In fairness, I don't think that everyone understands what I say, but I think they understand part of it and part of what the issues are... Just the same way that people like a good painting, I think people really like understanding, knowing about the world.

Lisa Randall

Creativity is essential to particle physics, cosmology, and to mathematics, and to other fields of science, just as it is to its more widely acknowledged beneficiaries - the arts and humanities.

Lisa Randall

creativity science art

Basically, I wasn't properly socialized, so it made sense to do physics.

Lisa Randall

physics made

It's hubris to think that the way we see things is everything there is.

Lisa Randall

hubris way thinking

An almost indispensable skill for any creative person is the ability to pose the right questions. Creative people identify promising, exciting, and, most important, accessible routes to progress - and eventually formulate the questions correctly.

Lisa Randall

skills creative people

The universe has its secrets. Extra dimensions of space might be one of them. If so, the universe has been hiding those dimensions, protecting them, keeping them coyly under wraps. From a casual glance, you would never suspect a thing.

Lisa Randall

space secret might

One of the nice things about math and science is it’s obvious, you get the answer or you don’t get the answer.

Lisa Randall

nice answers math

Sometimes models are surprisingly smart.

Lisa Randall

models smart sometimes

Faith just doesn't have anything to do with what I'm doing as a scientist. It's nice if you can believe in God, because then you see more of a purpose in things. Even if you don't, though, it doesn't mean that there's no purpose. It doesn't mean that there's no goodness. I think that there's a virtue in being good in and of itself. I think that one can work with the world we have.

Lisa Randall

nice faith believe

When it comes to the world around us, is there any choice but to explore?

Lisa Randall

choices world

Speculation and the exploration of ideas beyond what we know with certainty are what lead to progress.

Lisa Randall

exploration progress ideas

Travel at faster than the speed of light certainly can have dramatic implications that are difficult to understand, such as time travel.

Lisa Randall

dramatic speed light

There is real confusion about what it means to be right and wrong - the difference between what spiritual beliefs are and what science is.

Lisa Randall

real spiritual mean

I did not set out to explain the extinction of the dinosaurs. I'm a particle physicist, and I was actually thinking about dark matter along with some collaborators.

Lisa Randall

dinosaurs dark thinking

Science is a combination of theory and experiment and the two together are how you make progress.

Lisa Randall

progress together two

All the normal matter in the Milky Way disc is denser than the dark matter that surrounds it.

Lisa Randall

matter dark way

If such external influences are intrinsic to religion, then logic and scientific thought dictate that there must be a mechanism by which this influence is transmitted. A religious or spiritual belief that involves an invisible undetectable force that nonetheless influences human actions and behavior or that of the world itself produces a situation in which a believer has no choice but to have faith and abandon logic--or simply not care.

Lisa Randall

choices religious spiritual

When people try to use religion to address the natural world, science pushes back on it, and religion has to accommodate the results. Beliefs can be permanent, but beliefs can also be flexible. Personally, if I find out my belief is wrong, I change my mind. I think that's a good way to live.

Lisa Randall

mind people thinking

Scientific research involves going beyond the well-trodden and well-tested ideas and theories that form the core of scientific knowledge. During the time scientists are working things out, some results will be right, and others will be wrong. Over time, the right results will emerge.

Lisa Randall

scientist research ideas

I think it's a problem that people are considered immoral if they're not religious. That's just not true. If you do something for a religious reason, you do it because you'll be rewarded in an afterlife or in this world. That's not quite as good as something you do for purely generous reasons.

Lisa Randall

afterlife religious thinking

We certainly don't yet know all the answers. But the universe is about to be pried open.

Lisa Randall

universe answers knows