166 Quotes by Paul Davies

Things changed with the discovery of neutron stars and black holes - objects with gravitational fields so intense that dramatic space and time-warping effects occur.

A permanent base on Mars would have a number of advantages beyond being a bonanza for planetary science and geology. If, as some evidence suggests, exotic micro-organisms have arisen independently of terrestrial life, studying them could revolutionise biology, medicine and biotechnology.

To expect alien technology to be just a few decades ahead of ours is too incredible to be taken seriously.

Supposing we knew that up there is some alien civilization and it's sending radio signals our way we should not tell the public where that is. We could say that we've picked up a signal, but we should not tell them where for the simple reason that anybody could commandeer a radio telescope, set themselves up as some self appointed spokesperson of mankind and start beaming all sorts of crazy messages back to the aliens.

No planet is more earth-like than Earth itself, so if life really does pop up readily in earth-like conditions, then surely it should have arisen many times right here on our home planet? And how do we know it didn't? The truth is, nobody has looked.

The secret of life does not lie in its chemical basis . . . Life succeeds precisely because it evades chemical imperatives.

The birth of science as we know it arguably began with Isaac Newton’s formulation of the laws of gravitation and motion. It is no exaggeration to say that physics was reborn in the early 20th-century with the twin revolutions of quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity.

The thing about lucid dreams is that it’s not like the real world where you are constrained by all sorts of things, including the laws of physics-you can do magic.

In the frantic search for an elusive ‘cure,’ few researchers stand back and ask a very basic question: why does cancer exist? What is its place in the grand story of life?