Stephen Hawking - Universe Quotes

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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
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
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
Only a very few would allow creatures like us to exist. Thus our presence selects out from this vast array only these universes that are compatible without existence. Although we are puny and insignificant on the scale of the cosmos, this makes us in a sense, the lords of creation.

Stephen Hawking
If the total energy of the universe must always remain zero, and it costs energy to create a body, how can a whole universe be created from nothing?

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

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
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'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
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
As we shall see, the concept of time has no meaning before the beginning of the universe. This was first pointed out by St. Augustine. When asked: What did God do before he created the universe? Augustine didn't reply: He was preparing Hell for people who asked such questions. Instead, he said that time was a property of the universe that God created, and that time did not exist before the beginning of the universe.

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
Many people would claim that the boundary conditions are not part of physics but belong to metaphysics or religion. They would claim that nature had complete freedom to start the universe off any way it wanted. That may be so, but it could also have made it evolve in a completely arbitrary and random manner. Yet all the evidence is that it evolves in a regular way according to certain laws. It would therefore seem reasonable to suppose that there are also laws governing the boundary conditions.

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

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
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
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