Stephen Hawking Quotes - Page 13

I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be space and that it represents an important life insurance for our future survival, as it could prevent the disappearance of humanity by colonizing other planets.

I think my dad [ Stephen Hawking] would have been pleased if I had turned out a scientist because he truly believes that is the most interesting career open to anyone. But he also believes that you have to follow your own path in life and so he certainly wasn't going to push me toward theoretical physics when it didn't look like I was going in that direction naturally.

Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers. I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space. I therefore want to encourage public interest in space.

If it [the universe] was expanding fairly slowly, the force of gravity would cause it eventually to stop expanding and then to start contracting. However, if it was expanding at more than a certain critical rate, gravity would never be strong enough to stop it, and the universe would continue to expand forever.

I enjoy all forms of music - pop, classical and opera.

All of my life, I have been fascinated by the big questions that face us, and have tried to find scientific answers to them. If, like me, you have looked at the stars, and tried to make sense of what you see, you too have started to wonder what makes the universe exist.

Of course it is possible that UFO's really do contain aliens as many people believe, and the government is hushing it up

The boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundary.

Although September 11 was horrible, it didn't threaten the survival of the human race, like nuclear weapons do.

There ought to be something very special about the boundary conditions of the universe and what can be more special than that there is no boundary?

One does not have to appeal to God to set the initial conditions for the creation of the universe, but if one does He would have to act through the laws of physics.

All my adult life people have been helping me.

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

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

If I knew what was going to happen in ten years I would do it now. I just follow my nose.

I think computer viruses should count as life.

Chaos, when left alone, tends to multiply.

I believe in universal health care. And I am not afraid to say so.

Science will win because it works.

The "Powers That Be" are not smart enough to engineer Armageddon, but they may yet be stupid enough. If governments are involved in covering up the knowledge of aliens, then they are doing a much better job of it than they seem to do at anything else.

There is nothing bigger or older than the universe.

We each exist for but a short time, and in that time explore but a small part of the whole universe

We've created life in our own image.

As those who have seen Jurassic Park will know, this means a tiny disturbance in one place, can cause a major change in another. A butterfly flapping its wings can cause rain in Central Park, New York. The trouble is, it is not repeatable. The next time the butterfly flaps its wings, a host of other things will be different, which will also influence the weather. That is why weather forecasts are so unreliable.

I'm very interested in film making. It's telling a story, fiction or non-fiction. I have been filmed quite a lot. Contrary to popular belief, filming isn't glamorous. It can be wearingly repetitious, as the same shot is taken over and over again.