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A Briefer History of Time

Book by Stephen Hawking · 3 quotes · Physics, Science Humor, Black Hole Quotes

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A Briefer History of Time Quotes

“.... attempts to combine these two forces with the strong nuclear force into what is called a grand unified theory (GUT). This title is rather an exaggeration: the resultant theories are not all that grand, nor are they fully unified, as they do not include gravity. Nor are they really complete theories, because they contain a number of parameters whose values cannot be predicted from a theory but have to be chosen to fit in with experiment. Nevertheless, they may be a step toward a complete, fully unified theory.”

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“Despite this, I have a bet with Kip Thorne of the California Institute of Technology that in fact Cygnus X-1 does not contain a black hole! This is a form of insurance policy for me. I have done a lot of work on black holes, and it would all be wasted if it turned out that black holes do not exist. But in that case, I would have the consolation of winning my bet, which would bring me four years of the magazine Private Eye. If black holes do exist, Kip will get one year of Penthouse. When we made the bet, in 1975, we were 80 per cent certain that Cygnus was a black hole. By now, I would say that we are about 95 per cent certain, but the bet has yet to be settled.”

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Book:A Briefer History of Time
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