Speakers Phil Plait: Astronomer
Phil Plait blogs at Bad Astronomy, where he deconstructs misconceptions and explores the wonder of the universe.
Why you should listen to him:
Phil Plait is the Bad Astronomer. Not a bad astronomer, but a blogger for Slate who debunks myths and misconceptions about astronomy -- and also writes about the beauty, wonder and importance of fundamental research.
He worked for six years on the Hubble Space Telescope, and directed public outreach for the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. He is a past president of the James Randi Educational Foundation, and was the host of Phil Plait's Bad Universe, a documentary series on the Discovery Channel.
Read more from Phil Plait in the Huffington Post's special TEDWeekends feature, "Asteroids: Getting Ready" >>
"I now know how many gallons of milk would be produced by a supernova, and that experiencing death by asteroid has a 1 in 700,000 chance of happening per lifetime."Nancy Atkinson, Universe Today
Quotes by Phil Plait
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“If you took every nuclear weapon ever built at the height of the Cold War, lumped them together and blew them up at the same time, that would be one one-millionth of the energy released at that moment.”
— on the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs -
“Sixty-five million years ago the dinosaurs had a bad day.”
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“The difference between the dinosaurs and us is that we have a space program and we can vote.”
— quoting Larry Niven
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Phil Plait: How to defend Earth from asteroids
- 14:16 Posted: Nov 2011
Phil Plait on the Web
Related Speakers
Conferences
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- TEDxBoulder