There can sometimes be this fear among laypeople: 'I don't understand everything in science perfectly, so I just can't say anything about it.' I think it's good to know that we scientists are also confused some of the time.
Lisa RandallRead
There could be more to the universe than the three dimensions we are familiar with. They are hidden from us in some way, perhaps because they're tiny or warped. But even if they're invisible, they could affect what we actually observe in the universe.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The universe may contain dimensions beyond our perception, influencing our observations of reality.
This quote by Lisa Randall suggests that the universe is likely more complex than the three dimensions we experience. She proposes that there could be additional dimensions that are either too small or warped for us to detect, yet these hidden dimensions might play a significant role in shaping the observable universe, challenging our understanding of reality and encouraging curiosity about what lies beyond our current knowledge.
Themes
UniverseDimensionsPerceptionRealityInvisible
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the mysteries of the universe during a science class.
More from Lisa Randall
All quotes →We have this very clean picture of science, you know, these well-established rules with which we make predictions. But when you're really doing science, when you're doing research, you're at the edge of what we know.
Lisa RandallRead
Creativity is essential to particle physics, cosmology, and to mathematics, and to other fields of science, just as it is to its more widely acknowledged beneficiaries - the arts and humanities.
Lisa RandallRead
People who dismiss science in favor of religion sometimes confuse the challenge of rigorously understanding the world with a deliberate intellectual exclusion that leads them to mistrust scientists and, to their detriment, what they discover.
Lisa RandallRead
It's hubris to think that the way we see things is everything there is.
Lisa RandallRead
Similar quotes
There must be enormous numbers of planets around the stars in the many galaxies in our observable universe. We may be sure that wonderful things are happening on these planets that the human race never will observe.
Jim PeeblesRead
Almost all the greatest discoveries in astronomy have resulted from what we have elsewhere termed Residual Phenomena, of a qualitative or numerical kind, of such portions of the numerical or quantitative results of observation as remain outstanding and unaccounted for, after subducting and allowing for all that would result from the strict application of known principles.
John HerschelRead
We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment.
Richard DawkinsRead
All models are wrong, and increasingly you can succeed without them.
Peter NorvigRead
Paleontologists [fossil experts] have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin's argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we almost never see the very process we profess to study.
Stephen Jay GouldRead
The essence of mathematics lies precisely in its freedom.
Georg CantorRead