The supermoon is a 16-inch pizza compared with a 15-inch pizza. It's a slightly bigger moon; I ain't using the adjective 'supermoon.'
Interpretation
The 'supermoon' is just a bigger version of the moon, highlighting how minor differences can be exaggerated.
In this quote, Neil Degrasse Tyson humorously downplays the significance of the term 'supermoon' by comparing it to a small difference in size between two pizzas. He suggests that the term may be overblown, indicating that while the supermoon is slightly larger, it doesn't fundamentally change the nature of the moon. This reflects a broader theme of how language and perception can amplify minor distinctions to create a sense of awe or importance.
In practice
Use this quote during a science class to discuss the nature of astronomical phenomena.
The problem is that many people operate on the assumption that NASA should go to Congress every year with hat in hand and justify it every year. Well, I see it as the greatest economic driver that there ever was. Economic drivers don't need justification.
The press still thinks [global warming] is controversial. So they find the 1% of the scientists and put them up as if they're 50% of the research results. You in the public would have no idea that this is basically a done deal and that we're on to other problems, because the journalists are trying to give it a 50/50 story. It's not a 50/50 story. It's not. Period.
As a scientist, I want to go to Mars and back to asteroids and the Moon because I'm a scientist. But I can tell you, I'm not so naive a scientist to think that the nation might not have geopolitical reasons for going into space.
In just one year, the expenditure of of the U.S.'s military budget is equivalent to the entire 50-year running budget of NASA combined.
One of my great laments is that education today seems to have... be less about passion and more about process, more about tactic or technique.
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.
Instead, in the absence of respect for human rights, science and its offspring technology have been used in this century as brutal instruments for oppression.
Can you imagine, in 2030, taking a space cruise on the very ship that carried the first human beings to Mars? I can't believe that people wouldn't line up for that possibility.
The reality is the majority of us will not get off this planet. So the long run is, some kind of space exploration has to benefit us here on Earth.
A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.
Just as computer technology and the Internet created whole new industries and extraordinary benefits for people that extend into almost every realm of human endeavor from education to transportation to medicine, genetics will undoubtedly benefit people everywhere in ways we can't even imagine but know will surely occur.
Almost everywhere, climate change denial now looks as stupid and as unacceptable as Holocaust denial.
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