Richard Feynman discussing the various applications of the gravitational law:

The only applications [of the gravitational law] I could think of were, first, in some geophysical prospecting, in predicting the tides; nowadays, more modernly, in working out the motions of the satellites and the planet probes, and so on, that we send up– and also, modernly, to calculate the predictions of the planet’s position, which have great utility for astrologers to publish their predictions and horoscopes in the magazines.

That’s the strange world we live in, that all the advances and understanding are used only to continue the nonsense which has existed for 2.000 years.

This quote comes from the Messenger Series lectures that Feynman gave at Cornell in 1964. Lectures which everyone should watch for you get to see one of the greatest minds of theoretical physics discussing the various laws of nature in a way that only he could do.

Credit to Microsoft for releasing this series under their awesome Project Tuva. Can’t wait for more such science lectures!