Quotes About Universe

how utterly wondrous it is that a small collection of the universe's particles can rise up, examine themselves and the reality they inhabit, determine just how transitory they are, and with a flitting burst of activity create beauty, establish connection, and illuminate mystery.

Es ist ungeheuer viel wahrscheinlicher, dass alles, was wir jetzt im Universum erblicken, aus einer seltenen, aber gelegentlich zu erwartenden Abweichung der totalen Unordnung erwuchs, als dass es sich langsam aus dem noch unwahrscheinlicheren, unglaublich stärker geordneten, erstaunlich niederentropischen Ausgangspunkt entwickelte, den der Urknall voraussetzt.

One response, relied upon through the ages to address embryonic versions of such concerns, is that order is hewn from the chaos by a supreme intelligence. Human experience aligns with this anthropomorphically inspired turn.

La cosmología tiene la capacidad de llamar nuestra atención a un nivel profundo y visceral, porque comprender cómo comenzó todo es, al menos para algunos, el punto en el que podemos encontrarnos más cerca de comprender por qué empezó.

A calculation—not an assumption, not a hypothesis, not an inspired guess—determines the number of space dimensions according to string theory, and the surprising thing is that the calculated number is not three, but nine. String theory leads us, inevitably, to a universe with six extra space dimensions

life is one more means the universe employs to release the entropy potential locked within matter.

without intent or design, without forethought or judgment, without planning or deliberation, the cosmos yields meticulously ordered configurations of particles from atoms to stars to life.

Based on the composition of the sun—the quantities of various heavy elements it now contains, determined by spectroscopic measurements—solar physicists believe the sun is a grandchild of the universe's first stars, a third-generation arrival.

My intent here is to use that insight to grasp how a universe with ever-increasing entropy, destined for ever-greater disorder, creates a wealth of order along the way.

thought of as it once was: intervening space

The sheer number of ways that twenty distinct amino acids can be linked in a long chain makes this evident: for a chain with one hundred and fifty amino acids (a small protein), there are about 10195 different arrangements, far larger than the number of particles in the observable universe.

If superstring theory is proven correct, we will be forced to accept that the reality we have known is but a delicate chiffon draped over a thick and richly textured cosmic fabric.

If entropy has been steadily increasing since the big bang, then the entropy back at the bang must have been much lower than it is today.

Rather than despair because a unique universe seems not to emerge, we are encouraged to celebrate: string theory makes the least plausible part of Weinberg's explanation of the cosmological constant-the requirement that there be many more than 10^124 different universes-suddenly seem plausible.

The big bang is a theory, partly described in the last two chapters, that delineates cosmic evolution from a split second after whatever happened to bring the universe into existence, but it says nothing at all about time zero itself.

In this scenario, the universe as we know it would merely be the latest in a temporal series, some of which may have contained intelligent life and the culture they created, but are now long ago extinguished. In due course, all of our contributions and those of any other life-forms our universe supports would be similarly erased.

In every collection of 10^10^122 cosmic patches, we thus expect there to be, on average, one patch that looks just like ours. That is, in every region of space that's roughly 10^10^122 meters across, there should be a cosmic patch that replicates ours-one that contains you, the earth, the galaxy, and everything else that inhabits our cosmic horizon.

After all, the reasoning goes, at the big bang everything emerged from one place since, we believe, all places we now think of as different were the same place way back in the beginning.

Many find it fatuous and downright repugnant to claim that the wonders of life and the universe are mere reflections of microscopic particles engaged in a pointless dance fully choreographed by the laws of physics.

all events making up the history of the universe are on view; they are all there, static and unchanging. Different observers don't agree on which of the events happen at the same time—they time-slice the spacetime loaf at different angles—but the total loaf and its constituent events are universal, literally.

The universe is our picture. Only the immature imagine the cosmos to be what they think it is.

The Universe operates on a basic principle of economics: everything has its cost. We pay to create our future, we pay for the mistakes of the past. We pay for every change we make . . . and we pay just as dearly if we refuse to change.

The tapestry of the universe is vast and complex, with infinite patterns. While threads of tragedy may form the primary weave, humanity with its undaunted optimism still manages to embroider small designs of happiness and love.

But this … creature was none of those things. He was barely distinguishable from an animal. The young man—singlehandedly—seemed intent on increasing the universe's entropy by an order of magnitude.