Imagination is more important than knowledge.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
When I began my career as a cosmologist some twenty years ago, I was a convinced atheist. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true, that these claims are straightforward deductions of the laws of physics as we now understand them. I have been forced into these conclusions by the inexorable logic of my own special branch of physics.
In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken..."
Everything I'm going to present to you was not in my textbooks when I went to school ... not even in my college textbooks. I'm a geophysicist, and [in] all my Earth science books when I was a student - I had to give the wrong answer to get an A.
Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books.
Don't know much about history, don't know much biology, don't know much about a science book, don't know much about the French I took.
The Bible is not primarily a science book. It is not written to tell us how the heavens go; it is written to tell us how to go to heaven. But when it speaks on science, it is accurate.
When I was little, I had this science book. There was a section on 'What would happen to the world if there was no friction?' Answer: 'Everything on earth would fly into space from the centrifugal force of revolution.' That was my mood.
God knows what possessed me, but having that science book in my hand propelled me to immediate action. So I hit her with it.
I can think of very few science books I've read that I've called useful. What they've been is wonderful. They've actually made me feel that the world around me is a much fuller, much more wonderful, much more awesome place than I ever realized it was. That has been, for me, the wonder of science. That's why science fiction retains its compelling fascination for people. That's why the move of science fiction into biology is so intriguing. I think that science has got a wonderful story to tell.
When you realize that your history books and your science books and your literature books are not the result of experts sitting down and making it a wise decision, but of political pressure groups coming to the state textbook hearings, this is wrong.
I really enjoy going to a library and spending the day doing research - to me that is the most pleasurable part of writing the science book.
When I was acting, as a hobby, I would devour popular science books and keep up-to-date about what was going on in the science community. And then, suddenly my hobby became my job. I didn't one day say, "I'm not acting. I'm now going to be a science person."
I'm a huge science fan; I read a lot of science books. But I'm not a scientist, my interest in science is I love the facts, but I like to interpret those facts. They become the raw materials for stories and paintings and things.
I read very, very little fiction as a kid. All the books I can remember are junior science books.
Science is wonderful, science is important, and so are children, so are young people, and so what could be better than to write a science book for young people?
I write reviews of science books for the Boston Globe, so I like to give science books.
I read a lot of science books - I love cosmology, quantum theory, particle physics. So my idea of a great read would probably put you directly into a coma.
There are great science books that were conceived as books. Feynman's famous introductory lectures in physics, which have a beginning and an end, which are written with style.
or simply:
