“In a universe the size of ours almost anything that can happen, will.”

—  Larry Niven

There Is a Tide (p. 201)
Short fiction, Tales of Known Space (1975)

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 "In a universe the size of ours almost anything that can happen, will." by Larry Niven?
Larry Niven photo
Larry Niven 138
American writer 1938

Related quotes

Ian Fleming photo

“A woman can put up with almost anything; anything but indifference.”

Ian Fleming (1908–1964) English author, journalist and naval intelligence officer
Arthur Stanley Eddington photo

“All change is relative. The universe is expanding relatively to our common material standards; our material standards are shrinking relatively to the size of the universe. The theory of the "expanding universe" might also be called the theory of the "shrinking atom."”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

[…] Let us then take the whole universe as our standard of constancy, and adopt the view of a cosmic being whose body is composed of intergalactic spaces and swells as they swell. Or rather we must now say it keeps the same size, for he will not admit that it is he who has changed. Watching us for a few thousand million years, he sees us shrinking; atoms, animals, planets, even the galaxies, all shrink alike; only the intergalactic spaces remain the same. The earth spirals round the sun in an ever‑decreasing orbit. It would be absurd to treat its changing revolution as a constant unit of time. The cosmic being will naturally relate his units of length and time so that the velocity of light remains constant. Our years will then decrease in geometrical progression in the cosmic scale of time. On that scale man's life is becoming briefer; his threescore years and ten are an ever‑decreasing allowance. Owing to the property of geometrical progressions an infinite number of our years will add up to a finite cosmic time; so that what we should call the end of eternity is an ordinary finite date in the cosmic calendar. But on that date the universe has expanded to infinity in our reckoning, and we have shrunk to nothing in the reckoning of the cosmic being.
We walk the stage of life, performers of a drama for the benefit of the cosmic spectator. As the scenes proceed he notices that the actors are growing smaller and the action quicker. When the last act opens the curtain rises on midget actors rushing through their parts at frantic speed. Smaller and smaller. Faster and faster. One last microscopic blurr of intense agitation. And then nothing.

pp. 90–92 https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KHyV4-2EyrUC&pg=PA90
The Expanding Universe (1933)

Stephen King photo

“The mystery of the universe is not time but size.”

Variant: The greatest mystery the universe offers is not life but Size.
Source: The Gunslinger

Paulo Coelho photo
Jasper Fforde photo

“Almost anything can be improved with the addition of bacon.”

Jasper Fforde (1961) British novelist

Source: Shades of Grey

John Cage photo

“The world is teeming; anything can happen.”

Source: Silence: Lectures and Writings

Floyd Mayweather Jr. photo

“Anything can happen in the sport of boxing.”

Floyd Mayweather Jr. (1977) American boxer

2010s, 2015, Interview with Jim Gray (September 2015)

Michel Houellebecq photo

“Anything can happen in life, especially nothing.”

Source: Platform

Related topics