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A Brief History of Time quotes

Stephen Hawking

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“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...” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“This would mean that any time travel would be confined to the future. There would be no chance of Captain Kirk and the Starship Enterprise turning up at the present time.” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“If the rate of expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present size.” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“However, if we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the...” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“Yet if there really is a complete unified theory, it would also presumably determine our actions. And so the theory itself would determine the outcome of our search for it! And why should it determine that we come to the right conclusions from...” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“The laws of science do not distinguish between the past and the future.” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not...” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“Another prediction of general relativity is that time should appear to slower near a massive body like the earth.” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“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.” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“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.” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“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.” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“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?” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“our goal is nothing less than a complete description of the universe we live in.” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“A theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements. It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of...” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“The earth was initially very hot and without an atmosphere. In the course of time it cooled and acquired an atmosphere from the emission of gases from the rocks.” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“The discovery that the universe is expanding was one of the great intellectual revolutions of the twentieth century.” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“Thus, in a sense, we are still all doomed, even if we keep away from black holes.” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“The reason we say that humans have free will is because we can’t predict what they will do.” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science.” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“Only light, or other waves that have no intrinsic mass, can move at the speed of light.” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“The eventual goal of science is to provide a single theory that describes the whole universe.” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“one cannot really argue with a mathematical theorem.” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“These laws may have originally been decreed by God, but it appears that he has since left the universe to evolve according to them and does not now intervene in it.” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“Having said this, I still believe there are grounds for cautious optimism that we may now be near the end of the search for the ultimate laws of nature.” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“In Newton's time it was possible for an educated person to have a grasp of the whole of human knowledge, at least in outline. But since then, the pace of the development of science has made this impossible.” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“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.” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“It also meant that whenever a body is not acted on by any force, it will keep on moving in a straight line at the same speed.” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

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theory universe science future time expansion past knowledge mass humanity God prediction speed end religion travel collapse death understanding nature

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Stephen Hawking quotes