Quote

Here we are in this wholly fantastic universe with scarcely a clue as to whether our existence has any real significance.

Fred Hoyle

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Fred Hoyle
Age: 86 †
Born: 1915
Born: June 24
Died: 2001
Died: August 20
Astronomer
Astrophysicist
Mathematician
Non-Fiction Writer
Physicist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Bingley
West Yorkshire
Significance
Fantastic
Existence
Whether
Universe
Real
Scarcely
Clue
Wholly

More quotes by Fred Hoyle

Image
Science is prediction, not explanation.
Fred Hoyle
Image
It is in the world of ideas and in the relation of his brain to the universe itself that the superiority of Man lies. The rise of Man may justly be described as an adventure in ideas.
Fred Hoyle
Image
The suggestion that petroleum might have arisen from some transformation of squashed fish or biological detritus is surely the silliest notion to have been entertained by substantial numbers of persons over an extended period of time.
Fred Hoyle
Image
Life cannot have had a random beginning. ... The trouble is that there are about two thousand enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in 10 to the 40,000 power, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup.
Fred Hoyle
Image
It is a mistake to imagine that potentially great men are rare. It is the conditions that permit the promise of greatness to be fulfilled that are rare. What is so difficult to achieve is the cultural background that permits potential greatness to be converted into actual greatness.
Fred Hoyle
Image
Hoyle's enduring insights into stars, nucleosynthesis, and the large-scale universe rank among the greatest achievements of 20th-century astrophysics. Moreover, his theories were unfailingly stimulating, even when they proved transient.
Fred Hoyle
Image
Once I had learnt my twelve times table (at the age of three) it was downhill all the way.
Fred Hoyle
Image
Perhaps the most majestic feature of our whole existence is that while our intelligences are powerful enough to penetrate deeply into the evolution of this quite incredible Universe, we still have not the smallest clue to our own fate.
Fred Hoyle
Image
The universe is a put-up job.
Fred Hoyle
Image
Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule.
Fred Hoyle
Image
A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.
Fred Hoyle
Image
A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics.
Fred Hoyle
Image
There are many ways of knocking electrons out of atoms. The simplest is to rub two surfaces together.
Fred Hoyle
Image
It is the true nature of mankind to learn from mistakes, not from example.
Fred Hoyle
Image
Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car could go straight upwards.
Fred Hoyle
Image
I have little hesitation in saying that as a result a sickly pall now hangs over the big bang theory. As I have mentioned earlier, when a pattern of facts becomes set against a theory, experience shows that it rarely recovers.
Fred Hoyle
Image
Things are the way they are because they were the way they were.
Fred Hoyle
Image
The man who voyages strange seas must of necessity be a little unsure of himself. It is the man with the flashy air of knowing everything, who is always with it, that we should beware of.
Fred Hoyle
Image
A superintellect has monkeyed with physics.
Fred Hoyle
Image
He who lives among dogs must learn to pant.
Fred Hoyle