Quotes from Lawrence M. Krauss

Andromeda was discovered to be another island universe, another spiral galaxy almost identical to our own, and one of the more than 100 billion other galaxies that, we now know, exist in our observable universe.

The date here is very interesting, because, as far as I can determine, the first Star Trek episode to refer to a black hole, which it called a black star, was aired in 1967 before Wheeler ever used the term in public.

The Initial Mystery that attends any journey is: how did the traveler reach his starting point in the first place? —LOUISE BOGAN, Journey Around My Room

The most remarkable leaps into the unknown are often not fully appreciated

And, just as with inflation, as described in the last chapter, our observable universe is at the threshold of expanding faster than the speed of light.

But plausibility itself, in my view, is a tremendous step forward as we continue to marshal the courage to live meaningful lives in a universe that likely came into existence, and may fade out of existence, without purpose, and certainly without us at its center.

The universe has a much greater imagination than we do, which is why the real story of the universe is far more interesting than any of the fairy tales we have invented to describe it.

It is mere rubbish, thinking at present of the origin of life; one might as well think of the origin of matter.

Five hundred years of science have liberated humanity from the shackles of enforced ignorance.

But being uncomfortable is a virtue, not a hindrance.

Science has been effective at furthering our understanding of nature because the scientific ethos is based on three key principles: (1) follow the evidence wherever it leads; (2) if one has a theory, one needs to be willing to try to prove it wrong as much as one tries to prove that it is right; (3) the ultimate arbiter of truth is experiment, not the comfort one derives from one's a priori beliefs, nor the beauty or elegance one ascribes to one's theoretical models.

Once you assume a creator and a plan, it makes humans objects in a cruel experiment whereby we are created to be sick and commanded to be well. —CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

As Einstein might have put it, only a very malicious (and, therefore, in his mind unimaginable) God would have conspired to have created a universe that so unambiguously points to a Big Bang origin without its having occurred.

Finally, and inevitably, the flat universe will further flatten into a nothingness that mirrors its beginning. Not only will there be no cosmologists to look out on the universe, there will be nothing for them to see even if they could. Nothing at all. Not even atoms. Nothing. If you think that's bleak and cheerless, too bad. Reality doesn't owe us comfort.

Indeed, in a strange coincidence, we are living in the only era in the history of the universe when the presence of the dark energy permeating empty space is likely to be detectable. It is true that this era is several hundred billion years long, but in an eternally expanding universe it represents the mere blink of a cosmic eye.

We need to live our experience as it is and with our eyes open. The universe is the way it is, whether we like it or not.

Forget Jesus. Stars died so you could live.

The Higgs is like a toilet. It hides all the messy details

But common sense is deceptive precisely because it is based on common experience.

Defining away the question by arguing that the buck stops with God may seem to obviate the issue of infinite regression, but here I invoke my mantra: The universe is the way it is, whether we like it or not. The existence or nonexistence of a creator is independent of our desires. A world without God or purpose may seem harsh or pointless, but that alone doesn't require God to actually exist.

Curiosity-driven research may seem self-indulgent and far from the immediate public good. However, essentially all of our current quality of life, for people living in the first world, has arisen from the fruits of such research, including all the electric power that drives almost every device we use. Two

see also positrons; virtual particles Aristotle, 172–73 Atkins, Peter, 191 baryons, 76 Big Bang, xvii, 95, 107, 150, 173, 189 CMBR left from, see cosmic microwave background radiation dating of, 3, 15–16, 77, 87 density of protons and neutrons in

Why is there a universe at all? Why are we here?

CHAPTER 8 A GRAND ACCIDENT? Once you assume a creator and a plan, it makes humans objects in a cruel experiment whereby we are created to be sick and commanded to be well. —CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS We