Steven Barnas

“Von Neumann gave me an interesting idea: that you don’t have to be responsible for the world that you’re in. So I have developed a very powerful sense of social irresponsibility as a result of Von Neumann’s advice. It’s made me a very happy man ever since.”
― Richard Feynman, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! Adventures of a Curious Character

“I believe a partial answer can be found in the responses made to the Mariner IV findings by political leaders, by Mr. Billy Graham, and by other American divines - often sure barometers of common attitudes. They were unmistakably relieved. Finding life beyond the Earth - particularly intelligent life, although this is highly unlikely on Mars - wrenches at our secret hope that Man is the pinnacle of creation, a contention which no other species on our planet can now challenge. Even simple forms of extraterrestrial life may have abilities and adaptations denied to us. The discovery of life on some other world will, among many things, be for us a humbling experience.”
― Carl Sagan

“With the star up above and the blackness of space, I can't avoid feeling awe. How could we, Homo sapiens, an insignificant species on an insignificant planet adrift in a middleweight galaxy, have managed to predict how space and time would tremble after two black holes collided in the vastness of the universe a billion light-years away? We knew what that wave should sound like before it got here. And, courtesy of calculus, computers, and Einstein, we were right.”
― Steven H. Strogatz, Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe

“I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.”
― Richard Feynman