Neil deGrasse Tyson is America’s preeminent badass astrophysicist.
He’s a passionate advocate for science, NASA and education. He’s also well-known for a little incident involving Pluto. The man holds at least 17 honorary doctorates in addition to his real one; we’re dealing with a badass over here.
Now, eleven of our favorite NDT quotes.
On science
The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”
From Real Time with Bill Maher.
On NASA funding
“‘As a fraction of your tax dollar today, what is the total cost of all spaceborne telescopes, planetary probes, the rovers on Mars, the International Space Station, the space shuttle, telescopes yet to orbit, and missions yet to fly?’ Answer: one-half of one percent of each tax dollar. Half a penny. I’d prefer it were more: perhaps two cents on the dollar. Even during the storied Apollo era, peak NASA spending amounted to little more than four cents on the tax dollar.”
From Space Chronicles, p. 25.
On God and hurricanes
“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.”
From Death by Black Hole, p. 361.
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