I'm fond of science fiction. But not all science fiction. I like science fiction where there's a scientific lesson, for example - when the science fiction book changes one thing but leaves the rest of science intact and explores the consequences of t...
When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.
Oh leave the Wise our measures to collate. One thing at least is certain, light has weight. One thing is certain and the rest debate. Light rays, when near the Sun, do not go straight.
I'm interested in finding whether or not there is a really massive, what we like to call 'super massive' black hole at the center of our galaxy. And the reason this is interesting is that it gives us an opportunity to prove whether or not these exoti...
The key to proving that there's a black hole is showing that there's a tremendous amount of mass in a very small volume. And you can do that with the motions of stars. The way the star moves around the center of the galaxy is very much like the way t...
One of the big mysteries about the black hole at the center of the galaxy is, 'Why don't we see emission from matter falling onto the black hole, or, rather, the black hole eating up its surroundings?'
The duty of rhetoric is to deal with such matters as we deliberate upon without arts or systems to guide us, in the hearing of persons who cannot take in at a glance a complicated argument or follow a long chain of reasoning.
Anyone can get angry, but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for everyone, nor is it easy.
Every skill and every inquiry, and similarly every action and rational choice, is thought to aim at some good; and so the good had been aptly described as that at which everything aims.
The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor; it is the one thing that cannot be learnt from others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in the dissimilar.
It is mistaken to claim that global problems will be solved more quickly if only researchers would abandon their quest to understand the universe and knuckle down to work on an agenda of public or political concerns. These are not 'either/or' options...
I have been running maths clubs for children completely free. In my building in Bangalore, I conduct maths clubs for several months, and every child who attended the club was poor in mathematics and is now showing brilliant results.
We have experienced an utter explosion in investigative techniques. Walk the streets, look at the cameras! They are now recognising people automatically from photos; we have DNA fingerprinting, infrascan photos that can identify you from the veins in...
I remember discussions with which went through many hours till very late at night and ended almost in despair; and when at the end of the discussion I went alone for a walk in the neighbouring park I repeated to myself again and again the question: ?
When people are scared, they need something done that will make them feel safe, even if it doesn't truly make them safer. Politicians naturally want to do something in response to crisis, even if that something doesn't make any sense. But unfortunate...
I have just gone over my comet computations again, and it is humiliating to perceive how very little more I know than I did seven years ago when I first did this kind of work.
I made observations for three hours last night, and am almost ill today from fatigue; still I have worked all day, trying to reduce the places, and mean to work hard again tonight.
The bottom line is that finding orphan planets - small, faint, and located who-knows-where - is not for the faint of heart. The task is comparable to observing a match flame at the distance of Pluto. The WISE satellite, a hi-tech, space-based infrare...
Intellectual work is essentially a lonely process, and if you can find a way of doing something so that you're in company without being disturbed, that, for me, is the critical thing. I often get to feel isolated so often if I'm sitting either where ...
Generally in life, knowledge is acquired to be used. But school learning more often fits 's apt metaphor: knowledge is treated like money, to be put away in a bank for the future.
To think I need a gun to protect against those who'd kill me for being Muslim ... It's too bad they don't know about my true religion of noodling - a reason to get their nuts in a snit.
