Paul Davies Quotes About Universe

Quotes about: Universe

• There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all. . . It seems as though somebody has fine tuned nature's numbers to make the Universe. . . The impression of design is overwhelming.

  Paul Davies

  Powerful, Science, If There Is A God

• Through conscious beings the universe has generated self-awareness. This can be no trivial detail, no minor byproduct of mindless, purposeless forces. We are truly meant to be here.

  Paul Davies

  Self, Details, Awareness

  Paul Davies (1993). “Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World”, p.232, Simon and Schuster

• People take it for granted that the physical world is both ordered and intelligible. The underlying order in nature - the laws of physics - are simply accepted as given, as brute facts. Nobody asks where they came from; at least not in polite company. However, even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith that the universe is not absurd, that there is a rational basis to physical existence manifested as law-like order in nature that is at least partly comprehensible to us. So science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview.

  Paul Davies

  Order, Law, People

• It is hard to resist the impression that the present structure of the universe, apparently so sensitive to minor alterations in numbers, has been rather carefully thought out...The seemingly miraculous concurrence of these numerical values must remain the most compelling evidence for cosmic design.

  Paul Davies

  Numbers, Design, Evolution

• We might expect intelligent life and technological communities to have emerged in the universe billions of years ago. Given that human society is only a few thousand years old, and that human technological society is mere centuries old, the nature of a community with millions or even billions of years of technological and social progress cannot even be imagined. ... What would we make of a billion-year-old technological community?

  Paul Davies

  Science, Intelligent, Years

• Through my scientific work I have come to believe more and more strongly that the physical universe is put together with an ingenuity so astonishing that I cannot accept it as a brute fact....I cannot believe that our existence in this universe is a mere quirk of fate, an accident of history, an incidental blip in the great cosmic drama.

  Paul Davies

  Drama, Believe, Fate

• The laws of physics ... seem to be the product of exceedingly ingenious design... The universe must have a purpose.

  Paul Davies

  Law, Design, Purpose

• In spite of the fact that religion looks backward to revealed truth while science looks forward to new vistas and discoveries, both activities produce a sense of awe and a curious mixture of humility and arrogance in their practitioners. All great scientists are inspired by the subtlety and beauty of the natural world that they are seeking to understand. Each new subatomic particle, every unexpected object, produces delight and wonderment. In constructing their theories, physicists are frequently guided by arcane concepts of elegance in the belief that the universe is intrinsically beautiful.

  Paul Davies

  Beautiful, Humility, Science

• Should we find a second form of life right here on our doorstep, we could be confident that life is a truly cosmic phenomenon. If so, there may well be sentient beings somewhere in the galaxy wondering, as do we, if they are not alone in the universe.

  Paul Davies

  May, Wonder, Life Is

• The universe contains vastly more order than Earth-life could ever demand. All those distant galaxies, irrelevant for our existence, seem as equally well ordered as our own.

  Paul Davies

  Order, Earth Life, Demand

• Wheeler hopes that we can discover, within the context of physics, a principle that will enable the universe to come into existence "of its own accord." In his search for such a theory, he remarks: "No guiding principle would seem more powerful than the requirement that it should provide the universe with a way to come into being." Wheeler likened this 'self-causing' universe to a self-excited circuit in electronics.

  Paul Davies

  Powerful, Science, Guiding Principles

• The temptation to believe that the Universe is the product of some sort of design, a manifestation of subtle aesthetic and mathematical judgment, is overwhelming. The belief that there is "something behind it all" is one that I personally share with, I suspect, a majority of physicists.

  Paul Davies

  Believe, Design, Temptation

• Even if we don't have a precise idea of exactly what took place at the beginning, we can at least see that the origin of the universe from nothing need not be unlawful or unnatural or unscientific.

  Paul Davies

  Ideas, Religion, Atheism

• The Eerie Silence: are we alone in the universe?

  Paul Davies

  Eerie, Silence, Universe

  "The Eerie Silence: Are We Alone in the Universe?". Book by Paul Davies, 2010.

• Traditionally, scientists have treated the laws of physics as simply 'given,' elegant mathematical relationships that were somehow imprinted on the universe at its birth, and fixed thereafter. Inquiry into the origin and nature of the laws was not regarded as a proper part of science.

  Paul Davies

  Law, Inquiry, Birth

  "Yes, the universe looks like a fix. But that doesn't mean that a god fixed it" by Paul Davies, www.theguardian.com. June 25, 2007.

• The Goldilocks Enigma is the idea that everything in the universe is just right for life, like the porridge in the fairy tale.

  Paul Davies

  Ideas, Fairy Tale, Porridge

• I suppose my interest in looking for life elsewhere in the universe really dates back to my teens. What teenager doesn't look up at the sky at night and think am I alone in the universe? Well most people get over it, but I never did and though I made a career more in physics and cosmology than astrobiology I've always had a soft spot for the subject of life because it does seem so mysterious.

  Paul Davies

  Teenager, Night, Thinking

  Source: bigthink.com

• For millennia mankind has believed that nothing can come out of nothing. Today we can argue that everything has come out of nothing. Nobody has to pay for the universe. It is the ultimate free lunch.

  Paul Davies

  Lunch, Pay, Today

  Paul Davies (1985). “Superforce”, p.205, Simon and Schuster

• "Are we alone in the universe?" This is a question which goes back to the dawn of history, but for most of human history it has been in the province of religion and philosophy. Fifty or something years ago, however, it became part of science.

  Paul Davies

  Philosophy, Years, Dawn

  Source: bigthink.com

• The Universe is not a collection of objects, but is an inseparable web of vibrating energy patterns in which no one component has reality independently from the entirety. Included in the entirety is the observer.

  Paul Davies

  Reality, Energy, Patterns

• Although gravity is by far the weakest force of nature, its insidious and cumulative action serves to determine the ultimate fate not only of individual astronomical objects but of the entire cosmos. The same remorseless attraction that crushes a star operates on a much grander scale on the universe as a whole.

  Paul Davies

  Crush, Nature, Stars

  Paul Davies (2008). “The Last Three Minutes: Conjectures About The Ultimate Fate Of The Universe”, p.65, Basic Books

• If we're looking for intelligence in the universe I think everybody assumes that this has to start with life and so the question is: "How likely is it that there will be life elsewhere in the universe?"

  Paul Davies

  Thinking, Assuming, Elsewhere

  "Big Think Interview With Paul Davies". Interview with Austin Allen, bigthink.com. April 15, 2010.

• No attempt to explain the world, either scientifically or theologically, can be considered successful until it accounts for the paradoxical conjunction of the temporal and the atemporal, of being and becoming. And no subject conforms this paradoical conjuction more starkly than the origin of the universe.

  Paul Davies

  Successful, World, Becoming

• If we do discover more than one type of life on Earth, we can be fairly certain that the universe is teeming with it, for it would be inconceivable that life started twice here but never on all the other earth-like planets.

  Paul Davies

  Would Be, Earth, Type

  "Life, but not as we know it" by Paul Davies, www.theguardian.com. March 14, 2010.

• When I was a student almost nobody thought there was any life beyond Earth. Today it's fashionable to say that there is life all over the place, that the universe is teeming with it, but the scientific facts on the ground haven't really changed.

  Paul Davies

  Today, Facts, Earth

  "Big Think Interview With Paul Davies". Interview with Austin Allen, bigthink.com. April 15, 2010.

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