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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.

-Stephen Hawking

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If It Were Only

Stephen Hawking

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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.

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The Human Race Is Just A Chemical Scum On A Moderate-sized Planet, Orbiting Around A Very Average Star In The Outer Suburb Of One Among A Hundred Billion Galaxies. We Are So Insignificant That I Can't Believe The Whole Universe Exists For Our Benefit. That Would Be Like Saying That You Would Disappear If I Closed My Eyes.

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Though We Feel We Can Choose What We Do, Our Understanding Of The Molecular Basis Of Biology Shows That Biological Processes Are Governed By The Laws Of Physics And Chemistry And Therefore Are As Determined As The Orbits Of The Planets.

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.

I Think My Dad [ Stephen Hawking] Would Have Been Pleased If I Had Turned Out A Scientist Because He Truly Believes That Is The Most Interesting Career Open To Anyone. But He Also Believes That You Have To Follow Your Own Path In Life And So He Certainly Wasn't Going To Push Me Toward Theoretical Physics When It Didn't Look Like I Was Going In That Direction Naturally.

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

The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves.

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If At First You Don't Succeed, Try Management.

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.

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

In Real Time, The Universe Has A Beginning And An End At Singularities That Form A Boundary To Space-time And At Which The Laws Of Science Break Down.

I Believe That The Long-term Future Of The Human Race Must Be Space And That It Represents An Important Life Insurance For Our Future Survival, As It Could Prevent The Disappearance Of Humanity By Colonizing Other Planets.

It Is Said That There's No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. But The Universe Is The Ultimate Free Lunch.

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The Human Race Does Not Have A Very Good Record Of Intelligent Behavior.

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

It Is A Waste Of Time To Be Angry About My Disability. One Has To Get On With Life And I Haven't Done Badly. People Won't Have Time For You If You Are Always Angry Or Complaining.

We Are Entering An Increasingly Dangerous Period Of Our History. But I'm An Optimist.

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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.

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...

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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.

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.

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

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

Theology Is Unnecessary.

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Once I Wept For I Had No Shoes. Then I Met A Man With No Feet, So I Took His Shoes. I Mean, It Wasn't As If He Was Going To Need Them.

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Scientists Tend To Risk Theories They Admire

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The Doctor Who Diagnosed Me With Als, Or Motor Neuron Disease, Told Me That It Would Kill Me In Two Or Three Years.

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Children In Backseats Cause Accidents. Accidents In Backseats Cause Children.

Only Time - Whatever That May Be - Will Tell.

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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?

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

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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.

I Think The Human Race Has No Future If It Doesn't Go Into Space.

The Media Need Superheroes In Science Just As In Every Sphere Of Life, But There Is Really A Continuous Range Of Abilities With No Clear Dividing Line.

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One Can't Predict The Weather More Than A Few Days In Advance.

What You Have Told Us Is Rubbish. The World Is Really A Flat Plate Supported On The Back Of A Giant Tortoise.

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I May Contradict Myself, But At Least I Don't Contradict Myself.

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One Is Always A Long Way From Solving A Problem Until One Actually Has The Answer.

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There Is No Unique Picture Of Reality.

More Often Than Politicians, But Not As Often As They Should.

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With Genetic Engineering, We Will Be Able To Increase The Complexity Of Our Dna, And Improve The Human Race. But It Will Be A Slow Process, Because One Will Have To Wait About 18 Years To See The Effect Of Changes To The Genetic Code.

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.

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

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One Can See From Space How The Human Race Has Changed The Earth. Nearly All Of The Available Land Has Been Cleared Of Forest And Is Now Used For Agriculture Or Urban Development. The Polar Icecaps Are Shrinking And The Desert Areas Are Increasing. At Night, The Earth Is No Longer Dark, But Large Areas Are Lit Up. All Of This Is Evidence That Human Exploitation Of The Planet Is Reaching A Critical Limit. But Human Demands And Expectations Are Ever-increasing. We Cannot Continue To Pollute The Atmosphere, Poison The Ocean And Exhaust The Land. There Isn't Any More Available.

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We Only Have To Look At Ourselves To See How Intelligent Life Might Develop Into Something We Wouldn't Want To Meet.

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

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I Believe Things Cannot Make Themselves Impossible.

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It Should Soon Be Possible Dramatically To Increase The Intelligence And Life Span Of A Few Individuals. They And Their Offspring Could Become A Master Race. Evolution Pays No Regard To Social Justice. It Was Not Fair On The Neanderthals They Were Replaced By Modern Humans.

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Science Predicts That Many Different Kinds Of Universe Will Be Spontaneously Created Out Of Nothing. It Is A Matter Of Chance Which We Are In.

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I'm Not Afraid Of Death, But I'm In No Hurry To Die. I Have So Much I Want To Do First.

Keeping An Active Mind Has Been Vital To My Survival, As Has Been Maintaining A Sense Of Humor.

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.

Disability Need Not Be An Obstacle To Success.

If I Have Questions About The Universe On My Mind When I Go To Bed, I Can't Turn Off. I Dream Equations All Night.

Go The Extra Mile. It Makes Your Boss Look Like An Incompetent Slacker.

When I Was First Diagnosed With Als, I Was Given Two Years To Live. Now 45 Years Later, I Am Doing Pretty Well.

Gravity Is So Strong That Space Is Bent Round Onto Itself, Making It Rather Like The Surface Of The Earth. If One Keeps Traveling In A Certain Direction On The Surface Of The Earth, One Never Comes Up Against An Impassable Barrier Or Falls Over The Edge, But Eventually Comes Back To Where One Started.

It Surprises Me How Disinterested We Are Today About Things Like Physics, Space, The Universe And Philosophy Of Our Existence, Our Purpose, Our Final Destination. Its A Crazy World Out There. Be Curious.

While Physics And Mathematics May Tell Us How The Universe Began, They Are Not Much Use In Predicting Human Behavior Because There Are Far Too Many Equations To Solve. I'm No Better Than Anyone Else At Understanding What Makes People Tick, Particularly Women.

The Development Of Full Artificial Intelligence Could Spell The End Of The Human Race.

We Are Only The Temporary Custodians Of The Particles Which We Are Made Of. They Will Go On To Lead A Future Existence In The Enormous Universe That Made Them

We Won't Know For A Few Years.

You Cannot Understand The Glories Of The Universe Without Believing There Is Some Supreme Power Behind It.

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

There Could Be Whole Antiworlds And Antipeople Made Out Of Antiparticles. However, If You Ever Meet Your Antiself, Don't Shake Hands! You Would Both Vanish In A Great Flash Of Light.

No One Can Resist The Idea Of A Crippled Genius.

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Religion Believes In Miracles, But These Aren't Compatible With Science.

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

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

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

I've Noticed That Even People Who Believe In Fate Look Both Ways Before Crossing The Street.

I Do Not Believe In A Personal God.

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It Is All Right To Make Mistakes; Nothing Is Perfect Because With Perfection, We Would Not Exist.

If I Knew What Was Going To Happen In Ten Years I Would Do It Now. I Just Follow My Nose.

One Could Say: "the Boundary Condition Of The Universe Is That It Has No Boundary." The Universe Would Be Completely Self-contained And Not Affected By Anything Outside Itself. It Would Neither Be Created Nor Destroyed. It Would Just Be.

There Is No Way That We Can Predict The Weather Six Months Ahead Beyond Giving The Seasonal Average.

We Live In The Most Probable Of All Possible Worlds.

It Is Tribute To How Far We Have Come In Theoretical Physics That It Now Takes Enormous Machines And A Great Deal Of Money To Perform Experiments Whose Results We Can Not Predict.

Theoretical Physics

Succeed In Spite Of Management.

A Few Years Ago, The City Council Of Monza, Italy, Barred Pet Owners From Keeping Goldfish In Curved Bowls... Saying That It Is Cruel To Keep A Fish In A Bowl With Curved Sides Because, Gazing Out, The Fish Would Have A Distorted View Of Reality. But How Do We Know We Have The True, Undistorted Picture Of Reality?

While There's Life, There Is Hope.

Exploration By Real People Inspires Us.

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 Any One Of About 40 Physical Qualities Had More Than Slightly Different Values, Life As We Know It Could Not Exist.

What Was God Doing Before The Divine Creation?

Obviously, Because Of My Disability, I Need Assistance. But I Have Always Tried To Overcome The Limitations Of My Condition And Lead As Full A Life As Possible. I Have Traveled The World, From The Antarctic To Zero Gravity.

If Time Travel Is Possible, Where Are The Tourists From The Future?

My Advice To Other Disabled People Would Be, Concentrate On Things Your Disability Doesn't Prevent You Doing Well, And Don't Regret The Things It Interferes With. Don't Be Disabled In Spirit, As Well As Physically.

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

Only A Very Few Would Allow Creatures Like Us To Exist. Thus Our Presence Selects Out From This Vast Array Only Those Universes That Are Compatible With Our Existence. Although We Are Puny And Insignificant On The Scale Of The Cosmos, This Makes Us In A Sense The Lords Of Creation.

We Have Made Remarkable Progress In The Last Hundred Years, But If We Want To Continue, Our Future Is In Space.

Nuclear Weapons Need Large Facilities, But Genetic Engineering Can Be Done In A Small Lab. You Can't Regulate Every Lab In The World. The Danger Is That Either By Accident Or Design, We Create A Virus That Destroys Us.

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

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Many People Do Not Like The Idea That Time Has A Beginning, Probably Because It Smacks Of Divine Intervention. (the Catholic Church, On The Other Hand, Seized On The Big Bang Model And In 1951 Officially Pronounced It To Be In Accordance With The Bible.

The Human Capacity For Guilt Is Such That People Can Always Find Ways To Blame Themselves

Science Could Predict That The Universe Must Have Had A Beginning.

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

Ever Since The Dawn Of Civilization, People Have Not Been Content To See Events As Unconnected And Inexplicable. They Have Craved An Understanding Of The Underlying Order In The World. Today We Still Yearn To Know Why We Are Here And Where We Came From. Humanity's Deepest Desire For Knowledge Is Justification Enough For Our Continuing Quest. And Our Goal Is Nothing Less Than A Complete Description Of The Universe We Live In.

Then We Shall... Be Able To Take Part In The Discussion Of The Question Of Why It Is That We And The Universe Exist. If We Find The Answer To That, It Would Be The Ultimate Triumph Of Human Reason - For Then We Would Know The Mind Of God.

If There Is A God

To Confine Our Attention To Terrestrial Matters Would Be To Limit The Human Spirit.

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.

Maxwell Is The Physicist's Physicist.

Never Put Off The Work Till Tomorrow What You Can Put Off Today.

I Don't Think The Human Race Will Survive The Next Thousand Years, Unless We Spread Into Space.

I Want To Know Why The Universe Exists, Why There Is Something Greater Than Nothing.

Speech Has Allowed The Communication Of Ideas, Enabling Human Beings To Work Together To Build The Impossible. Mankind's Greatest Achievements Have Come About By Talking, And Its Greatest Failures By Not Talking. It Doesn't Have To Be Like This. Our Greatest Hopes Could Become Reality In The Future. With The Technology At Our Disposal, The Possibilities Are Unbounded. All We Need To Do Is Make Sure We Keep Talking.

Over A Very Small Number Of Rolls Of The Dice, The Uncertainty Principle Is Very Important.

Uncertainty Principle

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.

The Universe Doesn't Allow Perfection.

So When People Ask Me If I Believe God Created The Universe, I Tell Them That The Question Itself Makes No Sense. Time Didn't Exist Before The Big Bang, So There Is No Time For God To Make The Universe In. It's Like Asking For Directions To The Edge Of The Earth; The Earth Is A Sphere, It Doesn't Have An Edge, So Looking For It Is A Futile Exercise.

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

Always Complaining

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

You Only Live Once

The Human Failing I Would Most Like To Correct Is Aggression. It May Have Had Survival Advantage In Caveman Days, To Get More Food, Territory Or A Partner With Whom To Reproduce, But Now It Threatens To Destroy Us All.

There Are Too Many Accidents That Can Befall Life On A Single Planet.

I Think The Universe Was Spontaneously Created Out Of Nothing, According To The Laws Of Science. It Has No Beginning And No End.

The Life We Have On Earth Must Have Spontaneously Generated Itself. It Must Therefore Be Possible For Life To Generate Spontaneously Elsewhere In The Universe.

All That My Work Has Shown Is That You Don't Have To Say That The Way The Universe Began Was The Personal Whim Of God.

It Is Reasonable To Ask Who Or What Created The Universe, But If The Answer Is God, Then The Question Has Merely Been Deflected To That Of Who Created God.

The Idea Of 10 Dimensions Might Sound Exciting, But They Would Cause Real Problems If You Forget Where You Parked Your Car.

I'm Here To Chew Gum And Kick Some Ass, And I'm All Out Of Gum.

There Should Be A Better Way To Start A Day Than Waking Up Every Morning.

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.

In His Eyes Shone The Reflection Of The Most Beautiful Planet In The Universe---a Planet That Is Not Too Hot And Not Too Cold; That Has Liquid Water On The Surface And Where The Gravity Is Just Right For Human Beings And The Atmosphere Is Perfect For Them To Breathe; Where There Are Mountains And Deserts And Oceans And Islands And Forests And Trees And Birds And Plants And Animals And Insects And People---lots And Lots Of People. Where There Is Life. Some Of It, Possibly, Intelligent.

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.

The Meaning In Life Is Not Out There But Inbetween Our Ears. In Many Ways This Makes Us The Lords Of Creation.

A Snooze Button Is A Poor Substitute For No Alarm Clock At All.

The More You Learn, The More You Know. The More You Know, The More You Forget. The More You Forget, The Less You Know. So Why Bother To Learn.

So Next Time Someone Complains That You Have Made A Mistake, Tell Him That May Be A Good Thing. Because Without Imperfection, Neither You Nor I Would Exist.

A Zero-gravity Flight Is A First Step Toward Space Travel.

Save Water. Shower With Your Girlfriend.

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But A Machine That Was Powerful Enough To Accelerate Particles To The Grand Unification Energy Would Have To Be As Big As The Solar System - And Would Be Unlikely To Be Funded In The Present Economic Climate.

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

If You Understand How The Universe Operates, You Control It In A Way.

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