Marcia Bartusiak > Quotes

“But in reality what Einstein had done was devise a theory that was decades ahead of its time. Experimental measurements had to catch up to his model of gravity, which had been fashioned from pure intuitive thought.”
― Marcia Bartusiak, Black Hole: How an Idea Abandoned by Newtonians, Hated by Einstein, and Gambled on by Hawking Became Loved

“Hubble was lucky in a way. The Hubble Space Telescope could easily have been given another name had certain events turned out differently: if someone had not prematurely died (Keeler), if someone else had not taken a promotion (Curtis), or if another (Shapley) was not mulishly wedded to a flawed vision of the cosmos. The discovery of the modern universe is a story filled with trials, errors, serendipitous breaks, battles of wills, missed opportunities, herculean measurements, and brilliant insights. In other words, it is science writ large.”
― Marcia Bartusiak, The Day We Found the Universe

“But Slipher felt he needed to acquire an even better spectrum to peg the exact speed. It was an endeavor, he told Lowell, that “would doubtless impress all these observers as a quite hopeless undertaking, and maybe it is, but I want [to] make an attempt.”
― Marcia Bartusiak, The Day We Found the Universe

“Once you pass through the event horizon, there is no way out.”
― Marcia Bartusiak, Black Hole: How an Idea Abandoned by Newtonians, Hated by Einstein, and Gambled on by Hawking Became Loved

“Gravity is the ultimate cosmic vise, capable of packing the mass of a high-rise building into the space of a sugar cube.”
― Marcia Bartusiak, Black Hole: How an Idea Abandoned by Newtonians, Hated by Einstein, and Gambled on by Hawking Became Loved