15 life quotes from Stephen Hawking

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Stephen Hawking is one of the smartest people of our time, cosmologist, theoretical physicist and popularizer of science. In this article, we have collected quotes from an English scientist that deserve attention.

One of the main achievements of Stephen Hawking is the popularization of fundamental science. He, like Carl Sagan, tries in simple language to convey to us complex scientific topics: the structure of the Universe, the organization of space and time, the interaction of elementary particles. His books are scattered all over the world in huge print runs.

We have a lot to learn from Hawking, especially knowing that he has long been confined to a wheelchair and this ailment did not become an obstacle for him on the way to a happy life.

1 -

Everything is predetermined. But we can assume that it is not, since we do not know what exactly is predetermined.

2 -

It is better to strive for complete understanding than to despair of doubting the human mind.

3 -

If you feel like you're trapped in a black hole, don't give up. There is an exit.

4 -

All my life I have been amazed at the main questions that we have to face, and I have tried to find a scientific answer for them. Maybe that's why I sold more physics books than Madonna about sex.

5 -

The prospect of dying early made me realize that life is worth living.

6 -

The answer to Einstein's statement “God does not play dice with the Universe”: God not only plays dice, but also throws them sometimes where we cannot fail to see them.

7 -

The main enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge.

8 -

There is a fundamental difference between a religion based on dogma and a science based on observation and logic. Science will win because it works.

9 -

Space and time not only affect everything that happens in the Universe, but they themselves change under the influence of everything that happens in it.

10 -

Science fiction can be helpful: it stimulates the imagination and relieves fear of the future. However, the scientific facts can be much more startling. Science fiction did not even envision such things as black holes.

11 -

While most scientists are too busy developing new theories describing what the universe is, and they have no time to ask themselves why it is. Philosophers, whose job it is to ask the "why" question, cannot keep up with the development of scientific theories. In the XVIII century. philosophers considered all human knowledge, including science, as the field of their activity and were engaged in discussion of questions such as: did the universe have a beginning? But the calculations and the mathematical apparatus of science of the XIX and XX centuries. became too difficult for philosophers and in general for everyone except specialists. Philosophers have so narrowed the range of their requests that the most famous philosopher of our century Wittgenstein said in this regard: "The only thing that still remains for philosophy is the analysis of language." What a humiliation for philosophy with its great traditions from Aristotle to Kant!

12 -

Of all the systems we have, the most complex are our own bodies.

13 -

Astrologers are smart enough to make their predictions so vague that they can be attributed to any outcome.

14 -

School science is often taught in a dry and uninteresting manner. Children learn to memorize mechanically in order to pass the exam, and do not see the connection between science and the world around them.

15 -

I am not sure that the human race will live even another thousand years if it does not find a way to escape into space. There are many scenarios for how all life on a small planet can perish. But I'm an optimist. We will definitely reach the stars.