JOHN N. BAHCALL

Every time we get slapped down, we can say, Thank you Mother Nature, because it means we're about to learn something important.

We should do astronomy because it is beautiful and because it is fun. We should do it because people want to know. We want to know our place in the universe and how things happen.

Our Cosmic Habitat is certain to be widely quoted and widely read. It is beautifully written, using inspiring and stimulating analogies. While the book is intended for the nonscientist, it provides an accurate guide to the best current thinking about the nature and constitution of our universe. If I wanted to give a gift to a person I would like to become a close friend, this is the book I would choose.

I do not personally want to believe that we already know the equations that determine the evolution and fate of the universe; it would make life too dull for me as a scientist. ... I hope, and believe, that the Space Telescope might make the Big Bang cosmology appear incorrect to future generations, perhaps somewhat analogous to the way that Galileo's telescope showed that the earth-centered, Ptolemaic system was inadequate.

In my personal view, a failure to discover unimagined objects and answer unasked questions, once HST functions properly, would indicate a lack of imagination in stocking the Universe on the part of the Deity.

The most important discoveries will provide answers to questions that we do not yet know how to ask and will concern objects we have not yet imagined.

These neutrino observations are so exciting and significant that I think we're about to see the birth of an entirely new branch of astronomy: neutrino astronomy. Supernova explosions that are invisible to us because of dust clouds may occur in our galaxy as often as once every 10 years, and neutrino bursts could give us a way to study them.

The most important discoveries will provide answers to questions that we do not yet know how to ask and will concern objects we have not yet imagined.

In my personal view, a failure to discover unimagined objects and answer unasked questions, once HST functions properly, would indicate a lack of imagination in stocking the Universe on the part of the Deity.

Our Cosmic Habitat is certain to be widely quoted and widely read. It is beautifully written, using inspiring and stimulating analogies. While the book is intended for the nonscientist, it provides an accurate guide to the best current thinking about the nature and constitution of our universe. If I wanted to give a gift to a person I would like to become a close friend, this is the book I would choose.

Every time we get slapped down, we can say, Thank you Mother Nature, because it means we're about to learn something important.

These neutrino observations are so exciting and significant that I think we're about to see the birth of an entirely new branch of astronomy: neutrino astronomy. Supernova explosions that are invisible to us because of dust clouds may occur in our galaxy as often as once every 10 years, and neutrino bursts could give us a way to study them.

I do not personally want to believe that we already know the equations that determine the evolution and fate of the universe; it would make life too dull for me as a scientist. ... I hope, and believe, that the Space Telescope might make the Big Bang cosmology appear incorrect to future generations, perhaps somewhat analogous to the way that Galileo's telescope showed that the earth-centered, Ptolemaic system was inadequate.

We should do astronomy because it is beautiful and because it is fun. We should do it because people want to know. We want to know our place in the universe and how things happen.