To tell you the truth, I’ve never met anybody who can envision more than three dimensions. There are some who claim they can, and maybe they can; it’s hard to say.
In my own research when I’m working with equations, I never feel like I really understand what I’m doing if I’m solely relying on the mathematics for my understanding. I need to have a visual picture in my mind. I’m constantly translating from the math to some intuitive mind’s-eye picture.
By dimension, we simply mean an independent direction in which, in principle, you can move; in which motion can take place. In an everyday world, we have left-right as one dimension; we have back-forth as a second one; and we have up-down as a third.
As scientists, we track down all promising leads, and there’s reason to suspect that our universe may be one of many – a single bubble in a huge bubble bath of other universes.
When we benefit from CT scanners, M.R.I. devices, pacemakers and arterial stents, we can immediately appreciate how science affects the quality of our lives.
We can certainly go further than cats, but why should it be that our brains are somehow so suited to the universe that our brains will be able to understand the deepest workings?
Science is a way of life. Science is a perspective. Science is the process that takes us from confusion to understanding in a manner that’s precise, predictive and reliable – a transformation, for those lucky enough to experience it, that is empowering and emotional.
I’ve had various experiences where I’ve been called by Hollywood studios to look at a script or comment on various scientific ideas that they’re trying to inject into a story.
I love it when real science finds a home in a fictional setting, where you take some real core idea of science and weave it through a fictional narrative in order to bring it to life, the way stories can. That’s my favorite thing.
I think the appropriate response for a physicist is: ‘I do not find the concept of God very interesting, because I cannot test it.’
Nature’s patterns sometimes reflect two intertwined features: fundamental physical laws and environmental influences. It’s nature’s version of nature versus nurture.
Even when I wasn’t doing much ‘science for the public’ stuff, I found that four or five hours of intense work in physics was all my brain could take on a given day.
I wouldn’t say that ‘The Fabric of the Cosmos’ is a book on cosmology. Cosmology certainly plays a big part, but the major theme is our ever-evolving understanding of space and time, and what it all means for our sense of reality.
When you drive your car, E = mc2 is at work. As the engine burns gasoline to produce energy in the form of motion, it does so by converting some of the gasoline’s mass into energy, in accord with Einstein’s formula.
We’re on this planet for the briefest of moments in cosmic terms, and I want to spend that time thinking about what I consider the deepest questions.
My view is that science only has something to say about a very particular notion of God, which goes by the name of ‘god of the gaps’.
I can’t stand clutter. I can’t stand piles of stuff. And whenever I see it, I basically just throw the stuff away.
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