“Indeed, there is a now a minority of cosmologists who question a beginning of the universe at all; instead they favor a cyclic model with a series of expansions and contractions.”

— John Moffat , book Reinventing Gravity

Source: Reinventing Gravity (2008), Chapter 16, The Eternal Universe, p. 213 (See also: Fred Hoyle)

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John Moffat 22

British-Canadian physicist 1932

Celia Green (1935) British philosopher

Advice to Clever Children (1981)

“It has now become clear that the exploration of the Universe, as conducted by physicists, astronomers and cosmologists, is one of the greatest intellectual adventures of the mid-twentieth century.”

Dennis Sciama (1926–1999) British physicist

Preface, p. vii
Modern Cosmology (1971)

“Now at the end, we come back to the beginning: to the situation of the world here and now, from which all understanding must start and to which it must return. In all existential thinking it is we ourselves, the questioners, who are ultimately in question.”

William Barrett (philosopher) book Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy

Source: Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (1958), Chapter Eleven, The Place Of The Furies, p. 237

“I, who rule by means of contracts, am now slave to my contracts.”

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) German composer, conductor

Original: (de) Der durch Verträge ich Herr, den Verträgen bin ich nun Knecht.
Source: Quotes from his operas, Die Walküre, Wotan (ruler of the gods), Act 2, Scene 2

“In estimating the amount of dark matter, cosmologists developing the standard model have to make some rather strong assumptions about their observations.”

John Moffat book Reinventing Gravity

Source: Reinventing Gravity (2008), Chapter 7, New Cosmological Data, p. 120

“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.”

Stephen Hawking book A Brief History of Time

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?