A biography for Priyamvada Natarajanhasn’t been written yet.
“We need to make sure that the Voyager probes carrying a record of human civilization speeding beyond our solar system remain an introduction to the world that sent them and not an epitaph for a civilization that caused its own ruin.”
“We cannot decide on the efficacy of a medical treatment by counting the number of 'Likes' an intervention receives on Facebook; no matter what, professionals will still need to conduct continued clinical trials and evaluate their outcomes carefully.”
“Progress in science occurs in fits and starts, and paradigm shifts occur when evidence can be marshaled to support a new point of view.”
“Being nimble and ready to change our minds if need be is an attribute that is crucial to live and thrive in a society that is powered by science and technology, both as an individual and as an engaged citizen.”
“We knew from theoretical models that mergers of massive, gas-rich galaxies were more frequent in the past. Now we've found that these mergers are responsible for producing both the nearby obscured quasar population and their distant cousins.”
“The invisible and unseen has always fascinated us humans.”
“Evidence has been mounting for the key role that black holes play in the process of galaxy formation. But it now appears that they are likely the prima donnas of this space opera.”
“I find the world with its inequities and injustices to be messy, unfair, and complicated. The cosmos, on the other hand, is orderly and beautiful - this I find terribly alluring and captivating.”
“No one wants to walk across a crowd-sourced bridge.”
“It is my idea that the public needs to be better educated about the nature of scientific inquiry and how the scientific process works. I firmly believe that this is the only effective way forward to combat the widespread distrust in facts and science.”
“The precise effects of lensing depend on the mass of the lens, the structure of space-time, and the relative distance between us, the lens, and the distant object behind it. It's like a magnifying glass, where the image you get depends on the shape of the lens and how far you hold it from the object you're looking at.”
“Growing up in Delhi, India, I did puzzles, explored numbers, and searched for patterns in everyday settings long before I ever saw an equation.”
“As Congress battles over spending and cost cutting, it is imperative that funding for math education programs does not fall victim.”
“The deep fascination with the mysterious, and the impulse to seek and locate ourselves in the cosmic context, seems to be imprinted in our DNA and psyches.”
“In an era of ever-increasing globalization, what it takes to become and remain a science superpower has fundamentally changed.”
“Finding the first seed black holes could help reveal how the relation between black holes and their host galaxies evolved over time.”
“Scientific knowledge is, by its nature, provisional. This is due to the fact that as time goes on, with the invention of better instruments, more data and better data hone our understanding further. Social, cultural, economic, and political context are relevant to our understanding of how science works.”
“Dark matter is particularly intriguing because it's some kind of particle - that's for sure.”
“Everyone acknowledges that there is a political part to tenure, but no one likes to admit it.”
“We scientists have an obsession with unification, a grand synthesis. And dark matter is an irritating missing piece.”