explore-blog:

To make discoveries, you have to be curious about why the universe is the way it is.

Isaac Asimov on curiosity, taking risk and the value of space exploration – priceless 1983 Muppets Magazine interview 

(Source: )

smyrno:

I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library. For an impoverished child whose family could not afford to buy books, the library was the open door to wonder and achievement, and I can never be sufficiently grateful that I had the wit to charge through that door and make the most of it.

Now, when I read constantly about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that the door is closing and that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.

-Isaac Asimov.

darkdemandingchild:

The 2013 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate: The Existence of Nothing, hosted by Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

In case you missed it livestreaming!

Nobody says it quite like Isaac Asimov. (via americanhumanist)

(via retromantique)

Asimov’s Three Laws Of Robotics

(Source: robotcosmonaut, via we-are-star-stuff)

“People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.”

Isaac Asimov. January 2nd, 1920 - April 6, 1992. 

The Chicago Public Library has a number of Isaac Asimov works. Click here to learn more about this hard science fiction pioneer. 

(via chicagopubliclibrary)

Anonymous asked: I don't mean to be a nuisance, but it just seems that for some reason the reality that we are being visited is not as important as it should be. For lack of evidence, there is substantial evidence in regards to qualified military officers that go out of their way to tarnish their reputation to speak about the truth. The National Press Club in 2010 provided documentation of coinciding UFO incidents and nuclear missile deactivation. This kind of evidence is detrimental to not scrutinize thoroughly

It’s a wonderfully perplexing concept. It truly is. But we are also living in an age of technological advancement never before dreamed of actually being accomplished in our lifetime. It’s hard to keep things secret when you don’t have another planet to fly around experimental aircraft with. And it doesn’t help that we do live amongst a government that likes to keep dumping money into war & advanced, secretly operative killing machines that push the boundaries of the seen & unseen, flexing our scientific prowess to develop sophisticated, futuristic, undetectable, physical-boundary/law-breaking surveillance probes, satellites & aircraft.

And it’s not exactly the most respectful of inquiries…this whole UFO business…because we have the SETI Institute clinging by a financial thread simply to continue funding their research, which scans incomprehensible distances into the cosmos simply to intercept a signal or mathematical hint that there’s intelligent life out there trying to communicate with us.

As much as we may simply be “ants on an anthill” in terms of the cosmic perspective in contrast to our short but arduous climb up the evolutionary hill of complex organisms on planet Earth, we still would have a great deal to share & much more to gain from an intergalactic species. For said species to simply be flying around our heads for pure amusement, that doesn’t seem to me like a good way to spend any time in the Universe when the probability of life is so great that a species on one corner of the Universe traveling immense distances to even FIND another species that could communicate on the same level would be an astonishing discovery, no matter the level of intelligence said species could possess.

“The energy requirements for interstellar travel are so great that it is inconceivable to me that any creatures piloting their ships across the vast depths of space would do so only in order to play games with us over a period of decades. If they want to make contact, they would make contact; if not, they would save their energy and go elsewhere.”
- Isaac Asimov, Is Anyone There?

I agree, scrutinization is heavily necessary when exploring such claims, but we must be careful not to fall too deep down the rabbit hole that we forget how perplexing & mysterious our minds are. We’re a fragile, vulnerable species, capable of such fantastic abstractions that we can & will suffer in the wake of our own delusions if we aren’t all using the same methods of incredulity & skepticism on ourselves as well.

“What counts is not what sounds plausible, not what we’d like to believe, not what one or two witnesses claim; but only what is supported by hard evidence, rigorously and skeptically examined. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
- Carl Sagan

(Source: invaderxan, via universalnomad)

Isaac Asimov (via ikenbot)

(Source: kenobi-wan-obi, via wespeakfortheearth)

(Source: ihateallyourgods, via kenobi-wan-obi)

(Source: astrodidact, via astronautjimblows)

Isaac Asimov (via naro)

(via astrodidact)

jtotheizzoe:

Must watch: A new Symphony of Science video, Our Biggest Challenge (Climate Change).

Featuring Bill Nye, Isaac Asimov and a reminder that we have the power to change our globally connected ecosystem for better for worse. Let’s do something.