Philip Plait Quotes & Sayings

If a little kid ever asks you just why the sky is blue, you look him or her right in the eye and say, It's because of quantum effects involving Rayleigh scattering combined with a lack of violet photon receptors in our retinae. — Philip Plait

If you wish to view this as a cautionary tale, be my guest. — Philip Plait

I'm tired of ignorance held up as inspiration, where vicious anti-intellectualism is considered a positive trait, and where uninformed opinion is displayed as fact. — Philip Plait

Science asymptotically approaches reality. — Philip Plait

Sure, black holes can kill us, and in a variety of interesting and gruesome ways. But, all in all, we may owe our very existence to them. — Philip Plait

I am using the word theory as a scientist means it: a set of ideas so well established by observations and physical models that it is essentially indistinguishable from fact. That is different from the colloquial use that means "guess." To a scientist, you can bet your life on a theory. Remember, gravity is "just a theory" too. — Philip Plait

They say that even the brightest star won't shine forever. But in fact, the brightest star would live the shortest amount of time. Feel free to extract whatever life lesson you want from that. — Philip Plait