quotations about the Universe
Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE
attributed, Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the Twenty-First Century
There was a God, and He wasn't mean. His universe was a deadly contraption, but maybe there wasn't any way to build a universe that wasn't a deadly contraption -- like a square circle. He made the contraption, and He put Man in it, and Man was a fairly deadly contraption himself. But the funny part of it was, there wasn't a damn thing the universe could do to a man that man wasn't built to endure. He could even endure it when it killed him. And gradually he could get the better of it.
WALTER M. MILLER, JR.
"The Lineman"
To suppose that God Almighty has confined his goodness to this world, to the exclusion of all others, is much similar to the idle fancies of some individuals in this world, that they, and those of their communion or faith, are the favorites of heaven exclusively; but these are narrow and bigoted conceptions, which are degrading to a rational nature, and utterly unworthy of God, of whom we should form the most exalted ideas.
ETHAN ALLEN
Reason: The Only Oracle of Man
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
attributed, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle
Asking what the universe is made of turns out to be the wrong question. We are trying to squeeze juice out of an illusion, and it won't work. The universe is made of what we want it to show us.
DEEPAK CHOPRA
You Are the Universe
If you think this Universe is bad, you should see some of the others.
PHILIP K. DICK
attributed, Small Molecule Therapeutics for Schizophrenia
It may be -- I hope it is -- redemption to guess and perhaps perceive that the universe, the hell which we see for all its beauty, vastness, majesty, is only part of a whole which is quite unimaginable.
WILLIAM GOLDING
A Moving Target
We seek an understanding of the laws of nature and of our particular universe in which everything makes sense to us. We do not want to be reduced to accepting the strange features of our universe as brute facts.
SEAN M. CARROLL
Scientific American, June 2008
The primary consequence of the computational nature of the universe is that the universe naturally generates complex systems, such as life. Although the basic laws of physics are comparatively simple in form, they give rise, because they are computationally universal, to systems of enormous complexity.
SETH LLOYD
Programming the Universe