Quotes & Sayings About The Universe Stephen Hawking

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. — Stephen Hawking

But in 1929, Edwin Hubble made the landmark observation that wherever you look, distant galaxies are moving rapidly away from us. In other words, the universe is expanding. — 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

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. — Stephen Hawking

The intelligent beings in these regions should therefore not be surprised if they observe that their locality in the universe satisfies the conditions that are necessary for their existence. It is a bit like a rich person living in a wealthy neighborhood not seeing any poverty. — Stephen Hawking

I think the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of science. It has no beginning and no end. — Stephen Hawking

Every man must be like Stephen Hawking. His body is here on earth, but his mind walks in the universe! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

One could say: "The boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundary." The universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE. — Stephen Hawking

Throughout history, people have studied pure science from a desire to understand the universe rather than practical applications for commercial gain. But their discoveries later turned out to have great practical benefits. — Stephen Hawking

Einstein never accepted that the universe was governed by chance; — Stephen Hawking

I want to know why the universe exists, why there is something greater than nothing. — Stephen Hawking

We have seen in this chapter how, in less than half a century, man's view of the universe, formed over millennia, has been transformed. — Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time tells the story of a cosmologist whose speech is interrupted by a little old lady who informs him that the universe rests on the back of a turtle. Ah, yes, madame, the scientist replies, but what does the turtle rest on? The old lady shoots back: You can't trick me, young man. It's nothing but turtles, turtles, turtles, all the way down. — George Will

I first had the idea of writing a popular book about the universe in 1982. My intention was partly to earn money to pay my daughter's school fees. — 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

Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? Is the unified theory so compelling that it brings about its own existence? Or does it need a creator, and, if so, does he have any other effect on the universe? And who created him? — 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

The microwave background indicated that the universe had had a hot, dense stage in the past. — Stephen Hawking

I think the discovery of supersymmetric partners for the known particles would revolutionize our understanding of the universe. — Stephen Hawking

As we shall see, the concept of time has no meaning before the beginning of the universe. This was first pointed out by St. Augustine. When asked: "What did God do before he created the universe?" Augustine didn't reply: "He was preparing Hell for people who asked such questions. — Stephen Hawking

But humans are a curious species. We wonder, we seek answers. Living in this vast world that is by turns kind and cruel, and gazing at the immense heavens above, people have always asked a multitude of questions: How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves? How does the universe behave? What is the nature of reality? Where did all this come from? Did the universe need a creator? — Stephen Hawking

If a star were a grain of salt, you could fit all the stars visible to the naked eye on a teaspoon, but all the stars in the universe would fill a ball more than eight miles wide. — 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

Many scientists (the most notable being Albert Einstein) think in visual, spatial, and physical images rather than in mathematical terms and words. (N.B.: That the theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking, used an arboreal term to picture the cosmos [i.e., affirming that the universe "could have different branches,"] is a tribute to his [very visual] primate brain.) — David B. Givens

One might think this means that imaginary numbers are just a mathematical game having nothing to do with the real world. From the viewpoint of positivist philosophy, however, one cannot determine what is real. All one can do is find which mathematical models describe the universe we live in. It turns out that a mathematical model involving imaginary time predicts not only effects we have already observed but also effects we have not been able to measure yet nevertheless believe in for other reasons. So what is real and what is imaginary? Is the distinction just in our minds? — Stephen Hawking

A lot of prizes have been awarded for showing the universe is not as simple as we might have thought. — Stephen Hawking

Science could predict that the universe must have had a beginning. — Stephen Hawking

Before we understood science, it was natural to believe that God created the universe, but now science offers a more convincing explanation." "What I meant by 'we would know the mind of God' is we would know everything that God would know if there was a God, but there isn't. I'm an atheist. — Stephen Hawking

I swear to use my scientific knowledge for the good of Humanity. I promise never to harm any person in my search for enlightenment.

I shall be courageous and careful in my quest for greater knowledge about the mysteries that surround us. I shall not use scientific knowledge for my own personal gain or give it to those who seek to destroy the wonderful planet on which we live.

If I break this oath, may the beauty and wonder of the Universe forever remain hidden from me. — Stephen Hawking

The initial configuration of the universe may have been chosen by God, or it may itself have been determined by the laws of science. In either case, it would seem that everything in the universe would then be determined by evolution according to the laws of science, so it is difficult to see how we can be masters of our fate. — Stephen Hawking

There is nothing bigger or older than the universe. — Stephen Hawking

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. — 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

Observations indicate that the universe is expanding at an ever increasing rate. It will expand forever, getting emptier and darker. — Stephen Hawking

It turns out to be very difficult to devise a theory to describe the universe all in one go. Instead, we break the problem up into bits and invent a number of partial theories. Each of these partial theories describes and predicts a certain limited class of observations, neglecting the effects of other quantities, or representing them by simple sets of numbers. It may be that this approach is completely wrong. If everything in the universe depends on everything else in a fundamental way, it might be impossible to get close to a full solution by investigating parts of the problem in isolation. Nevertheless, it is certainly the way that we have made progress in the past. — Stephen Hawking

One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn't exist ... Without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist — Stephen Hawking

The uncertainty principle signaled an end to Laplace's dream of a theory of science, a model of the universe that would be completely deterministic. We certainly cannot predict future events exactly if we cannot even measure the present state of the universe precisely!
We could still imagine that there is a set of laws that determine events completely for some supernatural being who, unlike us, could observe the present state of the universe without disturbing it. However, such models of the universe are not of much interest to us ordinary mortals. It seems better to employ the principle of economy known as Occam's razor and cut out all the features of the theory that cannot be observed. — 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

The eventual goal of science is to provide a single theory that describes the whole universe. — Stephen Hawking

My advice to any heartbroken young girl is to pay close attention to the study of theoretical physics. Because one day there may well be proof of multiple universes. It would not be beyond the realms of possibility that somewhere outside of our own universe lies another different universe. And in that universe, Zayn is still in One Direction. — Stephen Hawking

Our universe and its laws appear to have a design that both is tailor-made to support us and, if we are to exist, leaves little room for alteration. That is not easily explained, and raises the natural question of why it is that way. — Stephen Hawking

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. — Stephen Hawking

That multiverse idea is not a notion invented to account for the miracle of fine-tuning. It is a consequence of the no-boundary condition as well as many other theories of modern cosmology. But if it is true, then the strong anthropic principle can be considered effectively equivalent to the weak one, putting the fine-tunings of physical law on the same footing as the environmental factors, for it means that our cosmic habitat - now the entire observable universe - is only one of many, just as our solar system is one of many. That means that in the same way that the environmental coincidences of our solar system were rendered unremarkable by the realization that billions of such systems exist, the fine-tunings in the laws of nature can be explained by the existence of multiple universes. — Stephen Hawking

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

If you understand the universe, you control it, in a way. — Stephen Hawking

St. Augustine accepted a date of about 5000 B.C. for the Creation of the universe according to the book of Genesis. (It is interesting that this is not so far from the end of the last Ice Age, about 10,000 B.C., which is when archaeologists tell us that civilization really began.) — Stephen Hawking

The discovery that the universe was expanding was one of the great intellectual revolutions of the twentieth century. — Stephen Hawking

Sex is the strongest force in the universe. Forget about the Grand Unifying Theory, Stephen Hawking, I'll tell you what it is: women. Aren't women the strongest sex? What force is more magnetic than that? It's not just pussy. We're attracted to women for their energy. We're attracted to their fluidness, their ability to nurture a baby without even knowing how, to be able to put up with screaming and crying and colic and shitty diapers where men would go, "I'm fucking outta here! I'm gonna go kill me a saber-toothed woolly mammoth an'bring it on home to eat tonight. Wa-haaaaaa!" We don't have tits; we couldn't nourish a gnat. — Steven Tyler

The universe and the Laws of Physics seem to have been specifically designed for us. If any one of about 40 physical qualities had more than slightly different values, life as we know it could not exist: Either atoms would not be stable, or they wouldn't combine into molecules, or the stars wouldn't form heavier elements, or the universe would collapse before life could develop, and so on ... — Stephen Hawking

Science seems to have uncovered a set of laws that, within the limits set by the uncertainty principle, tell us how the universe will develop with time, if we know its state at any one 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

It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us — Stephen Hawking

The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies. We are so insignificant that I can't believe the whole universe exists for our benefit. That would be like saying that you would disappear if I closed my eyes. — Stephen Hawking

Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has proved that if two black holes unite, the surface area of the final black hole must exceed the sum of the surface areas of the initial black holes. For these reasons the total black-hole portion of the universe is ever increasing. — Clifford A. Pickover

In the eighteenth century, philosophers considered the whole of human knowledge, including science, to be their field and discussed questions such as: Did the universe have a beginning? However, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, science became too technical and mathematical for the philosophers, or anyone else except a few specialists. Philosophers reduced the scope of their inquiries so much that Wittgenstein, the most famous philosopher of this century, said, "The sole remaining task for philosophy is the analysis of language." What a comedown from the great tradition of philosophy from Aristotle to Kant! — Stephen Hawking

Remember to 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. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.
It matters that you don't just give up. — 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

Ever since the dawn of civilization, people have not been content to see events as unconnected and inexplicable. They have craved an understanding of the underlying order in the world. Today we still yearn to know why we are here and where we came from. Humanity's deepest desire for knowledge is justification enough for our continuing quest. And our goal is nothing less than a complete description of the universe we live in. — Stephen Hawking

for the fluctuations in the background. However, within a few years we should know whether we can believe that we live in a universe that is completely self-contained and without beginning or end. — Stephen Hawking

The progress of the human race in understanding the universe has established a small corner of order in an increasingly disordered universe. — Stephen Hawking

With pantheism ... the deity is associated with the order of nature or the universe itself ... when modern scientists such as Einstein and Stephen Hawking mention 'God' in their writing, this is what they seem to mean: that God is Nature. — Victor J. Stenger

When we understand string theory, we will know how the universe began. It won't have much effect on how we live, but it is important to understand where we come from and what we can expect to find as we explore. — Stephen Hawking

We think that life develops spontaneously on Earth, so it must be possible for life to develop on suitable planets elsewhere in the universe. But we don't know the probability that a planet develops life. — Stephen Hawking

It now appears that the way the universe began can indeed be determined, using imaginary time. — Stephen Hawking

At first, I believed that disorder would decrease when the universe recollapsed. This was because I thought that the universe had to return to a smooth and ordered state when it became small again. This would mean that the contracting phase would be like the time reverse of the expanding phase. People in the contracting phase would live their lives backward: they would die before they were born and get younger as the universe contracted. — Stephen Hawking

I am damned if I'm going to die before I have unraveled more of the universe — Stephen Hawking

Up until the 1920s, everyone thought the universe was essentially static and unchanging in time. — Stephen Hawking

The universe doesn't allow perfection. — Stephen Hawking

This picture of a hot early stage of the universe was first put forward by the scientist George Gamow in a famous paper written in 1948 with a student of his, Ralph Alpher. Gamow had quite a sense of humor - he persuaded the nuclear scientist Hans Bethe to add his name to the paper to make the list of authors "Alpher, Bethe, Gamow, — Stephen Hawking

What I have done is to show that it is possible for the way the universe began to be determined by the laws of science. In that case, it would not be necessary to appeal to God to decide how the universe began. This doesn't prove that there is no God, only that God is not necessary. — Stephen Hawking

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 discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we would know the mind of God. — Stephen Hawking

God may exist, but science can explain the universe without the need for a creator. — Stephen Hawking

The large-scale homogeneity of the universe makes it very difficult to believe that the structure of the universe is determined by anything so peripheral as some complicated molecular structure on a minor planet orbiting a very average star in the outer suburbs of a fairly typical galaxy. — Stephen Hawking

It was Einstein's dream to discover the grand design of the universe, a single theory that explains everything. However, physicists in Einstein's day hadn't made enough progress in understanding the forces of nature for that to be a realistic goal. — Stephen Hawking

The question is: is the way the universe began chosen by God for reasons we can't understand, or was it determined by a law of science? I believe the second. If you like, you can call the laws of science 'God', but it wouldn't be a personal God that you could meet, and ask questions. — Stephen Hawking

IF you remember every word in this book, your memory will have recorded about two million pieces of information: the order in your brain will have increased by about two million units. However, while you have been reading the book, you will have converted at least a thousand calories of ordered energy, in the form of food, into disordered energy, in the form of heat that you lose to the air around you by convection and sweat. This will increase the disorder of the universe by about twenty million million million million units - or about ten million million million times the increase in order in your brain - and that's if you remember everything in this book. — Stephen Hawking

In fact, if one considers the possible constants and laws that could have emerged, the odds against a universe that produced life like ours are immense. — Stephen Hawking

We are only the temporary custodians of the particles which we are made of. They will go on to lead a future existence in the enormous universe that made them — Stephen Hawking

We think we have solved the mystery of creation. Maybe we should patent the universe and charge everyone royalties for their existence. — Stephen Hawking

But the idea that God might want to change his mind is an example of the fallacy, pointed out by St. Augustine, of imagining God as a being existing in time: time is a property only of the universe that God created. — Stephen Hawking

In real time, the universe has a beginning and an end at singularities that form a boundary to space-time and at which the laws of science break down. — 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

What (Stephen) Hawking says in his book The Grand Design is the universe exists because it needed to exist, and because it needed to exist, it therefore created itself. His conclusion merely restates his premise, which means his argument is circular. Nonsense is nonsense, even when spoken by famous scientists. — John Lennox

[In the Universe it may be that] Primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare. Some would say it has yet to occur on Earth. — Stephen Hawking

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. — Stephen Hawking

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. — Stephen Hawking

In the classical theory of gravity, which is based on real space-time, there are only two possible ways the universe can behave: either it has existed for an infinite time, or else it had a beginning at a singularity at some finite time in the past. — 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

A million million million million (1 with twenty-four zeros after it) miles, the size of the observable universe. — Stephen Hawking

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. — 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

If I have questions about the universe on my mind when I go to bed, I can't turn off. I dream equations all night. — Stephen Hawking

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. — 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

Before 1915, space and time were thought of as a fixed arena in which events took place, but which was not affected by what happened in it. Space and time are now dynamic quantities ... space and time not only affect but are also affected by everything that happens in the universe. — Stephen Hawking

It is said that there's no such thing as a free lunch. But the universe is the ultimate free lunch. — Stephen Hawking

Because gravity shapes space and time, it allows space time to be locally stable but globally unstable. On the scale of the entire universe, the positive energy of the matter can be balanced by the negative gravitational energy, and so there is no restriction on the creation of whole universes. Because there is a law like gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing in the manner described in Chapter 6. — Stephen Hawking

The present evidence therefore suggests that the universe will probably expand forever, but all we can really be sure of is that even if the universe is going to recollapse, it won't do so for at least another ten thousand million years, since it has already been expanding for at least that long. This should not unduly worry us: — Stephen Hawking

The most important point: that the universe is governed by a set of rational laws that we can discover and understand. — Stephen Hawking

The Universe in a Nutshell — Stephen Hawking

The Greeks' Christian successors rejected the idea that the universe is governed by indifferent natural law. They also rejected the idea that humans do not hold a privileged place within that universe. And though the medieval period had no single coherent philosophical system, a common theme was that the universe is God's dollhouse, and religion a far worthier study than the phenomena of nature. Indeed, in 1277 Bishop Tempier of Paris, acting on the instructions of Pope John XXI, published a list of 219 errors or heresies that were to be condemned. Among the heresies was the idea that nature follows laws, because this conflicts with God's omnipotence. Interestingly, Pope John was killed by the effects of the law of gravity a few months later when the roof of his palace fell in on him. — Stephen Hawking