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.
It turns out your conscious mind - the part you think of as you - is really the smallest part of what’s happening in your brain, and usually the last one in line to find out any information.
It may be that our cosmic curiosity... is a genetically-encoded force that we illuminate when we look up and wonder.
The history of the universe is, in effect, a huge and ongoing quantum computation. The universe is a quantum computer.
I think it inevitably follows, that as new species in the course of time are formed through natural selection, others will become rarer and rarer, and finally extinct. The forms which stand in closest competition with those undergoing modification and improvement will naturally suffer most.
Given the power and influence that science increasingly has in our daily lives, it is important that we as citizens of an open and democratic society learn to separate good science from bunk. This is not just a matter of intellectual curiosity, as it affects where large portions of our tax money go, and in some cases even whether people’s lives are lost as a result of nonsense.
My emotional investment is in finding truth. If string theory is wrong, I'd like to have known that yesterday. But if we can show it today or tomorrow, fantastic.
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