Stephen Hawking Science Quotations

There are grounds for cautious optimism that we may now be near the end ofthe search for the ultimate laws of nature.

Not only does God play dice, but... he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.

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

The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired.

I believe there are no questions that science can't answer about a physical universe.

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

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.

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

Life would be tragic if it weren't funny.

I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image.

Science predicts that many different kinds of universe will be spontaneously created out of nothing. It is a matter of chance which we are in.

In the past, there was active discrimination against women in science. That has now gone, and although there are residual effects, these are not enough to account for the small numbers of women, particularly in mathematics and physics.

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.

If you believe in science, like I do, you believe that there are certain laws that are always obeyed.

As scientists, we step on the shoulders of science, building on the work that has come before us - aiming to inspire a new generation of young scientists to continue once we are gone.

Science is increasingly answering questions that used to be the province of religion.

Before I lost my voice, it was slurred, so only those close to me could understand, but with the computer voice, I found I could give popular lectures. I enjoy communicating science. It is important that the public understands basic science, if they are not to leave vital decisions to others.

So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?

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.

I have found far greater enthusiasm for science in America than here in Britain. There is more enthusiasm for everything in America.

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.

I think the next [21st] century will be the century of complexity. We have already discovered the basic laws that govern matter and understand all the normal situations. We don't know how the laws fit together, and what happens under extreme conditions. But I expect we will find a complete unified theory sometime this century. The is no limit to the complexity that we can build using those basic laws.

I would rather be right than rigorous.

I have sold more books on physics than Madonna has on sex.

My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus.

One is always a long way from solving a problem until one actually has the answer.

When I hear of Schrödinger's cat, I reach for my pistol.

So Einstein was wrong when he said, "God does not play dice." Consideration of black holes suggests, not only that God does play dice, but that he sometimes confuses us by throwing them where they can't be seen.

People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.

Maybe I'm being a bit harsh on philosophers, but they have not been very kind to me... I have been variously called nominalist, an instrumentalist, a positivist, a realist, and several other ists. The technique seems refutation by denigration: If you can attach a label to my approach, you don't have to say what is wrong with it... I am sure that Einstein, Heisenberg and Dirac didn't worry about whether they were realists or instrumentalists.

There could be whole antiworlds and antipeople made out of antiparticles. However, if you ever meet your antiself, don't shake hands! You would both vanish in a great flash of light.

Real science can be far stranger than science fiction and much more satisfying.

More often than politicians, but not as often as they should.

We live in the most probable of all possible worlds.

The downside of my celebrity is that I cannot go anywhere in the world without being recognized. It is not enough for me to wear dark sunglasses and a wig. The wheelchair gives me away.

[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.