Stephen Hawking Quotes & Sayings

Most people don't have time to master the very mathematical details of theoretical physics. — Stephen Hawking

Economics is also an effective theory, based on the notion of free will plus the assumption that people evaluate their possible alternative courses of action and choose the best. That effective theory is only moderately successful in predicting behavior because, as we all know, decisions are often not rational or are based on a defective analysis of the consequences of the choice. This is why the world is in such a mess. — Stephen Hawking

My disability makes this rather a slow process, so I had plenty of time. — Stephen Hawking

All the known particles in the universe can be divided into two groups: particles of spin ½, which make up the matter in the universe, and particles of spin 0, 1, and 2, which, as we shall see, give rise to forces between the matter particles. — Stephen Hawking

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? — Stephen Hawking

You cannot predict the future. — Stephen Hawking

In 1992 came the first confirmed observation of a planet orbiting a star other than our sun. — Stephen Hawking

In 1956 two American physicists, Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang, suggested that the weak force does not in fact obey the symmetry P. — Stephen Hawking

I don't know what my IQ is. People who gloat about their IQ's are losers — Stephen Hawking

My wife and I love each other very much. — Stephen Hawking

Eternity is a long time, especially towards the end. — Stephen Hawking

Calculations show that a change of as little as 0.5 percent in the strength of the strong nuclear force, or 4 percent in the electric force, would destroy either nearly all carbon or all oxygen in every star, and hence the possibility of life as we know it. Change those rules of our universe just a bit, and the conditions for our existence disappear! — Stephen Hawking

One should love animals. They are so tasty. — Stephen Hawking

If time travel is possible, where are the tourists from the future? — Stephen Hawking

I would rather be right than rigorous. — Stephen Hawking

All that my work has shown is that you don't have to say that the way the universe began was the personal whim of God. — Stephen Hawking

It is extremely important to me to write for children. — Stephen Hawking

We find ourselves in a bewildering world. We want to make sense of what we see around us and to ask: What is the nature of the universe? What is our place in it and where did it and we come from? Why is it the way it is? — Stephen Hawking

Real gravitons make up what classical physicists would call gravitational waves, which are very weak - and so difficult to detect that they have not yet been observed. The — Stephen Hawking

When I was first diagnosed with ALS, I was given two years to live. Now 45 years later, I am doing pretty well. — Stephen Hawking

Now, radical forward thinking is offering hope for the future: Replacement body parts to order. A team of scientists in California believe that if you can design them on a computer, you should be able to print them out. — Stephen Hawking

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. — Stephen Hawking

[On President Bush's plan to get to Mars in 10 years] Stupid. Robots would do a better job and be much cheaper because you don't have to bring them back. — Stephen Hawking

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. — Stephen Hawking

Earth might one day soon resemble the planet Venus. — Stephen Hawking

It should soon be possible dramatically to increase the intelligence and life span of a few individuals [with the help of genetic engineering]. They and their offspring could become a master race. Evolution pays no regard to social justice. It was not fair on the Neanderthals they were replaced by modern humans. — Stephen Hawking

The universe expanded by a factor of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 in .00000000000000000000000000000000001 second. It was as if a coin 1 centimeter in diameter suddenly blew up to ten million times the width of the Milky Way. — Stephen Hawking

Is god omnipotent ? If he is, can he create a rock so heavy he can't lift it ? — Stephen Hawking

Save water. Shower with your girlfriend. — Stephen Hawking

The life we have on Earth must have spontaneously generated itself. It must therefore be possible for life to generate spontaneously elsewhere in the universe. — Stephen Hawking

Life would be tragic if it weren't funny. — Stephen Hawking

The North Pole, but to someone looking from the equator, it appears to lie just at the horizon. From the difference in the apparent position of the North Star in Egypt and Greece, Aristotle even quoted an estimate that the distance — Stephen Hawking

Being confined to a wheelchair doesn't bother me as my mind is free to roam the universe, but it felt wonderful to be weightless. — Stephen Hawking

There could be shadow galaxies, shadow stars, and even shadow people. — Stephen Hawking

If one is physically disabled, one cannot afford to be *psychologically* disabled as well. — Stephen Hawking

Or in other words, why does disorder increase in the same direction of time as that in which the universe expands? — Stephen Hawking

We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet, — Stephen Hawking

Even if it turns out that time travel is impossible, it is important that we understand why it is impossible. — Stephen Hawking

Science is not only a disciple of reason but, also, one of romance and passion. — Stephen Hawking

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. — Stephen Hawking

As an object approaches the speed of light, its mass rises ever more quickly, so it takes more and more energy to speed it up further. It can in fact never reach the speed of light, because by then its mass would have become infinite, and by the equivalence of mass and energy, it would have taken an infinite amount of energy to get it there. For this reason, any normal object is forever confined by relativity to move at speeds slower than the speed of light. — Stephen Hawking

Disability need not be an obstacle to success. — Stephen Hawking

have taken the opportunity to update the book and include new theoretical and observational results obtained since the book was first published (on April Fools' Day, 1988). I have — Stephen Hawking

I did not expect to survive that long. Yet two years had gone by and I was not that much worse. In fact, things were going rather well for me and I had gotten engaged to a very nice girl, Jane Wilde. But in order to get married, I needed a job, and in order to get a job, I needed a Ph.D. — Stephen Hawking

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. — Stephen Hawking

So great a contribution to physics was Two New Sciences that scholars have long maintained that the book anticipated Isaac Newton's laws of motion. — Stephen Hawking

There's a sick joke that the reason we have not been contacted by an alien civilization is that civilizations tend to destroy themselves when they reach our stage. But I have sufficient faith in the good sense of public to believe that we might prove this wrong. — Stephen Hawking

As a result, in more than three dimensions the sun would not be able to exist in a stable state with its internal pressure balancing the pull of gravity. It would either fall apart or collapse to form a black hole, either of which could ruin your day. — Stephen Hawking

In fact, according to quantum physics, each particle has some probability of being found anywhere in the universe. — Stephen Hawking

I'd say I don't believe in God, but I'm afraid He might hear me. — Stephen Hawking

It's the gravity that shapes the large scale structure of the universe, even though it is the weakest of four categories of forces. — Stephen Hawking

I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. — Stephen Hawking

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. — Stephen Hawking

For years, my early work with Roger Penrose seemed to be a disaster for science. It showed that the universe must have begun with a singularity, if Einstein's general theory of relativity is correct. That appeared to indicate that science could not predict how the universe would begin. — Stephen Hawking

Each exists for but a short time, and in that time explore but a small part of the whole universe. — Stephen Hawking

The most remarkable property of the universe is that it has spawned creatures able to ask questions. — Stephen Hawking

Science will win because it works. — Stephen Hawking

The mass of the sun curves space-time in such a way that although the earth follows a straight path in four-dimensional space-time, it appears to us to move along a circular orbit in three-dimensional space. — Stephen Hawking

The world has changed far more in the past 100 years than in any other century in history. The reason is not political or economic but technological-technologies that flowed directly from advances in basic science. Clearly, no scientist better represents those advances than Albert Einstein: TIME's Person of the Century. — Stephen Hawking

I am in touch with a company that hopes to replicate my voice. However, they are not replicating my original voice - if they did that, I would sound like a man in his 20s, which would be very strange! They are actually trying to replicate the synthesizer that sits on my wheelchair. — Stephen Hawking

Whether you want to uncover the secrets of the universe, or you just want to pursue a career in the 21st century, basic computer programming is an essential skill to learn — Stephen Hawking

Gravity is so strong that space is bent round onto itself, making it rather like the surface of the earth. If one keeps traveling in a certain direction on the surface of the earth, one never comes up against an impassable barrier or falls over the edge, but eventually comes back to where one started. — Stephen Hawking

... only in the few universes that are like ours would intelligent beings develop and ask the question: "Why is the universe the way we see it?" The answer is then simple: If it had been any different, we would not be here! — Stephen Hawking

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. — Stephen Hawking

Mass: The quantity of matter in a body; its inertia, or resistance to acceleration. — Stephen Hawking

If you lined up all the cars in the world end to end, someone would try to pass them. — Stephen Hawking

I may contradict myself, but at least I don't contradict myself. — Stephen Hawking

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. — Stephen Hawking

I hope I have helped to raise the profile of science and to show that physics is not a mystery but can be understood by ordinary people. — Stephen Hawking

When you're faced with the possibility of an early death, it makes you realize that life is worth living and there are a lots of things you want to do. — Stephen Hawking

I enjoy all forms of music - pop, classical and opera. — Stephen Hawking

Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced [robots] wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality. — Stephen Hawking

I want my books sold on airport bookstalls. — Stephen Hawking

The entropy of an isolated system always increases, and that when two systems are joined together, the entropy of the combined system is greater than the sum of the entropies of the individual systems. — Stephen Hawking

(According to some accounts, a journalist told Eddington in the early 1920s that he had heard there were only three people in the world who understood general relativity. Eddington paused, then replied, "I am trying to think who the third person is.") — Stephen Hawking

I regard the afterlife to be a fairy story for people that are afraid of the dark — Stephen Hawking

What place, then, for a creator? — Stephen Hawking

We got through all of Genesis and part of Exodus before I left. One of the main things I was taught from this was not to begin a sentence with And. I pointed out that most sentences in the Bible began with And, but I was told that English had changed since the time of King James. In that case, I argued, why make us read the Bible? But it was in vain. Robert Graves was very keen on the symbolism and mysticism in the Bible at that time. — Stephen Hawking

Many people do not like the idea that time has a beginning, probably because it smacks of divine intervention. (The Catholic Church, on the other hand, seized on the big bang model and in 1951 officially pronounced it to be in accordance with the Bible. — Stephen Hawking

What did God do before he created the universe? — Stephen Hawking

I am discounting reports of UFOs. Why would they appear only to cranks and weirdos? — Stephen Hawking

There is a real danger that computers will develop intelligence and take over. We urgently need to develop direct connections to the brain so that computers can add to human intelligence rather than be in opposition. — Stephen Hawking

Both observer and observed are parts of the world that has an objective existence, and any distinction between them has no meaningful significance. In other words, if you see a herd of zebras fighting for a spot in the parking garage, it is because there really is a herd of zebras fighting for a spot in the parking garage. — Stephen Hawking

Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to observe it. Antiparticle: — Stephen Hawking

The doctor who diagnosed me with ALS, or motor neuron disease, told me that it would kill me in two or three years. — Stephen Hawking

In a sense the debate between Penrose and Hawking is a continuation of that earlier argument, with Penrose playing the role of Einstein and Hawking that of Bohr. — Stephen Hawking

Nothing is better than reading and gaining more and more knowledge. — Stephen Hawking

Sometimes I wonder if I'm as famous for my wheelchair and disabilities as I am for my discoveries. — Stephen Hawking

Imaginary time is a new dimension, at right angles to ordinary, real time. — Stephen Hawking

On the observational side, by far the most important development has been the measurement of fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background radiation by COBE (the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite) — Stephen Hawking

We won't know for a few years. — Stephen Hawking

even if there were events before the big bang, one could not use them to determine what would happen afterward, because predictability would break down at the big bang. — Stephen Hawking

The people who actually make the advances in theoretical physics don't think in these categories that the philosophers and the historians of science subsequently invent for them — Stephen Hawking

So look carefully at the map of the microwave sky. It is the blueprint for all the structure in the universe. We are the product of quantum fluctuations in the very early universe. If one were religious, one could say that God really does play dice. — Stephen Hawking

What I'd really like to control is not machines, but people. — Stephen Hawking

a good theory is characterized by the fact that it makes a number of predictions that could in principle be disproved or falsified by observation. — Stephen Hawking

My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all. — Stephen Hawking

The fact that light travels at a finite, but very high, speed was first discovered in 1676 by the Danish astronomer Ole Christensen Roemer. — Stephen Hawking

I want to encourage public interest in space. I have never let my condition stop me. You only live once. — Stephen Hawking

Quantum physics might seem to undermine the idea that nature is governed by laws, but that is not the case. Instead it leads us to accept a new form of determinism: given the state of a system at some time, the laws of nature determine the probabilities of various futures and pasts rather than determining the future and past with certainty. — Stephen Hawking