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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.

-Stephen Hawking

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Though We Feel We

Stephen Hawking

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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.

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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. By Contrast, Computers Double Their Speed And Memories Every 18 Months. There Is A Real Danger That Computers Will Develop Intelligence And Take Over. We Urgently Need To Develop Direct Connections To The Brain So That Computers Can Add To Human Intelligence Rather Than Be In Opposition.

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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.

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[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.

Mankind's Greatest Achievements Have Come About By Talking And Its Greatest Failures By Not Talking. It Doesn’t Have To Be Like This.

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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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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.

I Believe In Universal Health Care. And I Am Not Afraid To Say So.

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No One Can Resist The Idea Of A Crippled Genius.

It Is Impossible To Imagine A Four-dimensional Space. I Personally Find It Hard Enough To Visualize A Three-dimensional Space!

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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?

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.

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

I Thought Eddie Redmayne Portrayed Me Very Well... At Times I Thought He Was Me.

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.

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.

So Long As The Universe Had A Beginning, We Could Suppose It Had A Creator. But If The Universe Is Really Completely Self-contained, It Would Have Neither Beginning Or End, It Would Simply Be. What Place Then For A Creator?

Science Fiction Can Be Exciting And Very Gripping, But It Doesn't Tell Us Anything About The Universe In Which We Live.

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

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

We Are Very, Very Small, But We Are Profoundly Capable Of Very, Very Big Things.

We Are In Danger Of Destroying Ourselves By Our Greed And Stupidity. We Cannot Remain Looking Inwards At Ourselves On A Small And Increasingly Polluted And Overcrowded Planet.

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

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

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Maybe I Don't Have The Most Common Kind Of Motor Neuron Disease, Which Usually Kills In Two Or Three Years.

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.

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

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

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

Humanities Deepest Desire For Knowledge Is Justification Enough For Continuing Our Quest. And Our Goal Is Nothing Less Than A Complete Description Of The Universe We Live In.

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

Simplicity Is A Matter Of Taste

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