Kip S. Thorne Quotes & Sayings

The French translation of 'a black hole has no hair' is so obscene that French publishers resisted it vigorously, to no avail. — Kip S. Thorne

How could human civilization decline so far, yet seem so normal in many respects? And is it scientifically possible that a blight could wipe out all edible — Kip S. Thorne

Everything is drawn inexorably toward the future. — Kip S. Thorne

At our meeting, I suggested to Steven and Lynda two guidelines for the science of Interstellar: 1. Nothing in the film will violate firmly established laws of physics, or our firmly established knowledge of the universe. 2. Speculations (often wild) about ill-understood physical laws and the universe will spring from real science, from ideas that at least some "respectable" scientists regard as possible. — Kip S. Thorne

Warping begets warping in a nonlinear, self-bootstrapping manner. This is a fundamental feature of Einstein's relativistic laws, and so different from everyday experience. It's somewhat like a hypothetical science-fiction character who goes backward in time and gives birth to herself. — Kip S. Thorne

The environment near Gargantua will become more dangerous for individual life forms, including humans, promoting faster evolution if enough individuals survive. — Kip S. Thorne

The fastest that human spacecraft are likely to achieve in the twenty-first century, I think, is 300 kilometres per second. — Kip S. Thorne

In 2014, the Earth's gravity is weakest in southern India (blue spot) and strongest in Iceland and Indonesia (red spots). — Kip S. Thorne

Can you identify in your own life speculations that became educated guesses and then truth? Have you ever seen your established truths upended, with a resulting revolution in your life? — Kip S. Thorne

Everything likes to live where it will age the most slowly, and gravity pulls it there. — Kip S. Thorne

singularities, he asserted, "are a place in which the fiery marriage of Einstein's relativistic laws with the quantum laws is consummated. — Kip S. Thorne

We humans are confined to our brane. — Kip S. Thorne

No matter how hard we may try, we can only travel forward. The relativistic laws guarantee it. — Kip S. Thorne

The first planet that Cooper and his crew visit is Miller's. The most impressive things about this planet are the extreme slowing of time there, gigantic water waves, and huge tidal gravity. All three are related, and arise from the planet's closeness to Gargantua. — Kip S. Thorne

The resulting, stable singularities now carry the name BKL in honor of Belinsky, Khalatnikov, and Lifshitz. A BKL singularity is chaotic. Highly chaotic. And lethal. Highly lethal. — Kip S. Thorne

Some segments of this book may be rough going. That's the nature of real science. It requires thought. Sometimes deep thought. But thinking can be rewarding. You can just skip the rough parts, or you can struggle to understand. — Kip S. Thorne

Yes, that's what I meant to say. If this seems a bit circular to you, well, it is, but it has deep meaning. — Kip S. Thorne

An explosion in space makes no sound, as there is no air to transmit the sound waves. — Kip S. Thorne