GEORGE C.

LITCHENBERG

It is strange that only extraordinary men make the discoveries, which later appear so

easy and simple.

PHILOLAUS, C. 470 – C. 385 BC

Actually, everything that can be known has a Number; for it is impossible to grasp

anything with the mind or to recognize it without this.

PAUL ERDŐS, 1913 TO 1996

God created two acts of folly. First, He created the Universe in a Big Bang. Second,

He was negligent enough to leave behind evidence for this act, in the form of microwave radiation.
WILLIAM RAMSAY, 1852 TO 1916

Progress is made by trial and failure; the failures are generally a hundred times more

numerous than the successes ; yet they are usually left unchronicled.
VICTOR SCHEFFER, 1906 TO 2011

Although Nature needs thousands or millions of years to create a new species, man

needs only a few dozen years to destroy one.

NICOLAUS COPERNICUS, 1473 – 1543

There may be babblers, wholly ignorant of mathematics, who dare to condemn my

hypothesis, upon the authority of some part of the Bible twisted to suit their purpose. I value them not,

and scorn their unfounded judgment.

ERNEST RUTHERFORD, 1871 TO 1937

If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.
ARISTOTLE, 384 BC TO 322 BC

By ‘life,’ we mean a thing that can nourish itself and grow and decay.

GEORGE WALD

A physicist is an atom’s way of knowing about atoms.

SUSUMU OHNO, 1928 TO 2000

Did the genome of our cave-dwelling predecessors contain a set or sets of genes

which enable modern man to compose music of infinite complexity and write novels with profound

meaning? …It looks as though the early Homo was already provided with the intellectual potential

which was in great excess of what was needed to cope with the environment of his time.”
MAX PLANCK, 1858 TO 1947

An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature, and a measurement is the

recording of Nature’s answer.

JUSTUS VON LIEBIG, 1803 TO 1873

A fact acquires its true and full value only through the idea which is developed from

it.
JOHN ARCHIBALD WHEELER, 1911 TO 2008

There is no law except the law that there is no law.

THOMAS CHROWDER CHAMBERLIN, 1843 TO 1928

Falsity in intellectual action is intellectual immorality.

FRED HOYLE, 1915 TO 2001

Outstanding examples of genius – a Mozart, a Shakespeare, or a Carl Friedrich

Gauss – are markers on the path along which our species appears destined to tread.
STEVEN WEINBERG, 1933 TO PRESENT

It does not help that some politicians and journalists assume the public is interested

only in those aspects of science that promise immediate practical applications to technology or

medicine.
J. B. S. HALDANE, 1892 TO 1964

Science is vastly more stimulating to the imagination than the classics.

CARL SAGAN, 1934 TO 1996

Valid criticism does you a favor.

JOSEPH MELLOR, 1869 TO 1938

Trial by combat of wits in disputations has no attraction for the seeker after truth; to

him, the appeal to experiment is the last and only test of the merit of an opinion, conjecture, or

hypotheses.
SIR ARTHUR EDDINGTON, 1882 TO 1944

What is possible in the Cavendish Laboratory may not be too difficult in the sun.
MARIE CURIE, 1867 TO 1934

Pierre Curie voluntarily exposed his arm to the action of radium for several hours.

This resulted in damage resembling a burn that developed progressively and required several months

to heal. Henri Becquerel had by accident a similar burn as a result of carrying in his vest pocket a

glass tube containing radium salt. He came to tell us of this evil effect of radium, exclaiming in a

manner at once delighted and annoyed: “I love it, but I owe it a grudge.”
SUBRAHMANYAN CHANDRASEKHAR, 1910 TO 1995

The black holes of nature are the most perfect macroscopic objects there are in the

universe: the only elements in their construction are our concepts of space and time.
THOMAS THOMSON, 1773 TO 1852

Chemistry, unlike other sciences, sprang originally from delusions and superstitions,

and was at its commencement exactly on a par with magic and astrology.
ROBERT KIRSHNER, 1949 TO PRESENT

Understanding the history of matter and searching for its most interesting forms,

such as galaxies, stars, planets and life, seems a suitable use for our intelligence.
STEPHEN JAY GOULD, 1941 TO 2002

We are storytelling animals, and cannot bear to acknowledge the ordinariness of our

daily lives.
THOMAS GOLD, 1920 TO 2004

Things are as they are because they were as they were.

SIR ARTHUR EDDINGTON, 1882 TO 1944

I believe there are 15 747 724 136 275 002 577 605 653 961 181 555 468 044 717

914 527 116 709 366 231 425 076 185 631 031 296 protons in the universe and the same number of

electrons.
WILLIAM RAMSAY, 1852 TO 1916

Archimedes’ finding that the crown was of gold was a discovery; but he invented the

method of determining the density of solids. Indeed, discoverers must generally be inventors; though

inventors are not necessarily discoverers.

GEORGE JOHNSTONE STONEY, 1826 TO 1911

A theory is a supposition which we hope to be true, a hypothesis is a supposition

which we expect to be useful; fictions belong to the realm of art; if made to intrude elsewhere, they

become either make-believes or mistakes.

JACOB BRONOWSKI, 1908 TO 1974

Science is the acceptance of what works and the rejection of what does not. That
needs more courage than we might think.

1.) “Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.” – Carl Sagan

2.) “The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers
wisdom.” ― Isaac Asimov

3.) “The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge.” – Thomas Berger

4.) “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” ― Albert Einstein

5.) “Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.” – Immanuel Kant

6.) “Art is the tree of life. Science is the tree of death.” – William Blake

7.) “Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.”
– Stephen Hawking

8.) “Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.” – Oscar Wilde

9.) “It is strange that only extraordinary men make the discoveries, which later appear so easy and
simple.” – Georg C. Lichtenberg
10.) “Progress is made by trial and failure; the failures are generally a hundred times more numerous
than the successes; yet they are usually left unchronicled.” – WILLIAM RAMSAY

11.) “The science of today is the technology of tomorrow.” – Edward Teller

12.) “Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.” – Wernher von Braun

13.) “I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and
then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all
undiscovered before me.” – Isaac Newton

14.) “Actually, everything that can be known has a Number; for it is impossible to grasp anything
with the mind or to recognize it without this.” – PHILOLAUS

15.) “In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single
individual.”- Galileo Galilei

16.) “Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done.” – Robert A. Heinlein

17.) “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”– Neil deGrasse
Tyson

18.) “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more,
so that we may fear less.”― Marie Curie

19.) “By ‘life,’ we mean a thing that can nourish itself and grow and decay.”
– Aristotle

20.) “Shall I refuse my dinner because I do not fully understand the process of digestion?” – Oliver
Heaviside

21.) “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” ― Isaac Newton

22.) “Science is the acceptance of what works and the rejection of what does not. That needs
more courage than we might think.” – JACOB BRONOWSKI

23.) “I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing
something.” ― Richard P. Feynman

24.) “The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: If there is any
reaction, both are transformed.” — C.G. Jung

25.) “The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put
together.” ― Carl Sagan

26.) “The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.” – Albert
Einstein

27.) “Science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another.”
– Thomas Hobbes
28.) “There are three stages in scientific discovery. First, people deny that it is true, then they deny
that it is important; finally, they credit the wrong person.” ― Bill Bryson

29.) “Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.” – John Dewey

30.) “We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing
that so little knowledge can give us so much power.” ― Bertrand Russell

31.) “Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.” – Ralph
Waldo Emerson

32.) “Science and religion are not at odds. Science is simply too young to understand.” ― Dan
Brown

33.) “Aerodynamically the bumble bee shouldn’t be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn’t know it so
it goes on flying anyway.”- Mary Kay Ash

34.) “You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him discover it in himself.” – Galileo

35.) “I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.”
– Albert Einstein

36.) “Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every
stop. Many passengers would rather have stayed home.” – Carl Sagan

37.) “An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature, and a measurement is the recording
of Nature’s answer.” – MAX PLANCK

38.) “Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure
Science.” – Edwin Powell Hubble

39.) “The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he’s one who asks the right questions.”
― Claude Levi-Strauss

40.) “Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings.” ― Victor Stenger

41.) “Science is a beautiful gift to humanity; we should not distort it.” – A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

42.) “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

43.) “Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.” – Adam Smith

44.) “There is no law except the law that there is no law.” – John Archibald Wheeler

45.) “Rockets are cool. There’s no getting around that.”- Elon Musk

46.) “Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.” ― Stephen Hawking

47.) “Science is vastly more stimulating to the imagination than the classics.” – J. B. S. HALDANE
48.) “Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.” —Albert Einstein

49.) “To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.” ― Thomas A. Edison

50.) “In scientific work, those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact.” – Thomas
Huxley
1957:

Laika was the first animal to orbit the Earth.

The World’s First Artificial Satellite was Sputnik.

1959:

Luna 1 was the fist space probe to achieve Planet Earth escape velocity. The probe was launched on
March 2, 1972.

1960:

Tiros 1 was the first weather satellite. It was launched on April 1, 1960 by a Thor-Able Rocket.

1961:

First Human in Space was Yuri Gagarin

1962:

First American in Earth Orbit was John Glenn.

1963:

First Woman in Space was Valentina Tereshkova

1965:

– First Space Walk was by Alexei Leonov.

– Venera 3 was the first spacecraft to impact on another planet (Venus). It was launched on November
16, 1965.

1966:

– Luna 9 was the first successful lunar soft landing. It was launched on January 31, 1966.

– Luna 10 was the first spacecraft to be placed in Moon orbit. It was launched on March 31, 1966.

– Surveyor was the first US soft landing on the Moon. It televised photos of itself and the lunar
surface. It was launched on May 30, 1966 by an Atlas-Centaur.
1969:

First Human Landing on the Moon-Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin

1972:

Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to explore the Asteroid Belt, fly by Jupiter and leave the Solar
System. The probe was launched on March 2, 1972

1975:

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project: U.S.-USSR joint mission. Apollo 18 and Soyuz 19 docked.

1981:

First Piloted orbital test flight of U.S. Space Shuttle

1983:

First flight of U.S. Woman Astronaut was Sally Ride.

1984:

First Female Space Walker was Svetlana Savitskaya.

1990:

Hubble Space Telescope launched.

2000:

The first commercially (privately) funded human spaceflight.

This was to Mir Space Station. The mission was funded by MirCorp, a western company that was
leasing the station from Energia, the Russian company that operated Mir for the Russian government.

2001:

The first Space Tourist was Dennis Tito.

2004:
SpaceShipOne was the first manned private spaceflight. Mike Melvill the pilot was the first private
astronaut in space.

1 The first cosmonaut to spend about 17½ days in space endurance flight
* Adrin Nikolayev and Vitaly Sevastyanosov in soyuz-9 (June 1, 1970)
2 The first person in the world to land on the moon
* Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. Adrin Jr. of U.S.A. Armstrong was the first to set foot
on the moon followed by Aldrin. July 21, 1969.
3 The first man to enter space
* Major Yuri Gagarin (Russian)
4 The first woman cosmonaut of the world
* Velentina Tereshkova
5 The first American astronaut to float in space
* Edward White
6 The first unmanned spaceship to have soft landed and lifted off from the moon to
return to the earth
* Luna-16 (U.S.S.R.) September 21, 1970
The first manned space vehicle to land on the moon
* Lunar Exploration Module (LEM) nick-named ‘Eagle’
8 The first spaceship which carried three American astronauts to land two of them on the
moon
* Apollo-11
10 The first space-vehicle to orbit the moon
* Luna-10 (U.S.S.R.)
11 The first unmanned moon buggy to explore surface of the moon
* Lunakhod-1 (U.S.S.R.)
12 The first space rocket brought back to earth after orbiting the moon
* Zond-5
13 First crew transfer between the orbiting spaceships
* Soyuz T-15 with Mir Space Station
14 The first mission of a linking-up in space by manned spaceships of U.S.A. and Soviet
Union
* Apollo-Soyuz Test Project Mission (ASTP) (launched on July 15 and linked up in space
on July 17, 1975)
15 India’s first scientific satellite
* Aryabhatta
16 The first man to fly into space belonging to a country other than Russia or the U.S.A.
* Vladimir
17 Russia’s first spaceship with international crew on board.
* Remek (Czechoslovakia)
18 The first country to send nuclear powered space craft to explore Jupiter
* U.S.A.
19 The first Indian to go into space
* Rakesh Sharma
20 The first American astronaut to make two space flights
* Gordon Cooper (U.S.A.)
21 The first country to launch a cosmic space rocket towards moon
* U.S.S.R.
22 The first space rocket to hit the moon
Lunik II
23 The first spaceship in the world to sample moon’s crust
* Surveyor-3 (U.S.A.)
24 The first space vehicle to soft land on moon
* Luna-9 (U.S.S.R.)
25 The first manned spaceship to perform the longest stay in space (11 days)
* Apollo-7 (U.S.A.)
26 The first manned spaceship to perform space flight round the moon
* Apollo-8 (U.S.A.)
27 The first American manned spaceship to perform crew transfer in space
* Apollo-9 (U.S.A.)
28 The first woman of Indian origin in space
* Kalpana Chawla
29 The first residents on the International Space Station
* Bill shepherd (U.S.A.), Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev (Russia)
30 The first space tourist in the world
* Dennis Tito (U.S.A.)
31 The first European woman to international Space Station
* Claudie Haignere (French cosmonaut)
32 The first space tourist of S. Africa and second of the world
* Mark Shuttleworth (April 2002)
33 The first US space shuttle to explode while returning home killing all the astronauts
* Columbia (February 1, 2003)
34 China’s first man in space
* Yang Liwei
35 European Space Agency’s first moon probe craft
* SMART-I
36 America’s first Mission to Saturn
* Cassini Spacecraft (Reached Saturn’s orbit in July 2004)
37 First private, manned spacecraft
* Spaceship One (Launched on June 21, 2004)
38 First European space probe landing on the surface of the Saturnian Moon Titan
* Huygens (January 15, 2005)
39 India’s first Mapping Satellite
* CARTOSAT-I (Launched on May 5, 2005)
40 The first spacecraft to touch the surface of a comet
* NASA’s Deep Impact hit its comet target temple-I (July 4, 2005)
41 The first Japanese spacecraft to get down to an asteroid and collect samples from
there
* Hayabusa (November 2005, Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)
42 The first Probe Mission to planet Pluto
* New Horizons (U.S. launched on January 19, 2006)
43 The first space woman to stay for the longest ever Perivale of time in space
* Sunita Williams
44 The first lunar orbiter of China
* Chang’e-I (Lauched on October 24, 2007 from Xichang Satellite Launch Centre of
South-Western Sichuan Province)
45 The first successful moon mission of India
* Chandrayan-I (October 22, 2008)
46 The US software pioneer who became the first person to travel twice to space as a
tourist
* Charles Simonyi (March 26, 2009)