The Constants of Nature: The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe QUOTES

1 " Since only a narrow range of the allowed values for, say, the fine structure constant will permit observers to exist in the Universe, we must find ourselves in the narrow range of possibilities which permit them, no matter how improbable they are. We must ask for the conditional probability of observing constants to take particular ranges, given that other features of the Universe, like its age, satisfy necessary conditions for life. "

― John D. Barrow , The Constants of Nature: The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe

2 " Prior to then it was believed that black holes were just cosmic cookie monsters, swallowing everything that came within their gravitational clutches. "

― John D. Barrow , The Constants of Nature: The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe

3 " Einstein argued that the laws of Nature should appear to be the same for all observers in the Universe, no matter where they were or how they were moving. If they were not then there would exist privileged observers for whom the laws of Nature looked simpler than they did for other observers. "

― John D. Barrow , The Constants of Nature: The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe

4 " universal laws prescribe how things will behave not, like human laws, how they ought to behave. "

― John D. Barrow , The Constants of Nature: The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe

5 " The impact over the following centuries of Copernicus' leap away from the prejudices of anthropocentrism was felt across the whole spectrum of human investigation. We began to appreciate our place in the Universe was by no means central. Indeed, in many respects, it appeared to be almost peripheral. "

― John D. Barrow , The Constants of Nature: The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe

6 " Einstein enunciated what he called the Principle of Covariance: that laws of Nature should be expressed in a form that will look the same for all observers, no matter where they are located and no matter how they are moving. "

― John D. Barrow , The Constants of Nature: The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe

7 " The old believe everything: the middle-aged suspect everything: the young know everything.’ Oscar Wilde53 "

― John D. Barrow , The Constants of Nature: The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe

8 " We have never explained the numerical value of any of the constants of Nature. "

― John D. Barrow , The Constants of Nature: The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe

9 " Natural units tell us that in a well-defined sense the Universe is very old already, about 1060 Planck times old. Life on Earth didn't appear until after the Universe was 1059 Planck times old. We were a late arrival. "

― John D. Barrow , The Constants of Nature: The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe

10 " belief in the ultimate simplicity and unity behind the rules that constrain the Universe leads us to expect that there exists a single unchanging pattern behind the appearances. Under different conditions this single pattern will crystallise into superficially distinct patterns that show up as the four separate forces governing the world around us. It has gradually become clear how this patterning probably works. "

― John D. Barrow , The Constants of Nature: The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe

11 " I do not feel like an alien in this universe. The more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known that we were coming.’ Freeman Dyson24 "

― John D. Barrow , The Constants of Nature: The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe

12 " The more simultaneous variations of other constants one includes in these considerations, the more restrictive is the region where life, as we know it, can exist. It is very likely that if variations can be made then they are not all independent. Rather, making a small change in one constant might alter one or more of the others as well. This would tend to make the restrictions on most variations become even more tightly constrained. "

― John D. Barrow , The Constants of Nature: The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe

13 " the values of the constants of Nature are rather bio-friendly. If they are changed by even a small amount the world becomes lifeless and barren instead of a home for interesting complexity "

― John D. Barrow , The Constants of Nature: The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe

14 " Already we see a trend in our own technological societies towards the fabrication of smaller and smaller machines that consume less and less energy and produce almost no waste. Taken to its logical conclusion, we expect advanced life-forms to be as small as the laws of physics allow. "

― John D. Barrow , The Constants of Nature: The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe

15 " we might mention that this could explain why there is no evidence of extraterrestrial life in the Universe. If it is truly advanced, even by our standards, it will most likely be very small, down on the molecular scale. All sorts of advantages then accrue. There is lots of room there – huge populations can be sustained. Powerful, intrinsically quantum computation can be harnessed. Little raw material is required and space travel is easier. You can also avoid being detected by civilisations of clumsy bipeds living on bright planets that beam continuous radio noise into interplanetary space. "

― John D. Barrow , The Constants of Nature: The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe

16 " In recent years astronomers have made newspaper headlines all over the world by mapping this radiation in exquisite detail with receivers carried on balloons and satellites. We know that the radiation has the spectrum of pure heat radiation to very high precision and its temperature is the same in different directions on the sky to an accuracy of about one part in 100,000. "

― John D. Barrow , The Constants of Nature: The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe

17 " Now step outside spacetime and look in at what happens there. Histories of individuals are paths through the block. If they curve back upon themselves to form closed loops then we would judge time travel to occur. But the paths are what they are. There is no history that is ‘changed’ by doing that. Time travel allows us to be part of the past but not to change the past. The only time-travelling histories that are possible are self-consistent paths. On any closed path there is no well-defined division between the future and the past. "

― John D. Barrow , The Constants of Nature: The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe

18 " If the constants of Nature are slowly changing then we could be on a one-way slide to extinction. We have learnt that our existence exploits many peculiar coincidences between the values of different constants of Nature, and that the observed values of the constants fall within some very narrow windows of opportunity for the existence of life. "

― John D. Barrow , The Constants of Nature: The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe

19 " If constants like G and α do not vary in time, then the standard history of our Universe has a simple broad-brush appearance. During the first 300,000 years the dominant energy in the Universe is radiation and the temperature is greater than 3000 degrees and too hot for any atoms or molecules to exist. The Universe is a huge soup of electrons, photons of light and nuclei. "

― John D. Barrow , The Constants of Nature: The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe

20 " There are three trajectories for an expanding universe to follow (see p. 184). The ‘closed’ universe expands too slowly to overcome the decelerating effects of gravity and eventually it collapses back to high density. The ‘open’ universe has lots more expansion energy than gravitational deceleration and the expansion runs away forever. The in-between world, that is often called the ‘flat’ or ‘critical’ universe, has a perfect balance between expansion energy and gravity and keeps on expanding for ever. Our Universe is tantalisingly close to this critical or ‘flat’ state today. "

― John D. Barrow , The Constants of Nature: The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe