Quote collection
421 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"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."
"There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet."
"The universe is governed by science. But science tells us that we can't solve the equations, directly in the abstract."
"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."
"Disability need not be an obstacle to success."
"Is god omnipotent ? If he is, can he create a rock so heavy he can't lift it ?"
"I may contradict myself, but at least I don't contradict myself."
"The rate of progress is so rapid that what one learns at school or university is always a bit out of date.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."
"The idea of 10 dimensions might sound exciting, but they would cause real problems if you forget where you parked your car."
"I think the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of science. It has no beginning and no end."
"The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron .... The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been finely adjusted to make possible the development of life."
"What lies north of the North Pole?"
"[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."
"I used to think information was destroyed in black hole. This was my biggest blunder, or at least my biggest blunder in science."
"If there really is a complete unified theory that governs everything, it presumably also determines your actions. But it does so in a way that is impossible to calculate for an organism that is as complicated as a human being. The reason we say that humans have free will is because we can't predict what they will do."
"Over a very small number of rolls of the dice, the uncertainty principle is very important."
"Maxwell is the physicist's physicist."
"Disorder increases with time because we measure time in the direction in which disorder increases."
"It matters if you don't just give up."
"When I get to heaven I'm gonna find the guy in charge of the weather and kick his rear."