Astronomy

🇺🇸Carl Sagan

Science

1934–1996

"For a long time the human instinct to understand was thwarted by facile religious explanations."

🇮🇹Galileo Galilei

Science

1564–1642

"Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so."

🇧🇷Isaac Newton

Mathematics

Enlightenment

1934–2014

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."

🇬🇧James Jeans

Science

1877–1946

"Life exists in the universe only because the carbon atom possesses certain exceptional properties."

Archimedes

Science

-286–-211

"Equal weights at equal distances are in equilibrium and equal weights at unequal distances are not in equilibrium but incline towards the weight which is at the greater distance."

Nicolaus Copernicus

Science

1473–1543

"'Body of Copernicus' identified – BBC article including image of Copernicus using facial reconstruction based on located skull"

🏛️Hippocrates of Chios

Mathematics

-469–-409

"The Quadrature of the Circle and Hippocrates' Lunes at Convergence"

Ptolemy

Science

"Ptolemy's Geography is the only book on cartography to have survived from the classical period and one of the most influential scientific works of all time."

🇬🇧Brian May

Music

b. 1947

"When I'm gone, people will no doubt remember me for Queen, but I would much rather be remembered for attempting to change the way we treat our fellow creatures."

John Herschel

Science

1792–1871

"Self-respect is the cornerstone of all virtue."

Omar Khayyám

Mathematics

Persian literature

1048–1131

"Geometric Solutions of Quadratic and Cubic Equations" by David W. Henderson"

"This is a terrific outburst. And since it doesn’t have a tail right now, some observers have confused it with a nova. We’ve had at least two reports of a new star."

🇺🇸Percival Lowell

Mathematics

1855–1916

"Are physical forces alone at work there, or has evolution begotten something more complex, something not unakin to what we know on Earth as life?"

🇬🇷Anaxagoras

Science

Pre-Socratic philosophy

-499–-427

"Translation and Commentary from John Burnet's Early Greek Philosophy."

"The thing is, that world doesn't exist. All growing up means is that your realize no one will come along to fix things. No one will come along to save you."

🇳🇱Christiaan Huygens

Science

1629–1695

"There are many degrees of Probable, some nearer Truth than others, in the determining of which lies the chief exercise of our Judgment."

🇺🇸Orson Pratt

Mathematics

1811–1881

"Jesus appeared unto the ancient Nephites, in the northern part of what we call South America…"

William Rowan Hamilton

Science

1805–1865

"To admire is, to me, questionless, the highest pleasure of life."

🇩🇪Johannes Kepler

Science

1571–1630

"Kepler's Belief in Astrology" by Nicholas Kollerstrom"

🇺🇸Michio Kaku

Science

b. 1947

"If you could meet your grandkids as elderly citizens in the year 2100 … you would view them as being, basically, Greek gods… that's where we're headed."

Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle

Philosophy

Classicism

1657–1757

"It is more reasonable to remove error from truth, than to venerate error because it is mix'd with truth."

🇺🇸Vera Rubin

Science

1928–2016

"It is well known that I am available twenty-four hours a day to women astronomers."

🇺🇸Geoffrey Burbidge

Mathematics

1925–2010

"We were marching down the street, and we were at the head of the troops. We went on marching, and the troops went off to the left."

Edmond Halley

Science

1656–1742

"Wherefore, if, according to what we have already said, it should return again about the year 1758, candid posterity will not refuse to acknowledge that this was first discovered by an Englishman."

Robert Hooke

Science

1635–1703

"The Posthumous Works of Robert Hooke by Richard Waller, including "The Life of Robert Hooke"

🇺🇸Kip Thorne

Mathematics

b. 1940

"Simplicity is the touchstone in finding new physical laws. … If it's elegant, then it's a rough rule of thumb: you're on the right track."

🇮🇳Aryabhata

Mathematics

476–550

"He is the master who, after reaching the furthest shores and plumbing the inmost depths of the sea of ultimate knowledge of mathematics, kinematics and spherics, handed over the three sciences to the learned world."

"I know of no condition worse than that of the man who has little or no light on the supreme religious questions, and who at the same time is making no effort to come to the light."

🇬🇧David Brewster

Science

1781–1868

"Man, made after God's image, was a nobler creation than twinkling sparks in the sky, or than the larger and more useful lamp of the moon."

Hippocrates

Medicine

-469–-407

"Those things which are sacred, are to be imparted only to sacred persons; and it is not lawful to import them to the profane until they have been initiated in the mysteries of the science."

🇬🇧Martin Ryle

Science

1918–1984

"If we are to survive, we must not accept the official indoctrination of the purpose of nuclear 'power' stations, radiation health risks, the 'need' for further nuclear weapons and the reality of nuclear war."

🇧🇷Marcelo Gleiser

Science

b. 1959

"...Our spiritual attachment to nature transcends religion, being part of our innermost nature as a thinking species in a mysterious cosmos."

Willem de Sitter

Science

1872–1934

"is a name without any meaning. ...We have, in fact, not the slightest inkling of what it's real significance is. It is put in the equations in order to give the greatest possible degree of mathematical generality."

"Michael H. Hart: The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History, Carol Publishing Group Edition, New York, , 1993"

🇺🇸Edwin Hubble

Science

1889–1953

"Eventually, we reach the utmost limits of our telescopes. There, we measure shadows and search among ghostly errors of measurement for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial."