“Intelligent creatures [that] evolved to live deep within the atmosphere of a gas giant planet could be deluded, for eons, into thinking that the Universe is an approximately homogeneous expanse of gas, filling a three-dimensional space, but featuring anisotropic laws of motion (which we would ascribe to the planet’s gravitational field). Are we human scientists comparably blinkered?”

p, 125
"Multiversality" (2013)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Intelligent creatures [that] evolved to live deep within the atmosphere of a gas giant planet could be deluded, for eon…" by Frank Wilczek?
Frank Wilczek photo
Frank Wilczek 49
physicist 1951

Related quotes

Alastair Reynolds photo
John Dalton photo
Lewis Pugh photo

“Never, ever did I think that there would be a debate in this arid country about which was more important – gas or water. We can survive without gas. We cannot live without water.”

Lewis Pugh (1969) Environmental campaigner, maritime lawyer and endurance swimmer

Speaking & Features, Standing Up To Goliath

Willem de Sitter photo
Robert Sheckley photo

“What kind of intelligent beings would evolve on a planet that is all mountains?”

Robert Sheckley (1928–2005) American writer

“Stupid ones!” Casker said.
Untouched by Human Hands (p. 75)
Short fiction, Untouched by Human Hands (1954)

Li Hongzhi photo
Eddie Griffin photo
William Crookes photo

“The human creature represents the most perfect thinking and acting machine yet evolved on this earth, developing through countless ages in strict harmony with the surrounding conditions of temperature, atmosphere, light, and gravitation.”

William Crookes (1832–1919) British chemist and physicist

Address to the Society for Psychical Research (1897)
Context: The human creature represents the most perfect thinking and acting machine yet evolved on this earth, developing through countless ages in strict harmony with the surrounding conditions of temperature, atmosphere, light, and gravitation. The profound modifications in the human frame, which any important alteration in either of these factors would occasion, are strangely unconsidered. It is true there have been questionings as to the effects that might be occasioned by changes in temperature and atmospheric composition, but possible variations in gravitation seem almost to have escaped notice. The human body, which long experience and habit have taught us to consider in its highest development as the perfection of beauty and grace — "formed in the image of God " — is entirely conditioned by the strength of gravitation on this globe. So far as has been possible to ascertain, the intensity of gravity has not varied appreciably within those geologic ages covering the existence of animated thinking beings.

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo
Al Gore photo

“Many scientists are now warning that we are moving closer to several "tipping points" that could — within as little as 10 years — make it impossible for us to avoid irretrievable damage to the planet's habitability for human civilization.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Quotes, NYU Law School speech (2006)
Context: Many scientists are now warning that we are moving closer to several "tipping points" that could — within as little as 10 years — make it impossible for us to avoid irretrievable damage to the planet's habitability for human civilization. In this regard, just a few weeks ago, another group of scientists reported on the unexpectedly rapid increases in the release of carbon and methane emissions from frozen tundra in Siberia, now beginning to thaw because of human caused increases in global temperature. The scientists tell us that the tundra in danger of thawing contains an amount of additional global warming pollution that is equal to the total amount that is already in the earth's atmosphere.

Related topics