Lee Smolin Quotes

• Having begun my life in science searching for the equation beyond time, I now believe that the deepest secret of the universe is that its essence rests in how it unfolds moment by moment in time.

  Lee Smolin

  Believe, Essence, Secret

  Lee Smolin (2013). “Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe”, p.13, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Science is not about what's true or what might be true, science is about what people with originally diverse viewpoints can be forced to believe by the weight of public evidence.

  Lee Smolin

  Believe, People, Weight

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• Deep, persistent problems are never solved by accident; they are solved only by people who are obsessed with them and set out to solve them directly.

  Lee Smolin

  People, Problem, Obsessed

  Lee Smolin (2007). “The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next”, p.314, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• A successful unification of quantum theory and relativity would necessarily be a theory of the universe as a whole. It would tell us, as Aristotle and Newton did before, what space and time are, what the cosmos is, what things are made of, and what kind of laws those things obey. Such a theory will bring about a radical shift - a revolution - in our understanding of what nature is. It must also have wide repercussions, and will likely bring about, or contribute to, a shift in our understanding of ourselves and our relationship to the rest of the universe.

  Lee Smolin

  Successful, Law, Space

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• Surprise is inherent in the structure of the world.

  Lee Smolin

  World, Surprise, Structure

  Lee Smolin (2013). “Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe”, p.17, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• One possibility is: God is nothing but the power of the universe to organize itself.

  Lee Smolin

  Possibility, Organize, Universe

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• But in spite of the obvious effectiveness of mathematics in physics, I have never heard of a good a prioriargument that the world must be organised to mathematical principles.

  Lee Smolin

  Effectiveness, Words Of Wisdom, Principles

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• Simplicity and beauty are the signs not of truth but of a well-constructed approximate model of a limited domain of phenomena.

  Lee Smolin

  Simplicity, Domain, Wells

  Lee Smolin (2013). “Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe”, p.141, Knopf Canada

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• Any two particles in the universe attract each other through the gravitational interaction.

  Lee Smolin

  Two, Words Of Wisdom, Interaction

  Lee Smolin (1999). “The Life of the Cosmos”, p.38, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Some string theorists prefer to believe that string theory is too arcane to be understood by human beings, rather than consider the possibility that it might just be wrong.

  Lee Smolin

  Believe, Might, Possibility

  Lee Smolin (2007). “The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next”, p.269, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• We know no more than we did in 1975 - and that's not good

  Lee Smolin

  Knows

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• It can no longer be maintained that the properties of any one thing in the universe are independent of the existence or non-existence of everything else. It is, at last, no longer sensible to speak of a universe with only one thing in it.

  Lee Smolin

  Independent, Words Of Wisdom, Lasts

  "The Life of the Cosmos". Book by Lee Smolin, January 1, 1997.

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• The page of my notebook was filled with many messy integrals, but all of a sudden I saw emerge a formula for counting. I had begun to calculate a quantity on the assumption that the result was a real number, but found instead that, in certain units, all the possible answers would be integers. This meant that areas and volumes cannot take any value, but come in multiples of fixed units.

  Lee Smolin

  Notebook, Real, Numbers

  Lee Smolin (2008). “Three Roads To Quantum Gravity”, p.106, Hachette UK

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• There is nothing outside the universe.

  Lee Smolin

  Universe

  "Three Roads to Quantum Gravity". Book by Lee Smolin, 2000.

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• The revolution which began with the creation of quantum theory and relativity theory can only be finished with their unification into a single theory that can give us a single, comprehensive picture of nature.

  Lee Smolin

  Giving, Words Of Wisdom, Revolution

  Lee Smolin (1999). “The Life of the Cosmos”, p.5, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Those who do good science do so because they choose problems that are suited to them.

  Lee Smolin

  Problem, Good Science

  Lee Smolin (2007). “The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next”, p.95, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• On the way, I shared the backseat of Feyerabend's little sports car with the inflatable raft he kept there in case an 8-point earthquake came while he was on the Bay Bridge.

  Lee Smolin

  Sports, Bridges, Earthquakes

  Lee Smolin (2007). “The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next”, p.292, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Just like an ordinary guitar string, a fundamental string can vibrate in different modes. And it is these different modes of vibration of the string that are understood in string theory as being the different elementary particles.

  Lee Smolin

  Guitar, Words Of Wisdom, Ordinary

  Lee Smolin (1999). “The Life of the Cosmos”, p.65, Oxford University Press, USA

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