I believe everyone should have a broad picture of how the universe operates and our place in it. It is a basic human desire. And it also puts our worries in perspective.
However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.
In less than a hundred years, we have found a new way to think of ourselves. From sitting at the center of the universe, we now find ourselves orbiting an average-sized sun, which is just one of millions of stars in our own Milky Way galaxy.
Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.
There is no physical law precluding particles from being organised in ways that perform even more advanced computations than the arrangements of particles in human brains.
People won't have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.
There could be shadow galaxies, shadow stars, and even shadow people.
Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.
My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.
My advice to other disabled people would be, concentrate on things your disability doesn't prevent you doing well, and don't regret the things it interferes with. Don't be disabled in spirit as well as physically.
I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image.
We are in danger of destroying ourselves by our greed and stupidity. We cannot remain looking inwards at ourselves on a small and increasingly polluted and overcrowded planet.
I believe things cannot make themselves impossible.
Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it.
God not only plays dice, but also sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.
Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.
There is a real danger that computers will develop intelligence and take over. We urgently need to develop direct connections to the brain so that computers can add to human intelligence rather than be in opposition.
If I had to choose a superhero to be, I would pick Superman. He's everything that I'm not.
If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans.
Even if it turns out that time travel is impossible, it is important that we understand why it is impossible.
If the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, it would have recollapsed before it reached its present size. On the other hand, if it had been greater by a part in a million, the universe would have expanded too rapidly for stars and planets to form.
People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.
Science is increasingly answering questions that used to be the province of religion.
One can't predict the weather more than a few days in advance.
I think we have a good chance of surviving long enough to colonize the solar system.
I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.
Life would be tragic if it weren't funny.
I believe alien life is quite common in the universe, although intelligent life is less so. Some say it has yet to appear on planet Earth.
A few years ago, the city council of Monza, Italy, barred pet owners from keeping goldfish in curved bowls... saying that it is cruel to keep a fish in a bowl with curved sides because, gazing out, the fish would have a distorted view of reality. But how do we know we have the true, undistorted picture of reality?
It is generally recognised that women are better than men at languages, personal relations and multi-tasking, but less good at map-reading and spatial awareness. It is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that women might be less good at mathematics and physics.
I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.
We are all now connected by the Internet, like neurons in a giant brain.
Time travel used to be thought of as just science fiction, but Einstein's general theory of relativity allows for the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that you could go off in a rocket and return before you set out.
I was never top of the class at school, but my classmates must have seen potential in me, because my nickname was 'Einstein.'
Stem cell research is the key to developing cures for degenerative conditions like Parkinson's and motor neuron disease from which I and many others suffer. The fact that the cells may come from embryos is not an objection, because the embryos are going to die anyway.
We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.
We must develop as quickly as possible technologies that make possible a direct connection between brain and computer, so that artificial brains contribute to human intelligence rather than opposing it.
In my opinion, there is no aspect of reality beyond the reach of the human mind.
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