Quotes by Kip Thorne - Page 1

The right answer is seldom as important as the right question.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Answers
Important
Right Answers
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I'm a real klutz computationally, so Mathematica is just ideal for me.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Ideal
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We see no objects in our universe that could become wormholes as they age.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Objects
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As a true scientist, I have been proved wrong so many times that I'm very humble.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Proved
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Whether you can go back in time is held in the grip of the law of quantum gravity.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Gravity
Quantum
Grip
Held
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I can enjoy 'Harry Potter' and 'Star Trek,' but I really appreciate hard science fiction.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Harry Potter
Harry
Potter
Star Trek
Trek
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If you have a wormhole, then you can turn them into time machines for going backward in time.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Machines
Time Machine
Wormholes
Backward
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The human race has a yearning to explore. That's part of our biological and psychological makeup.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Human Race
Makeup
Psychological
Yearning
Human Race Human Race
Biological
Explore
Race Human Human Race
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Closed timelike curve is the jargon for time travel. It means you go out, come back and meet yourself in the past.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Curves
Mean
Past
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'Closed timelike curve' is the jargon for time travel. It means you go out, come back and meet yourself in the past.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Travel
Jargon
Time Travel
Closed
Curve
In The Past
Meet
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I got a lot of notoriety early on. Much of my career I was just trying to prove I was as good as the world thought I was.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Notoriety
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Black holes do not emit light, so you visualize them through gravitational lensing - how they bend light from other objects.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Holes
Bend
Black Holes
Gravitational
Visualize
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I can't imagine not being in a phase where I'm trying to understand something or create something. That's the essence of life.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Essence
Phase
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My passion is to understand the non-linear dynamics of warped space-time, and the ideal venue for this is black-hole collisions.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Dynamics
Ideal
Venue
Warped
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We're going to need a definitive quantum theory of gravity, which is part of a grand unified theory - it's the main missing piece.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Missing
Quantum
Theory
Unified
Definitive
Grand
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In subjects that physicists think of as purely quantum, classical ideas and classical computational techniques can often be powerful.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Powerful
Subjects
Classical
Computational
Physicists
Purely
Techniques
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If you go down through the horizon of a black hole, at the center you don't find a tunnel that leads you to some other place in the universe.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Black Hole
Horizon
Center
Hole
Leads
Tunnel
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I think that the future of the human race is to spread through the universe, and now is the time that we should be laying the foundations for that.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Human Race
Spread
Foundations
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I have used movies to go to sleep at night. You flip from channel to channel to channel and see just enough to make your brain mushy and go to sleep.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Flip
Channel
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We're born with a curiosity about the universe. Those people who don't have a curiosity don't have it because it's gotten beaten out of them in some way.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Beaten
Born
Curiosity
Universe
Curiosity People Way
Gotten
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Wormholes - if you don't have something threading through them to hold them open, the walls will basically collapse so fast that nothing can go through them.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Collapse
Walls
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Each black hole spins on its axis like the Earth spins. That spin creates two vortexes of twisting space, somewhat like vortexes in a bathtub or a whirlpool.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Black Hole
Axis
Bathtub
Creates
Somewhat
Hole
Spin
Twisting
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When gravitational waves reach the earth, the waves stretch and squeeze space. This is a tiny stretch and squeeze. Far too small to detect with ordinary human senses.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Space
Earth
Ordinary
Senses
Tiny
Detect
Gravitational
Squeeze
Stretch
Waves
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If you have somebody who's brilliant and highly creative with a different point of view than you have, and a very different intellectual background, great things can happen.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Brilliant
Great Things
Intellectual
Point Of View
Highly
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A big misconception is that a black hole is made of matter that has just been compacted to a very small size. That's not true. A black hole is made from warped space and time.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Space
Black Hole
Misconception
Size
Hole
Space And Time
Warped
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When Galileo first trained his optic telescope on the heavens and opened up modern optical astronomy, that was the first of the electromagnetic windows out of the universe: light.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Astronomy
Light
Universe
Electromagnetic
Galileo
Heavens
Opened
Optical
Telescope
Trained
Windows
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Sending people into space is very important culturally. That's really the justification. You cannot rationally justify it on the basis of the science and technology we get out of it.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Justification
Science And Technology
Space Science Technology
Basis
Rationally
Sending
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We have to have a combination of general relativity that describes the warping of space and time, and quantum physics, which describes the uncertainties in that warping and how they change.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Combination
General Relativity
Physics
Quantum
Quantum Physics
Relativity
Change Time Space
Change Space Time
Space And Time
Uncertainties
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Whether you can go back in time is held in the grip of the law of quantum gravity. We are several decades away from a definitive understanding, 20 or 30 years, but it could be sooner than that.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Law
Understanding
Years
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As early as I can remember, I wanted to be a snowplow driver. When you grow up in the Rocky Mountains, like I did, you see the snow drifts piled up six feet high, and you're two feet, so it's impressive.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Impressive
Snow
Mountains
Driver
Grow Up
Piled
Rocky
Rocky Mountains
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It was quite a surprise when I realized that with a single wormhole you could have time hook up towards the future or towards the past and that you can actually manipulate the wormhole and change how time hooked up.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Hook
Manipulate
Surprise
Change Future Time
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A black hole really is an object with very rich structure, just like Earth has a rich structure of mountains, valleys, oceans, and so forth. Its warped space whirls around the central singularity like air in a tornado.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Ocean
Space
Air
Black Hole
Earth
Rich
Singularity
Structure
Valleys
Central
Mountains
Forth
Hole
Object
Oceans
Tornado
Warped
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I became interested in this question of whether you can build wormholes for interstellar travel. I realized that if you had a wormhole, the theory of general relativity by itself would permit you to go backward in time.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
General Relativity
Permit
Relativity
Theory
Backward
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Our universe - it's three-dimensional, but we can pretend it's two-dimensional so it's like this sheet of paper - and we live in Pasadena over here and London is over there, and it's thousands of miles from Pasadena to London.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
London
Miles
Paper
Pasadena
Universe
Pretend
Two-Dimensional
Sheet
Thousands
Three-Dimensional
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I wanted to be a snowplow driver when I was a kid. Growing up in the Rocky Mountains, that's the most glorious job you can imagine. But then my mother took me to a lecture about the solar system when I was 8, and I got hooked.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Glorious
Hooked
Solar System
Mountains
Driver
Lecture
Rocky
Rocky Mountains
Solar
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Gravitational waves will bring us exquisitely accurate maps of black holes - maps of their space-time. Those maps will make it crystal clear whether or not what were dealing with are black holes as described by general relativity.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Space
Black
Maps
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Gravitational waves will bring us exquisitely accurate maps of black holes - maps of their space-time. Those maps will make it crystal clear whether or not what we're dealing with are black holes as described by general relativity.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Accurate
Clear
General Relativity
Holes
Maps
Relativity
General
Black Holes
Crystal
Dealing
Exquisitely
Gravitational
Waves
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When you fall into a black hole, everything that falls in after you over millions of years, as seen by you inside the black hole, comes pounding down on you in a fraction of a second, because of the enormous differences of time flow.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Black
Black Hole
Differences
Enormous
Fall
Flow
Millions
Inside
Seen
Fraction
Hole
Millions Of Years
Pounding
Second
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I do hope that 'Interstellar' and this kind of science in film will catch the public fancy and help to reignite an interest in science - and a respect for the power of science in dealing with the problems that society has to deal with.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Fancy
Catch
Dealing
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The jury is not in, so we just don't know. But there are very strong indications that wormholes that a human could travel through are forbidden by the laws of physics. That's sad, that's unfortunate, but that's the direction in which things are pointing.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Forbidden
Jury
Physics
Pointing
Unfortunate
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If you think that the distance from the Earth to the nearest planet where we could live comfortably... is being, like, from New York to Australia... what we've achieved so far, in going to the moon, that's about two-and-a-half inches. So that's the challenge.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Distance
Inches
Moon
Achieved
Comfortably
Nearest
To The Moon
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The essential point is that, although coordinates are a powerful, and sometimes essential, tool in many calculations, the fundamental laws of physics can be expressed without the aid of coordinates; and, indeed, their coordinate-free expressions are generally elegant and exceedingly powerful.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Calculations
Elegant
Physics
Aid
Coordinate
Exceedingly
Expressed
Fundamental
Fundamental Laws
Indeed
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When I ask myself what are the great things we got from the Renaissance, it's the great art, the great music, the science insights of Leonardo da Vinci. Two hundred years from now, when you ask what are the great things that came from this era, I think it's going to be an understanding of the universe around us.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Great Art
Great Things
Leonardo
Renaissance
Understanding
Universe
Hundred Years
Insights
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We'll have four different gravitational wave windows open within the next 20 years, and each of them will see something different. We'll be probing the birth of the universe with this. The so-called 'inflationary era' of the universe. We'll be probing the birth of the fundamental forces and how they came into being.
Kip Thorne / Physicist
Birth
Next
Probing
Universe
Wave
Within
Open
Came
Forces
Fundamental
Gravitational
So-Called
Windows
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Kip Thorne Quotes - Page 1

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