We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet.
Stephen HawkingRead
Time travel was once considered scientific heresy, and I used to avoid talking about it for fear of being labelled a 'crank.'
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects how innovative ideas can be dismissed by mainstream science, and the fear of ridicule can silence exploration.
In this quote, Stephen Hawking expresses the challenges faced by scientists who explore unconventional ideas, such as time travel. It highlights how groundbreaking concepts can be seen as taboo or 'heretical' within the scientific community, and the fear of being considered eccentric or a 'crank' can deter open discussion and experimentation in these areas of thought.
Themes
Time TravelScienceInnovationExplorationTaboo
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on futuristic technologies, I shared a quote by Stephen Hawking to discuss the boundaries of scientific acceptance.
More from Stephen Hawking
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It surprises me how disinterested we are today about things like physics, space, the universe and philosophy of our existence, our purpose, our final destination. Its a crazy world out there. Be curious.
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I was not a good student. I did not spend much time at college; I was too busy enjoying myself.
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The world has changed far more in the past 100 years than in any other century in history. The reason is not political or economic but technological-technologies that flowed directly from advances in basic science. Clearly, no scientist better represents those advances than Albert Einstein: TIME's Person of the Century.
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In my opinion, there is no aspect of reality beyond the reach of the human mind.
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We have such a terrible, terrible misconception of science. We think it involves the definite, the precise, the known; it is a horrid series of gates to an unknown as vast of the universe; which means endless.
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