Science is a way to not fool ourselves.
Carl SaganRead
My wonder button is being pushed all the time.
Interpretation
This quote expresses a constant sense of curiosity and fascination with the universe.
Carl Sagan's quote reflects his profound enthusiasm for exploration and discovery in the vastness of the universe. The phrase 'wonder button' symbolizes the innate curiosity that drives us to seek answers and understand the mysteries of existence. For Sagan, this sense of wonder is a continuous experience, urging us to embrace our curiosity and engage with the wonders of science and nature throughout life.
In practice
In a speech about science education, you could say, 'Like Carl Sagan, I hope to inspire students whose wonder button is being pushed all the time.'
Science is a way to not fool ourselves.
In more than one respect, the exploring of the Solar System and homesteading other worlds constitutes the beginning, much more than the end, of history.
How smart does a chimpanzee have to be before killing him constitutes murder?
The hole in the ozone layer is a kind of skywriting. At first it seemed to spell out our continuing complacency before a witch's brew of deadly perils. But perhaps it really tells of a newfound talent to work together to protect the global environment.
There is a reward structure in science that is very interesting: Our highest honors go to those who disprove the findings of the most revered among us. So Einstein is revered not just because he made so many fundamental contributions to science, but because he found an imperfection in the fundamental contribution of Isaac Newton.
The simplest thought, like the concept of the number one, has an elaborate logical underpinning.
The bottom line for mathematicians is that the architecture has to be right. In all the mathematics that I did, the essential point was to find the right architecture. It's like building a bridge. Once the main lines of the structure are right, then the details miraculously fit. The problem is the overall design.
When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a room full of dukes.
If you're going to go into space, you have to have an objective, a mission. Where do you want to go? Earth orbit? The moon? Mars? What's the technology to get there? You develop the technology for the mission.
Only mathematics and mathematical logic can say as little as the physicist means to say.
Man is slightly nearer to the atom than to the star. ... From his central position man can survey the grandest works of Nature with the astronomer, or the minutest works with the physicist. ... [K]nowledge of the stars leads through the atom; and important knowledge of the atom has been reached through the stars.
We must never make experiments to confirm our ideas, but simply to control them.
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