Project Hail Mary

by Andy Weir

Kids are smarter than most people think. And they can tell when a teacher actually cares about them as opposed to when they’re just going through the motions.

Human beings have a remarkable ability to accept the abnormal and make it normal.

There’s nothing special about the number 10. We have ten unique digits because we have ten fingers.

Oh thank God. I can’t imagine explaining “sleep” to someone who had never heard of it. Hey, I’m going to fall unconscious and hallucinate for a while. By the way, I spend a third of my time doing this. And if I can’t do it for a while, I go insane and eventually die. No need for concern.

“Are all Russians crazy?” “Yes,” he said with a smile. “It is the only way to be Russian and happy at the same time.” “That’s…dark.” “That’s Russian!”

Gravity doesn’t just “go away” when you’re in orbit. In fact, the gravity you experience in orbit is pretty much the same as you’d experience on the ground. The weightlessness that astronauts experience while in orbit comes from constantly falling. But the curvature of the Earth makes the ground go away at the same rate you fall. So you just fall forever.

“Math is not thinking. Math is procedure. Memory is not thinking. Memory is storage. Thinking is thinking. Problem, solution.

“We’re as smart as evolution made us. So we’re the minimum intelligence needed to ensure we can dominate our planets.”

When you get down to it, smell is just tasting at range.