Consolations Of Physics Quotes

“What if technological species pop up all the time, in all appropriate locations, everywhere in the universe, and when they do evolve, they change the conditions of their own planet so drastically that they obliterate themselves and perhaps all life on that planet within a century or two, leaving little or no trace of their own existence, beyond the fossilised rubble they created and then destroyed? The notion that humans could in some way destroy the living conditions that encouraged the evolution of a contemplative and curious bipedal mammal with a gift for malevolence, metalwork and ballistic missiles has been around for a long time.”
― Tim Radford, Consolations Of Physics

“The idea of truth as a consolation is a real one. We all face a death sentence, and we all want to believe in something that is demonstrably true. Religion in the shape of an institution, a set of dogmas and a body of doctrine, is not in this sense a help: it demands an act of faith, an acceptance that it must be true, even if, or especially because, empirical evidence is not available, and anyway, if you could see it was unarguably true, what would be the virtue of faith?”
― Tim Radford, Consolations Of Physics

“Curiosity is not a thirst that can be slaked: it is a permanent condition. Every answer points to more and sometimes more profound questions. And knowledge, by itself, achieves nothing: we want more, we want something elusive, called understanding, or wisdom. We want both the big picture, and our place in it.”
― Tim Radford, Consolations Of Physics

“All science, like all religion, like most history, like philosophy and probably all great art, addresses a set of universal, enduring questions: how did we get here? Why are things as they are? Where are we going? What does it all mean? Is there an ultimate purpose to our existence, or is what we can see around us just the result of a horrible accident, or a sublime one?
What science--and in this story, physics--does is take a little piece of one of those questions and, systematically and provisionally, deliver an answer. This answer on its own may help nobody and answer nothing. But physics goes on to another little question within that bigger question, and then another and then another, and sooner or later, the mosaic of little answers starts to deliver something of more substance: a pattern, a direction of travel, a model that seems to make sense. Actually, substance might not be the right word: we can never be sure that what we see is reality: we may be observing a mirage, or a reflection of reality, or just the silhouette of reality, as if a figure through an opaque glass door,”
― Tim Radford, Consolations Of Physics