Unforeseen surprises are the rule in science, not the exception. Remember: Stuff happens. Leonard Susskind More Quotes by Leonard Susskind More Quotes From Leonard Susskind There is a philosophy that says that if something is unobservable -- unobservable in principle -- it is not part of science. If there is no way to falsify or confirm a hypothesis, it belongs to the realm of metaphysical speculation, together with astrology and spiritualism. By that standard, most of the universe has no scientific reality -- it's just a figment of our imaginations. Leonard Susskind philosophysciencereality I'm not an historian but I'll venture an opinion: Modern cosmology really began with Darwin and Wallace. Unlike anyone before them, they provided explanations of our existence that completely rejected supernatural agents... Darwin and Wallace set a standard not only for the life sciences but for cosmology as well. Leonard Susskind agentsventureatheism There is so much to groak; So little to groak from. Leonard Susskind littles Einstein, in the special theory of relativity, proved that different observers, in different states of motion, see different realities. Leonard Susskind differentspecialreality Every time a bit of information is erased, we know it doesn't disappear. It goes out into the environment. It may be horribly scrambled and confused, but it never really gets lost. It's just converted into a different form. Leonard Susskind confuseddifferentmay You have to say now that space is something. Space can vibrate, space can fluctuate, space can be quantum mechanical, but what the devil is it? Leonard Susskind quantumdevilspace I was from a poor Jewish family in the South Bronx. My father was a plumber, but when I was 16, he got sick and I had to take over. Being a plumber in the South Bronx wasn't fun. Leonard Susskind sickfunfather A lot of my research time is spent daydreaming - telling an imaginary admiring audience of laymen how to understand some difficult scientific idea. Leonard Susskind daydreamingresearchideas [Richard Feynman] truly believed that if you couldn't explain something simply, you didn't understand it. Leonard Susskind simply-youmotivationinspiration I was going to engineering school but fell in love with physics. Leonard Susskind engineeringphysicsschool I'm afraid I am a bit of a technophobe - a nineteenth-century man caught in the twenty-first century. But there is one piece of technology that I would especially welcome: a device to automatically balance restaurant tables on all four legs so that they don't rock back and forth. Leonard Susskind rockstechnologymen I did not come from an academic background. My father was a smart man, but he had a fifth-grade education. He and all his friends were plumbers. They were all born around 1905 in great poverty in New York City and had to go to work when they were 12 or 13 years old. Leonard Susskind smartnew-yorkfather Science blogs bore me. When everyone is an expert, no one is an expert. Leonard Susskind blogsboresexperts We often say that the earth is a sphere, but to be precise, the term sphere refers only to the surface. The correct mathematical term for the solid earth is a ball. Leonard Susskind spheresballsearth Life is fragile: it thrives only in a narrow range of temperatures between freezing and boiling. How lucky that our planet is just the right distance from the sun: a little farther, and the death of the perpetual Antarctic winter - or worse - would prevail; a little closer, and the surface would truly fry anything that touched it. Leonard Susskind sunwinterlifedeath It seems hopelessly improbable that any particular rules accidentally led to the miracle of intelligent life. Nevertheless, this is exactly what most physicists have believed: intelligent life is a purely serendipitous consequence of physical principles that have nothing to do with our own existence. Leonard Susskind life-is-arulesnothinglife Why is there space rather than no space? Why is space three-dimensional? Why is space big? We have a lot of room to move around in. How come it's not tiny? We have no consensus about these things. We're still exploring them. Leonard Susskind roombigthingsspace I have a funny mental framework when I do physics. I create an imaginary audience in my head to explain things to - it is part of the way I think. For me, teaching and explaining, even to my imaginary audience, is part of the process. Leonard Susskind thinkmefunnyway The dark energy is not exactly zero, but the first 122 decimal points are zero. That's crazy. That is really one of the craziest things we've ever discovered. Leonard Susskind thingscrazyenergydark Science to me is sufficiently weird and interesting, and stranger than fiction. Leonard Susskind weirdmescienceinteresting
