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Portrait of Martin Rees

Martin Rees

(1942) Physicist

143 quotes in 1342 categories

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Martin Rees is a physicist, best known for What Are You Optimistic About?.

Quick Facts About Martin Rees

Born: June 23, 1942
Profession: Physicist
Notable works: What Are You Optimistic About?

About Martin Rees

Martin John Rees, known as Baron Rees of Ludlow, is a British cosmologist and astrophysicist. He served as the fifteenth Astronomer Royal from 1995 to 2025, was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge between 2004 and 2012, and led the Royal Society as its president from 2005 to 2010. In 2024 he received the Wolf Prize in Physics for his work on high‑energy astrophysics, galaxies, structure formation and cosmology.

Quotes by Martin Rees · Page 4

Ever since Darwin, we've been familiar with the stupendous timespans of the evolutionary past. But most people still somehow think we humans…

Astronomer

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The most important advances, the qualitative leaps, are the least predictable. Not even the best scientists predicted the impact of nuclear physics,…

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In the case of climate change, the threat is long-term and diffuse and requires broad international action for the benefit of people…

Action

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The carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is measured. It's uncontroversial. It's going up. We know that has a tendency to warm…

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Just as there are many Jews who keep the Friday ritual in their home despite describing themselves as atheists, I am a…

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To most people in the U.K., indeed throughout Western Europe, space exploration is primarily perceived as 'what NASA does'. This perception is…

Cold

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Some global hazards are insidious. They stem from pressure on energy supplies, food, water and other natural resources. And they will be…

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Most theorists suspect that space has an intricate structure - that it is 'grainy' - but that this structure is on a…

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And we should keep our minds open, or at least ajar, to concepts on the fringe of science fiction. Flaky American futurologists…

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It's becoming clear that in a sense the cosmos provides the only laboratory where sufficiently extreme conditions are ever achieved to test…

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Once the threshold is crossed when there is a self-sustaining level of life in space, then life's long-range future will be secure…

Catastrophe

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The physicist is like someone who's watching people playing chess and, after watching a few games, he may have worked out what…

Chess

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There are strong reasons for believing that space goes on beyond the limits of our observational horizon. There are strong reasons because…

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The first arrival of earthly life on another celestial body ranks as an epochal event not only for our generation, but in…

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If we do find ET, we will at least have something in common with them. They may live on planet Zog and…

Atoms

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If we ever establish contact with intelligent aliens living on a planet around a distant star ... They would be made of…

Aliens

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During the 20th century, we came to understand that the essence of all substances - their colour, texture, hardness and so forth…

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“But it remains a fundamental challenge to understand the very beginning-this must await a 'final' theory, perhaps some variant of superstrings. Such…

Black hole

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The first voyagers to the stars will be creatures whose life cycle is matched to the voyage: the aeons involved in traversing…

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It is mistaken to claim that global problems will be solved more quickly if only researchers would abandon their quest to understand…

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Everything, however complicated - breaking waves, migrating birds, and tropical forests - is made of atoms and obeys the equations of quantum…

Atoms

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From a personal perspective, I am disappointed that we have yet to really achieve a full understanding of the origins of life…

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“I'd like to widen people's awareness of the tremendous timespan lying ahead--for our planet, and for life itself. Most educated people are…

Educated people

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Martin Rees by topic

Science (50) Space (28) People (17) Life (17) Technology (16) Time (15) Scientists (15) Climate (15) Earth (14) Astronomy (14) World (12) Universe (12) Stars (11)