Quotes about observatory

A collection of quotes on the topic of observatory, instrument, instrumentation, general.

Quotes about observatory

“As a fraction of the lifespan of the universe as measured from the beginning to the evaporation of the last black hole, life as we know it is only possible for one-thousandth of a billion billion billionth, billion billion billionth, billion billion billionth, of a percent (10^-84). And that's why, for me, the most astonishing wonder of the universe isn't a star or a planet or a galaxy. It isn't a thing at all. It's an instant in time. And that time is now. Humans have walked the earth for just the shortest fraction of that briefest of moments in deep time. But in our 200,000 years on this planet we've made remarkable progress. It was only 2,500 years ago that we believed that the sun was a god and measured its orbit with stone towers built on the top of a hill. Today the language of curiosity is not sun gods, but science. And we have observatories that are almost infinitely more sophisticated than those towers, that can gaze out deep into the universe. And perhaps even more remarkably through theoretical physics and mathematics we can calculate what the universe will look like in the distant future. And we can even make concrete predictions about its end. And I believe that it's only by continuing our exploration of the cosmos and the laws of nature that govern it that we can truly understand ourselves and our place in this universe of wonders.”

Brian Cox (physicist) (1968) English physicist and former musician

Conclusion in Wonders of the Universe - Destiny

Life, God, Law, Star

“Many times our media is confused. They say an US observatory has informed us about lunar and solar eclipse on a particular date. Don’t look at an observatory, ask any pandit next to you. They will open the 'Panchang' and tell you the dates of eclipses 100 year ago and 100 years hence.”

Rajnath Singh (1951) Indian politician

On Panchangs, as quoted in " Why US observatories, ask pandits to predict eclipse dates: Rajnath Singh http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/ask-pundits-to-predict-eclipse-dates-no-need-for-us-observatories-rajnath/article1-1308532.aspx", Hindustan Times (20 January 2015)

Time

“You hold the pen like a needle in a seismic observatory, and in fact it is not we who write, but rather we are written. Writing means to read oneself”

Max Frisch (1911–1991) Swiss playwright and novelist

Sketchbook 1946-1949

Reading

“I had long wished for some opportunity of endeavouring to explain… the principles on which the instruments of an Observatory are constructed, (omitting all details, so far as they are merely subsidiary,) and the principles on which the observations made with these instruments are treated…
Such an opportunity appeared to present itself in the course of Lectures which I engaged to give to the Members of the Ipswich Museum and their friends.”

George Biddell Airy (1801–1892) English mathematician and astronomer

Introduction
Popular Astronomy: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Ipswich (1868)

Appearance

“For four or five centuries, Islam was the most brilliant civilization in the Old World. (…) At its higher level the golden age of Muslim civilization was both an immense scientific success and a exceptional revival of ancient philosophy. These was not its only triumphs; literature was another: but they eclipse the rest. First, science: it was there that the Saracens (…) made the most original contributions. These, in brief, were nothing less than trigonometry and algebra (with its significantly Arab name). (…) Equally distinguished were Islam's mathematical geographers, its astronomical observatories and instruments (…). The Muslims also deserve high marks for optics, for chemistry (…) and for pharmacy. More than half the remedies and healing aids used by the West came from Islam (…). Muslim medical skill was incontestable. (…) In the field of philosophy, what took place was rediscovery - a return, essentially of the peripatetic philosophy. The scope of this rediscovery, however, was not limited to copying and handling on, valuable as that undoubtely was. It also involved continuing, elucidating and creating.”

Fernand Braudel (1902–1985) French historian and a leader of the Annales School

A History of Civilizations , Penguin, 1995, p. 73-81

Age, World, Literature, Mathematics

“But before I proceed farther it may be proper to take notice, that since the time when I gave their lordships an account of the near agreement of Mr. Professor Mayer's lunar tables with the observations that had been then made at the Royal Observatory, I have compared several others, which concurred to prove that the difference between the observed and computed places nowhere amounted to more than about one minute and a half; and I find that the difference (small as it is) may yet be diminished by making alterations in some of the equations, whose true quantity could not be determined without proper observations; after making the needful corrections it appeared, by the comparison of above eleven hundred observations taken here since the new instruments were fixed up, that the difference did nowhere amount to more than a minute: it may therefore be reasonably concluded, that so far as it will depend upon the lunar tables the true longitude of a ship at sea may in all cases be found within about half a degree, and generally much nearer.”

James Bradley (1693–1762) English astronomer; Astronomer Royal

Miscellaneous Works and Correspondence (1832), To Mr. Cleveland Secretary of the Admiralty (April 14, 1760)

Appearance, Time, Dependency, Sea

“You are invited to come to see the Earth turn, tomorrow, from three to five, at Meridian Hall of the Paris Observatory.”

Léon Foucault (1819–1868) French physicist

Invitation cards which he sent out to the scientists of Paris, to witness his famous pendulum experiment on 3 February 1851, as quoted in Pendulum : Léon Foucault and the Triumph of Science (2003) by Amir D. Aczel

“Since all of the possibilities of a terrestrial origin have been either ruled out or seem improbable, and since the possibility of an extraterrestrial origin has not been able to be ruled out, I must conclude that an ETI (ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) might have sent the signal that we received as the Wow! source. Of course, being a scientist, I await the reception of additional signals like the Wow! source that are able to be received and analyzed by many observatories. Thus, I must state that the origin of the Wow! signal is still an open question for me. There is simply too little data to draw many conclusions. In other words, as I stated above, I choose not to "draw vast conclusions from 'half-vast' data."”

Jerry R. Ehman American astronomer and astrophysicist

The Big Ear Wow! Signal : What We Know and Don't Know About It After 20 Years (1 September 1997); section: ETI

Intelligence, Question, Drawing

“[T]he instrumental conceptions derived from the use of a common globe are sufficient, in almost every case, for the understanding of the instruments in an Observatory…”

George Biddell Airy (1801–1892) English mathematician and astronomer

Introduction
Popular Astronomy: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Ipswich (1868)

Understanding

“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 (1975) Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist

KTTunstall.com

Books, Game, Universe, Night

“Ah! Silence is golden. When I was in my observatory at Belle-croix, I dared not move as the silence opened to me a course of discoveries. The families of the wood were then in action. It was the silence that permitted me, immovable as a tree trunk, to see the deer in their hiding-place and at their toilet, to observe the habits of the field rat, of the otter, of the salamander, those fantastic amphibious animals. He who lives in the silence becomes the center of a world; a little more and I could imagine myself the sun of a small creation, if my studies had not recalled to me that I had so much trouble to reproduce a poor tree or a cluster of rushes.”

Théodore Rousseau (1812–1867) French painter (1812-1867)

Quote recorded by fr:Alfred Sensier, in Souvenirs sur Rousseau, Paris, 1872; as cited in The Barbizon School of Painters: Corot, Rousseau, Diaz, Millet, Daubigny, etc., by D. C. Thomson; Scribner and Welford, New York 1890 – (copy nr. 78), p. 120
undated quotes

World, Family, Imagination, Tree

“In conversing with persons who are not officially attached to Observatories or in other ways professionally cognizant of the technicalities of practical Astronomy but who nevertheless display great interest… these persons appear to regard the determination of measures like those of the distance of the Sun and Moon as mysteries beyond ordinary comprehension… [and] when persons well acquainted with the general facts of Astronomy are introduced into an Observatory, they are for the most part utterly unable to understand anything which they see…
The measure of the Moon's distance involves no principle more abstruse than the measure of the distance of a tree on the opposite bank of a river. The principles of construction of the best Astronomical instruments are as simple and as closely referred to matters of common school-education and familiar experience, as are those of the common globes, the steam engine, or the turning-lathe; the details are usually less complicated.”

George Biddell Airy (1801–1892) English mathematician and astronomer

Introduction
Popular Astronomy: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Ipswich (1868)

Education, School, Way, Understanding

“It is hoped that systematic study of the light changes of all the variables, nearly two thousand in number, in the two Magellanic Clouds may soon be undertaken at this Observatory.”

Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868–1921) astronomer

Periods of 25 Variable Stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1912HarCi.173....1L (1912)

Hope, Study, Light, Change

“Thanks to Swati Tirunal, Mohiniyattom became highly refined. His contribution to the education sector too is remarkable. He started the Maharaja’s High School and then Maharaja’s College (now University College). He set up an observatory. He reformed the judicial and law and order systems.”

Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma (1813–1846) Maharajah of Travencore

M.A. Baby, in “Contribution of Swati Tirunal to Kerala unparalleled]
About Swathi Thirunal

School, Education, Law, Universe

“His Highness The Rajah Of Travancore, already celebrated for the munificence with which he promotes the education and mental improvement of his subjects, resolved in the latter part of last year on the establishment, at his capital, Trivandrum, of an Observatory of a superior kind; with the double view of affording his aid to the advancement of astronomical science, and of introducing by its means correct ideas of the principles of this science among the rising generation under his government; and having confided to me the superintendence of the institution as Astronomer, I take this early opportunity of introducing it to the notice of the public…”

Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma (1813–1846) Maharajah of Travencore

The marble tablet existing in the observatory building in Trivandrum, in 1837, quoted in "An enlightened and princely patron of true science".
About Swathi Thirunal

Science, Confidence, Self-confidence, Education