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121 " Should the branching of our current selves into multiple future selves affect the choices we make? In the textbook view, there is a probability that one or another outcome happens when we observe a quantum system, while in Many-Worlds all outcomes happen, weighted by the amplitude squared of the wave function. Does the existence of all those extra worlds have implications for how we should act, personally or ethically? It’s not hard to imagine that it might, but upon careful consideration it turns out to matter much less than you might guess. "
― Sean Carroll , Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime
122 " Life is a process, not a substance, and it is necessarily temporary. We are not the reason for the existence of the universe, but our ability for self-awareness and reflection makes us special within it. This "
― Sean Carroll , The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself
123 " If a symmetry between electrons and electron neutrinos is like comparing apples to oranges, trying to connect fermions with bosons is like comparing bananas to orangutans. "
― Sean Carroll , The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New World
124 " The universe is incredibly more orderly than it has any right to be. "
― Sean Carroll
125 " This book is about the nature of time, the beginning of the universe, and the underlying structure of physical reality. "
― Sean Carroll , From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time
126 " Newton blew away any dusty talk of natures and purposes, revealing what lay underneath: a crisp, rigorous mathematical formalism with which teachers continue to torment students to this very day. "
127 " wormholes don’t grow on trees. "
128 " By themselves, those particles and forces don’t have the capability of supporting the psychic phenomena that so fascinated my twelve-year-old self. More important, we know that there aren’t new particles or forces out there yet to be discovered that would support them. Not simply because we haven’t found them yet, but because we definitely would have found them if they had the right characteristics to give us the requisite powers. We know enough to draw very powerful conclusions about the limits of what we can do. "
129 " Intellectual fascination crosses many boundaries. "
130 " Then we compare the predicted abundance of such a WIMP with the actual abundance of dark matter. "
131 " There may be no ultimate answer to the “Why?” question. The universe simply is, in this particular way, and that’s a brute fact. "
132 " We can think of the difference between math and science in terms of possible worlds. Math is concerned with truths that would hold in any possible world: given these axioms, these theorems will follow. Science is all about discovering the actual world in which we live. "
133 " There's nothing wrong with doing elaborate double-blind studies to look for parapsychological or astrological effects, but the fact that such effects are incompatible with the known laws of physics means that you would be testing hypotheses that are so extremely unlikely as to render it hardly worth the effort. "
134 " But what makes a good clock? The primary criterion is that it should be consistent—it wouldn’t do any good to have a clock that ticked really fast sometimes and really slowly at others. "
135 " As impressive as matrix mechanics was, it suffered from a severe marketing flaw. The mathematical formalism was highly abstract and difficult to understand. Einstein's reaction to the theory was typical: A veritable sorcerer's calculation. This is sufficiently ingenious and protected by its great complexity to be immune to any proof of its falsity.This from the guy who had proposed describing space-time in terms of non-Euclidian geometry. "
136 " Everyone knows what a time machine looks like: something like a steampunk sled with a red velvet chair, flashing lights, and a giant spinning wheel on the back. For those of a younger generation, a souped-up stainless-steel sports car is an acceptable substitute; our British readers might think of a 1950s-style London police box.76 Details of operation vary from model to model, "
137 " A police officer pulls over Werner Heisenberg for speeding."Do you know how fast you were going?" asks the cop."No," Heisenberg replies. "But I know exactly where I am."I think we can all agree that physics jokes are the funniest jokes there are. "
138 " We don’t create the world by our actions, our actions are part of the world. "
139 " The important distinction is not between theists and naturalists; it's about people who care enough about the universe to make a good-faith effort to understand it, and those who fit it into a predetermined box or simply take it for granted. The universe is much bigger than you or me, and the quest to figure it out united people with a spectrum of substantive beliefs. It's us against the mysteries of the universe; if we care about understanding, we're on the same side. "
140 " A person is a diminutive, ephemeral thing, standing smaller in comparison with the universe than a single atom stands in comparison with the Earth. Can any one individual existence really matter? "