Stephen Hawking Law Quotations

What I have done is to show that it is possible for the way the universe began to be determined by the laws of science. In that case, it would not be necessary to appeal to God to decide how the universe began. This doesn't prove that there is no God, only that God is not necessary.

The question is: is the way the universe began chosen by God for reasons we can't understand, or was it determined by a law of science? I believe the second. If you like, you can call the laws of science 'God', but it wouldn't be a personal God that you could meet, and ask questions.

We could call order by the name of God, but it would be an impersonal God. There's not much personal about the laws of physics.

One does not have to appeal to God to set the initial conditions for the creation of the universe, but if one does He would have to act through the laws of physics.

The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron .... The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been finely adjusted to make possible the development of life.

Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing.

The universe and the Laws of Physics seem to have been specifically designed for us. If any one of about 40 physical qualities had more than slightly different values, life as we know it could not exist: Either atoms would not be stable, or they wouldn't combine into molecules, or the stars wouldn't form heavier elements, or the universe would collapse before life could develop, and so on...

I'm not religious in the normal sense. I believe the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws.

The lesson of the book is that the universe is governed by the laws of science.

In A Brief History Of Time I used the word "God" like Einstein did as a shorthand for the laws of physics. However, this is not what most people mean by God, so I have decided not to use the term. The laws of physics can explain the universe without the need for a God.

We shouldn't be surprised that conditions in the universe are suitable for life, but this is not evidence that the universe was designed to allow for life. We could call order by the name of God, but it would be an impersonal God. There's not much personal about the laws of physics.

Just like a computer, we must remember things in the order in which entropy increases. This makes the second law of thermodynamics almost trivial. Disorder increases with time because we measure time in the direction in which disorder increases. You can't have a safer bet than that!

In fact, if one considers the possible constants and laws that could have emerged, the odds against a universe that produced life like ours are immense.

In real time, the universe has a beginning and an end at singularities that form a boundary to space-time and at which the laws of science break down.

There are grounds for cautious optimism that we may now be near the end ofthe search for the ultimate laws of nature.

The initial configuration of the universe may have been chosen by God, or it may itself have been determined by the laws of science. In either case, it would seem that everything in the universe would then be determined by evolution according to the laws of science, so it is difficult to see how we can be masters of our fate.

What could define God, [is thinking of God] as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of that God. 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.

Though we feel we can choose what we do, our understanding of the molecular basis of biology shows that biological processes are governed by the laws of physics and chemistry and therefore are as determined as the orbits of the planets.

The laws of science do not distinguish between the past and the future.

So great a contribution to physics was Two New Sciences that scholars have long maintained that the book anticipated Isaac Newton's laws of motion.

One can't prove that God doesn't exist, but science makes God unnecessary. The laws of physics can explain the universe without the need for a creator.

In effect, we have redefined the task of science to be the discovery of laws that will enable us to predict events up to the limits set by the uncertainty principle.

I think the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of science. It has no beginning and no end.

I believe the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws.

There is no physical law precluding particles from being organised in ways that perform even more advanced computations than the arrangements of particles in human brains.

God is the name people give to the reason we are here. But I think that reason is the laws of physics rather than someone with whom one can have a personal relationship. An impersonal God.