Stephen Hawking Quotes
Theoretical Physicist, Cosmologist
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.
Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.
Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.
I believe things cannot make themselves impossible.
Science is not only a disciple of reason but, also, one of romance and passion.
However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.
God not only plays dice, He also sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen.
My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.
Not only does God play dice, but... he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.
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.
Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it.
Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks.
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.
There could be shadow galaxies, shadow stars, and even shadow people.
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.
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.
We are all now connected by the Internet, like neurons in a giant brain.
When one's expectations are reduced to zero, one really appreciates everything one does have.
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.
People won't have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.
The universe is governed by science. But science tells us that we can't solve the equations, directly in the abstract.
Life would be tragic if it weren't funny.
Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would halve the sales.
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.
The past, like the future, is indefinite and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities.
I am just a child who has never grown up. I still keep asking these 'how' and 'why' questions. Occasionally, I find an answer.
Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.
To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.
If we want to travel into the future, we just need to go fast. Really fast. And I think the only way we're ever likely to do that is by going into space.
Nothing cannot exist forever.
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.
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.
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?
Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.
Maybe I don't have the most common kind of motor neuron disease, which usually kills in two or three years.
Science is beautiful when it makes simple explanations of phenomena or connections between different observations. Examples include the double helix in biology and the fundamental equations of physics.
I would like nuclear fusion to become a practical power source. It would provide an inexhaustible supply of energy, without pollution or global warming.
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.
Stem cell research is the key to developing cures for degenerative conditions like Parkinson's and motor neuron disease from which I and many others suffer. The fact that the cells may come from embryos is not an objection, because the embryos are going to die anyway.
Keeping an active mind has been vital to my survival, as has been maintaining a sense of humor.
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?
I believe there are no questions that science can't answer about a physical universe.
If you believe in science, like I do, you believe that there are certain laws that are always obeyed.
I believe alien life is quite common in the universe, although intelligent life is less so. Some say it has yet to appear on planet Earth.
Time travel was once considered scientific heresy, and I used to avoid talking about it for fear of being labelled a 'crank.'
The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired.
Time travel used to be thought of as just science fiction, but Einstein's general theory of relativity allows for the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that you could go off in a rocket and return before you set out.
There is no unique picture of reality.
If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans.
I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first.
We should seek the greatest value of our action.
We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet.
There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet.
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.
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.
It is no good getting furious if you get stuck. What I do is keep thinking about the problem but work on something else. Sometimes it is years before I see the way forward. In the case of information loss and black holes, it was 29 years.
In less than a hundred years, we have found a new way to think of ourselves. From sitting at the center of the universe, we now find ourselves orbiting an average-sized sun, which is just one of millions of stars in our own Milky Way galaxy.
I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space.
I grew up thinking that a research scientist was a natural thing to be.
I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS. I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived.
The Planck satellite may detect the imprint of the gravitational waves predicted by inflation. This would be quantum gravity written across the sky.
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.
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.
In my school, the brightest boys did math and physics, the less bright did physics and chemistry, and the least bright did biology. I wanted to do math and physics, but my father made me do chemistry because he thought there would be no jobs for mathematicians.
I don't want to write an autobiography because I would become public property with no privacy left.
God may exist, but science can explain the universe without the need for a creator.
Women. They are a complete mystery.
Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of.
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.
It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value.
There are grounds for cautious optimism that we may now be near the end ofthe search for the ultimate laws of nature.
One cannot really argue with a mathematical theorem.
People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.
In the past, there was active discrimination against women in science. That has now gone, and although there are residual effects, these are not enough to account for the small numbers of women, particularly in mathematics and physics.
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.
A zero-gravity flight is a first step toward space travel.
Although September 11 was horrible, it didn't threaten the survival of the human race, like nuclear weapons do.
So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?
The radiation left over from the Big Bang is the same as that in your microwave oven but very much less powerful. It would heat your pizza only to minus 271.3*C - not much good for defrosting the pizza, let alone cooking it.
If I had to choose a superhero to be, I would pick Superman. He's everything that I'm not.
We are the product of quantum fluctuations in the very early universe.
Some people would claim that things like love, joy and beauty belong to a different category from science and can't be described in scientific terms, but I think they can now be explained by the theory of evolution.
We must develop as quickly as possible technologies that make possible a direct connection between brain and computer, so that artificial brains contribute to human intelligence rather than opposing it.
I was not a good student. I did not spend much time at college; I was too busy enjoying myself.
The missing link in cosmology is the nature of dark matter and dark energy.
I was born on January 8, 1942, exactly three hundred years after the death of Galileo. I estimate, however, that about two hundred thousand other babies were also born that day. I don't know whether any of them was later interested in astronomy.
I'm an atheist.
I think we have a good chance of surviving long enough to colonize the solar system.
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 can't say that my disability has helped my work, but it has allowed me to concentrate on research without having to lecture or sit on boring committees.
There is nothing bigger or older than the universe.
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.
Science can lift people out of poverty and cure disease. That, in turn, will reduce civil unrest.
The doctor who diagnosed me with ALS, or motor neuron disease, told me that it would kill me in two or three years.
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.
We think we have solved the mystery of creation. Maybe we should patent the universe and charge everyone royalties for their existence.
Even if it turns out that time travel is impossible, it is important that we understand why it is impossible.
Time can behave like another direction in space under extreme conditions.
Earth might one day soon resemble the planet Venus.
Exploration by real people inspires us.