If string theory is a mistake, it's not a trivial mistake. It's a deep mistake and therefore kind of worthy. Lee Smolin More Quotes by Lee Smolin More Quotes From Lee Smolin Having begun my life in science searching for the equation beyond time, I now believe that the deepest secret of the universe is that its essence rests in how it unfolds moment by moment in time. Lee Smolin essence secret believe Deep, persistent problems are never solved by accident; they are solved only by people who are obsessed with them and set out to solve them directly. Lee Smolin obsessed problem people Surprise is inherent in the structure of the world. Lee Smolin structure surprise world Simplicity and beauty are the signs not of truth but of a well-constructed approximate model of a limited domain of phenomena. Lee Smolin wells simplicity domain A successful unification of quantum theory and relativity would necessarily be a theory of the universe as a whole. It would tell us, as Aristotle and Newton did before, what space and time are, what the cosmos is, what things are made of, and what kind of laws those things obey. Such a theory will bring about a radical shift - a revolution - in our understanding of what nature is. It must also have wide repercussions, and will likely bring about, or contribute to, a shift in our understanding of ourselves and our relationship to the rest of the universe. Lee Smolin space successful law Just like an ordinary guitar string, a fundamental string can vibrate in different modes. And it is these different modes of vibration of the string that are understood in string theory as being the different elementary particles. Lee Smolin words-of-wisdom guitar ordinary It can no longer be maintained that the properties of any one thing in the universe are independent of the existence or non-existence of everything else. It is, at last, no longer sensible to speak of a universe with only one thing in it. Lee Smolin words-of-wisdom independent lasts We know no more than we did in 1975 - and that's not good Lee Smolin knows There is nothing outside the universe. Lee Smolin universe Some string theorists prefer to believe that string theory is too arcane to be understood by human beings, rather than consider the possibility that it might just be wrong. Lee Smolin possibility might believe One possibility is: God is nothing but the power of the universe to organize itself. Lee Smolin possibility organize universe Science is not about what's true or what might be true, science is about what people with originally diverse viewpoints can be forced to believe by the weight of public evidence. Lee Smolin weight believe people Those who do good science do so because they choose problems that are suited to them. Lee Smolin good-science problem The page of my notebook was filled with many messy integrals, but all of a sudden I saw emerge a formula for counting. I had begun to calculate a quantity on the assumption that the result was a real number, but found instead that, in certain units, all the possible answers would be integers. This meant that areas and volumes cannot take any value, but come in multiples of fixed units. Lee Smolin notebook real numbers But in spite of the obvious effectiveness of mathematics in physics, I have never heard of a good a prioriargument that the world must be organised to mathematical principles. Lee Smolin effectiveness words-of-wisdom principles Any two particles in the universe attract each other through the gravitational interaction. Lee Smolin interaction words-of-wisdom two The revolution which began with the creation of quantum theory and relativity theory can only be finished with their unification into a single theory that can give us a single, comprehensive picture of nature. Lee Smolin words-of-wisdom revolution giving On the way, I shared the backseat of Feyerabend's little sports car with the inflatable raft he kept there in case an 8-point earthquake came while he was on the Bay Bridge. Lee Smolin bridges earthquakes sports We know that the expansion of our universe is accelerating, which means a number called the cosmological constant must be positive. Lee Smolin must know universe positive Every string theory that's been written down says the speed of light is universal. But other ideas about quantum gravity predict the speed of light has actually increased. Lee Smolin down speed light ideas
