Best Quotes from The God Equation by Michio Kaku with Page Numbers

Our concerns turn to some of the most mysterious questions of all.

Is there a grand design to the universe? How do we make sense of a seemingly senseless cosmos?

The essence of Newton’s idea was to propose a unified theory that encompassed the heavens and the Earth.

The concept of symmetry is simple, elegant, and intuitive.

The laws of Newton that allow NASA engineers to guide our space probes across the solar system.

In its time, it was considered to be the theory of everything—that is, the theory that described all motion.

The first was given by the philosopher Democritus, even before Aristotle. He believed that everything could be reduced to tiny, invisible, indestructible particles he called atoms.

He showed that if you take a magnet and move it inside a hoop of wire, then electricity is generated in the wire.

Newton’s laws not only unlocked the secret of the planets and comets, they also laid the foundation of the laws of mechanics.

Every time scientists decoded one of the four fundamental forces of the universe, it not only revealed the secrets of nature, it also revolutionized society itself.

“The key to understanding the universe is unification.”

“To a physicist, beauty is symmetry.”

“Gravity does not pull; space pushes.”

“Gravitational attraction is an illusion.”

“The happiest thought of my life.”

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because the opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

“For some days, I was beyond myself with excitement. My boldest dreams have now come true.”

“If you are on a fast-moving spaceship, then clocks inside the ship beat slower than clocks on the Earth.”

“Einstein showed that space, time, matter, and energy were all part of a larger four-dimensional symmetry.”

“The force that causes you to fall on a merry-go-round is actually caused by the warping of the merry-go-round.”

It would take several centuries to slowly reveal the secrets of matter.

Out of the chaos of chemistry suddenly came order and predictability.

Clearly, a new theory would be necessary.

Electrons can only move in distinct shells.

This breakthrough fundamentally changed the course of physics.

Even today, there is no universal consensus among physicists concerning the cat problem.

Einstein showed that it was a towering giant standing on philosophical feet of clay.

Observation (which requires consciousness) determines existence.

Science must always be testable, but, as we’ve established, most science is actually done indirectly.

The arcane discussions that divided the physicists at the Solvay Conference became a question of life-and-death urgency.

In order to make real progress, one must again ferret out some general principle from nature.

God is subtle, but not malicious.

What God has torn asunder, let no man put together.

The numerical agreement between theory and experiment here is perhaps the most impressive in all science.

Infinity minus infinity equals zero!

You cannot argue with results.

All the easy, obvious theories had already been tried by Einstein and his associates, and they all failed.

The Standard Model is a strange collection of subatomic particles that accurately describes our quantum universe.

Symmetry was not enough. We need a way to break that symmetry.

The quest for a unified field theory was ignored by most physicists, but that never stopped the dream.

The black hole that was photographed by the Event Horizon Telescope lies inside the galaxy M87, 53 million light-years from Earth.

To accomplish this stunning achievement, astronomers created a super telescope.

By using supercomputers to carefully combine these diverse signals, they effectively created a single giant radio telescope the size of planet Earth itself.

The irony is that, although Einstein had reservations about the quantum theory, the current renaissance in relativity research has been fueled by the merger of the two.

The basic idea of a black hole actually can be traced back to Newton’s discovery of the laws of gravity.

The event horizon is the point of no return: anything that falls in never comes out.

This concept was so bizarre that, for many decades, it was considered science fiction.

Hawking was so fascinated by time travel that he issued a challenge to other physicists.

The implications of inflation are far-reaching.

Thus, Newton’s final conclusion was that the universe was infinite and uniform on average, but occasionally God has to tweak the stars in the universe.

The problem is that they stand in conflict with each other.

The next great revolution, we hope, will be to unify these two pillars into one.

String theory was like an oil well suddenly gushing forth a torrent of new equations.

What is so powerful and interesting about the theory is that gravity is necessarily included.

String theory can remove these troublesome infinites that have dogged physicists for almost a century.

Symmetry creates order out of disorder.

Symmetry unifies totally unexpected and seemingly unrelated objects.

Supersymmetry is the largest symmetry ever found in physics, capable of unifying all the known particles of the universe.

One has to be continually reminded of the words of Carl Sagan, who said that "remarkable claims require remarkable proof."

The goal is tantalizingly close, but seems to be always just out of reach.

"The universe is a remarkably beautiful, ordered, and simple place."

"It is too simple and easy to have some guru come down from the mountaintop, bearing the meaning of the universe."

"The meaning of life is something that we have to struggle to understand and appreciate."

"Everything that has meaning is the result of struggle and sacrifice, and is worth fighting for."

"Perhaps our universe did have a beginning, as mentioned in the Bible. But perhaps Big Bangs are happening all the time, according to the inflation theory, creating a bubble bath of universes."

"This sheds some light on another question: Why is there something rather than nothing?"

"Our universe originally came from quantum fluctuations in Nothing."

"The theory of everything is more than just a beautiful mathematical theory. Ultimately, it could be our only salvation."

"If we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists."

"Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist."