Monday, May 16, 2011

Quotes from Stephen Hawking

If Hawking isn’t the most intelligent person on the planet, he’s pretty darn close. Despite a body racked with a degenerative disease, Hawking has managed to claim the position of the most acclaimed physicist in the world.

In a recent interview with the Guardian Newspaper, when asked if he feared death, Hawking replied:

“I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first. I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”

In 2010, speaking about the concept of God, he told Diane Sawyer:

"They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible."

In the same interview, when asked if science and religion can be reconciled he said:

"There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works."

Of course these are simply opinions, but I’ve always found it prudent to consider the opinions of possibly the most intelligent man on the planet.

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