Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Stephen Hawking

Quote by Stephen Hawking

Work

A Briefer History of Time

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking was a renowned British theoretical physicist known for his contributions to the fields of black hole theory and cosmology. Born on January 8, 1942, he overcame the challenges of ALS to become a global icon of science and perseverance. more

You May Also Like

“.... 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.”

PhysicsScience HumorGrand Unified Theory
Book:A Briefer History of Time
Create image

“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.”

PhysicsBlack HolesStephen HawkingScience HumorBlack Hole Quotes
Book:A Briefer History of Time
Create image

“The existence of radiation from black holes seems to imply that gravitational collapse is not as final and irreversible as we once thought. If an astronaut falls into a black hole, its mass will increase, but eventually the energy equivalent of that extra mass will be returned to the universe in the form of radiation. Thus, in a sense, the astronaut will be 'recycled'. It would be a poor sort of immortality, however, because any personal concept of time for the astronaut would almost certainly come to an end as he was torn apart inside the black hole! Even the types of particles that were eventually emitted by the black hole would in general be different from those that made up the astronaut: the only feature of the astronaut that would survive would be his mass or energy.”

HumorPhysicsAstronautBlack HolesScience HumorSpace Humor
Book:A Brief History of Time
Create image

“Is that a microscope?” I ask, looking at the array of glass slides, tweezers, and eye droppers next to what is definitely a microscope. “Please tell me you’re not playing doctor in the living room.” “We’re playing scientist, dummy,” Joey says. “I’m showing him what different stuff looks like under magnification.” “I looked at a dust mite,” Joey says. “I am not okay.”

HumorScienceScience Humor
Book:Betting on the Brainiac
Create image