Background Image

...

One Might Think This Means That Imaginary Numbers Are Just A Mathematical Game Having Nothing To Do With The Real World. From The Viewpoint Of Positivist Philosophy, However, One Cannot Determine What Is Real. All One Can Do Is Find Which Mathematical Models Describe The Universe We Live In. It Turns Out That A Mathematical Model Involving Imaginary Time Predicts Not Only Effects We Have Already Observed But Also Effects We Have Not Been Able To Measure Yet Nevertheless Believe In For Other Reasons. So What Is Real And What Is Imaginary? Is The Distinction Just In Our Minds?

-Stephen Hawking

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

One Might Think This

Stephen Hawking

...

One Might Think This Means That Imaginary Numbers Are Just A Mathematical Game Having Nothing To Do With The Real World. From The Viewpoint Of Positivist Philosophy, However, One Cannot Determine What Is Real. All One Can Do Is Find Which Mathematical Models Describe The Universe We Live In. It Turns Out That A Mathematical Model Involving Imaginary Time Predicts Not Only Effects We Have Already Observed But Also Effects We Have Not Been Able To Measure Yet Nevertheless Believe In For Other Reasons. So What Is Real And What Is Imaginary? Is The Distinction Just In Our Minds?

Views: 5

Topic

More From Stephen Hawking

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

Government Works Best Under The Glare Of Public Scrutiny. Absent Such Scrutiny, Abuses Occur.

The Idea That We Are Alone In The Universe Seems To Me Completely Implausible And Arrogant, Considering The Number Of Planets And Stars That We Know Exist, It's Extremely Unlikely That We Are The Only Form Of Evolved Life.

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

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

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.

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

Scientific Discovery May Not Be Better Than Sex, But The Satisfaction Lasts Longer.

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.

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.

If The Total Energy Of The Universe Must Always Remain Zero, And It Costs Energy To Create A Body, How Can A Whole Universe Be Created From Nothing?

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.

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.

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

Unless Mankind Redesigns Itself By Changing Our Dna Through Altering Our Genetic Makeup, Computer-genera Ted Robots Will Take Over Our World.

For Millions Of Years, Mankind Lived Just Like The Animals. Then Something Happened Which Unleashed The Power Of Our Imagination. We Learned To Talk And We Learned To Listen.

My Goal Is Simple. It Is A Complete Understanding Of The Universe, Why It Is As It Is And Why It Exists At All.

All My Adult Life People Have Been Helping Me.

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.

This Required Abandoning The Idea That There Is A Universal Quantity Called Time That All Clocks Measure. Instead, Everyone Would Have His Own Personal Time. The Clocks Of Two People Would Agree If They Were At Rest With Respect To Each Other But Not If They Were Moving. This Has Been Confirmed By A Number Of Experiments, Including One In Which An Extremely Accurate Timepiece Was Flown Around The World And Then Compared With One That Had Stayed In Place. If You Wanted To Live Longer, You Could Keep Flying To The East So The Speed Of The Plane Added To The Earth

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.

Nothing Is Fool-proof To A Sufficiently Talented Fool.

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

Hang In There, Retirement Is Only Thirty Years Away!

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

Issuing An Insurance Policy Against Abduction By Aliens Seems A Pretty Safe Bet.

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

One, Remember To Look Up At The Stars And Not Down At Your Feet. Two, Never Give Up Work. Work Gives You Meaning And Purpose And Life Is Empty Without It. Three, If You Are Lucky Enough To Find Love, Remember It Is There And Don't Throw It Away.

Scientists Tend To Risk Theories They Admire

We Won't Know For A Few Years.

Only Time - Whatever That May Be - Will Tell.

Bodies Like The Earth Are Not Made To Move On Curved Orbits By A Force Called Gravity; Instead, They Follow The Nearest Thing To A Straight Path In A Curved Space, Which Is Called A Geodesic. A Geodesic Is The Shortest (or Longest) Path Between Two Nearby Points.

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

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.

Philosophers Have Not Kept Up With Modern Developments In Science. Particularly Physics.

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

The "powers That Be" Are Not Smart Enough To Engineer Armageddon, But They May Yet Be Stupid Enough. If Governments Are Involved In Covering Up The Knowledge Of Aliens, Then They Are Doing A Much Better Job Of It Than They Seem To Do At Anything Else.

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.

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.

Doing A Job Right The First Time Gets The Job Done. Doing The Job Wrong Fourteen Times Gives You Job Security.

Computers Double Their Performance Every Month.

Many People Do Not Like The Idea That Time Has A Beginning, Probably Because It Smacks Of Divine Intervention.

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

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.

While There's Life, There Is Hope.

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

Observations Indicate That The Universe Is Expanding At An Ever-increasing Rate. It Will Expand Forever, Getting Emptier And Darker. Although The Universe Doesn’t Have An End, It Had A Beginning In The Big Bang. One Might Ask What Is Before That But The Answer Is That There Is Nowhere Before The Big Bang Just As There Is Nowhere South Of The South Pole.

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.

When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Take A Coffee Break.

I Don't Fear God- I Fear His Believers.

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

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.

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.

Why Do We Remember The Past, But Not The Future?

When I Hear Of Schrödinger's Cat, I Reach For My Pistol.

You Cannot Predict The Future.

We Are All Now Connected By The Internet, Like Neurons In A Giant Brain.

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.

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.

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

The Progress Of The Human Race In Understanding The Universe Has Established A Small Corner Of Order In An Increasingly Disordered Universe.

There Are No Black Holes - In The Sense Of Regimes From Which Light Can't Escape To Infinity. There Are However Apparent Horizons Which Persist For A Period Of Time.

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.

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

The Simpsons Is The Best Thing On American Television.

American Television

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

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

I Don't Want To Write An Autobiography Because I Would Become Public Property With No Privacy Left.

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

I Have Experimental Evidence That Time Travel Is Not Possible.

I Believe Everyone Should Have A Broad Picture Of How The Universe Operates And Our Place In It. It Is A Basic Human Desire. And It Also Puts Our Worries In Perspective.

If You Lined Up All The Cars In The World End To End, Someone Would Try To Pass Them.

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.

Succeed In Spite Of Management.

I Put A Lot Of Effort Into Writing 'a Briefer History' At A Time When I Was Critically Ill With Pneumonia Because I Think That It's Important For Scientists To Explain Their Work, Particularly In Cosmology. This Now Answers Many Questions Once Asked Of Religion.

I Think Computer Viruses Should Count As Life.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves.

Inspirational Office

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

Physically Disabled

What Could Define God, [is Thinking Of God] As The Embodiment Of The Laws Of Nature. However, This Is Not What Most People Would Think Of That God. They Made A Human-like Being With Whom One Can Have A Personal Relationship. When You Look At The Vast Size Of The Universe And How Insignificant An Accidental Human Life Is In It, That Seems Most Impossible.

The Fact That No One Understands You Doesn't Mean You're An Artist.

Even If There Is Only One Possible Unified Theory, It Is Just A Set Of Rules And Equations. What Is It That Breathes Fire Into The Equations And Makes A Universe For Them To Describe?

I Have Lived With The Prospect Of An Early Death For The Last 49 Years. I'm Not Afraid Of Death, But I'm In No Hurry To Die. I Have So Much I Want To Do First. I Regard The Brain As A Computer Which Will Stop Working When Its Components Fail. There Is No Heaven Or Afterlife For Broken Down Computers; That Is A Fairy Story For People Afraid Of The Dark.

Because Imaginary Time Behaves Like Another Direction In Space, Histories In Imaginary Time Can Be Closed Surfaces, Like The Surface Of The Earth, With No [existential] Beginning Or End.

The Boundary Condition Of The Universe Is That It Has No Boundary.

If We Do Discover A Complete Theory, It Should Be In Time Understandable In Broad Principle By Everyone. Then We Shall All, Philosophers, Scientists, And Just Ordinary People Be Able To Take Part In The Discussion Of Why We And The Universe Exist.

Its A Crazy World Out There. Be Curious.

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.

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

We Live In The Most Probable Of All Possible Worlds.

As A Child, I Wanted To Know How Things Worked And To Control Them. With A Friend, I Built A Number Of Complicated Models That I Could Control. It Was A Natural Next Step To Want To Know How The Universe Works.

It Matters If You Don't Just Give Up.

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

Uncertainty Principle

Everything That Civilisation Has To Offer Is A Product Of Human Intelligence; We Cannot Predict What We Might Achieve When This Intelligence Is Magnified By The Tools That Ai May Provide, But The Eradication Of War, Disease, And Poverty Would Be High On Anyone's List. Success In Creating Ai Would Be The Biggest Event In Human History. Unfortunately, It Might Also Be The Last.

Or In Other Words, Why Does Disorder Increase In The Same Direction Of Time As That In Which The Universe Expands?

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!

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.

I Think The Brain Is Essentially A Computer And Consciousness Is Like A Computer Program. It Will Cease To Run When The Computer Is Turned Off. Theoretically, It Could Be Re-created On A Neural Network, But That Would Be Very Difficult, As It Would Require All One's Memories.

Simplicity Is A Matter Of Taste

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.

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

I’m The Archetype Of A Disabled Genius, Or Should I Say A Physically Challenged Genius, To Be Politically Correct. At Least I’m Obviously Physically Challenged. Whether I’m A Genius Is More Open To Doubt.

We Think We Have Solved The Mystery Of Creation. Maybe We Should Patent The Universe And Charge Everyone Royalties For Their Existence.

Chaos, When Left Alone, Tends To Multiply.

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

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

Physics As We Know It Will Be Over In Six Months - Max Born

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.

One Big Contribution My Father [stephen Hawking] Has Made Is To Show That Having A Disability Does Not Bar You From Leading A Full And Eventful Life.

Please Join Me In Applauding The Esa - European Space Agency’s Historic Efforts With The Rosetta Mission And Landing A Spacecraft On Rotating Comet. It May Seem Like A Work Of Fiction, But It Is Very Real, Very Impressive, And Will Help Us To Further Uncover The Mysteries Surrounding The Formation Of The Solar System. They Made A Beautiful Short Film Using An Imaginary Landscape To Illustrate Today’s Historic Feat.

The Victim Should Have The Right To End His Life, If He Wants. But I Think It Would Be A Great Mistake. However Bad Life May Seem, There Is Always Something You Can Do, And Succeed At. While There's Life, There Is Hope.

It Was Recently Discovered That Research Causes Cancer In Rats.

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.

God Not Only Plays Dice, He Throws Them In The Corner Where You Can't See Them.

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

Computer Viruses Are Alive.

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

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.

Creation Of The Universe

I Think The Next Century Will Be The Century Of Complexity.

I’m Not Religious In The Normal Sense. I Believe The Universe Is Governed By The Laws Of Science. The Laws May Have Been Decreed By God, But God Does Not Intervene To Break The Laws.

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

Science Does Not Deny Religion, It Just Offers A Simpler Alternative.

Intelligence Is The Ability To Adapt To Change.

It Is Very Important For Young People Keep Their Sense Of Wonder And Keep Asking Why.

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

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

In A Brief History Of Time I Used The Word "god" Like Einstein Did As A Shorthand For The Laws Of Physics. However, This Is Not What Most People Mean By God, So I Have Decided Not To Use The Term. The Laws Of Physics Can Explain The Universe Without The Need For A God.

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

The Universe Doesn't Allow Perfection.

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.

Evolution Has Ensured That Our Brains Just Aren't Equipped To Visualise 11 Dimensions Directly. However, From A Purely Mathematical Point Of View It's Just As Easy To Think In 11 Dimensions, As It Is To Think In Three Or Four.

To My Mathematical Brain, The Numbers Alone Make Thinking About Aliens Perfectly Rational.

The Wise Never Marry, And When They Marry They Become Otherwise.

It Is Not Clear That Intelligence Has Any Long-term Survival Value.

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

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.

Observations Indicate That The Universe Is Expanding At An Ever Increasing Rate. It Will Expand Forever, Getting Emptier And Darker.

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

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. But Our Genetic Code Still Carries The Selfish And Aggressive Instincts That Were Of Survival Advantage In The Past. It Will Be Difficult Enough To Avoid Disaster In The Next Hundred Years, Let Alone The Next Thousand Or Million. Our Only Chance Of Long Term Survival, Is Not To Remain Inward Looking On Planet Earth, But To Spread Out Into Space.

Disability Need Not Be An Obstacle To Success.

We Are Just An Advanced Breed Of Monkeys On A Minor Planet Of A Very Average Star. But We Can Understand The Universe. That Makes Us Something Very Special.

The Increase Of Disorder Or Entropy With Time Is One Example Of What Is Called An Arrow Of Time, Something That Distinguishes The Past From The Future, Giving A Direction To Time.

To Understand Recursion, One Must First Understand Recursion.

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

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

Plagiarism Saves Time.

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 Of The Basic Rules Of The Universe Is That Nothing Is Perfect. Perfection Simply Doesn't Exist.....without Imperfection, Neither You Nor I Would Exist

We Explore Because We Are Human And We Want To Know. I Hope That Pluto Will Help Us On That Journey.

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

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.

I Like Physics, But I Love Cartoons.

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.

There Should Be No Boundaries To Human Endeavor. However Bad Life May Seem, There Is Always Hope.

I Don't Have Much Positive To Say About Motor Neuron Disease, But It Taught Me Not To Pity Myself Because Others Were Worse Off, And To Get On With What I Still Could Do. I'm Happier Now Than Before I Developed The Condition.

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

Mathematical Models

Equations Are Just The Boring Part Of Mathematics. I Attempt To See Things In Terms Of Geometry.

We Believe Human Begins Have Existed For Only A Small Fraction Of Cosmic History, Because Human Race Has Been Improving So Rapidly In Knowledge And Technology That If People Had Been Around For Millions Of Years, The Human Race Would Be Much Further Along In It's Mastery.

In This Way, Edwin Hubble Worked Out The Distances To Nine Different Galaxies. We Now Know That Our Galaxy Is Only One Of Some Hundred Thousand Million That Can Be Seen Using Modern Telescopes, Each Galaxy Itself Containing Some Hundred Thousand Million Stars.

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.

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.

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

Why Are We Here? Where Do We Come From? Traditionally, These Are Questions For Philosophy, But Philosophy Is Dead.

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

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

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.

What I Have Learned From Life Is To Make The Most Of What You Have Got.

Among Physicists, I'm Respected I Hope.

The Universe In A Nutshell

Just Like A Computer, We Must Remember Things In The Order In Which Entropy Increases. This Makes The Second Law Of Thermodynamics Almost Trivial. Disorder Increases With Time Because We Measure Time In The Direction In Which Disorder Increases. You Can't Have A Safer Bet Than That!

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

Money Is Not Everything. There's Master Card & Visa.

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.

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

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

Every Man Should Marry. After All, Happiness Is Not The Only Thing In Life.

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.

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.

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

Mathematical Equations

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.

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.

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.

Time Travel Was Once Considered Scientific Heresy, And I Used To Avoid Talking About It For Fear Of Being Labelled A 'crank.'

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

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.

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

Always Complaining

There Is Nothing Bigger Or Older Than The Universe.

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.

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

Believe In Miracles

We Are All Different. There Is No Such Thing As A Standard Or Run-of-the-mill Human Being, But We Share The Same Human Spirit.

Half The Battle Is Just Showing Up.

What Lies North Of The North Pole?

My First Popular Book, 'a Brief History Of Time,' Aroused A Great Deal Of Interest, But Many Found It Difficult To Understand.

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

Life On Earth Is At The Ever-increasing Risk Of Being Wiped Out By A Disaster, Such As Sudden Global Warming, Nuclear War, A Genetically Engineered Virus Or Other Dangers. I Think The Human Race Has No Future If It Doesn't Go Into Space. I Therefore Want To Encourage Public Interest In Space.

Women. They Are A Complete Mystery.

Trending Author

Cheyenne Jackson

Melissa Etheridge

Category