Quotes by Sean M. Carroll - Page 1

God is not described in equations.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
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We are not significant on the cosmic scale.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Cosmic
Scales
Significant
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Even in empty space, time and space still exist.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Space
Empty
Empty Space
Time And Space
Exist
Even
Still
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We are not important to the universe. That's the bad news.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Bad News
Important
News
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The world is not magic - and that's the most magical thing about it.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Magic
World
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There is no such thing as outside the universe, as far as we can tell.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
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I think it's important that science just doesn't stay within narrow boundaries.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Boundaries
Narrow
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The speed of time is 1 hour per hour, no matter what else is going on in the universe.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Hours
Matter
Speed
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I'm a big believer that science is part of a larger cultural thing. Science is not all by itself.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Believer
Big Believer
Cultural
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If time travel were possible, you still wouldn't be able to change the past - it's already happened!
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Travel
Time Travel
Time Change Past
Possible
Change Time Travel
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I'm trying to understand how time works. And that's a huge question that has lots of different aspects to it.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Aspects
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There's no reason to be agnostic about ideas that are dramatically incompatible with everything we know about modern science.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Agnostic
Modern Science
No Reason
Dramatically
Incompatible
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All the stuff we've ever seen in the laboratory, all the kinds of particles and matter and energy, that only makes up 5 percent of our universe.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Energy
Matter
Stuff
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One of the tragedies of our educational system is that we've taken this incredibly interesting subject - how the universe works - and made it boring.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Educational
Universe
Incredibly
Subject
Tragedies
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The simplest way out of the puzzle of time travel is to say that it can't be done. That's very likely the right answer. However, we don't know for sure.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Travel
Simplest
Time Travel
However
Likely
Right Answer
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Nothing in the fact that there was a first moment in time necessitates that an external something is required to bring the universe about at that moment.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Facts
Firsts
Moments
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People don't realize how many aspects of our lives are touched in one way or another by not just the discoveries, the technological breakthroughs, but the process of science.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Touched
Aspects
Breakthroughs
Discoveries
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There's no verbs before time itself exists, right? There's no popping into existence, there's no fluctuating, there's no quantum mechanical craziness, there is literally nothing.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Craziness
Quantum
Verbs
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Naturalism is a counterpart to theism. Theism says there's the physical world and God. Naturalism says there's only the natural world. There are no spirits, no deities, or anything else.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Natural World
Theism
Anything Else
Counterpart
Physical
Physical World
Spirits
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We are looking for a complete, coherent, and simple understanding of reality. Given what we know about the universe, there seems to be no reason to invoke God as part of this description.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Reality
Simple
Understanding
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The fact that the underlying laws of physics are deterministic and impersonal does not mean that at the human level we can't talk about ideas about reasons and goals and purposes and free will.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Free Will
Physics
Impersonal
Purposes
Underlying
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Our conviction that green cheese makes up a negligible fraction of the Moon's interior comes not from direct observation but from the gross incompatibility of that idea with other things we think we know.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Cheese
Conviction
Gross
Moon
Observation
Fraction
Interior
Negligible
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We seek an understanding of the laws of nature and of our particular universe in which everything makes sense to us. We do not want to be reduced to accepting the strange features of our universe as brute facts.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Law
Understanding
Want
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Just the idea that we, these little collections of atoms and molecules, are part of the world, but a part that can look at the rest of the world and figure it out in a self-referential way, is kind of breathtaking.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Atheist
Ideas
Self
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Something can be real - actually existing, not merely illusory - and yet not be fundamental. Scientists used to think that heat, for example, was a fluidlike substance called 'caloric' that flowed from hot objects to colder ones.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Heat
Illusory
Objects
Substance
Be Real
Colder
Existing
For Example
Merely
Scientists
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Scientifically speaking, the existence of God is an untenable hypothesis. It's not well-defined, it's completely unnecessary to fit the data, and it adds unhelpful layers of complexity without any corresponding increase in understanding.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Add
Data
Understanding
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The arrow of time doesn't move forward forever. There's a phase in the history of the universe where you go from low entropy to high entropy. But then, once you reach the locally maximum entropy you can get to, there's no more arrow of time.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Entropy
Maximum
Arrow
Locally
Move Forward
Phase
The History Of
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The idea that time is an illusion is an old one, predating any Times Square ball drop or champagne celebrations. It reaches back to the days of Heraclitus and Parmenides, pre-Socratic thinkers who are staples of introductory philosophy courses.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Champagne
Courses
Times Square
Celebrations
Drop
Introductory
Old One
Square
Thinkers
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We ought to teach kids more about the Big Bang and entropy and particles. Every high school graduate should know that everything in the universe is made of a handful of particles. That's not a hard thing to know. But that's not what's emphasized.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Entropy
Handful
Particles
Bang
Big Bang
Emphasized
Graduate
Hard Thing
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Naturalism says that we were not put here for any purpose. But that doesn't mean there isn't such thing as purpose. It just means that purpose isn't imposed from outside. We human beings have the creative ability to give our lives purposes and meanings.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Naturalism
Imposed
Meanings
Purposes
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I've loved physics from a young age, but I've also been interested in all sorts of big questions, from philosophy to evolution and neuroscience. And what those fields have in common is that they all aim to capture certain aspects of the same underlying universe.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Aim
Big Questions
Capture
Fields
Neuroscience
Physics
Universe
Young Age
Aspects
Underlying
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We tend to talk about the world in a myriad of ways - a microscopic world of elementary particles, a biological world of organisms and evolution, a social world of morality and meaning. But it's all the same underlying world. That's the underlying theme of 'The Big Picture.'
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Big Picture
Evolution
Morality
Organisms
Particles
Theme
Picture
Biological
Elementary
Microscopic
Myriad
Tend
Underlying
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Among advocates for life after death, nobody even tries to sit down and do the hard work of explaining how the basic physics of atoms and electrons would have to be altered in order for this to be true. If we tried, the fundamental absurdity of the task would quickly become evident.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Absurdity
Altered
Atoms
Evident
Explaining
Physics
Life Death Work
Advocate
Be True
Electron
Life Work Death
Task
Tries
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Someday, when the ultimate laws of physics are in our grasp, we may discover that the notion of time isn't actually essential. Time might instead emerge to play an important role in the macroscopic world of our experience, even if it is nowhere to be found in the final Theory of Everything.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Notion
Physics
Someday
Time Experience World
Nowhere
Discover
Emerge
Grasp
Important Role
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Whenever you say you're a physicist, there's a certain fraction of people who immediately go, 'Oh, I hated physics in high school.' That's because of the terrible influence of high school physics. Because of it, most people think physics is all about inclined planes and force-vector diagrams.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Certain
High School
Influence
Physicist
Planes
Terrible
Diagram
High
Fraction
Immediately
Inclined
Whenever
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The weird thing about the arrow of time is that it's not to be found in the underlying laws of physics. It's not there. So it's a feature of the universe we see, but not a feature of the laws of the individual particles. So the arrow of time is built on top of whatever local laws of physics apply.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Individual
Particles
Physics
Universe
Weird
Apply
Arrow
Feature
Local
Underlying
Weird Thing
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As we get older, we tend to grow quite fond of the planets of belief we have constructed for ourselves. We build elaborate defense mechanisms to ward off attacks from competing ideas or new data. The system makes us comfortable but resistant to change, no matter how much change might be called for.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Belief
Comfortable
Competing
Data
Defense
Ideas
Planets
Build
Attacks
Constructed
Elaborate
Fond
Older
How Much
Mechanisms
Resistant
Tend
Ward
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I don't want to give advice to people about their religious beliefs, but I do think that it's not smart to bet against the power of science to figure out the natural world. It used to be, a thousand years ago, that if you wanted to explain why the moon moved through the sky, you needed to invoke God.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Science
Advice
Invoke
Moon
Moved
Natural World
Sky
Smart
Thousand
Thousand Years
Years Ago
Bet
Beliefs
Explain
Figure
Religious Beliefs
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Science isn't just about solving this or that puzzle. It's about understanding how the world works: the whole world from the vastness of the cosmos to the particularity of an individual human life. It's worth thinking about how all the different ways we have to talk about the world manage to fit together.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Science
Cosmos
Different Ways
Fit
Human Life
Individual
Manage
Thinking
Understanding
Vastness
Talk
Life Science Thinking
Works
Individual Human
Puzzle
Solving
Ways
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A full understanding of what happens in our everyday lives needs to take into account what happened at the Big Bang. And not only is that intrinsically interesting and just kind of cool to think about, but it's also a mystery that is not given much attention by working scientists; it's a little bit underappreciated.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Everyday
Account
Bang
Big Bang
Everyday Lives
Just Kind
Much Attention
Scientists
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If our local, observable universe is embedded in a larger structure, a multiverse, then there's other places in this larger structure that have denizens in them that call their local environs the universe. And conditions in those other places could be very different. Or they could be pretty similar to what we have here.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Conditions
Embedded
Structure
Universe
Pretty
Call
Local
Observable
Places
Similar
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I'm trying to understand cosmology, why the Big Bang had the properties it did. And it's interesting to think that connects directly to our kitchens and how we can make eggs, how we can remember one direction of time, why causes precede effects, why we are born young and grow older. It's all because of entropy increasing.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Causes
Effects
Eggs
Entropy
Interesting
Bang
Big Bang
Connects
Direction
Older
Increasing
Precede
Properties
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The particular aspect of time that I'm interested in is the arrow of time: the fact that the past is different from the future. We remember the past but we don't remember the future. There are irreversible processes. There are things that happen, like you turn an egg into an omelet, but you can't turn an omelet into an egg.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Aspect
Irreversible
Time Future Past
Arrow
Future Time Past
Egg
Omelet
Processes
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Claims that some form of consciousness persists after our bodies die and decay into their constituent atoms face one huge, insuperable obstacle: the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood, and there's no way within those laws to allow for the information stored in our brains to persist after we die.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Atoms
Claims
Consciousness
Decay
Everyday
Everyday Life
Huge
Information
Persist
Physics
Understood
Allow
Bodies
Brains
Obstacle
Persists
Stored
Underlying
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Science is a way of getting knowledge. It's a method. It's a method that really relies on making mistakes. We propose ideas, they are usually wrong, and we test them against the data. Scientists do this in a formal way. It's a way that everyone can go through life; that's how we should be teaching science from a very young age.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Formal
Making Mistakes
Method
Propose
Young Age
Scientists
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The fact that you can remember yesterday but not tomorrow is because of entropy. The fact that you're always born young and then you grow older, and not the other way around like Benjamin Button - it's all because of entropy. So I think that entropy is underappreciated as something that has a crucial role in how we go through life.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Benjamin Button
Born
Crucial
Entropy
Remember
Thinking
Tomorrow
Yesterday
Young
Like
Because
Go
Then
Always
Around
Grow
Button
Through
How
Fact
Older
Other
Role
Something
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The asymmetry of time, the arrow that points from past to future, plays an unmistakable role in our everyday lives: it accounts for why we cannot turn an omelet into an egg, why ice cubes never spontaneously unmelt in a glass of water, and why we remember the past but not the future. And the origin of the asymmetry we experience can be traced all the way back to the orderliness of the universe near the big bang. Every time you break an egg, you are doing observational cosmology.
Sean M. Carroll / Scientist
Time
Arrows
Past
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Sean M. Carroll Quotes - Page 1

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