Seth Lloyd Quotes

I would suggest, merely as a metaphor here, but also as the basis for a scientific program to investigate the computational capacity of the universe, that this is also a reasonable explanation for why the universe is complex.

A book on the new physics, if not purely descriptive of experimental work, must essentially be mathematical.

There could be no fairer destiny for any physical theory than that it should point the way to a more comprehensive theory in which it lives on as a limiting case.

The basic theory in twistor theory is not to add extra dimensions.

I have not proved that the universe is, in fact, a digital computer and that it's capable of performing universal computation, but it's plausible that it is.

I just think too many nice things have happened in string theory for it to be all wrong. Humans do not understand it very well, but I just don't believe there is a big cosmic conspiracy that created this incredible thing that has nothing to do with the real world.

The paradigm of physics - with its interplay of data, theory and prediction - is the most powerful in science.

There really is not a new law of nature. It was all in the theory to begin with but nobody worked it out.

As you know, a theory in physics is not useful unless it is able to predict underlined effects which we would otherwise expect.

String theory is 21 st century physics that fell accidentally into the 20th century.

Schrödinger's wave-mechanics is not a physical theory, but a dodge - and a very good dodge too.

The mathematical framework of quantum theory has passed countless successful tests and is now universally accepted as a consistent and accurate description of all atomic phenomena. The verbal interpretation, on the other hand - i.e., the metaphysics of quantum theory - is on far less solid ground. In fact, in more than forty years physicists have not been able to provide a clear metaphysical model.

Dilbert: It took weeks but I've calculated a new theory about the origin of the universe. According to my calculations it didn't start with a "Big Bang" at all-it was more of "Phhbwt" sound. You may be wondering about the practical applications of the "Little Phhbwt" theory. Dogbert: I was wondering when you'll go away.

Despite its name, the big bang theory is not really a theory of a bang at all. It is really only a theory of the aftermath of a bang.

One universe, four forces, billions of galaxies. The precision and complexity of our world is enough to make even the famous cosmologist go just a little bit crazy. How does it all fit together? Is there a single, overarching design to the cosmos? And if we find it, will we glimpse the mind of God?

On quantum theory I use up more brain grease (rough translation of German idiom) than on relativity.

Science could predict that the universe must have had a beginning.

For hundreds of pages the closely-reasoned arguments unroll, axioms and theorems interlock. And what remains with us in the end? A general sense that the world can be expressed in closely-reasoned arguments, in interlocking axioms and theorems.

Theorists write all the popular books on science: Heinz Pagels, Frank Wilczek, Stephen Hawking, Richard Feynman, et al. And why not? They have all that spare time.

Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it.

What good is a theory of how the universe works if it’s a series of tensor equations that, even when understood, come nowhere tangential to experience? The only intellectual or noetic or spiritual path worth following is one that builds on personal experience

In our work, we are always between Scylla and Charybdis; we may fail to abstract enough, and miss important physics, or we may abstract too much and end up with fictitious objects in our models turning into real monsters that devour us.

Some physicists describe gravity in terms of ten dimensions all curled up. But those aren't real words-just placeholders, used to refer to parts of abstract equations.

Far from being accidental details, the properties of nature's basic building blocks are deeply entwined with the fabric of space and time.

It is a very long and very difficult road from a fact to a conclusion. But it is a million times longer from a theory to a fact.