Philip Plait > Quotes

“If a little kid ever asks you just why the sky is blue, you look him or her right in the eye and say, "It's because of quantum effects involving Rayleigh scattering combined with a lack of violet photon receptors in our retinae.”
― Philip C. Plait, Bad Astronomy

“I’m tired of ignorance held up as inspiration, where vicious anti-intellectualism is considered a positive trait, and where uninformed opinion is displayed as fact.”
― Phil Plait

“They say that even the brightest star won't shine forever. But in fact, the brightest star would live the shortest amount of time. Feel free to extract whatever life lesson you want from that.”
― Philip C. Plait, Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End...

“I am using the word theory as a scientist means it: a set of ideas so well established by observations and physical models that it is essentially indistinguishable from fact. That is different from the colloquial use that means "guess." To a scientist, you can bet your life on a theory. Remember, gravity is "just a theory" too.”
― Philip C. Plait, Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End...

“Science asymptotically approaches reality.”
― Philip C. Plait, Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End...

“Sure, black holes can kill us, and in a variety of interesting and gruesome ways. But, all in all, we may owe our very existence to them.”
― Philip C. Plait, Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End...

“If you wish to view this as a cautionary tale, be my guest.”
― Philip C. Plait, Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End...

“They say that even the brightest star won’t shine forever. But in fact, the brightest star would live the shortest amount of time. Feel free to extract whatever life lesson you want from that.”
― Philip Plait, Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End...

“I used to live in a fairly tough neighborhood, and some of the kids trick-or-treating looked like they were what teachers call high risk-prone to all sorts of problems, the least of which was dropping out of school. Yet these kids were the ones most likely to be shocked when they looked through my telescope and saw the moons of Jupiter. They would say, "Neat," or "Tough," or "Tight," or whatever the current jargon is for saying, "Wow!" Their cool exteriors were momentarily dropped when shown what the universe looks like up close.”
― Philip Plait, Bad Astronomy

“But how luminous are they—literally, how much light are they emitting? This depends on how massive they are: The mass of a star is the single greatest factor in how it lives its life, including its luminosity and its life span.”
― Philip Plait, Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer's Guide to the Universe

“they had thrived on Earth for millions of years, but their own waste killed them.”
― Philip Plait, Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End...

“As a matter of fact, sometimes it pays not to nitpick; when you do, pseudoscience supporters will simply throw more facts and figures at you, hoping either to dazzle you with their database of knowledge or to confuse you beyond hope of reaching any rational conclusion.”
― Philip Plait, Bad Astronomy

“Yet, of all the people I have had approach me or e-mail me to say they have seen a UFO, not one has been an amateur astronomer. As a matter of fact, I have never heard about any amateur astronomers seeing something in the sky they absolutely could not explain. Yet they spend far more time looking at the sky than lay people and statistically should see far more UFOs! How can this be?

Easy. Remember, the amateur astronomers study the sky. They know what's in it and what to expect. When they see a meteor, or Venus, or sunlight glinting off the solar panel of a satellite, they know it's not an alien spaceship. Amateur astronomers know better and, in fact, all the amateurs to whom I have spoken about this are very skeptical about UFOs being alien spaceships. This is a very strong argument that there are mundane explanations for the vast majority of UFO sightings.”
― Philip Plait, Bad Astronomy