Seth Shostak Quotes

And what we know, or think we know, about the universe of space and time is changing very quickly.

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is one of 50 or 100 billion other galaxies in the universe. And with every step, every window that modern astrophysics has opened to our mind, the person who wants to feel like they're the center of everything ends up shrinking.

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.

People have contemplated the origin and evolution of the universe since before the time of Aristotle. Very recently, the era of speculation has given way to a time of science.

There is nothing bigger or older than the universe.

Philosophically, the universe has really never made things in ones. The Earth is special and everything else is different? No, we've got seven other planets. The sun? No, the sun is one of those dots in the night sky. The Milky Way? No, it's one of a hundred billion galaxies. And the universe - maybe it's countless other universes.

One of the great challenges of modern cosmology is to discover what the geometry of the universe really is.

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 would like to uncover the secrets of the universe.

The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.

About the 50th hour, I was going to start thinking about the edge of the universe. Is there an edge? Is this an envelope we're living inside of, or no, does it go onto infinity in both time and space? And there's nothing like swimming for 50 hours in the ocean that gets you thinking about things like this.

The success of ordinary cosmology speaks against the idea that the universe was created in a random fluctuation.

The main reason why people should care about research in fundamental physics is the same reason they care about astronomy and cosmology. People, children, want to know what we're made out of, how it works, and why the universe is the way it is.

'Eternal inflation,' as it's called - the endless generation of new universes - may be a hyper-cosmic imperative. It seems that it must happen.

Something pretty mysterious had to give rise to the origin of the universe.

Chemistry seems to be pretty much nailed down, and biology gains ground all the time. But physics seems to be mired in idle rumination. They think a Big Bang started the universe, but they don't really know.

As a physicist, I've always found cosmology to be a rational elixir; it distances me from ordinary concerns.

I think my proper response is complete amazement and awe at the universe that we are in, and how it works is just far more complicated than humans will ever properly understand.

We're going to be seeing things from regions in the universe where Einstein is the whole story. Newton you can forget about.

How can a speck of a universe be physically identical to the great expanse we view in the heavens above?

The universe extends beyond the mind of man, and is more complex than the small sample one can study. God cannot be reduced to a sample for analysis.

It seemed like my favourite kind of job - a wonderful chance to ask something absolutely fundamental: the fate of the Universe and whether the Universe was infinite or not.

My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.

For most people, the major hurdle in grasping modern insights into the nature of the universe is that these developments are usually phrased using mathematics.

Physics grapples with the largest questions the universe presents. 'Where did the totality of reality come from?' 'Did time have a beginning?'