Stephen Hawking - Universe Quotes

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My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.

Stephen Hawking
I'm not religious in the normal sense. I believe the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws.

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

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
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
In an infinite number universe, every point can be regarded as the center, because every point has an infinity of stars on each side of it.

Stephen Hawking
The point is that the new raw material doesn't really have to come from anywhere.... The universe can start off with zero energy and still create matter.

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
I do not agree with the view that the universe is a mystery, something that one can have intuition about but never fully analyze or comprehend.

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
What I have done is to show that it is possible for the way the universe began to be determined by the laws of science. In that case, it would not be necessary to appeal to God to decide how the universe began. This doesn't prove that there is no God, only that God is not necessary.

Stephen Hawking
One could say: "The boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundary." The universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE.

Stephen Hawking
Science could predict that the universe must have had a beginning.

Stephen Hawking
But if he [God] had started it [the universe] off in such an incomprehensible way, why did he choose to let it evolve according to laws that we could understand?

Stephen Hawking
We find ourselves in a bewildering world. We want to make sense of what we see around us and to ask: What is the nature of the universe? What is our place in it and where did it and we come from? Why is it the way it is?

Stephen Hawking
We see the universe the way it is because we exist.

Stephen Hawking
The life we have on Earth must have spontaneously generated itself. It must therefore be possible for life to generate spontaneously elsewhere in the universe.

Stephen Hawking
Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.

Stephen Hawking
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?

Stephen Hawking
I think the universe is completely self-contained. It doesn't have any beginning or end, it doesn't have any creation or destruction.

Stephen Hawking
If you understand how the universe operates, you control it in a way.

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

Stephen Hawking
If the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, it would have recollapsed before it reached its present size. On the other hand, if it had been greater by a part in a million, the universe would have expanded too rapidly for stars and planets to form.

Stephen Hawking
The subject of this book is the structure of space-time on length-scales from 10-13cm, the radius of an elementary particle, up to 1028cm, the radius of the universe.... we base our treatment on Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. This theory leads to two remarkable predictions about the universe: first, that the final fate of massive stars is to collapse behind an event horizon to form a 'black hole' which will contain a singularity; and secondly, that there is a singularity in our past which constitutes, in some sense, a beginning to the universe.

Stephen Hawking
If we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we would know the mind of God.

Stephen Hawking
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.

Stephen Hawking
Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?

Stephen Hawking
If what we regard as real depends on our theory, how can we make reality the basis of our philosophy?...But we cannot distinguish what is real about the universe without a theory...it makes no sense to ask if it corresponds to reality, because we do not know what reality is independent of a theory.

Stephen Hawking
When I gave a lecture in Japan, I was asked not to mention the possible re-collapse of the universe, because it might affect the stock market. However, I can re-assure anyone who is nervous about their investments that it is a bit early to sell: even if the universe does come to an end, it won't be for at least twenty billion years. By that time, maybe the GATT trade agreement will have come into effect.

Stephen Hawking
We still believe that the universe should be logical and beautiful; we just dropped the word "God."

Stephen Hawking