We need to know math to be a good scientist, but math is a language, and we need to learn the language because that’s the language of science. Heidi Hammel Read Quote
Whatever I was going into, whether it was going to be chorus or history or astronomy or whatever, do it right. Be a professional. Don’t just do a half baked job. Do everything correctly. Get down. Learn the details of what you’re going to do. Heidi Hammel Read Quote
You make sure you broaden yourself and have a good solid background in many different things. That’s what you need to be a good scientist. Heidi Hammel Read Quote
People seem to be afraid of science, and certainly, people seem to be afraid of mathematics. And I think that’s such a shame, because I don’t think it’s as hard as people seem to think it is. Heidi Hammel Read Quote
When I was in college, I didn’t like physics a lot, and I really wasn’t very good at physics. And there were a lot of people around me who were really good at physics: I mean, scary good at physics. And they weren’t much help to me, because I would say, ‘How do you do this?’ They’d say, ‘Well, the answer’s obvious.’ Heidi Hammel Read Quote
C is a passing grade. You don’t need straight A’s to be a scientist, despite what you may have heard. Heidi Hammel Read Quote
When Hubble was launched, it became clear very shortly thereafter that there was a problem with the optics.The mirror was not quite the right shape. And the one program that I had really been looking forward to doing with Hubble was studying outer planets in our solar system, the planets Uranus and Neptune. Heidi Hammel Read Quote
One of the things I’ve learned that has made me very successful, I think, as a scientist in general, sometimes you just have to take a chance. Heidi Hammel Read Quote
Scientists normally like to do experiments. You know, they like to mix this with that and see what happens. They like to take this thing and poke it and see how it reacts. In astronomy, we can’t do that. The stars, the planets, the galaxies, are so far away that we just look at them, and we have to learn things by looking at them. Heidi Hammel Read Quote
I think the only way that the U.S. human spaceflight program is going to get really revitalized, really put sort of an Apollo level push on it, is if some other country, perhaps China, were to actually have a landed flight to the moon and brought back our American flag and put it in Tiananmen Square. Heidi Hammel Read Quote
