Brian May Quotes

The black holes of nature are the most perfect macroscopic objects there are in the universe: the only elements in their construction are our concepts of space and time.

Black holes are very exotic objects. Technically, a black hole puts a huge amount of mass inside of zero volume. So our understanding of the center of black holes doesn't make sense, which is a big clue to physicists that we don't have our physics quite right.

Gravitational waves will bring us exquisitely accurate maps of black holes - maps of their space-time. Those maps will make it crystal clear whether or not what we're dealing with are black holes as described by general relativity.

The whole idea of gravity curling up space, that is the epitome of what is going on in a black hole. I would've loved to have seen Einstein's face if he were presented with the data that we actually discovered such a thing, because he himself probably didn't believe in much of it.

Black holes provide theoreticians with an important theoretical laboratory to test ideas. Conditions within a black hole are so extreme, that by analyzing aspects of black holes we see space and time in an exotic environment, one that has shed important, and sometimes perplexing, new light on their fundamental nature.

If space is a fabric, then of course fabrics can have ripples, which we have now seen directly. But fabrics can also rip. Then the question is what happens when the fabric of space and time is ripped by a black hole?

A lot of the things you see in science fiction revolve around black holes because black holes are strong enough to rip the fabric of space and time.

My passion is to understand the non-linear dynamics of warped space-time, and the ideal venue for this is black-hole collisions.

For reasons probably related to the popular vision of Albert Einstein and, also, the threat posed by black holes in comic books and science fiction, our gravitational wave discoveries have had an amazing public impact.

What was done is measure directly, with exquisitely sensitive instruments, gravitational waves predicted about 100 years ago by Albert Einstein. These waves are a new way to study the universe and are expected to have significant impact on astronomy and astrophysics in the years ahead.

Observing gravitational waves would yield an enormous amount of information about the phenomena of strong-field gravity. If we could detect black holes collide, that would be amazing.

Time can behave like another direction in space under extreme conditions.

Wormholes are a gravitational phenomena. Or imaginary gravitational phenomena, as the case may be.

Black holes are pretty scary when you ponder them. They seem nihilistic, infinitely destructive on an inconceivable scale, notwithstanding the ideas of Hawking radiation.

Black holes, we all know, are these regions where if an object falls in, it can't get out, but the puzzle that many struggled with over the decades is, what happens to the information that an object contains when it falls into a black hole. Is it simply lost?

I wouldn't say that 'The Fabric of the Cosmos' is a book on cosmology. Cosmology certainly plays a big part, but the major theme is our ever-evolving understanding of space and time, and what it all means for our sense of reality.

Things changed with the discovery of neutron stars and black holes - objects with gravitational fields so intense that dramatic space and time-warping effects occur.

I used to think information was destroyed in black hole. This was my biggest blunder, or at least my biggest blunder in science.

I've always really been into science, and in the last five years I've gotten into theoretical physics and the origins of the universe.

I don’t think anything about Einstein’s theory because I don’t understand it.

What really made me think about space and begin to think about ways to use it was Einstein's statement that there are no fixed points in space. Everything in the universe is moving all the time.

I'm just interested in science, and I try to keep track of what's going on and get my head around it - inflation, the multiverse, whatever. It's very hard for me because I don't have a scientific background, and I wasn't any good at science at school, but all of that stuff I just find incredibly attractive and fascinating.

Black holes do not emit light, so you visualize them through gravitational lensing - how they bend light from other objects.

I'm a person who's very interested in science and the universe and quantum physics and astrophysics.

My work on black holes was on the connection between black holes and elementary particles.