Martin Rees Quotes - Page 2

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• Indeed, our everyday world presents intellectual challenges just as daunting as those of the cosmos and the quantum, and that is where 99 per cent of scientists focus their efforts. Even the smallest insect, with its intricate structure, is far more complex than either an atom or a star.

  Martin Rees

  Stars, Effort, Focus

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• God invented space so that not everything had to happen in Princeton.

  Martin Rees

  God, Science, Space

  Martin Rees (2011). “Our Cosmic Habitat”, p.9, Princeton University Press

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• 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 who deny those things. In the case of climate change, I think the debate is going the same way in that there is a strong consensus that it is a serious matter.

  Martin Rees

  Strong, Cancer, Thinking

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• To ensure continuing prosperity in the global economy, nothing is more important than the development and application of knowledge and skills.

  Martin Rees

  Skills, Important, Development

  "The stimulus of science" by Martin Rees, www.theguardian.com. April 15, 2009.

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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 the atmosphere and we should be worried about that.

  Martin Rees

  Atmosphere, Worried, Carbon Dioxide

  "Lord Martin Rees, Eminent British Scientist". "Sunday Profile" with Monica Attard, www.abc.net.au. March 28, 2010.

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• Science isn't just for scientists - it's not just a training for careers.

  Martin Rees

  Careers, Training, Scientist

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• Experiments that crash atoms together could start a chain reaction that erodes everything on Earth.

  Martin Rees

  Together, Atoms, Earth

  Martin J. Rees (2003). “Our final century: a scientist's warning : how terror, error, and environmental disaster threaten humankind's future in this century - on Earth and beyond”, Vintage

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• The politics is far harder than the science. And even if we accept the science we have a big issue of how to deal with it.

  Martin Rees

  Issues, Accepting, Bigs

  "Lord Martin Rees, eminent British scientist". "Sunday Profile" with Monica Attard, www.abc.net.au. March 28, 2010.

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• I'm a technological optimist in that I do believe that technology will provide solutions that will allow the world in 2050 to support 9 billion people at an acceptable standard of living. But I'm a political pessimist in that I am concerned about whether the science will be appropriately applied.

  Martin Rees

  Believe, Technology, People

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• The 'clean energy' challenge deserves a commitment akin to the Manhattan project or the Apollo moon landing.

  Martin Rees

  Commitment, Moon, Challenges

  Martin Rees (2011). “From Here to Infinity: Scientific Horizons”, p.60, Profile Books

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• The extreme sophistication of modern technology - wonderful though its benefits are - is, ironically, an impediment to engaging young people with basics: with learning how things work.

  Martin Rees

  Technology, People, Benefits

  "Britain needs schools for science" by Martin Rees, www.theguardian.com. September 19, 2011.

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• The important point there is that when people talk about a mean temperature rise of say two, three or four degrees that's a sort of global average which really is a signature of large scale change in climatic patterns.

  Martin Rees

  Mean, Two, Average

  "Lord Martin Rees, eminent British scientist". "Sunday Profile" with Monica Attard, www.abc.net.au. March 28, 2010.

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• All space projects push the frontiers of technology and are drivers of innovation.

  Martin Rees

  Technology, Space, Innovation

  "Small, cheap and a giant leap for Britain" by Martin Rees, www.theguardian.com. December 28, 2003.

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• In our interconnected world, novel technology could empower just one fanatic, or some weirdo with a mindset of those who now design computer viruses, to trigger some kind of disaster. Indeed, catastrophe could arise simply from technical misadventure - error rather than terror.

  Martin Rees

  Technology, Errors, Design

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• Some claim that computers will, by 2050, achieve human capabilities. Of course, in some respects they already have.

  Martin Rees

  Computer, Achieve, Claims

  "What the future looks like" by Martin Rees, www.theguardian.com. May 25, 2009.

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• The U.S., France, Germany and Canada have all responded to the financial crisis by boosting rather than cutting their science funding. The U.K. has not.

  Martin Rees

  Cutting, Germany, Canada

  "How science became cool" by Martin Reese, www.theguardian.com. April 13, 2010.

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• I'm not a specialist in the science but I have followed it fairly closely and it seems to me that there is among the experts a clear consensus that potential climate change is something to worry about.

  Martin Rees

  Worry, Climate, Experts

  "Lord Martin Rees, eminent British scientist". "Sunday Profile" with Monica Attard, www.abc.net.au. March 28, 2010.

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• I hope that by 2050 the entire solar system will have been explored and mapped by flotillas of tiny robotic craft.

  Martin Rees

  Crafts, Tiny, Solar System

  "What the future looks like" by Martin Rees, www.theguardian.com. May 25, 2009.

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• 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, perhaps even implants into our brains - may change human beings themselves.

  Martin Rees

  Technology, Drug, Brain

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• Devastation could arise insidiously, rather than suddenly, through unsustainable pressure on energy supplies, food, water and other natural resources. Indeed, these pressures are the prime 'threats without enemies' that confront us.

  Martin Rees

  Water, Enemy, Devastation

  "The global village will have its village idiots". The European Interview, www.theeuropean-magazine.com. December 13, 2012.

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• There may be organic life out there, or maybe machines created by long-dead civilizations, but any signals, even if they are difficult to decode, would tell us that the concepts of logic and physics are not limited to the hardware in human skulls, and will transform our view of the universe.

  Martin Rees

  Life, Views, Civilization

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• 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 have won hands down in an IQ test, but if you ask who was the most attractive personality then Darwin is the one you'd wish to meet. Newton was solitary and reclusive, even vain and vindictive in his later years when he was president of the society.

  Martin Rees

  Years, Hands, Personality

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• 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 ahead is more prolonged than the past. Even our sun is less than halfway through its life.

  Martin Rees

  Lying, Past, Thinking

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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 irrespective of any of the risks on Earth. Will this happen before our technological civilization disintegrates, leaving this as a might-have-been? Will the self-sustaining space communities be established before a catastrophe sets back the prospect of any such enterprise, perhaps foreclosing it forever? We live at what could be a defining moment for the cosmos.

  Martin Rees

  Moon, Civilization, Space

  "Our Final Hour: A Scientist's Warning". Book by Martin Rees, 2003.

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• 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 beyond human capacity-beyond as much as we are beyond a chimpanzee.

  Martin Rees

  Life, Science, Intelligent

  "Aliens can't hear us, says astronomer" by Robin McKie, www.theguardian.com. January 27, 2010.

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