19 quotes
Quite undeservedly, the ether has acquired a bad name.
The answer to the ancient question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" would then be that ‘nothing’ is unstable.
The whole idea of science is really to listen to nature, in her own language, as part of a continuing dialogue.
Longing for the Harmonies: Themes and Variations from Modern Physics (1987)
As the idea of permanence of objects has faded, the idea of permanence of physical laws has become better established and more powerful.
Longing for the Harmonies: Themes and Variations from Modern Physics (1987)
An ordinary mistake is one that leads to a dead end, while a profound mistake is one that leads to progress. Anyone can make an ordinary mistake, but it takes a genius to make a profound mistake.
The Lightness of Being – Mass, Ether and the Unification of Forces (2008)
If the “universe” contains everything that exists, what can be outside it? If the answer is “Things that don’t exist”, then “multiverse” becomes an idea in the domain of psychology, not physics.
Multiversality (2013)
It is delightful in itself when we are able to interpret features of the present as signs confirming our understanding of the past.
Longing for the Harmonies: Themes and Variations from Modern Physics (1987)
In the past scientists have repeatedly reached “intellectual closure” on inadequate pictures of the universe, and underestimated its scale.
Multiversality (2013)
[S]ome scientists focus on ideal beauty, others on empirical truth. My own approach, following a great tradition going back to Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler, has been to use beauty as a guide to truth.
In science... the ultimate judges are not experts but experiments.
Longing for the Harmonies: Themes and Variations from Modern Physics (1987)
Knowing how to calculate something is not the same as understanding it. Having a computer to calculate the origin of mass for us may be convincing, but is not satisfying. Fortunately we can understand it too.
The Lightness of Being – Mass, Ether and the Unification of Forces (2008)
How do we get from symmetric laws to asymmetric appearances? (arrow of time problem) ... Why are the fundamental laws symmetric? ("naturality" problem) ...
Changing electric fields produce magnetic fields, and changing magnetic fields produce electric fields. Thus the fields can animate one another in turn, giving birth to self-reproducing disturbances that travel at the speed of light. Ever since Maxwell, we understand that these disturbances are what light is.
We have heard that nature can sing some strange and unfamiliar songs. In coming to appreciate these songs, we develop a heightened perception... leavened by an admixture of our own creation...
Longing for the Harmonies: Themes and Variations from Modern Physics (1987)
For many centuries before modern science, and for the first two and a half centuries of modern science, the division of reality into matter and light seemed self-evident. ...As long as the separation between the massive and the massless persisted, a unified description of the physical world could not be achieved.
The Lightness of Being – Mass, Ether and the Unification of Forces (2008)
The happy coincidences between life’s requirements and nature’s choices of parameter-values might be just a series of flukes, but one could be forgiven for beginning to suspect that something deeper is at work. That suspicion is the first deep root of anthropic reasoning.
Multiversality (2013)
Thinking along these lines will help prepare us for the day when we—or more likely, our distant descendents—will develop the machinery and cleverness to begin to program [create] worlds ourselves...
Longing for the Harmonies: Themes and Variations from Modern Physics (1987)
We evolved to be good at learning and using rules of thumb, not at searching for ultimate causes and making fine distinctions. Still less did we evolve to spin out long chains of calculation that connect fundamental laws to observable consequences. Computers are much better at it!
The Lightness of Being – Mass, Ether and the Unification of Forces (2008)
Exoplanet astronomy will systematically survey our galaxy, gathering information on the masses, orbits, geology, and atmospheres of millions of planets. As a byproduct, we will learn how rare life is and what conditions it requires. What we discover might support tests and refinements of anthropic reasoning.