Sean M. Carroll Quotes
There's no verbs before time itself exists, right? There's no popping into existence, there's no fluctuating, there's no quantum mechanical craziness, there is literally nothing.
This is a fascinating quotation. During Augustine’s time and for hundreds of years thereafter, this was accepted as obvious truth and taught by the church. When rationality permeated the Enlightenment and science flourished, this view was realized to be clearly faulty—that time started with the creation of the universe by whatever means. However, in the 21st century, new understandings of the Big Bang together with the Einstein revelation of space-time as an entity, caused many scientists to think that it just might be possible that time began with the Big Bang, and Augustine might have been right after all, though for a different set of reasons. This is another example of a difference between the scientist and the political, philosophical or religious ideologue. To the later, truth is eternal. To the scientist all truth is ephemeral and changes as our perceptions, tools, calculations, and understandings improve.
Sean Michael Carroll is an American theoretical physicist who specializes in quantum mechanics, gravity, and cosmology. He is a research professor in the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics in the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) Department of Physics and an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. He has been a contributor to the physics blog Cosmic Variance, and has published in scientific journals such as Nature as well as other publications, including The New York Times, Sky & Telescope, and New Scientist. He is known for atheism, critique of theism and defense of naturalism. He is also a very prolific public speaker.
