Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays

I have noticed that even those who assert that everything is predestined and that we can change nothing about it still look both ways before they cross the street.

Time and space are finite in extent, but they don't have any boundary or edge. They would be like the surface of the earth, but with two more dimensions.

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.

There is no way that we can predict the weather six months ahead beyond giving the seasonal average

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

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.

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.

Black holes might be useful for getting rid of garbage or even some of one's friends.

Whatever happens on earth, the rest of the universe will carry on regardless.

Although in principle we know the equations that govern the whole of biology, we have not been able to reduce the study of human behavior to a branch of applied mathematics.

A society in which the individual feels responsible for his or her actions is more likely to work together and survive to spread its values.

...it is surely better to strive for a complete understanding than to despair of the human mind.

Things are as they are because we are

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

the W and Z particles were observed at the CERN laboratory in Geneva in 1983 and another Nobel Prize was awarded in 1984

IS THE END IN SIGHT FOR THEORETICAL PHYSICS?

I had six or seven close friends, most of whom I’m still in touch with. We used to have long discussions and arguments about everything from radio-controlled models to religion, and from parapsychology to physics. One of the things we talked about was the origin of the universe and whether it required a God to create it and set it going. I had heard that light from distant galaxies was shifted toward the red end of the spectrum and this was supposed to indicate that the universe was expanding. (A shift to the blue would have meant it was contracting.) But I was sure there must be some other reason for the red shift. Maybe light got tired, and more red, on its way to us. An essentially unchanging and everlasting universe seemed so much more natural. It was only after about two years of Ph.D. research that I realized I had been wrong.

THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE

There is a real problem here. The people who ought to study and argue such questions