Little quotes

View All Authors View Sources

Very likely, we are still confused beginners with very wrong mental pictures, and ultimate reality remains far beyond our grasp. The old cartographer’s term terra incognita comes to mind. The more we discover, the less we seem to know.

— Leonard Susskind (2008)



[W]hy are the constants of nature such awkward numbers? Why can’t they be simple numbers, such as 2 or 5 or even 1? Why are they always so small (Planck’s constant, electron charge) or so large (Avagadro’s number, speed of light)?

— Leonard Susskind (2008)



I suspect that infinity has been a prime cause of insanity among mathematicians.

— Leonard Susskind (2008)



A mostly deterministic law, with just a touch of randomness, is possible.

Leonard Susskind (2008)



The problem is that once we identify the cosmological constant with vacuum energy, nobody has any idea why it should be zero or even small.

Leonard Susskind (2006)



By God playing dice, Einstein meant that the deepest laws of nature have an unavoidable element of randomness that can never be overcome, even if every detail that can be known, is known.

— Leonard Susskind (2008)



Most of us particle physicists believe that if we could examine particles down to some incredibly small size scale, we would begin to see the hidden machinery that makes them tick.

— Leonard Susskind (2008)



I]t is unlikely that anyone will ever detect a black hole shrinking.

— Leonard Susskind (2008)



Curiosity is like an itch; it demands to be scratched. And for a physicist, nothing itches like a paradox, an incompatibility among the various things that one thinks one knows.

— Leonard Susskind (2008)