We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet.
Stephen HawkingRead
Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Scientific theories are never definitive and remain as hypotheses subject to change based on new evidence.
Stephen Hawking's quote emphasizes the provisional nature of scientific theories, highlighting that no matter how often experimental results align with a particular theory, they can never be fully proven. This underscores the dynamic and evolving nature of scientific understanding, where new evidence could always emerge to challenge established notions.
Themes
ScienceTheoryHypothesisEvidenceExperimentation
In practice
Example use cases
In a classroom discussion about the scientific method, this quote can highlight the importance of questioning and revising theories.
More from Stephen Hawking
All quotes →I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.
Stephen HawkingRead
It surprises me how disinterested we are today about things like physics, space, the universe and philosophy of our existence, our purpose, our final destination. Its a crazy world out there. Be curious.
Stephen HawkingRead
I was not a good student. I did not spend much time at college; I was too busy enjoying myself.
Stephen HawkingRead
The world has changed far more in the past 100 years than in any other century in history. The reason is not political or economic but technological-technologies that flowed directly from advances in basic science. Clearly, no scientist better represents those advances than Albert Einstein: TIME's Person of the Century.
Stephen HawkingRead
In my opinion, there is no aspect of reality beyond the reach of the human mind.
Stephen HawkingRead
Similar quotes
To promote the healing response, you must get past all the grosser levels of the body - cells, tissues, organs and systems -- and arrive at a junction point between mind and matter, the point where consciousness actually starts to have an effect.
Deepak ChopraRead
One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.
Charles DarwinRead
I suppose I can live with missing decimals, missing floors to tall buildings, and floors that are named instead of numbered. A more serious problem is the limited capacity of the human mind to grasp the relative magnitudes of large numbers. Counting at the rate of one number per second...to count to a trillion takes 32,000 years, which is as much time as has elapsed since people first drew on cave walls.
Neil Degrasse TysonRead
The best scientist is open to experience and begins with romance - the idea that anything is possible.
Ray BradburyRead
Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.
Albert EinsteinRead
Enormous numbers of people are taken in, or at least beguiled and fascinated, by what seems to me to be unbelievable hocum, and relatively few are concerned with or thrilled by the astounding-yet true-facts of science, as put forth in the pages of, say, Scientific American.
Douglas HofstadterRead