A Lonely Speck in the Great Enveloping Cosmic Dark

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in...

Source: Pale Blue Dot  by Carl Sagan

How Do You Balance Science with Science Fiction?

How do you balance science with science fiction? They're both the same.

The Earth Was a Mere Point in a Vast Encompassing Cosmos

It seemed to me that another picture of the Earth, this one taken from a hundred thousand times farther away, might help in the continuing process of revealing to ourselves our true circumstance and condition. It had been well understood...

Source: Pale Blue Dot  by Carl Sagan

Human Beings Literally Lost the Ground of Their View

There are people who regard the deed of Copernicus as the biggest of the cultural revolutions which humanity has ever experienced as far as the historical memory reaches. One has to admit that the impression and the influence of this...

Get Your Head Down out of the Clouds

Now, Bastian, you're old enough to get your head down out of the clouds and start keeping both feet on the ground. Right?

Source: The NeverEnding Story

The Earth May Now Be a Mere Planet Moving Around the Sun

The earth may now be a mere planet moving around the sun, but man is no longer confined to it. His spiritual energy, his reason, his brain power, his psyche, his consciousness have become the center and the purpose of...

Source: Utopian Thought in the Western World  by Frank E. Manuel

To Remove Man From the Centre of Things Was To Raise Him From His Low Estate

And the one change of this kind implied by the abandonment of the geocentric system was, as is evident from what has already been said, the reverse of that often attributed to the new astronomy; to remove man from the...

Source: The Great Chain of Being  by Arthur Oncken Lovejoy

A Radical Change to Astronomy and Cosmology

The years when Jesuits established their first schools coincided with the beginning of the so-called scientific revolution and the origin of modern science. In 1543 Nicolaus Copernicus had published his book, De revolutionibus orbium celestium, in which he proposed the...

Source: Jesuit Contribution to Science  by Agustín Udías

Their Misplaced Faith in Gravity

Here they are hurling through space on a molten rock at 67,000 miles an hour and the only thing that keeps them from flying out of their shoes is their misplaced faith in gravity.

Source: 3rd Rock from the Sun

It Is Probably a Sphere

Before any celestial distances or sizes could be calculated, the ancient Greeks first had to establish that the Earth is a sphere. This view gained acceptance in ancient Greece as philosophers became familiar with the notion that ships gradually disappear...

Source: Big Bang  by Simon Singh

All of a Sudden, Proved to Be a Sphere

The first of these schemes derives from the fact that the generally accepted "flat earth" was, all of a sudden, proved to be a sphere by the voyage of Magellan's ships around the world.

Source: JFK  by L. Fletcher Prouty

Reverse the Vacuum and Blow the Air Back onto the Planet

We’ve got to act fast. Step one, we reverse the vacuum and blow the air back onto the planet.

Source: Spaceballs

That Pain Won’t Stop Until the Twin Towers Come Crumbling Down

I can still feel the pain right now and Hulk Hogan that pain won’t stop until the twin towers come crumbling down

Are You in an Incomprehensible Chaos

Are you in a universe which is ruled by natural laws and, therefore, is stable, firm, absolute—and knowable? Or are you in an incomprehensible chaos, a realm of inexplicable miracles, an unpredictable, unknowable flux, which your mind is impotent to...

Source: Philosophy: Who Needs It  by Ayn Rand

Some Catastrophic and Catalyzing Event

Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.

Start by Making the Trade Center Disappear

To start by making the trade center disappear, though, seems a good way to begin.

Source: Divided We Stand

Being a Sphere, It Therefore Had to Be a Finite Object

Being a sphere, it therefore had to be a finite object, with a finite—that is, limited—surface area. With this awakening the ideas of world trade and related colonial proprietary rights were born.

Source: JFK  by L. Fletcher Prouty

The Slaying of a Beautiful Hypothesis by an Ugly Fact

It is the supreme challenge, and a brutal one, but every scientific theory must be testable and compatible with reality. The nineteenth-century naturalist Thomas Huxley stated it thus: ‘The great tragedy of Science — the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis...

Source: Big Bang  by Simon Singh

Somehow Glued to It by Gravity

While almost everyone is taught that the Earth is a sphere with all of us somehow glued to it by gravity, the reality of our circumstance did not really begin to sink in until the famous frame-filling Apollo photograph of...

Source: Pale Blue Dot  by Carl Sagan

Viewing the Earth from Outer Space

The overview effect is a cognitive shift in awareness reported by some astronauts during spaceflight, often while viewing the Earth from outer space. It is the experience of seeing first-hand the reality of the Earth in space, which is immediately...

It’s as Simple as That

Mike Michaelson : Christof, let me ask you, why do you think that Truman has never come close to discovering the true nature of his world until now? Christof :We accept the reality of the world with which we're presented....

Source: The Truman Show

A New Idea Disturbs the Existing Stock of Ideas

Thus, we may say that a new idea disturbs the existing stock of ideas and distorts the accepted frame of reference. In our endeavor to restore the former coherence and balance, to remedy the disturbing situation, we are compelled to...

Source: Nature and Human Nature  by Lawrence K. Frank

Earth Is But a Tiny Speck Whirling Around Our Sun

Thus, we can begin to think of the immense universe in which our green mantled earth is but a tiny speck whirling around our sun, one of the many stars that range throughout space-time.

Source: Nature and Human Nature  by Lawrence K. Frank