Carolyn Porco Quotes

It seems to me, thinking of it, that there must be some universal plan which set in motion the orbiting of the electrons about the nucleus and the slower, more majestic orbit of the galaxies about one another to the very edge of space.

The idea of an ordered and elegant universe is a lovely one. One worth clinging to. But you don't need religion to appreciate the ordered existence. It's not just an idea, it's reality. We're discovering the hidden orders of the universe every day.

Working out another system to replace Newton's laws took a long time because phenomena at the atomic level were quite strange. One had to lose one's common sense in order to perceive what was happening at the atomic level.

When modern physics exerts itself to establish the world's formula, what occurs thereby is this: the being of entities has resolved itself into the method of the totally calculable.

Science has proved that everything is energy, and now they have dark energy, dark matter. They don't call it all-embracing consciousness; they call it dark because they can't measure it. You know, paint it black.

Human folly does not impede the turning of the stars.

The standard model of particle physics says that the universe consists of a very small number of particles, 12, and a very small number of forces, four. If we're correct about those 12 particles and those four forces and understand how they interact, properly, we have the recipe for baking up a universe.

There is a design behind the world that we are living in, which is veiled to most of us most of the time, but every once in a while, you catch a glimpse of it.

That very law which moulds a tear And bids it trickle from its source,- That law preserves the earth a sphere, And guides the planets in their course.

Relativity. Gravity. Quantum. Electrodynamics. Evolution. Each of these theories is true, whether or not you believe in them.

If we conceive all the changes in the physical world as reducible to the motion of atoms, motions generated by means of the fixed nuclear forces of those atoms, the whole of the world could thus be known by means of the natural sciences.

The true scientist no longer attempts to disprove the pull of gravity, or the rotation of the earth, or the motion of heavenly bodies, or the sequence of the seasons, or man's need of food and water, or the function of the heart.

The underlying sense of form in my work has been the system of the universe, or part thereof. For that is a rather large model to work from.

All great results in our universe are founded in motions and forces the most minute.

In the present state of our knowledge, it would be useless to attempt to speculate on the remote cause of the electrical energy... its relation to chemical affinity is, however, sufficiently evident. May it not be identical with it, and an essential property of matter?

Everything, however complicated - breaking waves, migrating birds, and tropical forests - is made of atoms and obeys the equations of quantum physics. But even if those equations could be solved, they wouldn't offer the enlightenment that scientists seek. Each science has its own autonomous concepts and laws.

String theory has the potential to show that all of the wondrous happenings in the universe - from the frantic dance of subatomic quarks to the stately waltz of orbiting binary stars; from the primordial fireball of the big bang to the majestic swirl of heavenly galaxies - are reflections of one, grand physical principle, one master equation.

From a consideration of the immense volume of newly discovered facts in the field of physics, especially atomic physics, in recent years it might well appear to the layman that the main problems were already solved and that only more detailed work was necessary.

The world we live in is made of an immensely complex and mysterious tissue about which we know very little and which we must treat

The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.

I think I always wanted to go into physics. What always fascinated me about science was the desire to understand what underlies it all, and I think physics is basically the study of that.

We appear to have form, but we are like a whirlpool. We appear to have form, but we are just whirling electrons.

All of my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and emotions have no validity or significance in the cosmos-at-large.

There's branches of science which I don't understand; for example, physics. It could be said, I suppose, that I have faith that physicists understand it better than I do.

It's like, the more you zoom in and focus on the details, the closer to the invisible and immeasurable qualities - like consciousness and energies - you get. And expanding outwards, into the cosmos, you learn more about the invisible or perceptible things.