“If we believe that the task of physics is the discovery of a timeless mathematical equation that captures every aspect of the universe, then we believe that the truth about the universe lies outside the universe.”
Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe (2013)
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Lee Smolin 52
American cosmologist 1955Related quotes
Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.25
1950s, Rediscovering Lost Values (1954)
“I believe the universe created us — we are an audience for miracles.”
AARP Magazine (July-August 2008)
Context: I believe the universe created us — we are an audience for miracles. In that sense, I guess, I'm religious.
Section 1 : The Meaning of Life
Founding Address (1876), Life and Destiny (1913)
Context: The divine in man is our sole ground for believing that there is anything divine in the universe outside of man. Man is the revealer of the divine.
At bottom, the world is to be interpreted in terms of joy, but of a joy that includes all the pain, includes it and transforms it and transcends it.
The Light of the World is a light that is saturated with the darkness which it has overcome and transfigured.
“I believe this because these ideals that we affirm are true; these ideals are universal.”
2014, Address to European Youth (March 2014)
Context: None of us can know for certain what the coming days will bring in Ukraine, but I am confident that eventually those voices -- those voices for human dignity and opportunity and individual rights and rule of law -- those voices ultimately will triumph. I believe that over the long haul, as nations that are free, as free people, the future is ours. I believe this not because I’m naïve, and I believe this not because of the strength of our arms or the size of our economies, I believe this because these ideals that we affirm are true; these ideals are universal.
"Computing a Theory of Everything" (2010)
Source: A Brief History of Time (1988), Ch. 12
Context: Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?
Three Roads to Quantum Gravity (2000)