Stephen Hawking Quotes
In effect, we have redefined the task of science to be the discovery of laws that will enable us to predict events up to the limits set by the uncertainty principle.
Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes. Bantam Books, 1988, p. 55.
This quotation is important for politicians who appropriate research funds. There are many, important, significant, scientific findings, that are inherent to what we already know, but needs the scientific person-power and time to “work it out.”
We have two opposite dynamics operating today. On the one hand the scientific breakthroughs like Quantum Mechanics and genetic engineering widen the intellectual gap immensely between the average person (and politicians) and the scientist—at a time when society must make enormous decisions on scientific matters. On the other hand, there have never been so many people before educated in the sciences. There are many (not a majority) high school students who today understand Relativity and even well and broadly educated non-science college graduates are often familiar with Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and other scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century. The world as a whole has never had so many scientifically literate people as today, nor has it ever had so many scientifically illiterate people today.
This is a classic quotation illustrating that the scientist is rarely sure of anything and is not ever able to make recommendations with the surety of the politician or the cleric.
Stephen William Hawking CH CBE FRS FRSA was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge at the time of his death. He was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge between 1979 and 2009.
