Lawrence Krauss Quotes & Sayings

For many, to live in a universe that may have no purpose, and no creator, is unthinkable. — Lawrence M. Krauss

It never ceases to amaze me that every second of every day, more than 6,000 billion neutrinos coming from nuclear reactions inside the sun whiz through my body, almost all of which will travel right through the earth without interruption. — Lawrence M. Krauss

One thing is certain, however. The metaphysical 'rule', which is held as an ironclad conviction by those whom I have debated the issue of creation, namely that "out of nothing nothing comes," has no foundation in science. Arguing that it is self-evident, unwavering, and unassailable is like arguing, as Darwin falsely did, when he made the suggestion that the origin of life was beyond the domain of science by building an analogy with the incorrect claim that matter cannot be created or destroyed. All it represents is an unwillingness to recognize the simple fact that nature may be cleverer than philosophers or theologians. — Lawrence M. Krauss

I have always felt that, aside from research that violates universal human mores, when it comes to technological applications, that which can be done will be done. — Lawrence M. Krauss

But being uncomfortable is a virtue, not a hindrance. — Lawrence M. Krauss

You shouldn't be afraid of science. Accepting the reality of nature makes life more exciting and even more precious. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Empirical explorations ultimately change our understanding of which questions are important and fruitful and which are not. — Lawrence M. Krauss

There are a lot of legislators who are afraid that kids will learn science and lose their faith. — Lawrence M. Krauss

There is a maxim about the universe which I always tell my students: That which is not explicitly forbidden is guaranteed to occur. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Indeed, the best answer I have ever heard to the question of what it would be like to be dead (i.e., be nonbeing) is to imagine how it felt to be before you were conceived. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn't be here if stars hadn't exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life - weren't created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today. — Lawrence M. Krauss

I can't prove that God doesn't exist, but I'd much rather live in a universe without one. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Empty space is a boiling, bubbling brew of virtual particles that pop in and out of existence in a time scale so short that you can't even measure them. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Whatever the evolutionary basis of religion, the xenophobia it now generates is clearly maladaptive. — Lawrence M. Krauss

We should provide the meaning of the universe in the meaning of our own lives. So I think science doesn't necessarily have to get in the way of kind of spiritual fulfillment. — Lawrence M. Krauss

When a person's religious beliefs cause him to deny the evidence of science, or for whom public policy morphs into a battle with the devil, shouldn't that be a subject for discussion and debate? — Lawrence M. Krauss

It really is the most poetic thing i know about physics: you are all stardust. — Lawrence M. Krauss

the universe is big and old and, as a result, rare events happen all the time. Go out some night into the woods or desert where you can see stars and hold up your hand to the sky, making a tiny circle between your thumb and forefinger about the size of a dime. Hold it up to a dark patch of the sky where there are no visible stars. In that dark patch, with a large enough telescope of the type we now have in service today, you could discern perhaps 100,000 galaxies, each containing billions of stars. Since supernovae explode once per hundred years per, with 100,000 galaxies in view, you should expect to see, on average, about three stars explode on a given night. — Lawrence M. Krauss

The Bible is full of dubious scientific impossibilities, from Jonah living inside a whale, to the sun standing still in the sky for Joshua. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Forget Jesus. Stars died so you could live. — Lawrence M. Krauss

But when you look at CMB map, you also see that the structure that is observed, is in fact, in a weird way, correlated with the plane of the earth around the sun. Is this Copernicus coming back to haunt us? That's crazy. We're looking out at the whole universe. There's no way there should be a correlation of structure with our motion of the earth around the sun - the plane of the earth around the sun - the ecliptic. That would say we are truly the center of the universe. The new results are either telling us that all of science is wrong and we're the center of the universe, or maybe the data is (s)imply incorrect, or maybe it's telling us there's something weird about the microwave background results and that maybe, maybe there's something wrong with our theories on the larger scales. — Lawrence M. Krauss

I like to say that while antimatter may seem strange, it is strange in the sense that Belgians are strange. They are not really strange; it is just that one rarely meets them. — Lawrence M. Krauss

If you have nothing in quantum mechanics, you will always have something. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Aside from communications satellites, space is devoid of industry. — Lawrence M. Krauss

[...] It is. Philosophy is a field that, unfortunately, reminds me of that old Woody Allen joke, "those that can't do, teach, and those that can't teach, teach gym." And the worst part of philosophy is the philosophy of science; the only people, as far as I can tell, that read work by philosophers of science are other philosophers of science. It has no impact on physics what so ever, and I doubt that other philosophers read it because it's fairly technical. And so it's really hard to understand what justifies it. And so I'd say that this tension occurs because people in philosophy feel threatened, and they have every right to feel threatened, because science progresses and philosophy doesn't.
[the atlantic, Has Physics Made Philosophy and Religion Obsolete? - interview, apr 23 2012] — Lawrence M. Krauss

I don't make any claims to answer any questions that science cannot answer, and I have tried very carefully within the text to define what I mean by "nothing" and "something." If those definitions differ from those you would like to adopt, so be it. Write your own book. But don't discount the remarkable human adventure that is modern science because it doesn't console you. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Philosophy used to be a field that had content, but then natural philosophy became physics, and physics has only continued to make inroads. Every time theres a leap in physics, it encroaches on these areas that philosophers have carefully sequestered away to themselves, and so then you have this natural resentment on the part of philosophers. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Science is only truly consistent with an atheistic worldview with regards to the claimed miracles of the gods of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. — Lawrence M. Krauss

When it comes to the real operational issues that govern our understanding of physical reality, ontological definitions of classical philosophers are, in my opinion, sterile. — Lawrence M. Krauss

To argue that, in a universe in which there seems to be no purpose, our existence is without meaning or value is unparalleled solipsism, as it suggests that without us the universe is worthless. The greatest gift that science can give us is to allow us to overcome our need to be the center of existence even as we learn to appreciate the wonder of the accident we are privileged to witness. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Occam's razor suggests that, if some event is physically plausible, we don't need recourse to more extraordinary claims for its being. Surely the requirement of an all-powerful deity who somehow exists outside of our universe, or multiverse, while at the same time governing what goes on inside it, is one such claim. It should thus be a claim of last, rather than first, resort. — Lawrence M. Krauss

The universe does not care what we want. — Lawrence M. Krauss

The root cause of the looming energy problem - and the key to easing environmental, economic and religious tensions while improving public health - is to address the unending, and unequal, growth of the human population. And the one proven way to reduce fertility rates is to empower young women by educating them. — Lawrence M. Krauss

My area of research is something that in all fairness has no practical usability whatsoever and the thing is I'm often asked to apologize for that. It is interesting to me that people ask 'what's the point of doing that if it's not useful?' But they never ask that, or do they very rarely ask that about art or literature or music. Those things are not gonna produce a better toaster. — Lawrence M. Krauss

If our species is to survive, our future will probably require outposts beyond our own planet. — Lawrence M. Krauss

We live at a very special time ... the only time when we can observationally verify that we live at a very special time! — Lawrence M. Krauss

What people believe impacts on what they do. And it's not as if religion is universally bad. Of course it's responsible for many peoples doing good actions. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Edwin Hubble, who continues to give me great faith in humanity, because he started out as a lawyer and then became an astronomer. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Indeed, in a strange coincidence, we are living in the only era in the history of the universe when the presence of the dark energy permeating empty space is likely to be detectable. It is true that this era is several hundred billion years long, but in an eternally expanding universe it represents the mere blink of a cosmic eye. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Discerning the merits of competing claims is where the empirical basis of science should play a role. I cannot stress often enough that what science is all about is not proving things to be true but proving them to be false. What fails the test of empirical reality, as determined by observation and experiment, gets thrown out like yesterday's newspaper. — Lawrence M. Krauss

As Einstein might have put it, only a very malicious (and, therefore, in his mind unimaginable) God would have conspired to have created a universe that so unambiguously points to a Big Bang origin without its having occurred. — Lawrence M. Krauss

One of the most poetic facts I know about the universe is that essentially every atom in your body was once inside a star that exploded. Moreover, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than did those in your right. We are all, literally, star children, and our bodies made of stardust. — Lawrence M. Krauss

There aren't that many female role models in science. There are a couple of women, but mostly you've got Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss - they're all guys. Bill Nye the Science Guy. I love that guy, but it's all guys. — Elise Andrew

We need to live our experience as it is and with our eyes open. The universe is the way it is, whether we like it or not. — Lawrence M. Krauss

The illusion of purpose and design is perhaps the most pervasive illusion about nature that science has to confront on a daily basis. — Lawrence M. Krauss

For those who find it remarkable that we live in a universe of Something, just wait. Nothingness is heading on a collision course right toward us! — Lawrence M. Krauss

One might rationally argue that individual human beings should be free choose what moral behavior they approve of, and which they don't, subject to the constraints of the law. — Lawrence M. Krauss

In 5 billion years, the expansion of the universe will have progressed to the point where all other galaxies will have receded beyond detection. Indeed, they will be receding faster than the speed of light, so detection will be impossible. Future civilizations will discover science and all its laws, and never know about other galaxies or the cosmic background radiation. They will inevitably come to the wrong conclusion about the universe ... We live in a special time, the only time, where we can observationally verify that we live in a special time. — Lawrence M. Krauss

No one intuitively understands quantum mechanics because all of our experience involves a world of classical phenomena where, for example, a baseball thrown from pitcher to catcher seems to take just one path, the one described by Newton's laws of motion. Yet at a microscopic level, the universe behaves quite differently. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Without science, everything is a miracle. — Lawrence M. Krauss

It is a shame when nonsense can substitute for fact with impunity. — Lawrence M. Krauss

More often than you might think, teaching science is inseparable from teaching doubt. — Lawrence M. Krauss

The real thing that physics tell us about the universe is that it's big, rare event happens all the time - including life - and that doesn't mean it's special. — Lawrence M. Krauss

For most people, the central questions of existence ultimately come down to transcendental ones: Why is there a universe at all? Why are we here?
Whatever presumptions one might bring to the question "Why?," if we understand the "how" better, "why" will come into sharper focus. — Lawrence M. Krauss

a negative charge moving backward in time is mathematically equivalent to a positive charge moving forward in time! — Lawrence M. Krauss

I hope that every [person] at one point in their life has the opportunity to have something that is at the heart of their being, something so central to their being that if they lose it they won't feel they're human anymore, to be proved wrong because that's the liberation that science provides. The realization that to assume the truth, to assume the answer before you ask the questions leads you nowhere. — Lawrence M. Krauss

People are interested in science, but they don't always know they're interested in science, and so I try to find a way to get them interested. — Lawrence M. Krauss

If the universe doesn't care about us and if we're an accident in a remote corner of the universe, in some sense it makes us more precious. The meaning in our lives is provided by us; we provide our own meaning. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Our modern conception of the universe is so foreign to what even scientists generally believed a mere century ago that it is a tribute to the power of the scientific method and the creativity and persistence of humans who want to understand it. — Lawrence M. Krauss

As a scientist, I don't believe anything. Science shouldn't use the word belief. There are things more likely and less likely. Science can say nothing with absolute certainty. — Lawrence M. Krauss

While the nature of this radiation will give no information whatsoever on what fell into the black hole, — Lawrence M. Krauss

The lack of understanding of something is not evidence for God. It's evidence of a lack of understanding. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Religious leaders need to be held accountable for their ideas. — Lawrence M. Krauss

At the heart of quantum mechanics is a rule that sometimes governs politicians or CEOs - as long as no one is watching, anything goes. — Lawrence M. Krauss

For, after all, in science one achieves the greatest impact (and often the greatest headlines) not by going along with the herd, but by bucking against it. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Forget Jesus, the stars died so you could be born. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Metaphysical speculation is independent of the physical validity of the Big Bang itself and is irrelevant to our understanding of it. — Lawrence M. Krauss

The rise of a ubiquitous Internet, along with 24-hour news channels has, in some sense, had the opposite effect from what many might have hoped such free and open access to information would have had. It has instead provided free and open access, without the traditional media filters, to a barrage of disinformation. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Keeping religion immune from criticism is both unwarranted and dangerous. — Lawrence M. Krauss

But plausibility itself, in my view, is a tremendous step forward as we continue to marshal the courage to live meaningful lives in a universe that likely came into existence, and may fade out of existence, without purpose, and certainly without us at its center. — Lawrence M. Krauss

By no definition of any modern scientist is intelligent design science, and it's a waste of our students' time to subject them to it. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Particle physicists are way ahead of cosmologists. Cosmology has produced one totally mysterious quantity: the energy of empty space, about which we understand virtually nothing. However, particle physics has not understood many more quantities for far longer! — Lawrence M. Krauss

nature is more imaginative than we are. — Lawrence M. Krauss

The fact is that people would rather cling when they're afraid of something to a priori beliefs than rather open their minds about it. — Lawrence M. Krauss

To me, what philosophy does best is reflect on knowledge that's generated in other areas. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Five hundred years of science have liberated humanity from the shackles of enforced ignorance. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Everyone (with the exception of certain school boards in the United States) now knows that the universe is not static but is expanding and that the expansion began in an incredibly hot, dense Big Bang approximately 13.72 billion years ago. — Lawrence M. Krauss

The one experience that I hope every student has at some point in their lives is to have some belief you profoundly, deeply hold, proved to be wrong because that is the most eye-opening experience you can have, and as a scientist, to me, is the most exciting experience I can ever have. — Lawrence M. Krauss

children will be able to tell than the story we have told? Surely that is the greatest contribution of science to civilization: to ensure that the greatest books are not those of the past, but of the future. — Lawrence M. Krauss

To the extent that we even understand string theory, it may imply a massive number of possible different universes with different laws of physics in each universe, and there may be no way of distinguishing between them or saying why the laws of physics are the way they are. And if I can predict anything, then I haven't explained anything. — Lawrence M. Krauss

In this sense, science, as physicist Steven Weinberg has emphasized, does not make it impossible to believe in God, but rather makes it possible to not believe in God. Without science, everything is a miracle. With science, there remains the possibility that nothing is. Religious belief in this case becomes less and less necessary, and also less and less relevant. — Lawrence M. Krauss

The universe is the way it is , whether we like
it or not. The existence or nonexistence of a creator is independent
of our desires . A world without God or purpose may seem harsh
or pointless, but that alone doesn ' t require God to actually exist. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Science is not just there for technology. It's part of what addressing who you are in the universe and understanding your place in the cosmos. Good art, good literature, good music - all of that is for that and science is a part of it. — Lawrence M. Krauss

If we wish to draw philosophical conclusions about our own existence, our significance, and the significance of the universe itself, our conclusions should be based on empirical knowledge. A truly open mind means forcing our imaginations to conform to the evidence of reality, and not vice versa, whether or not we like the implications. — Lawrence M. Krauss

You are all stardust. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Of course, supernatural acts are what miracles are all about. They are, after all, precisely those things that circumvent the laws of nature. A god who can create the laws of nature can presumably also circumvent them at will. Although why they would have been circumvented so liberally thousands of years ago, before the invention of modern communication instruments that could have recorded them, and not today, is still something to wonder about. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Most people don't base their morality on religion in spite what they say. If you ask people, "If you didn't believe in God, would you go out and kill your neighbour?" Most people will say, "No". — Lawrence M. Krauss

This makes it sound as if light has intentionality, and I resisted the temptation to say light considers all paths and chooses the one that takes the least time because I fully expect that Deepak Chopra would later quote me as implying that light has consciousness. — Lawrence M. Krauss

The amazing thing is that every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. — Lawrence M. Krauss

A significant fraction of evangelical voters appear more likely to ignore the candidates' specific economic and foreign policy platforms in favor of concerns about gay marriage or abortion. — Lawrence M. Krauss

The universe has a much greater imagination than we do, which is why the real story of the universe is far more interesting than any of the fairy tales we have invented to describe it. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Simplicity - that's what I want. It's been a rare commodity for me for a number of years, but I enjoy being able to hang out with my girl, read the newspaper, and sit back and start to read a book by someone I admire, like Lawrence Krauss or Christopher Hitchens. And that's it - simplicity, where the game of Hollywood doesn't exist. — Johnny Depp

Now, almost one hundred years later, it is difficult to fully appreciate how much our picture of the universe has changed in the span of a single human lifetime.
As far as the scientific community in 1917 was concerned, the universe was static and eternal, and consisted of a one single galaxy, our Milky Way, surrounded by vast, infinite, dark, and empty space.
This is, after all, what you would guess by looking up at the night sky with your eyes, or with a small telescope, and at the time there was little reason to suspect otherwise. — Lawrence M. Krauss

We now know that we are more insignificant than we ever imagined. If you get rid of everything we see, the universe is essentially the same. We constitute a 1 percent bit of pollution in a universe ... we are completely irrelevant. — Lawrence M. Krauss

I would say to anybody who thinks that all the problems in philosophy can be translated into empirically verifiable answers - whether it be a Lawrence Krauss thinking that physics is rendering philosophy obsolete or a Sam Harris thinking that neuroscience is rendering moral philosophy obsolete - that it takes an awful lot of philosophy - philosophy of science in the first case, moral philosophy in the second - even to demonstrate the relevance of these empirical sciences. — Rebecca Goldstein

A truly open mind means forcing our imaginations to conform to the evidence of reality, and not vice versa. — Lawrence M. Krauss

Imagining living in a universe without purpose may prepare us to better face reality head on. I cannot see that this is such a bad thing. — Lawrence M. Krauss

The forces that govern our experience, electromagnetism and gravity, are blind to the distinction between left and right. No process moderated by either force can turn something such as your right hand into its mirror image. I cannot — Lawrence M. Krauss

Does this prove that our universe arose from nothing? Of course not. But it does take us one rather large step closer to the plausibility of such a scenario. And it removes one more of the objections that might have been leveled against the argument of creation from nothing as described in the previous chapter. There, "nothing" meant empty but preexisting space combined with fixed and well-known laws of physics. Now the requirement of space has been removed. But, remarkably, as we shall next discuss, even the laws of physics may not be necessary or required. — Lawrence M. Krauss

If you ask religious believers why they believe, you may find a few "sophisticated" theologians who will talk about God as the "Ground of all Isness," or as "a metaphor for interpersonal fellowship" or some such evasion. But the majority of believers leap, more honestly and vulnerably, to a version of the argument from design or the argument from first cause. Philosophers of the caliber of David Hume didn't need to rise from their armchairs to demonstrate the fatal weakness of all such argument: they beg the question of the Creator's origin. — Lawrence M. Krauss