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Sir Martin Rees
(23 Jun 1942 - )
English cosmologist and astrophysicist who became Astronomer Royal in 1995. He studied the distribution of quasars, which he proposed drew their power from huge black holes.
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Science Quotes by Sir Martin Rees (2 quotes)
It's becoming clear that in a sense the cosmos provides the only laboratory where sufficiently extreme conditions are ever achieved to test new ideas on particle physics. The energies in the Big Bang were far higher than we can ever achieve on Earth. So by looking at evidence for the Big Bang, and by studying things like neutron stars, we are in effect learning something about fundamental physics.
— Sir Martin Rees
In Lewis Wolpert and Alison Richards, A Passion For Science (1988), 33.
The physicist is like someone who's watching people playing chess and, after watching a few games, he may have worked out what the moves in the game are. But understanding the rules is just a trivial preliminary on the long route from being a novice to being a grand master. So even if we understand all the laws of physics, then exploring their consequences in the everyday world where complex structures can exist is a far more daunting task, and that's an inexhaustible one I'm sure.
— Sir Martin Rees
In Lewis Wolpert and Alison Richards, A Passion For Science (1988), 37.
See also:
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23 Jun - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Rees's birth.
At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes--an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. -- Carl Sagan
