Why is there space rather than no space? Why is space three-dimensional? Why is space big? We have a lot of room to move around in. How come it's not tiny? We have no consensus about these things. We're still exploring them.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the curiosity and ongoing exploration of the nature of space and its properties.
Leonard Susskind's quote expresses profound questions about the fundamental characteristics of space. It highlights humanity's continuous quest for understanding the universe, emphasizing that despite our advancements, many basic aspects of space remain a mystery, inviting us to explore and ponder the vastness and dimensions we inhabit.
In practice
This quote can be used in a science class to inspire students to ask questions about the universe.
Extra dimensional theories are sometimes considered science fiction with equations. I think that's a wrong attitude. I think extra dimensions are with us, they are with us to stay, and they entered physics a long time ago. They are not going to go away.
The word 'universe' is obviously not intended to have a plural, but science has evolved in such a way that we need a plural noun for something similar to what we ordinarily call our universe.
A lot of my research time is spent daydreaming - telling an imaginary admiring audience of laymen how to understand some difficult scientific idea.
Man - life in general - seems irrelevant to the workings of the universe: a mere smudge of water, grease, and carbon on a pinpoint planet circling a star of no special consequence.
I was going to engineering school but fell in love with physics.
... chemistry is a trade for people without enough imagination to be physicists.
I've been so lucky to have done two spacewalks. If you looked at your wristwatch, I was outside about 15 hours, which is about 10 times around the world. And, you know, there's a whole time dilation, distortion thing.
An alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid.
It is generally believed that our science is empirical and that we draw our concepts and our mathematical constructs from the empirical data. If this were the whole truth, we should, when entering into a new field, introduce only such quantities as can directly be observed, and formulate natural laws only by means of these quantities.
Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: 'Ye must have faith.'
To me quantum computation is a new and deeper and better way to understand the laws of physics, and hence understanding physical reality as a whole.
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