Martin J. Rees Quotes

#1. God invented space so that not everything had to happen in Princeton.

Martin J. Rees

#2. In the beginning there were only probabilities. The universe could only come into existence if someone observed it. It does not matter that the observers turned up several billion years later. The universe exists because we are aware of it.

Martin J. Rees

#3. The sun has adjusted its structure so that nuclear power is generated in the core, and diffuses outward, at just the rate needed to balance the heat lost from the surface-heat that is the basis for life on Earth.

Martin J. Rees

#4. We're not aware of the "big picture," any more than a plankton whose universe was a liter of water would be aware of the world's topography and biosphere.

Martin J. Rees

#5. The other naturally occurring viruses, like ebola, are not durable enough to generate a runaway epidemic.

Martin J. Rees

#6. It's better to read first rate science fiction than second rate science
it's a lot more fun, and no more likely to be wrong, joked Lord Rees, Astronomer Royal and the former president of the Royal Society, at Wired 2013.

Martin J. Rees

#7. [The fine structure constant] ... defines how firmly atomic nuclei bind together and how all the atoms on Earth were made. Its value controls the power from the Sun and, more sensitively, how stars transmute hydrogen into all the atoms of the periodic table.

Martin J. Rees