Skip to content

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."

— Phil Plait Bad Astronomy (2002)

Another quote →

More quotes by Phil 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.

Just like people, stars can be important without being terribly bright.

Bad Astronomy (2002)

Other job markets may lay claim to the title, but astronomy is actually the world's oldest profession.

Death from the Skies! (2008)

However, science isn't just about showing when you're right; it's also about showing when you're wrong.

Bad Astronomy (2002)

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.

Death from the Skies! (2008)

All Phil Plait quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Phil Plait (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.