160 Quotes & Sayings By Neil Degrasse Tyson

The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation. For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you. Neil Degrasse Tyson

The knowledge that the atoms that comprise life on earth - the atoms that make up the human body, are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core under extreme temperatures and pressures. These stars- the high mass ones among them- went unstable in their later years- they collapsed and then exploded- scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy- guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and all the fundamental ingredients of life itself. These ingredients become part of gas clouds that condense, collapse, form the next generation of solar systems- stars with orbiting planets. And those planets now have the ingredients for life itself. So that when I look up at the night sky, and I know that yes we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up- many people feel small, cause their small and the universe is big. But I feel big because my atoms came from those stars. . Neil Degrasse Tyson

I would request that my body in death be buried not cremated, so that the energy content contained within it gets returned to the earth, so that flora and fauna can dine upon it, just as I have dined upon flora and fauna during my lifetime Neil Degrasse Tyson

People cited violation of the First Amendment when a New Jersey schoolteacher asserted that evolution and the Big Bang are not scientific and that Noah's ark carried dinosaurs. This case is not about the need to separate church and state; it's about the need to separate ignorant, scientifically illiterate people from the ranks of teachers. Neil Degrasse Tyson

I would teach how science works as much as I would teach what science knows. I would assert (given that essentially, everyone will learn to read) that science literacy is the most important kind of literacy they can take into the 21st century. I would undervalue grades based on knowing things and find ways to reward curiosity. In the end, it's the people who are curious who change the world. Neil Degrasse Tyson

... informed ignorance provides the natural state of mind for research scientists at the ever-shifting frontiers of knowledge. People who believe themselves ignorant of nothing have neither looked for, nor stumbled upon, the boundary between what is known and unknown in the cosmos. Neil Degrasse Tyson

In our profession, we tend to name things exactly as we see them. Big red stars we call red giants. Small white stars we call white dwarfs. When stars are made of neutrons, we call them neutron stars. Stars that pulse, we call them pulsars. In biology they come up with big Latin words for things. MDs write prescriptions in a cuneiform that patients can’t understand, hand them to the pharmacist, who understands the cuneiform. It’s some long fancy chemical thing, which we ingest. In biochemistry, the most popular molecule has ten syllables–deoxyribonucleic acid! Yet the beginning of all space, time, matter, and energy in the cosmos, we can describe in two simple words, Big Bang. We are a monosyllabic science, because the universe is hard enough. There is no point in making big words to confuse you further. Want more? In the universe, there are places where the gravity is so strong that light doesn’t come out. You fall in, and you don’t come out either: black hole. Once again, with single syllables, we get the whole job done. Sorry, but I had to get all that off my chest. Neil Degrasse Tyson

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

I am convinced that the act of thinking logically cannot possibly be natural to the human mind. If it were, then mathematics would be everybody's easiest course at school and our species would not have taken several millennia to figure out the scientific method. Neil Degrasse Tyson

When asked about which scientist he'd like to meet, Neil de Grasse Tyson said, "Isaac Newton. No question about it. The smartest person ever to walk the face of this earth. The man was connected to the universe in spooky ways. He discovered the laws of motion, the laws of gravity, the laws of optics. Then he turned 26. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Kids are never the problem. They are born scientists. The problem is always the adults. They beat the curiosity out of kids. They outnumber kids. They vote. They wield resources. That's why my public focus is primarily adults. Neil Degrasse Tyson

The most accessible field in science, from the point of view of language, is astrophysics. What do you call spots on the sun? Sunspots. Regions of space you fall into and you don’t come out of? Black holes. Big red stars? Red giants. So I take my fellow scientists to task. He’ll use his word, and if I understand it, I’ll say, “Oh, does that mean da-da-da-de-da? Neil Degrasse Tyson

As a child, I was aware that, at night, infrared vision would reveal monsters hiding in the bedroom closet only if they were warm-blooded. But everybody knows that your average bedroom monster is reptilian and cold-blooded. Neil Degrasse Tyson

But you can’t be a scientist if you’re uncomfortable with ignorance, because scientists live at the boundary between what is known and unknown in the cosmos. This is very different from the way journalists portray us. So many articles begin, “Scientists now have to go back to the drawing board.” It’s as though we’re sitting in our offices, feet up on our desks–masters of the universe–and suddenly say, “Oops, somebody discovered something! ” No. We’re always at the drawing board. If you’re not at the drawing board, you’re not making discoveries. You’re not a scientist; you’re something else. The public, on the other hand, seems to demand conclusive explanations as they leap without hesitation from statements of abject ignorance to statements of absolute certainty. . Neil Degrasse Tyson

While the Copernican principle comes with no guarantees that it will forever guide us to cosmic truths, it's worked quite well so far: not only is Earth not in the center of the solar system, but the solar system is not in the center of the Milky Way galaxy, the Milky Way galaxy is not in the center of the universe, and it may come to pass that our universe is just one of many that comprise a multiverse. And in case you're one of those people who thinks that the edge may be a special place, we are not at the edge of anything either. Neil Degrasse Tyson

How do we change the way science is taught? Ask anybody how many teachers truly made a difference in their life, and you never come up with more than the fingers on one hand. You remember their names, you remember what they did, you remember how they moved in front of the classroom. You know why you remember them? Because they were passionate about the subject. You remember them because they lit a flame within you. They got you excited about a subject you didn't previously care about, because they were excited about it themselves. That's what turns people on to careers in science and engineering and mathematics. That's what we need to promote. Put that in every classroom, and it will change the world. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Once upon a time, people identified the god Neptune as the source of storms at sea. Today we call these storms hurricanes.... The only people who still call hurricanes acts of God are the people who write insurance forms. Neil Degrasse Tyson

The gravitational waves of the first detection were generated by a collision of black holes in a galaxy 1.3 billion light-years away, and at a time when Earth was teeming with simple, single-celled organisms. While the ripple moved through space in all directions, Earth would, after another 800 million years, evolve complex life, including flowers and dinosaurs and flying creatures, as well as a branch of vertebrates called mammals. Among the mammals, a sub-branch would evolve frontal lobes and complex thought to accompany them. We call them primates. A single branch of these primates would develop a genetic mutation that allowed speech, and that branch– Homo Sapiens–would invent agriculture and civilization and philosophy and art and science. All in the last ten thousand years. Ultimately, one of its twentieth-century scientists would invent relativity out of his head, and predict the existence of gravitational waves. A century later, technology capable of seeing these waves would finally catch up with the prediction, just days before that gravity wave, which had been traveling for 1.3 billion years, washed over Earth and was detected. Yes, Einstein was a badass. Neil Degrasse Tyson

What we do know, and what we can assert without further hesitation, is that he universe had a beginning. The universe continues to evolve. And yes, every one of our body's atoms is traceable to the big bang and to the thermonuclear furnaces within high-mass stars that exploded more than five billion years ago. We are stardust brought to life, then empowered by the universe to figure itself out - and we have only just begun. . Neil Degrasse Tyson

During our brief stay on planet Earth, we owe ourselves and our descendants the opportunity to explore - in part because it's fun to do. But there's a far nobler reason. The day our knowledge of the cosmos ceases to expand, we risk regressing to the childish view that the universe figuratively and literally revolves around us. In that bleak world, arms-bearing, resource-hungry people and nations would be prone to act on their 'low contracted prejudices.' And that would be the last gasp of human enlightenment - until the rise of a visionary new culture that could once again embrace, rather than fear, the cosmic perspective. . Neil Degrasse Tyson

These philosophically fun ideas usually satisfy nobody. Nonetheless, they remind us that ignorance is the natural state of mind for a research scientist. People who believe they are ignorant of nothing have neither looked for, nor stumbled upon, the boundary between what is known and unknown in the universe. Neil Degrasse Tyson

...people taking the time and energy to ask about what they do not understand - I have renewed hope that society can shed its superstitions and embrace the enlightenment that comes from just a basic understanding of how the universe works. Neil Degrasse Tyson

... and I submit to you, that science, scientific discovery, especially cosmic discovery, does not become mainstream until the artist embraces the fruits of those discoveries. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Some molecules - ammonia, carbon dioxide, water - show up everywhere in the universe, whether life is present or not. But others pop up especially in the presence of life itself. Among the biomarkers in Earth's atmosphere are ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons from aerosol sprays, vapor from mineral solvents, escaped coolants from refrigerators and air conditioners, and smog from the burning of fossil fuels. No other way to read that list: sure signs of the absence of intelligence. . Neil Degrasse Tyson

You know that passage in the Bible that says, “And the meek shall inherit the Earth”? Always wondered if that was mistranslated. Perhaps it actually says, “And the geek shall inherit the Earth. Neil Degrasse Tyson

When students cheat on exams it's because our school system values grades more than students value learning. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Dinosaurs are extinct today because they lacked opposable thumbs and the brainpower to build a space program. Neil Degrasse Tyson

On Friday the 13th of April 2029, an asteroid large enough to fill the Rose Bowl as though it were an egg cup, will fly so close to Earth, that it will dip below the altitude of our communication satellites. We did not name this asteroid Bambi. Instead, it's named Apophis, after the Egyptian god of darkness and death. If the trajectory of Apophis at close approach passes within a narrow range of altitudes called the 'keyhole, ' the precise influence of Earth's gravity on its orbit will guarantee that seven years later in 2036, on its next time around, the asteroid will hit Earth directly, slamming in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii. The tsunami it creates will wipe out the entire west coast of North America, bury Hawaii, and devastate all the land masses of the Pacific Rim. If Apophis misses the keyhole in 2029, then, of course, we have nothing to worry about in 2036. Neil Degrasse Tyson

The urge to want some bit of information to be true often clouds our ability to assess why that information may be false. Neil Degrasse Tyson

It's okay not to know all the answers. It's better to admit our ignorance than to believe answers that might be wrong. Pretending to know everything closes the door to finding out what's already there. Neil Degrasse Tyson

The moment when someone attaches you to a philosophy or a movement, then they assign all the baggage and all the rest of the philosophy that goes with it to you. And when you want to have a conversation, they will assert that they already know everything important there is to know about you because of that association. And that's not the way to have a conversation. Neil Degrasse Tyson

To learn that it's easier to be told by others what to think and believe than it is to think for yourself. Neil Degrasse Tyson

There’s a fascinating frailty of the human mind that psychologists know all about, called “argument from ignorance.” This is how it goes. Remember what the “U” stands for in “UFO”? You see lights flashing in the sky. You’ve never seen anything like this before and don’t understand what it is. You say, “It’s a UFO! ” The “U” stands for “unidentified.”But then you say, “I don’t know what it is; it must be aliens from outer space, visiting from another planet.” The issue here is that if you don’t know what something is, your interpretation of it should stop immediately. You don’t then say it must be X or Y or Z. That’s argument from ignorance. It’s common. I’m not blaming anybody; it may relate to our burning need to manufacture answers because we feel uncomfortable about being steeped in ignorance. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Ignorance is a virus. Once it starts spreading, it can only be cured by reason. For the sake of humanity, we must be that cure. Neil Degrasse Tyson

The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you. Neil Degrasse Tyson

If the universe is anything, it should be fun. Neil Degrasse Tyson

The more of us that feel the universe, the better off we will be in this world. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Science literacy is an important part of what it is to be an informed citizen of society. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Science, enabled by engineering, empowered by NASA, tells us not only that we are in the universe but that the universe is in us. And for me, that sense of belonging elevates, not denigrates, the ego. Neil Degrasse Tyson

I look forward to the day when the solar system becomes our collective backyard–explored not only with robots, but with the mind, body, and soul of our species. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Some people think emotionally more often than they think politically. Some think politically more often than they think rationally. Others never think rationally about anything at all. No judgment implied. Just an observation. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Science literacy is being plugged into the forces that power the universe. There is no excuse for thinking that the Sun, which is a million times the size of Earth, orbits Earth. Neil Degrasse Tyson

If the whole world shared such experiences, we would then have common dreams and everybody could begin thinking about tomorrow. And if everybody thinks about tomorrow, then someday we can visit the sky together. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Unlike what you may be told in other sectors of life, when observing the universe, size does matter, which often leads to polite ‘telescope envy’ at gatherings of amateur astronomers. Neil Degrasse Tyson

I'd ask [God] why he keeps trying to kill us all with disease, pestilence, and natural disasters. I'd ask why 99% of all species there ever were are now extinct -- if God works in mysterious ways, that way is mysteriously genocidal. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Not enough books focus on how a culture responds to radically new ideas or discovery. Especially in the biography genre, they tend to focus on all the sordid details in the life of the person who made the discovery. I find this path to be voyeuristic but not enlightening. Instead, I ask, After evolution was discovered, how did religion and society respond? After cities were electrified, how did daily life change? After the airplane could fly from one country to another, how did commerce or warfare change? After we walked on the Moon, how differently did we view Earth? My larger understanding of people, places and things derives primarily from stories surrounding questions such as those. . Neil Degrasse Tyson

Allow intelligent design into science textbooks, lecture halls, and laboratories, and the cost to the frontier of scientific discovery–the frontier that drives the economies of the future–would be incalculable. I don't want students who could make the next major breakthrough in renewable energy sources or space travel to have been taught that anything they don't understand, and that nobody yet understands, is divinely constructed and therefore beyond their intellectual capacity. The day that happens, Americans will just sit in awe of what we don't understand, while we watch the rest of the world boldly go where no mortal has gone before. Neil Degrasse Tyson

If you ask people where they're from, they will typically say the name of the city where they were born, or perhaps the place on Earth's surface where they spent their formative years. Nothing wrong with that. But an astrochemically richer answer might be, "I hail from the explosive jetsam of a multitude of high-mass stars that died more than 5 billion years ago. Neil Degrasse Tyson

If everyone had the luxury to pursue a life of exactly what they love, we would all be ranked as visionary and brilliant. … If you got to spend every day of your life doing what you love, you can’t help but be the best in the world at that. And you get to smile every day for doing so. And you’ll be working at it almost to the exclusion of personal hygiene, and your friends are knocking on your door, saying, “Don’t you need a vacation?! , ” and you don’t even know what the word “vacation” means because what you’re doing is what you want to do and a vacation from that is anything but a vacation – that’s the state of mind of somebody who’s doing what others might call visionary and brilliant. . Neil Degrasse Tyson

You could also ask who’s in charge. Lots of people think, well, we’re humans; we’re the most intelligent and accomplished species; we’re in charge. Bacteria may have a different outlook: more bacteria live and work in one linear centimeter of your lower colon than all the humans who have ever lived. That’s what’s going on in your digestive tract right now. Are we in charge, or are we simply hosts for bacteria? It all depends on your outlook. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Some of the greatest poetry is revealing to the reader the beauty in something that was so simple you had taken it for granted. Neil Degrasse Tyson

I look up at the night sky, and I know that, yes, we are part of this Universe, we are in this Universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up–many people feel small, because they’re small and the Universe is big, but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars. Neil Degrasse Tyson

The cosmic perspective not only embraces our genetic kinship with all life on Earth but also values our chemical kinship with any yet-to-be discovered life in the universe, as well as our atomic kinship with the universe itself. Neil Degrasse Tyson

When you organize extraordinary missions, you attract people of extraordinary talent who might not have been inspired by or attracted to the goal of saving the world from cancer or hunger or pestilence. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Doing what has never been done before is intellectually seductive, whether or not we deem it practical. Neil Degrasse Tyson

We conquer the Independence Day aliens by having a Macintosh laptop computer upload a software virus to the mothership (which happens to be one-fifth the mass of the Moon), thus disarming its protective force field. I don’t know about you, but back in 1996 I had trouble just uploading files to other computers within my own department, especially when the operating systems were different. There is only one solution: the entire defense system for the alien mothership must have been powered by the same release of Apple Computer’s system software as the laptop computer that delivered the virus. Neil Degrasse Tyson

The less evidence we have for what we believe is certain, the more violently we defend beliefs against those who don't agree. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Let's grant that the stars are scattered through space, hither and yon. But how hither, and how yon? To the unaided eye the brightest stars are more than a hundred times brighter than the dimmest. So the dim ones are obviously a hundred times farther away from Earth, aren't they? Nope. That simple argument boldly assumes that all stars are intrinsically equally luminous, automatically making the near ones brighter than the far ones. Stars, however, come in a staggering range of luminosities, spanning ten orders of magnitude ten powers of ten. So the brightest stars are not necessarily the ones closest to Earth. In fact, most of the stars you see in the night sky are of the highly luminous variety, and they lie extraordinarily far away. If most of the stars we see are highly luminous, then surely those stars are common throughout the galaxy. Nope again. High-luminosity stars are the rarest. In any given volume of space, they're outnumbered by the low-luminosity stars a thousand to one. It's the prodigious energy output of high-luminosity stars that enables you to see them across such large volumes of space. Neil Degrasse Tyson

A bullet fired level from a gun will hit ground at same time as a bullet dropped from the same height. Do the Physics. Neil Degrasse Tyson

In the beginning, there was physics. "Physics" describes how matter, energy, space, and time behave and interact with one another. The interplay of these characters in our cosmic drama underlies all biological and chemical phenomena. Hence everything fundamental and familiar to us earthlings begins with, and rests upon, the laws of physics. When we apply these laws to astronomical settings, we deal with physics writ large, which we call astrophysics. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Robots are important also. If I don my pure-scientist hat, I would say just send robots; I'll stay down here and get the data. But nobody's ever given a parade for a robot. Nobody's ever named a high school after a robot. So when I don my public-educator hat, I have to recognize the elements of exploration that excite people. It's not only the discoveries and the beautiful photos that come down from the heavens; it's the vicarious participation in discovery itself. Neil Degrasse Tyson

In some ways, we are traveling in time now. We just happened to be prisoners of the present in the eternal transition from the past to the future. Neil Degrasse Tyson

If your ego starts out, 'I am important, I am big, I am special, ' you're in for some disappointments when you look around at what we've discovered about the universe. No, you're not big. No, you're not. You're small in time and in space. And you have this frail vessel called the human body that's limited on Earth. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Typically, when you look for role models, you want someone who has your interests and came from the same background. Well, look how restricting that is. What people should do is take role models a la carte. If there's someone whose character you appreciated, you respect that trait. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Dreams about the future are always filled with gadgets. Neil Degrasse Tyson

If you get asteroids about a kilometer in size, those are large enough and carry enough energy into our system to disrupt transportation, communication, the food chains, and that can be a really bad day on Earth. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Do you realize that if you fall into a black hole, you will see the entire future of the Universe unfold in front of you in a matter of moments and you will emerge into another space-time created by the singularity of the black hole you just fell into? Neil Degrasse Tyson

Space exploration is a force of nature unto itself that no other force in society can rival. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Space only becomes ordinary when the frontier is no longer being breached. Neil Degrasse Tyson

If you're going to lead a space frontier, it has to be government; it'll never be private enterprise. Because the space frontier is dangerous, and it's expensive, and it has unquantified risks. And under those conditions, you cannot establish a capital-market evaluation of that enterprise. You can't get investors. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Philosophically, the universe has really never made things in ones. The Earth is special and everything else is different? No, we've got seven other planets. The sun? No, the sun is one of those dots in the night sky. The Milky Way? No, it's one of a hundred billion galaxies. And the universe - maybe it's countless other universes. Neil Degrasse Tyson

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. Neil Degrasse Tyson

The urge to miniaturize electronics did not exist before the space program. I mean our grandparents had radios that was furniture in the living room. Nobody at the time was saying, 'Gee, I want to carry that in my pocket.' Which is a non-thought. Neil Degrasse Tyson

There are thousands of asteroids whose orbit in the Solar System crosses that of Earth. And we have a little acronym for them - NEOs: near Earth objects. And our biggest goal is to try to catalogue them, so we know in advance if one is going to put us at risk. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Space enthusiasts are the most susceptible demographic to delusion that I have ever seen. Neil Degrasse Tyson

If you want a nation to have space exploration ambitions, you've got to send humans. Neil Degrasse Tyson