Quotes about Physics

You must have carbon. Arsenic, boron, and silicon are the only other elements on which complex molecules can be based, but arsenic and boron are relatively rare and, where concentrated, poisonous to life, and silicon can hold together no more than about a hundred amino acids. Only carbon yields the chemical bonding stability and bonding complexity that life requires. Given the constraints of physics and chemistry, we now know that physical life must be carbon-based.

Aristotle had discovered only half the principle of inertia—that a body at rest remains at rest unless moved by another—but not the other half—that a body in motion remains in motion unless acted on by another.

I am now convinced that theoretical physics is actual philosophy.

I am now convinced that theoretical physics is actually philosophy.

If I want to understand the laws of physics I have to first believe what I read about physics. I have to have faith in what I read.

God is an awesome mathematician and physicist.

Old Newtonian physics claimed that things have an objective reality separate from our perception of them. Quantum physics, and particularly Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, reveal that, as our perception of an object changes, the object itself literally changes.

But in the science of physics, power means something different. Power describes how fast you use energy. For example, it takes the same amount of energy to walk across a football field as it does to run across a football field. But running is faster. Therefore, running has more power. This is the kind of power that makes things happen.

Relativity applies to physics, not ethics.

If I want to understand the laws of physics I have to first believe what I read about physics. I have to have faith in what I read.

Cosmology is a rapidly advancing field.

On one hand, Kant thought science led to the conclusion that humans are elements in a vast machine operating by the laws of physics. On the other hand, he said, to salvage morality, we must act as if we were free. And to ratify our moral standards, we must act as if God existed. And because morality makes no sense unless justice prevails in the end, we must act as if there were an afterlife.