Stephen Hawking Quotes

133 Sourced Quotes

Maybe that is our mistake: maybe there are no particle positions and velocities, but only waves. It is just that we try to fit the waves to our preconceived ideas of positions and velocities. The resulting mismatch is the cause of the apparent unpredictability.

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

Stephen Hawking
Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty.

Stephen Hawking
Science predicts that many different kinds of universe will be spontaneously created out of nothing. It is a matter of chance which we are in.

Stephen Hawking
Each time new experiments are observed to agree with the predictions the theory survives, and our confidence in it is increased; but if ever a new observation is found to disagree, we have to abandon or modify the theory.

Stephen Hawking
It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us

Stephen Hawking
Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would halve the sales. I therefore resolved not to have any equations at all. In the end, however, I did put in one equation, Einstein's famous equation, E = mc squared. I hope that this will not scare off half of my potential readers.

Stephen Hawking
The universe would have expanded in a smooth way from a single point. As it expanded, it would have borrowed energy from the gravitational field, to create matter. As any economist could have predicted, the result of all that borrowing, was inflation. The universe expanded and borrowed at an ever-increasing rate. Fortunately, the debt of gravitational energy will not have to be repaid until the end of the universe.

Stephen Hawking
One might think this means that imaginary numbers are just a mathematical game having nothing to do with the real world. From the viewpoint of positivist philosophy, however, one cannot determine what is real. All one can do is find which mathematical models describe the universe we live in. It turns out that a mathematical model involving imaginary time predicts not only effects we have already observed but also effects we have not been able to measure yet nevertheless believe in for other reasons. So what is real and what is imaginary? Is the distinction just in our minds?

Stephen Hawking
Asked what he thinks about most during the day:
Women. They are a complete mystery.

Stephen Hawking
I think computer viruses should count as life … I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image.

Stephen Hawking
The rate of progress is so rapid that what one learns at school or university is always a bit out of date. Only a few people can keep up with the rapidly advancing frontier of knowledge, and they have to devote their whole time to it and specialize in a small area. The rest of the population has little idea of the advances that are being made or the excitement they are generating.

Stephen Hawking
Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.

Stephen Hawking
On the possibility of contact with an alien civilization:
I think it would be a disaster. The extraterrestrials would probably be far in advance of us. The history of advanced races meeting more primitive people on this planet is not very happy, and they were the same species. I think we should keep our heads low.

Stephen Hawking
To show this diagram properly, I would really need a four dimensional screen. However, because of government cuts, we could manage to provide only a two dimensional screen.

Stephen Hawking
As scientists, we understand the dangers of nuclear weapons and their devastating effects, and we are learning how human activities and technologies are affecting climate systems in ways that may forever change life on Earth. As citizens of the world, we have a duty to alert the public to the unnecessary risks that we live with every day, and to the perils we foresee if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change... There's a realization that we are changing our climate for the worse. That would have catastrophic effects. Although the threat is not as dire as that of nuclear weapons right now, in the long term we are looking at a serious threat.

Stephen Hawking
The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies. We are so insignificant that I can't believe the whole universe exists for our benefit. That would be like saying that you would disappear if I closed my eyes.

Stephen Hawking
The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. We cannot quite know what will happen if a machine exceeds our own intelligence, so we can't know if we'll be infinitely helped by it, or ignored by it and sidelined, or conceivably destroyed by it.

Stephen Hawking
Look up at the stars, and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.

Stephen Hawking
A million million million million (1 with twenty-four zeros after it) miles, the size of the observable universe.

Stephen Hawking
We are each free to believe what we want and it is my view that the simplest explanation is there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization. There is probably no heaven, and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that, I am extremely grateful.

Stephen Hawking
My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus.

Stephen Hawking
The zero-G part was wonderful and the higher-G part was no problem. I could have gone on and on. Space, here I come!

Stephen Hawking
If there is one thing we can be sure enough of in physics it is that all time exists with equal reality.

Stephen Hawking
You would have to fly around the world four hundred million times to add one second to your life; but your life would be reduced by more than that by all those airline meals.

Stephen Hawking