"If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph
of human reason - for then we would know the mind of God."
- Stephen Hawking
*Stephen Hawking (b. 1942), British scientist. A Brief History of Time, ch. 11 (1988),
closing words, referring to the question, "Why it is that we and the universe exist."
"Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make
sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist."
- Stephen Hawking
Spark Of Life Tanka For Stephen Hawking
looking up
from "A Brief History of Time"
to the stars...
I recite his speech,
each word a spark of life
Chenou Liu
Singularity, A Poem After Stephen Hawking
by Marie Howe, In Hindi/Urdu Translation by Ravi Kopra
kya tum kabhi jaan paao gay
k kya yuksaaneeat thay hum kabhi?
itnay dos k kisi ko bhi bistray ki zarrorat na thee
kaanay peenay ki, daoulat ki zarrorat na thee -
koi bhi school k gusalhanay main chuppa hua na tha
aur na hi tha vo akela apnay ghar main
daraaz kholta hua
jahaan vo rakhta hai bemaari ki goliaaN
har atom jo mera vo tera hai. Yaad hai iski?
Koi pralirti na thee tab. Lo na thay tab
koi test nahin tha tab k jaan lay hum
kya haathi shok main paD jaata hai
apnay bachay ki maut par, ya kya
coral reef ko dard mehsoos hota hai. Gandh bharay saagar
angrezi, farsi ya french main kabhi boltay nahin hain
kya hoga agar hum samaj gayay kaya thay hum kabhi -
jab hum sab sagar thay and us se pehlay
zameen aasmaan thee, pashu shakti thee
pathar paani thay, taaray aakash thay
aur akaash kahin na tha
bilkul nahin, kuch bhi na tha
-to be continued
----- translated -----
Singularity
by Marie Howe
(after Stephen Hawking)
Do you sometimes want to wake up to the singularity
we once were?
so compact nobody
needed a bed, or food or money—
nobody hiding in the school bathroom
or home alone
pulling open the drawer
where the pills are kept.
For every atom belonging to me as good
Belongs to you. Remember?
There was no Nature.No
them. No tests
to determine if the elephant
grieves her calfor if
the coral reef feels pain.Trashed
oceans don't speak English or Farsi or French;
would that we could wake up to what we were
— when we were oceanand before that
to when sky was earth, and animal was energy, and rock was
liquid and stars were space and space was not
at all — nothing
before we came to believe humans were so important
before this awful loneliness.
Can molecules recall it?
what once was?before anything happened?
No I, no We, no one. No was
No verb, no noun
only a tiny tiny dot brimming with
is is is is is
All everything home
- Ravi Kopra
A Collection of Stephen Hawking Poems
by His Admirers
STEPHEN HAWKING QUOTES & SAYINGS
So the next time someone complains that you have made a mistake, tell them that may be a good thing. Because without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist.
- Stephen Hawking
---
It is all right to make mistakes;
nothing is perfect
because with perfection
we would not exist.
- Stephen Hawking
Quiet people have the loudest minds.
- Stephen Hawking
---
The thing about smart people is that they
seem like crazy people to dumb people.
- Stephen Hawking
---
However difficult life may seem,
there is always something you can do and succeed at.
- Stephen Hawking
Its a crazy world out there. Be curious.
- Stephen Hawking
---
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.
- Stephen Hawking
---
One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away.
- Stephen Hawking
---
I don't fear God- I fear His believers.
- Stephen Hawking
---
What I have learned from life is to make the most of what you have got.
- Stephen Hawking
---
The more you learn, the more you know.
The more you know, the more you forget.
The more you forget, the less you know.
So why bother to learn.
- Stephen Hawking
 |
El cuarto artÃculo es S. W. Hawking, «Breakdown of predictability in gravitational
collapse,» Physical Review D 14: 2460 (1976), doi: 10.1103/PhysRevD.14.2460. |
Nothing is better than reading and gaining more and more knowledge.
- Stephen Hawking
---
The universe doesn't allow perfection.
- Stephen Hawking
---
The past, like the future,
is indefinite
and exists only as
a spectrum of possibilities.
- Stephen Hawking
When the going gets tough, the tough take a coffee break.
- Stephen Hawking
---
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.
- Stephen Hawking
---
I am just a child who has never grown up.
I still keep asking these
'how' and 'why' questions.
Occasionally, I find an answer.
- Stephen Hawking
The idea that we are alone in the universe seems to me completely implausible and arrogant, considering the number of planets and stars that we know exist, it's extremely unlikely that we are the only form of evolved life.
- Stephen Hawking
---
We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.
- Stephen Hawking
---
We are only the temporary custodians of the particles which we are made of. They will go on to lead a future existence in the enormous universe that made them.
- Stephen Hawking
