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Knowledge of the natural world and how it works should be counted as fundamental to informed governance. You can't have a functioning democracy, if the electorate is under-informed or, worse, mis-informed.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

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Neil deGrasse Tyson
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: October 5
Actor
Astronomer
Astrophysicist
Cosmologist
Non-Fiction Writer
Philosopher
Physicist
Science Communicator
Science Writer
Teacher
Trekkie
The Bronx
New York City
Neil Tyson
Democracy
Counted
Knowledge
Functioning
Natural
Governance
World
Informed
Fundamental
Fundamentals
Worse
Works
Electorate

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I can tell you that in my modern life I enjoy language. I enjoy words, their meaning, what they sound like to the ear, what they sound like to the listener. I strive to write the perfect sentence in all that I do, and when I write [the] perfect sentence I know it. If I had a second life I'd be a librettist for Broadway musicals.
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Next time you're stunned by a large moon on the horizon, bend over and view it between your legs. The effect goes away entirely.
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I love the future we might invent for ourselves that I have not yet dreamt of.
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I think the material that inspires artists is the fabric of the soul of civilization.
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When I grew up I assembled my role models à la cart. I wanted to be an astrophysicist. If I tried to find a role model who grew up in the Bronx with my skin color who was an astrophysicist, I would never have become an astrophysicist.
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If I'm looking fit and I'm not, then I'm cheating.
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No one with a living room radio that was a piece of furniture at the time would say, gee. I want to carry that around on my hip pocket. That was not a thought until NASA initiated this whole exercise. So there's an influence that's not just spinoff.
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Math is the language of the universe. So the more equations you know, the more you can converse with the cosmos.
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Most of what Einstein said and did has no direct impact on what anybody reads in the Bible. Special relativity, his work in quantum mechanics, nobody even knows or cares. Where Einstein really affects the Bible is the fact that general relativity is the organizing principle for the Big Bang.
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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.
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Many people feel small because they're small and the universe is big, but I feel big.
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Once something is answered, then there's another question. Hence the eternal quest.
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Countless women are alive today because of ideas stimulated by a design flaw in the Hubble Space Telescope.
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In life and in the universe it's always best to keep looking up.
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I see all this talk about jobs going overseas as a symptom of the absence of innovation. And the absence of innovation is a symptom of there being no major national priority to advance a frontier.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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One should not be too distracted by definitions. Ideas transcend definitions.
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As a citizen, as a public scientist, I can tell you that Einstein essentially overturned a so strongly established paradigm of science, whereas Darwin didn't really overturn a science paradigm.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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When asked about which scientist he'd like to meet, Neil deGrasse 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.
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That is a big question we all have: are we alone in the universe? And exoplanets confirm the suspicion that planets are not rare.
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After 50 years of television, there's no other conclusion the aliens could draw, but that most humans are neurotic, death-hungry, dysfunctional idiots.
Neil deGrasse Tyson