Quotes from Jim Al-Khalili

The true beauty of physics, for me, is found not only in abstract equations or in surprising experimental results, but in the deep underlying principles that govern the way the world is.

Let me first make two important assumptions, which I will discuss in more detail later on, but will now just say that they are both supported strongly by observational evidence: (1) that the laws of physics are the same everywhere in our universe, and (2) that space looks the same in all directions (the same density and distribution of galaxies).

Their philosophy was that you should not always trust your senses and sense experience in order to understand the world, but should rely ultimately on logic and mathematics.

When it comes to the meaning of space and time the difficulty we have is not surprising, for we are ourselves imprisoned within them, and it is hard to free our minds from their confines and 'see' reality from the outside.

He who is most content with the least has the most," and "I know nothing, except the fact of my ignorance.

The slowing down of time in high-speed travel is known as "time dilation" and is routinely taken into account in physics experiments, particularly those in which subatomic particles are accelerated in "atom smashers" such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva.

Much later, the Seleucid Babylonians, who ruled over Mesopotamia as the successors of Alexander the Great, invented a symbol to replace this ambiguous 'gap' that the old Babylonians employed. Thus, the earliest known symbol for zero () is found on many Babylonian cuneiform clay tablets from around 300 BCE.