Martin Rees Quotes

62 quotes in 1203 categories

• I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms that we can't conceive. And there could, of course, be forms of intelligence…
• If we ever establish contact with intelligent aliens living on a planet around a distant star ... They would be made of similar atoms to…
• In this century, not only has science changed the world faster than ever, but in new and different ways. Targeted drugs, genetic modification, artificial intelligence,…
• It's better to read first rate science fiction than second rate science-it's a lot more fun, and no more likely to be wrong.
• In the beginning there were only probabilities. The universe could only come into existence if someone observed it. It does not matter that the observers…
• The physicist is like someone who's watching people playing chess and, after watching a few games, he may have worked out what the moves in…
• Most educated people are aware that we're the outcome of nearly 4 billion years of Darwinian selection, but many tend to think that humans are…
• It's becoming clear that in a sense the cosmos provides the only laboratory where sufficiently extreme conditions are ever achieved to test new ideas on…
• God invented space so that not everything had to happen in Princeton.
• Let me say that I don't see any conflict between science and religion. I go to church as many other scientists do. I share with…
• It used to be controversial whether smoking caused lung cancer, it used to be controversial whether HIV caused AIDS. Now, there are a few mavericks…
• Charles Darwin [is my personal favorite Fellow of the Royal Society]. I suppose as a physical scientist I ought to have chosen Newton. He would…
• An insect is more complex than a star..and is a far greater challenge to understand.
• The 'clean energy' challenge deserves a commitment akin to the Manhattan project or the Apollo moon landing.
• Cosmology does, I think, affect the way that we perceive humanity's role in nature. One thing we've learnt from astronomy is that the future lying…
• I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms we can't conceive. Just as a chimpanzee can't understand quantum theory, it could…
• 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 irrespective of any…
• Experiments that crash atoms together could start a chain reaction that erodes everything on Earth.
• The universe is still a place of mystery and wonder.
• Nuclear weapons can be dismantled, but they cannot be uninvented.

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