Quotes by Leonard Susskind - Page 1

There is so much to groak; So little to groak from.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
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I was going to engineering school but fell in love with physics.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Engineering
Physics
School
Fell
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Science blogs bore me. When everyone is an expert, no one is an expert.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Blogs
Bores
Experts
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Science to me is sufficiently weird and interesting, and stranger than fiction.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Stranger
Sufficiently
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Unforeseen surprises are the rule in science, not the exception. Remember: Stuff happens.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Exception
Remember
Stuff Happens
Surprise
Unforeseen
Surprises
Rule
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[Richard Feynman] truly believed that if you couldn't explain something simply, you didn't understand it.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Inspiration
Motivation
Simply You
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I have always enjoyed explaining physics. In fact it's more than just enjoyment: I need to explain physics.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Enjoyed
Physics
Explain
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The success of ordinary cosmology speaks against the idea that the universe was created in a random fluctuation.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Fluctuation
Ordinary
Speaks
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I'm a great believer that scientists should spend as much time as possible explaining, and you do explain in the process of teaching.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Believer
Explain
Great Believer
Scientists
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Einstein, in the special theory of relativity, proved that different observers, in different states of motion, see different realities.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Different
Observers
Reality
Relativity
Special
States
Theory
Einstein
Motion
Proved
Realities
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You have to say now that space is something. Space can vibrate, space can fluctuate, space can be quantum mechanical, but what the devil is it?
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Space
Devil
Quantum
Vibrate
Fluctuate
Mechanical
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I'm not going to argue with people about the existence of God. I have not the vaguest idea of whether the universe was created by an intelligence.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Existence
Universe
Argue
Created
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A lot of my research time is spent daydreaming - telling an imaginary admiring audience of laymen how to understand some difficult scientific idea.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Admiring
Daydreaming
Ideas
Imaginary
Research
Scientific
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The dark energy is not exactly zero, but the first 122 decimal points are zero. That's crazy. That is really one of the craziest things we've ever discovered.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Zero
Craziest
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We often say that the earth is a sphere, but to be precise, the term sphere refers only to the surface. The correct mathematical term for the solid earth is a ball.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Balls
Earth
Spheres
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Whether or not evolution is compatible with faith, science and religion represent two extremely different worldviews, which, if they coexist at all, do so most uncomfortably.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Coexist
Compatible
Evolution
Faith Science Religion
Represent
Extremely
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I was from a poor Jewish family in the South Bronx. My father was a plumber, but when I was 16, he got sick and I had to take over. Being a plumber in the South Bronx wasn't fun.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Bronx
Father
Fun
Plumber
Sick
Jewish
South Bronx
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Man - life in general - seems irrelevant to the workings of the universe: a mere smudge of water, grease, and carbon on a pinpoint planet circling a star of no special consequence.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Carbon
Consequence
Grease
Irrelevant
Mere
Seems
Special
Universe
Water
Life Man Universe
General
Star
Circling
Pinpoint
Planet
Workings
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The word 'universe' is obviously not intended to have a plural, but science has evolved in such a way that we need a plural noun for something similar to what we ordinarily call our universe.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Intended
Noun
Ordinarily
Similar
Such A Way
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I'm doing physics because I'm curious about how it works - full speed ahead, damn the torpedoes, don't worry about whether somebody is going to be able to do an experiment next week, just figure it out.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Curious
Damn
Physics
Speed
Ahead
Works
Full
Experiment
Figure
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I'm a great believer in our ability to come up with the ideas necessary to solve the big questions. I have less confidence that we'll be able to find a consensus about which ones are right without experiment.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Believer
Big Questions
Consensus
Experiment
Great Believer
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Over the years, I began to understand that there were a lot of people out there reading physics in popular literature that they could not understand - not because it was too advanced, but because it wasn't advanced enough.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Physics
Advanced
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Every time a bit of information is erased, we know it doesn't disappear. It goes out into the environment. It may be horribly scrambled and confused, but it never really gets lost. It's just converted into a different form.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Confused
Different
Disappear
May
Converted
Erased
Horribly
Scrambled
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Space can vibrate, space can fluctuate, space can be quantum mechanical, but what the devil is it? And, you know, everybody has their own idea about what it is, but there's no coherent final consensus on why there is space.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Consensus
Quantum
Vibrate
Coherent
Fluctuate
Mechanical
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Why is there space rather than no space? Why is space three-dimensional? Why is space big? We have a lot of room to move around in. How come it's not tiny? We have no consensus about these things. We're still exploring them.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Space
Consensus
Exploring
Tiny
Three-Dimensional
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I often feel a discomfort, a kind of embarrassment, when I explain elementary-particle physics to laypeople. It all seems so arbitrary - the ridiculous collection of fundamental particles, the lack of pattern to their masses.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Arbitrary
Discomfort
Embarrassment
Particles
Physics
Explain
Fundamental
Masses
Pattern
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I have a funny mental framework when I do physics. I create an imaginary audience in my head to explain things to - it is part of the way I think. For me, teaching and explaining, even to my imaginary audience, is part of the process.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Framework
Imaginary
Physics
Explain
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Is the universe 'elegant,' as Brian Greene tells us? Not as far as I can tell, not the usual laws of particle physics, anyway. I think I might find the universal principles of String Theory most elegant - if I only knew what they were.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Brian
Elegant
Physics
Principles
String Theory
Theory
Usual
Anyway
Particle
String
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I went to college because my father thought that I should learn engineering, because he wanted to go into the heating business with me. There, I realized I wanted to be a physicist. I had to tell him, which was a somewhat traumatic experience.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Engineering
Heating
Physicist
Experience Business Me
Somewhat
Traumatic
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Physics is perceived as a lonesome, nerdy kind of enterprise that has very little to do with human feelings and the things that excite people day-to-day about each other. Yet physicists in their own working environment are very social creatures.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Creatures
Day To Day
Enterprise
Lonesome
Nerdy
Excite
Perceived
Physicists
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Extra dimensional theories are sometimes considered science fiction with equations. I think that's a wrong attitude. I think extra dimensions are with us, they are with us to stay, and they entered physics a long time ago. They are not going to go away.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Attitude
Dimensions
Equations
Fiction
Long Time
Long Time Ago
Physics
Science Fiction
Time Science Long
Considered
Entered
Extra
Go Away
Theories
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I did not come from an academic background. My father was a smart man, but he had a fifth-grade education. He and all his friends were plumbers. They were all born around 1905 in great poverty in New York City and had to go to work when they were 12 or 13 years old.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
New York
Men
Academic
Father
New York City
Poverty
Smart
Smart Man
Background
York
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The most important single thing about string theory is that it's a highly mathematical theory, and the mathematics holds together in a very tight and consistent way. It contains in its basic structure both quantum mechanics and the theory of gravity. That's big news.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Big News
Consistent
Gravity
Mathematical
Quantum
Quantum Mechanics
String Theory
Theory
Contains
Holds
Mechanics
Single Thing
String
Tight
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I'm afraid I am a bit of a technophobe - a nineteenth-century man caught in the twenty-first century. But there is one piece of technology that I would especially welcome: a device to automatically balance restaurant tables on all four legs so that they don't rock back and forth.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Men
Technology
Caught
Legs
Rocks
Tables
Welcome
Automatically
Device
Forth
Twenty-First
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You are a victim of your own neural architecture which doesn't permit you to imagine anything outside of three dimensions. Even two dimensions. People know they can't visualise four or five dimensions, but they think they can close their eyes and see two dimensions. But they can't.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Architecture
Dimensions
Permit
Eyes Your People
Neural
Visualise
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It seems hopelessly improbable that any particular rules accidentally led to the miracle of intelligent life. Nevertheless, this is exactly what most physicists have believed: intelligent life is a purely serendipitous consequence of physical principles that have nothing to do with our own existence.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Consequence
Existence
Improbable
Intelligent
Intelligent Life
Nevertheless
Particular
Principles
Rules
Accidentally
Believed
Exactly
Exactly What
Hopelessly
Led
Life Is A
Physical
Physicists
Purely
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At 5 years old, I saw 'Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein,' and I was so scared when Costello sat himself down in the lap of the monster, not realizing where he was. My friends teased me. They were older, 8 years old. And my goal was to become a mad scientist and get back at them. And here I am, mad as hell!
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Lap
Mad
Realizing
Sat
Scared
Scientist
Costello
Frankenstein
Monster
Teased
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I'm not an historian but I'll venture an opinion: Modern cosmology really began with Darwin and Wallace. Unlike anyone before them, they provided explanations of our existence that completely rejected supernatural agents... Darwin and Wallace set a standard not only for the life sciences but for cosmology as well.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Agents
Atheism
Venture
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Life is fragile: it thrives only in a narrow range of temperatures between freezing and boiling. How lucky that our planet is just the right distance from the sun: a little farther, and the death of the perpetual Antarctic winter - or worse - would prevail; a little closer, and the surface would truly fry anything that touched it.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Boiling
Distance
Our Planet
Perpetual
Range
Sun
Thrive
Touched
Winter
Closer
Farther
Fry
Narrow
Prevail
Temperatures
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There is a philosophy that says that if something is unobservable -- unobservable in principle -- it is not part of science. If there is no way to falsify or confirm a hypothesis, it belongs to the realm of metaphysical speculation, together with astrology and spiritualism. By that standard, most of the universe has no scientific reality -- it's just a figment of our imaginations.
Leonard Susskind / Professor
Science
Philosophy
Reality
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