Sorry if I seem a bit obsessed with Stephen Hawking today….

sciencescribbler:

But the truth is, well, he mattered to me. Reading about physics was complicated and hard as a kid, but I remember learning enough to even SORT of understand “A brief history of time”. It was…amazing. Transcendent. It meant that I knew more about the world than the day before, and that this knowledge, abstract to me, somehow mattered…something so unrelated to my daily life had this incredible meaning, depth, breadth, value…it blew my mind. 

Then I remember reading about him more broadly. The man could say AMAZING things, to be clear. His wikiquote page (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking) is so friggin’ good it’s painful. He had a unique, incredible perspective. He wasn’t even naturally a scientist as a kid…he wasn’t a child prodigy, he didn’t go to college at 11 or become world famous overnight, he just persisted. His love for his wife drove him to work hard, which made him an expert in a field he only went into because his dad thought that studying math was too conceptual and had few practical applications/career options. He was opinionated, funny, intelligent, understanding, compassionate and passionate…he impressed me, and made  an impression on me. And I know this is not at ALL what my blog is about (Nerdy and kinky and whatnot) but a few quotes HAVE to be included, because you’re missing out if you never hear them.

• “My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus.”
• “So next time someone complains that you have made a mistake, tell him that may be a good thing. Because without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist”
• “We are each free to believe what we want and it is my view that the simplest explanation is there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization. There is probably no heaven, and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that, I am extremely grateful.“
• “Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.”
• “If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.”
• “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.”
• “…when I hear of Schrodinger’s Cat, I reach for my gun.”

  And a good source for a few mote quotes: http://mentalfloss.com/article/32149/11-incredible-stephen-hawking-quotes