Quote collection
421 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"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."
"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."
"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?"
"Unless mankind redesigns itself by changing our DNA through altering our genetic makeup, computer-genera ted robots will take over our world."
"Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would halve the sales."
"In effect, we have redefined the task of science to be the discovery of laws that will enable us to predict events up to the limits set by the uncertainty principle."
"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."
"I have so much that I want to do. I hate wasting time."
"I think computer viruses should count as life."
"There are grounds for cautious optimism that we may now be near the end ofthe search for the ultimate laws of nature."
"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."
"Money is not everything. There's Master card & Visa."
"A snooze button is a poor substitute for no alarm clock at all."
"If the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, it would have recollapsed before it reached its present size. On the other hand, if it had been greater by a part in a million, the universe would have expanded too rapidly for stars and planets to form."
"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."
"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."
"It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us."
"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."
"If what we regard as real depends on our theory, how can we make reality the basis of our philosophy? But we cannot distinguish what is real about the universe without a theory. It makes no sense to ask if it corresponds to reality, because we do not know what reality is independent of a theory."
"The beatings will continue until morale improves."