Sasselov Dimitar Quotes & Sayings

It feels great to discover a planet, just like any discovery in science, except that it has more of the feel of exploration - you can go back and look at it. However, I can never visit. — Dimitar Sasselov

In science, it is rare that a transformational change occurs during our lifetimes. — Dimitar Sasselov

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. Sometimes you run over a drunk who's lain down and fallen asleep on the warm pavement. I mean, do you keep going, or what? — E.L. Doctorow

Most of us have, in the past seventy-two hours, received more change-producing, project-creating, and priority-shifting inputs than our parents did in a month, maybe even in a year. I — David Allen

A few ideas seem to be agreed upon. Help none but those who help themselves. Educate only at schools which provide in some form for industrial education. These two points should be insisted upon. Let the normal instruction be that men must earn their own living, and that by the labor of their hands as far as may be. This is the gospel of salvation for the colored man. Let the labor not be servile, but in manly occupations like that of the carpenter, the farmer, and the blacksmith. — Rutherford B. Hayes

I grew up in Bulgaria in a small city on the Black Sea Coast, so I was very interested in the sea, marine life, and everything related to it. But it was also a very dark place at night, so I could see the stars. And I just got very interested in it. — Dimitar Sasselov

It's feasible that we'll meet other sentient life forms and conduct commerce with them. We don't now have the technology to physically travel outside our solar system for such an exchange to take place, but we are like Columbus centuries ago, learning fast how to get somewhere few think possible. — Dimitar Sasselov

The simpler, the better. Complications lead to multiplicative chains of unanticipated effects. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The longer an event is anticipated-a milestone birthday, an eclipse, a new millennium-the more likely it is to be an anti-climax. — Keith Waterhouse

People quite often think of the question 'Are we alone in the universe?' in terms of other civilizations out there: life forms that have reached at least our level of technological development. — Dimitar Sasselov

When we think of what is necessary for the phenomenon that we call life, we think of compartmentalization, keeping the molecules which are important for life in a membrane, isolated from the rest of the environment, but yet, in an environment in which they actually could originate together. — Dimitar Sasselov

Super-Earths are how we call a family of planets ... up to two times larger and about ten times more massive than the Earth. — Dimitar Sasselov

We have been telling each other tales of otherness, of life beyond the grave, for a long time; stories that prickle the flesh and make the shadows deeper and, most important, remind us that we live, and that there is something special, something unique and remarkable about the state of being alive. — Neil Gaiman

We love our planet Earth. We should - it is our home, and there's no place like home. There can't ever be a better place than Earth. — Dimitar Sasselov

In alchemical treatises, the formula L'Oeuvre au Noir ... designates what is said to be the most difficult phase of the alchemist's process, the separation and dissolution of substance. It is still not clear whether the term applied to daring experiments on matter itself, or whether it was understood to symbolize trials of the mind in discarding all forms of routine and prejudice. Doubtless it signified one or the other meaning alternately, or perhaps both at the same time. — Marguerite Yourcenar

Life and the universe compare to each other like a child and a parent, parent and offspring. — Dimitar Sasselov

Life is extremely resilient once it takes hold, but it requires rich chemistry, large energy sources, and stability, right from the beginning. The comparative planetology of our solar system makes it seem like those initial conditions are hard to come by. — Dimitar Sasselov

The question we ask is - if there is life on other planets, should we expect it to be based on the same molecules, i.e. be universal - or should we expect it to depend on the local conditions, i.e. on the planet's geochemistry. So to find out, we try experiments on biomolecules, starting with such geochemistry conditions. — Dimitar Sasselov

Ocean planets might be very common in the universe because water is very common in the low-temperature environments where planets form and evolve. This might be especially true for super-Earths, which can retain volatiles more easily thanks to their larger mass and surface gravity. — Dimitar Sasselov

When we discover New Earth - a planet we could call home - the question of the 'plurality of worlds' will come front and center, reminding us yet again that we are not the center of the universe. — Dimitar Sasselov

We do care about planets like the Earth because by now we understood that life as a chemical system really needs a smaller planet with water and with rocks and with a lot of complex chemistry to originate, to emerge, to survive. — Dimitar Sasselov

The more the merrier, that's what I always say. Except if it's an orgy; you've got to be picky in matter of group sex."
"Oh, I completely agree. You can never be too careful in a gang bang."
"Sometimes you end up with too much gang and not enough bang," says Nicholas.
"I've never had a taste for too much gang. I much prefer the latter," I laugh.
"Ah, we have that in common then," he replies in a low voice. — L. H. Cosway

My parents gave me a small telescope, then I built my own, and one thing led to another. So that's how I ended up going from being a hobby astronomer to a professional astronomer. — Dimitar Sasselov

There is immense, powerful potential in life in this universe - especially now that we know that places like the Earth are common. And that potential, that powerful potential, is also our potential, of you and me. — Dimitar Sasselov

Men and statues that are admired ire an elevated situation have a very different effect upon us when we approach them; the first appear less than we imagined them, the last bigger. — Sir Fulke Greville

To develop your own voice, you have to keep writing a ton, and this is something where I think Twitter is helpful. I use it to write a ton of jokes. You have to write a ton of bad stuff before you know what you're good at. And that's what some people I think have trouble with, the thought of getting past the bad stuff. — Megan Amram