[T]here is no ether at all. This is now the received wisdom following Einstein’s work ….

The existence of time is a mystery. There is no use for it.

In more conventional quantum mechanical terms, we would say that the Universe is the result of a quantum mechanical tunneling process, where it must be interpreted as having tunnelled from nothing at all.

A major extension of physics will be necessary to delve into the first 10-43 second and follow the history of the universe in those first quantum moments when it was entirely shrouded in mystery.

At present, physicists … search only for continuous pictures of fundamental physics. Maybe, one day, they will be motivated to look at possible structures of a fundamentally discrete world.

[T]he entropy level at the beginning of the expansion of the Universe must have been staggeringly small, which implies that the initial conditions were very special indeed.

Whereas most physicists regard the second law of thermodynamics as a reflection of the improbability of certain types of initial conditions, there are others who regard it as a far more fundamental idea that is prior to the laws of nature themselves.

There is one qualitative aspect of reality that sticks out from all others in both profundity and mystery. It is the consistent success of mathematics as a description of the workings of reality and the ability of the human mind to discover and invent mathematical truths.

The traditional view that initial conditions are for the theologians and evolution equations for the physicists seems to have been overthrown―at least temporarily.