Dennis Sciama

British physicist (1926–1999)

Dennis William Siahou Sciama FRS (18 November 192618 December 1999) was a British astronomer and physicist who, through his own work and that of his students, played a major role in developing British physics after the Second World War.

Quotes

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  • It is not surprising that it was the Greeks, with their profound understanding of geometrical principles, who were the first to devise methods of measuring the size of the earth and the distance to the sun and the moon. Indeed, their results were not superseded until the eighteenth century, when telescopes had been developed to the point where new methods could be introduced.
  • You know my favourite Dirac story: I go up to him once and I say, "Professor Dirac, I've just thought of a way of relating the formation of stars to cosmological things — not galaxies, stars — shall I tell you about it?" And he said, "No."

Modern Cosmology (1971)

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  • It has now become clear that the exploration of the Universe, as conducted by physicists, astronomers and cosmologists, is one of the greatest intellectual adventures of the mid-twentieth century.
  • The reader has by now probably become accustomed to the reversals of fortune so common in astronomy.
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