s that?” I answer, “Astrophysics is the laws of physics, applied to the universe—the Big Bang, black holes, that sort of thing.” Then he asks, “What do you teach at Princeton?” and I say, “I teach a class on the evaluation of evidence and the relative unreliability of eyewitness testimony.” Five minutes later, I’m on the street. A few years later, jury duty again. The judge states that the defendant is charged with possession of 1,700 milligrams of cocaine. It was found on his body, he was arrested, and he is now on trial. This time, after the Q&A is over, the judge asks us whether there are any questions we’d like to ask the court, and I say, “Yes, Your Honor. Why did you say he was in possession of 1,700 milligrams of cocaine? That equals 1.7 grams. The ‘thousand’ cancels with the ‘milli-’ and you get 1.7 grams, which is less than the weight of a dime.” Again I’m out on the street. ↗

— Neil deGrasse Tyson

#astrophysics #eyewitness #jury-duty #science #universe