Sure, nobody will make a fortune if we figure out why the Big Bang happened. But just about everyone would like to know.
The limitless content of our universe might be only one instance of a large (and possibly infinite) number of other universes.
The planets and moons of our solar system are blatantly visible because they reflect sunlight. Without the nearby Sun, these planets would be cryptic and dark on the sky.
'E.T.' was far-fetched. 'E.T.' was this wimpy-looking kid that came to Earth to pick some plants, but he came from the Andromeda Galaxy to do that.
Frankly, I'll believe in horoscopes the day I can describe my personality to an astrologer and they tell me what date I was born.
One of the pleasures of looking at the world through mathematical eyes is that you can see certain patterns that would otherwise be hidden.
We're going to need a definitive quantum theory of gravity, which is part of a grand unified theory - it's the main missing piece.
The human race has a yearning to explore. That's part of our biological and psychological makeup.
If you go down through the horizon of a black hole, at the center you don't find a tunnel that leads you to some other place in the universe.
In 1975 I met Alison Brown and in 1982 we were married. She works for Cornell Computer Services.
Imagining living in a universe without purpose may prepare us to better face reality head on. I cannot see that this is such a bad thing.
The Bible is full of dubious scientific impossibilities, from Jonah living inside a whale, to the sun standing still in the sky for Joshua.
When it comes to the real operational issues that govern our understanding of physical reality, ontological definitions of classical philosophers are, in my opinion, sterile.
The true measure of a man is what he would do if he knew he would never be caught.
The influence of animal or vegetable life on matter is infinitely beyond the range of any scientific inquiry hitherto entered on.
There certainly is a tension between the relativity of simultaneity and non-locality in quantum theory, but it's not strong enough to add up to a falsification of either side by itself.
Science is not about what’s true. It’s about what people with originally diverse viewpoints can be forced to believe by way of public evidence.
A man's thinking goes on within his consciousness in a seclusion in comparison with which any physical seclusion is an exhibition to public view.
The real question of life after death isn't whether or not it exists, but even if it does what problem this really solves.
We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all.
The philosophical I is not the man, not the human body or the human soul of which psychology treats, but the metaphysical subject, the limit - not a part of the world.
