Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist, author, and science communicator. Tyson studied at Harvard University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Columbia University. From 1991 to 1994, he was a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University. In 1994, he joined the Hayden Planetarium as a staff scientist and the Princeton faculty as a visiting research scientist and lecturer. In 1996, he became director of the planetarium and oversaw its $210 million reconstruction project, which was completed in 2000. Since 1996, he has been the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City. The center is part of the American Museum of Natural History, where Tyson founded the Department of Astrophysics in 1997 and has been a research associate in the department since 2003.

Quotes

The People Who Don’t Ask Questions Remain Clueless Throughout Their Lives

No one is dumb who is curious.
The people who don’t ask questions
remain clueless throughout their lives.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
Forbes Interview by Jim Clash

Excerpts

Everything Else That Divides Us…Is Invisible to You

With only one or two human-made structures visible from Earth orbit, everything else that divides us – national borders, politics, languages, skin color, who you worship – is invisible to you.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
Starry Messenger

I Have No Idea, OK, Next Question

What is Gravity?

I have no idea, OK, next question.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Participants in a Great Cosmic Chain of Being

From that day on, I began to think of people not as the masters of space and time but as participants in a great cosmic chain of being…

Neil deGrasse Tyson
The Cosmic Perspective

The Admission Office…Had Forwarded My Application to Carl Sagan’s Attention

I first met Carl (as he preferred to be called) during a visit to Cornell for the required college interview. My letter of application had been dripping with an interest in the universe. The admission office, unbeknownst to me, had forwarded my application to Carl Sagan’s attention. Within weeks I received a personal letter inviting me to visit him in Ithaca, New York, the secluded home of Cornell University.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
The Sky Is Not the Limit

We Are One and the Same

So, you ask where did we come from? We came from the stars. And for me the most poetic accurate way to say this is not only are we alive in the universe, the universe is alive within us. We we’re not just separate and distinct. We are one and the same.

So, often people want to invoke the word special for being different. I’m special because no one else is like me. I have an opposite view. I say, we are all special, because we are one in the same of the stars in the canopy of the universe.