David Gross Quotes

The bedrock nature of space and time and the unification of cosmos and quantum are surely among science's great 'open frontiers.' These are parts of the intellectual map where we're still groping for the truth - where, in the fashion of ancient cartographers, we must still inscribe 'here be dragons.'

There are grounds for cautious optimism that we may now be near the end ofthe search for the ultimate laws of nature.

I don't think about a theory of everything when I do my research. And even if we knew the ultimate underlying theory, how are you going to explain the fact that we're sitting here? Solving string theory won't tell us how humanity was born.

I would say in one sentence my goal is to at least be part of the journey to find the unified theory that Einstein himself was really the first to look for.

It was Einstein's dream to discover the grand design of the universe, a single theory that explains everything. However, physicists in Einstein's day hadn't made enough progress in understanding the forces of nature for that to be a realistic goal.

I would say in one sentence my goal is to at least be part of the journey to find the unified theory that Einstein himself was really the first to look for. He didn't find it, but we think we're hot on the trail.

We're going to need a definitive quantum theory of gravity, which is part of a grand unified theory - it's the main missing piece.

The quest for a quantum gravity is one of the greatest unsolved problems in all of science.

We seem gradually to be groping toward an understanding of the world of subatomic particles, but we really do not know how far we have yet to go in this task.

The most important single thing about string theory is that it's a highly mathematical theory, and the mathematics holds together in a very tight and consistent way. It contains in its basic structure both quantum mechanics and the theory of gravity. That's big news.

I think the discovery of supersymmetric partners for the known particles would revolutionize our understanding of the universe.

I'd say many features of string theory don't mesh with what we observe in everyday life.

A unified theory would put us at the doorstep of a vast universe of things that we could finally explore with precision.

Is the universe 'elegant,' as Brian Greene tells us? Not as far as I can tell, not the usual laws of particle physics, anyway. I think I might find the universal principles of String Theory most elegant - if I only knew what they were.

As for sticking strictly to presently known science, I will simply point out that we have already experienced at least two major revolutions in science in this century alone.

When you look at the calculation, it's amazing that every time you try to prove or disprove time travel, you've pushed Einstein's theory to the very limits where quantum effects must dominate. That's telling us that you really need a theory of everything to resolve this question. And the only candidate is string theory.

The universe at large is full of questions that we still don't know anything about, and there will be always young people, brilliant, who are going to make new discoveries.

Einstein was searching for String Theory. It not only reconciles General Relativity to Quantum Mechanics, but it reconciles Science and the Bible as well.

Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity are both accepted as scientific fact even though they're mutually exclusive. Albert Einstein spent the second half of his life searching for a unifying truth that would reconcile the two.

What lots of people have been trying to do ever since is find what's beyond the current Standard Model. So far, it has stood impervious to all attacks.

As accelerators reach higher and higher energies, we may need a new Standard Model, or, at least, today's may need to be modified, but that's the way science operates.

One of the main successes of string theory is that it has been able to unify the general theory of relativity, which describes gravity, and quantum mechanics.

I came to realise that string theory offers us the best hope of finding a unified theory of all matter and forces.

Look at the size of the universe and look at what we're discovering about string theory. There's a wide-eyed sense of we're just getting started here.

Einstein comes along and says, space and time can warp and curve, that's what gravity is. Now string theory comes along and says, yes, gravity, quantum mechanics, electromagnetism - all together in one package, but only if the universe has more dimensions than the ones that we see.