Stephen Hawking Quotes - Page 14

Just like a computer, we must remember things in the order in which entropy increases. This makes the second law of thermodynamics almost trivial. Disorder increases with time because we measure time in the direction in which disorder increases. You can't have a safer bet than that!

I don't have much positive to say about motor neuron disease, but it taught me not to pity myself because others were worse off, and to get on with what I still could do. I'm happier now than before I developed the condition.

If we ever do find a complete theory of the universe, it would be a great triumph of human reason but it wouldn't leave much for us to do. We need an intellectual challenge.

Now, radical forward thinking is offering hope for the future: Replacement body parts to order. A team of scientists in California believe that if you can design them on a computer, you should be able to print them out.

We won't know for a few years.

We shouldn't be surprised that conditions in the universe are suitable for life, but this is not evidence that the universe was designed to allow for life. We could call order by the name of God, but it would be an impersonal God. There's not much personal about the laws of physics.

Or in other words, why does disorder increase in the same direction of time as that in which the universe expands?

Many people find the universe confusing - it's not.

If I have questions about the universe on my mind when I go to bed, I can't turn off. I dream equations all night.

Physics as we know it will be over in six months - Max Born

All that my work has shown is that you don't have to say that the way the universe began was the personal whim of God.

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.

When I was first diagnosed with ALS, I was given two years to live. Now 45 years later, I am doing pretty well.

As a child, I wanted to know how things worked and to control them. With a friend, I built a number of complicated models that I could control. It was a natural next step to want to know how the universe works.

I have to speak through a computer... in my mind, I am free. Free to explore the universe and ask the big questions...

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.

Hang in there, retirement is only thirty years away!

People think I'm a Simpsons character.

Being confined to a wheelchair doesn't bother me as my mind is free to roam the universe, but it felt wonderful to be weightless.

The moment you understand the whole Universe, is the moment you slightly begin to understand the way God's mind works

Sometimes I wonder if I'm as famous for my wheelchair and disabilities as I am for my discoveries.

[On President Bush's plan to get to Mars in 10 years] Stupid. Robots would do a better job and be much cheaper because you don't have to bring them back.

I have so much that I want to do. I hate wasting time.

There is a very real danger that we will kill everything on this planet now that we have the technological power to do so.

The intelligent beings in these regions should therefore not be surprised if they observe that their locality in the universe satisfies the conditions that are necessary for their existence. It is a bit like a rich person living in a wealthy neighborhood not seeing any poverty.