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A Model Is A Good Model If First It Interprets A Wide Range Of Observations In Terms Of A Simple And Elegant Model, And Second If The Model Makes Definite Predictions That Can Be Tested, And Possibly Falsified, By Observation.

-Stephen Hawking

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A Model Is A

Stephen Hawking

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A Model Is A Good Model If First It Interprets A Wide Range Of Observations In Terms Of A Simple And Elegant Model, And Second If The Model Makes Definite Predictions That Can Be Tested, And Possibly Falsified, By Observation.

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There Is No Prescribed Route To Follow To Arrive At A New Idea. You Have To Make The Intuitive Leap.

There Is No Prescribed Route To Follow To Arrive At A New Idea. You Have To Make The Intuitive Leap. But The Difference Is That Once You've Made The Intuitive Leap You Have To Justify It By Filling In The Intermediate Steps. N My Case, It Often Happens That I Have An Idea, But Then I Try To Fill In The Intermediate Steps And Find That They Don't Work, So I Have To Give It Up.

Scientists Tend To Risk Theories They Admire

We Only Have To Look At Ourselves To See How Intelligent Life Might Develop Into Something We Wouldnt Want To Meet. I Imagine They Might Exist In Massive Ships, Having Used Up All The Resources From Their Home Planet. Such Advanced Aliens Would Perhaps Become Nomads, Looking To Conquer And Colonize Whatever Planets They Can Reach.

[in The Universe It May Be That] Primitive Life Is Very Common And Intelligent Life Is Fairly Rare. Some Would Say It Has Yet To Occur On Earth.

Science Will Win Because It Works.

The Question Is: Is The Way The Universe Began Chosen By God For Reasons We Can't Understand, Or Was It Determined By A Law Of Science? I Believe The Second. If You Like, You Can Call The Laws Of Science 'god', But It Wouldn't Be A Personal God That You Could Meet, And Ask Questions.

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The Intelligent Beings In These Regions Should Therefore Not Be Surprised If They Observe That Their Locality In The Universe Satisfies The Conditions That Are Necessary For Their Existence. It Is A Bit Like A Rich Person Living In A Wealthy Neighborhood Not Seeing Any Poverty.

We Could Call Order By The Name Of God, But It Would Be An Impersonal God. There's Not Much Personal About The Laws Of Physics.

Real Science Can Be Far Stranger Than Science Fiction And Much More Satisfying.

Not To Take This Web Of Dualities As A Sign We Are On The Right Track Would Be A Bit Like Believing That God Put Fossils Into The Rocks In Order To Mislead Darwin About The Evolution Of Life.

There Is A Real Danger That Computers Will Develop Intelligence And Take Over.

I Want To Encourage Public Interest In Space. I Have Never Let My Condition Stop Me. You Only Live Once.

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Nothing Is Better Than Reading And Gaining More And More Knowledge.

In Britain, Like Most Of The Developed World, Stem-cell Research Is Regarded As A Great Opportunity. America Will Be Left Behind If It Doesn't Change Policy.

If It [the Universe] Was Expanding Fairly Slowly, The Force Of Gravity Would Cause It Eventually To Stop Expanding And Then To Start Contracting. However, If It Was Expanding At More Than A Certain Critical Rate, Gravity Would Never Be Strong Enough To Stop It, And The Universe Would Continue To Expand Forever.

All My Adult Life People Have Been Helping Me.

"sooner Or Later Disasters Such As An Asteroid Collision Or A Nuclear War Could Wipe Us All Out, But Once We Spread Out Into Space And Establish Independent Colonies, Our Future Should Be Safe."

Not To Leave Planet Earth Would Be Like Castaways On A Desert Island Not Trying To Escape...sending Humans To Other Planets ... Will Shape The Future Of The Human Race In Ways We Don't Yet Understand, And May Determine Whether We Have Any Future At All.

I Think Computer Viruses Should Count As Life ... I Think It Says Something About Human Nature That The Only Form Of Life We Have Created So Far Is Purely Destructive. We've Created Life In Our Own Image.

One Does Not Have To Appeal To God To Set The Initial Conditions For The Creation Of The Universe, But If One Does He Would Have To Act Through The Laws Of Physics.

Our Population And Our Use Of The Finite Resources Of Planet Earth Are Growing Exponentially, Along With Our Technical Ability To Change The Environment For Good Or Ill.

I Don't Know What My Iq Is. People Who Gloat About Their Iq's Are Losers

The Human Failing I Would Most Like To Correct Is Aggression.

Although September 11 Was Horrible, It Didn't Threaten The Survival Of The Human Race, Like Nuclear Weapons Do.

If We Can Avoid Disaster For The Next Two Centuries, Our Species Should Be Safe As We Spread Into Space. If We Are The Only Intellegent Beings In The Galaxy We Should Make Sure We Survive And Continue. . . . Our Only Chance Of Long-term Survival Is Not To Remain Inward Looking On Planet Earth But To Spread Out Into Space. We Have Made Remarkable Progress In The Last Hundred Years. But If We Want To Continue Beyond The Next Hundred Years, Our Future Is In Space.

There Are Grounds For Cautious Optimism That We May Now Be Near The End Ofthe Search For The Ultimate Laws Of Nature.

People Who Boast About Their I.q. Are Losers.

The Initial Configuration Of The Universe May Have Been Chosen By God, Or It May Itself Have Been Determined By The Laws Of Science. In Either Case, It Would Seem That Everything In The Universe Would Then Be Determined By Evolution According To The Laws Of Science, So It Is Difficult To See How We Can Be Masters Of Our Fate.

What Is Important Is That We Have The Ability To Create.

I Have Sold More Books On Physics Than Madonna Has On Sex. [hawking Adopted This Statement From A Remark Made To Him By His Former Post-doc, Nathan Myhrvold.]

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One Can Imagine That God Created The Universe At Literally Any Time In The Past. On The Other Hand, If The Universe Is Expanding, There May Be Physical Reasons Why There Had To Be A Beginning. One Could Imagine That God Created The Universe At The Instant Of The Big Bang, Or Even Afterwards In Just Such A Way As To Make It Look As Though There Had Been A Big Bang, But It Would Be Meaningless To Suppose That It Was Created Before The Big Bang. An Expanding Universe Does Not Preclude A Creator, But It Does Place Limits On When He Might Have Carried Out His Job!

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It Is My View That The Simplest Explanation Is There Is No God. No One Created The Universe And No One Directs Our Fate. This Leads Me To A Profound Realization. There Is Probably No Heaven, And No Afterlife Either. We Have This One Life To Appreciate The Grand Design Of The Universe, And For That, I Am Extremely Grateful.

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Science Can Explain The Universe Without The Need For A Creator.

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I Believe Things Cannot Make Themselves Impossible.

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The Universe Does Not Behave According To Our Pre-conceived Ideas. It Continues To Surprise Us.

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Science Can Lift People Out Of Poverty And Cure Disease. That, In Turn, Will Reduce Civil Unrest.

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Disability Need Not Be An Obstacle To Success.

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Although I Cannot Move, And I Have To Speak Through A Computer, In My Mind, I Am Free.

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Perhaps We Could Write Code To Optimize Code, Then Run That Code Through The Code Optimizer?

The Universe Doesn't Allow Perfection.

If We Ever Do Find A Complete Theory Of The Universe, It Would Be A Great Triumph Of Human Reason But It Wouldn't Leave Much For Us To Do. We Need An Intellectual Challenge.

I Don't Believe That The Ultimate Theory Will Come By Steady Work Along Existing Lines. We Need Something New. We Can't Predict What That Will Be Or When We Will Find It Because If We Knew That, We Would Have Found It Already!

A Person Who Smiles In The Face Of Adversity...probably Has A Scapegoat.

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[on President Bush's Plan To Get To Mars In 10 Years] Stupid. Robots Would Do A Better Job And Be Much Cheaper Because You Don't Have To Bring Them Back.

Someone Told Me That Each Equation I Included In My Book Would Halve The Sales. I Did Put In One Equation, Einstein's Famous Equation, E = Mc Squared. I Hope That This Will Not Scare Off Half Of My Potential Readers.

The Radiation Left Over From The Big Bang Is The Same As That In Your Microwave Oven But Very Much Less Powerful. It Would Heat Your Pizza Only To Minus 271.3*c - Not Much Good For Defrosting The Pizza, Let Alone Cooking It.

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The Large-scale Homogeneity Of The Universe Makes It Very Difficult To Believe That The Structure Of The Universe Is Determined By Anything So Peripheral As Some Complicated Molecular Structure On A Minor Planet Orbiting A Very Average Star In The Outer Suburbs Of A Fairly Typical Galaxy.

The Usual Approach Of Science Of Constructing A Mathematical Model Cannot Answer The Questions Of Why There Should Be A Universe For The Model To Describe. Why Does The Universe Go To All The Bother Of Existing?

Think Of Our Dna. In The Last Million Years, Our Dna Hasn't Changed At All. It's Really Much The Same As It Was In The Jungle, A Million, Two Millions Years Ago. But In The Last 200 Years, Our Destructive Capacities Have Increased Many, Many Millions Of Times Over. Why Don't We See Intelligent Signals From Outer Space? Because In All Likelihood, Once The Civilization Reaches The Point Our Civilization Has Reached, It Destroys Itself.

All Of My Life, I Have Been Fascinated By The Big Questions That Face Us, And Have Tried To Find Scientific Answers To Them. If, Like Me, You Have Looked At The Stars, And Tried To Make Sense Of What You See, You Too Have Started To Wonder What Makes The Universe Exist.

It [ai] Would Take Off On Its Own And Redesign Itself At An Ever Increasing Rate. Humans, Who Are Limited By Slow Biological Evolution, Couldn't Compete And Would Be Superseded.

Thus, In A Sense, We Are All Doomed. Even If We Stay Away From Black Holes

I'm A Child Myself, In The Sense That I'm Still Looking. Children Are Fascinated By Black Holes And Ask Me Questions. I Find They Soon Get The Idea If It Is Explained In Nontechnical Language.

In The Last 200 Years The Population Of Our Planet Has Grown Exponentially, At A Rate Of 1.9% Per Year. If It Continued At This Rate, With The Population Doubling Every 40 Years, By 2600 We Would All Be Standing Literally Shoulder To Shoulder.

It Matters That You Don't Just Give Up.

What I Have Done Is To Show That It Is Possible For The Way The Universe Began To Be Determined By The Laws Of Science. In That Case, It Would Not Be Necessary To Appeal To God To Decide How The Universe Began. This Doesn't Prove That There Is No God, Only That God Is Not Necessary.

Everyone Can Enjoy A Life Of Luxurious Leisure If The Machine-produced Wealth Is Shared, Or Most People Can End Up Miserably Poor If The Machine-owners Successfully Lobby Against Wealth Redistribution.

Look Up At The Stars, Not Down At Your Feet.

We Won't Know For A Few Years.

I Don't Think The Human Race Will Survive The Next Thousand Years, Unless We Spread Into Space. There Are Too Many Accidents That Can Befall Life On A Single Planet. But I'm An Optimist. We Will Reach Out To The Stars.

I Am Damned If I'm Going To Die Before I Have Unraveled More Of The Universe

Many People Find The Universe Confusing - It's Not.

If It Were Only A Few Degrees, That Would Be Serious, But We Could Adapt To It. But The Danger Is The Warming Process Might Be Unstable And Run Away. We Could End Up Like Venus, Covered In Clouds And With The Surface Temperature Of 400 Degrees. It Could Be Too Late If We Wait Until The Bad Effects Of Warming Become Obvious. We Need Action Now To Reduce Emission Of Carbon Dioxide.

The Human Race Shouldn't Have All Its Eggs In One Basket, Or On One Planet. Let's Hope We Can Avoid Dropping The Basket Until We Have Spread The Load.

There Is A Very Real Danger That We Will Kill Everything On This Planet Now That We Have The Technological Power To Do So.

Thirty Years Ago I Was Diagnosed With Motor Neurone Disease, And Given Two And A Half Years To Live. I Have Always Wondered How They Could Be So Precise About The Half.

Time Travel May Be Possible, But It Is Not Practical.

Any Physical Theory Is Always Provisional, In The Sense That It Is Only A Hypothesis: You Can Never Prove It.

Although Quantum Mechanics Has Been Around For Nearly 70 Years, It Is Still Not Generally Understood Or Appreciated, Even By Those That Use It To Do Calculations.

I Have Sold More Books On Physics Than Madonna Has On Sex.

Sometimes I Wonder If I'm As Famous For My Wheelchair And Disabilities As I Am For My Discoveries.

Scientists Have Become The Bearers Of The Torch Of Discovery In Our Quest For Knowledge.

Science Is Not Only A Disciple Of Reason But, Also, One Of Romance And Passion.

I Have Experimental Evidence That Time Travel Is Not Possible.

We've Created Life In Our Own Image.

Life Would Be Tragic If It Weren't Funny.

If Everything In The Universe Depends Upon Everything Else In A Fundamental Way, It Might Be Impossible To Get Close To A Full Solution By Investigating Parts Of The Problem In Isolation.

In Fact, If One Considers The Possible Constants And Laws That Could Have Emerged, The Odds Against A Universe That Produced Life Like Ours Are Immense.

It Is Generally Recognised That Women Are Better Than Men At Languages, Personal Relations And Multi-tasking, But Less Good At Map-reading And Spatial Awareness. It Is Therefore Not Unreasonable To Suppose That Women Might Be Less Good At Mathematics And Physics.

Success Is A Relative Term. It Brings So Many Relatives.

Why Does The Universe Go To All The Bother Of Existing?

Mathematical Models

I Think The Human Race Doesn't Have A Future If We Don't Go Into Space. We Need To Expand Our Horizons Beyond Planet Earth If We Are To Have A Long-term Future. We Cannot Remain Looking Inward At Ourselves On A Small And Increasingly Polluted And Overcrowded Planet. We Need To Look Outward To The Wider Universe.

I'd Say I Don't Believe In God, But I'm Afraid He Might Hear Me.

If One Is Physically Disabled, One Cannot Afford To Be Psychologically Disabled As Well.

Physically Disabled

When Two's Company, Three's The Result!

Only Time - Whatever That May Be - Will Tell.

The Universe Is Governed By Science. But Science Tells Us That We Can't Solve The Equations, Directly In The Abstract.

Mathematical Equations

If The Government Is Covering Up Knowledge Of Aliens, They Are Doing A Better Job Of It Than They Do At Anything Else.

I Was Not A Good Student. I Did Not Spend Much Time At College; I Was Too Busy Enjoying Myself.

I Have Noticed Even People Who Claim Everything Is Predestined, And That We Can Do Nothing To Change It, Look Before They Cross The Road.

The Downside Of My Celebrity Is That I Cannot Go Anywhere In The World Without Being Recognized. It Is Not Enough For Me To Wear Dark Sunglasses And A Wig. The Wheelchair Gives Me Away.

Latest Survey Shows That 3 Out Of 4 People Make Up 75% Of The World's Population.

A Lot Of Prizes Have Been Awarded For Showing The Universe Is Not As Simple As We Might Have Thought.

I Am Just A Child Who Has Never Grown Up. I Still Keep Asking These 'how' And 'why' Questions. Occasionally, I Find An Answer.

Most Sets Of Values Would Give Rise To Universes That, Although They Might Be Very Beautiful, Would Contain No One Able To Wonder At That Beauty.

Do You Ever Wonder How Much Deeper The Ocean Would Be Without Sponges?

What I Meant By 'we Would Know The Mind Of God' Is, We Would Know Everything That God Would Know, If There Were A God. Which There Isn't. I'm An Atheist.

It Often Happens That I Have An Idea, But Then I Try To Fill In The Intermediate Steps And Find They Don't Work, So I Have To Give It Up.

We Live In The Most Probable Of All Possible Worlds.

Being Confined To A Wheelchair Doesn't Bother Me As My Mind Is Free To Roam The Universe, But It Felt Wonderful To Be Weightless.

We Each Exist For But A Short Time, And In That Time Explore But A Small Part Of The Whole Universe

There Is No Unique Picture Of Reality.

The Universe And The Laws Of Physics Seem To Have Been Specifically Designed For Us. If Any One Of About 40 Physical Qualities Had More Than Slightly Different Values, Life As We Know It Could Not Exist: Either Atoms Would Not Be Stable, Or They Wouldn't Combine Into Molecules, Or The Stars Wouldn't Form Heavier Elements, Or The Universe Would Collapse Before Life Could Develop, And So On...

If Human Life Were Long Enough To Find The Ultimate Theory, Everything Would Have Been Solved By Previous Generations. Nothing Would Be Left To Be Discovered.

A Model Is A Good Model If First It Interprets A Wide Range Of Observations In Terms Of A Simple And Elegant Model, And Second If The Model Makes Definite Predictions That Can Be Tested, And Possibly Falsified, By Observation.

So Einstein Was Wrong When He Said, "god Does Not Play Dice." Consideration Of Black Holes Suggests, Not Only That God Does Play Dice, But That He Sometimes Confuses Us By Throwing Them Where They Can't Be Seen.

Someone Told Me That Each Equation I Included In The Book Would Halve The Sales.

No One Undertakes Research In Physics With The Intention Of Winning A Prize. It Is The Joy Of Discovering Something No One Knew Before.

The Lesson Of The Book Is That The Universe Is Governed By The Laws Of Science.

I Like Physics, But I Love Cartoons.

The Rate Of Progress Is So Rapid That What One Learns At School Or University Is Always A Bit Out Of Date. Only A Few People Can Keep Up With The Rapidly Advancing Frontier Of Knowledge, And They Have To Devote Their Whole Time To It And Specialize In A Small Area. The Rest Of The Population Has Little Idea Of The Advances That Are Being Made Or The Excitement They Are Generating.

People Won't Have Time For You If You Are Always Angry Or Complaining.

Always Complaining

Don't Be Disabled In Spirit As Well As Physically.

[i Think The Most About] Women. They Are A Complete Mystery.

It's Clearly Possible For A Something To Acquire Higher Intelligence Than Its Ancestors: We Evolved To Be Smarter Than Our Ape-like Ancestors, And Einstein Was Smarter Than His Parents.

[question: Do You Feel That Scientists Correct Themselves As Often As They Should?] More Often Than Politicians, But Not As Often As They Should.

In A World That Is In Chaos Politically, Socially And Environmentally, How Can The Human Race Sustain Another 100 Years?

I Think Computer Viruses Should Count As Life.

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