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Martin Rees Quotes
Martin Rees Quotes
Martin Rees
British
Scientist
Born:
Jun 23
,
1942
Life
People
Science
Space
Will
World
Related authors:
Alfred Russel Wallace
Arthur Eddington
Derek Harold Richard Barton
Gregory Bateson
Humphry Davy
John Sulston
Mary Leakey
Thomas Browne
Crucial to science education is hands-on involvement: showing, not just telling; real experiments and field trips and not just 'virtual reality.'
Martin Rees
Education
Science
Reality
Field
Virtual
Virtual Reality
Telling
Trips
Crucial
Involvement
Real
Hands-On
Just
Experiments
Showing
If you represent the Earth's lifetime by a single year, say from January when it was made to December, the 21st-century would be a quarter of a second in June - a tiny fraction of the year. But even in this concertinaed cosmic perspective, our century is very, very special: the first when humans can change themselves and their home planet.
Martin Rees
Home
You
Change
Perspective
Made
First
Single
Year
Our
Earth
Say
Would
Would-Be
Cosmic
Lifetime
Quarter
Very
June
Represent
December
Tiny
January
Century
Themselves
Planet
Special
Even
Second
Humans
Fraction
Over most of history, threats have come from nature - disease, earthquakes, floods, and so forth. But the worst now come from us. We've entered a geological era called the anthropocene. This started, perhaps, with the invention of thermonuclear weapons.
Martin Rees
Nature
History
Invention
Earthquakes
Worst
Entered
Weapons
Threats
Over
Come
Perhaps
Most
Geological
Era
Disease
Forth
Us
Now
Floods
Started
The scientific community should work as hard as possible to address major issues that affect our everyday lives such as climate change, infectious diseases and counterterrorism; in particular, 'clean energy' research deserves far higher priority. And science and technology are the prime routes to tackling these issues.
Martin Rees
Work
Technology
Change
Science
Science And Technology
Energy
Community
Research
Everyday
Everyday Lives
Our
Address
Possible
Tackling
Clean
Clean Energy
Higher
Counterterrorism
Prime
Major
Particular
Scientific
Climate
Priority
Climate Change
Issues
Affect
Infectious
Diseases
Far
Should
Hard
Lives
Deserves
Routes
I'm a technological optimist in that I do believe that technology will provide solutions that will allow the world in 2050 to support 9 billion people at an acceptable standard of living. But I'm a political pessimist in that I am concerned about whether the science will be appropriately applied.
Martin Rees
Technology
Science
People
World
Political
Will
Pessimist
Believe
Living
Solutions
About
Allow
Support
Concerned
Acceptable
Am
Provide
Optimist
Whether
Standard
Billion
Technological
Applied
We can trace things back to the earlier stages of the Big Bang, but we still don't know what banged and why it banged. That's a challenge for 21st-century science.
Martin Rees
Science
Challenge
Big
Back
Know
Trace
Big Bang
Still
Bang
Stages
Why
Things
Earlier
Indeed, evolutionists don't agree on how divergently our own biosphere could have developed if such contingencies as ice ages and meteorite impacts had happened differently.
Martin Rees
Own
Our
Indeed
Impacts
Could
Had
Developed
How
Happened
Ice
Ages
Agree
Differently
Maybe the search for life shouldn't restrict attention to planets like Earth. Science fiction writers have other ideas: balloon-like creatures floating in the dense atmospheres of planets such as Jupiter, swarms of intelligent insects, nano-scale robots and more.
Martin Rees
Life
Science
Space
Insects
Other
Earth
Restrict
More
Writers
Attention
Like
Ideas
Science Fiction
Science Fiction Writers
Robots
Dense
Intelligent
Jupiter
Maybe
Fiction
Fiction Writers
Planets
Search
Floating
Creatures
The first arrival of earthly life on another celestial body ranks as an epochal event not only for our generation, but in the history of our planet. Neil Armstrong was at the cusp of the Apollo programme. This was a collective technological effort of epic scale, but his is the one name sure to be remembered centuries hence.
Martin Rees
Life
History
Generation
Collective
First
Our
Our Generation
Earthly
Our Planet
Scale
Ranks
Neil
Only
Remembered
Name
Armstrong
Another
Sure
Arrival
His
Effort
Celestial
The History Of
Cusp
Centuries
Epic
Apollo
Planet
Body
Event
Hence
Technological
Programme
The Swedish engineer who invented the zip fastener made a greater intellectual leap than many scientists do in a lifetime.
Martin Rees
Engineer
Made
Invented
Lifetime
Leap
Greater
Scientists
Intellectual
Than
Swedish
Who
Many
Zip
From the growth of the Internet through to the mapping of the human genome and our understanding of the human brain, the more we understand, the more there seems to be for us to explore.
Martin Rees
Internet
Understanding
Our
Seems
More
Through
Genome
Understand
Brain
Human
Human Brain
Us
Explore
Mapping
Growth
And we should keep our minds open, or at least ajar, to concepts on the fringe of science fiction. Flaky American futurologists aren't always wrong. They remind us that a superintelligent machine is the last instrument that humans may ever design - the machine will itself take over in making further steps.
Martin Rees
Science
Will
Design
Our
Minds
Further
Machine
Take
Open
Wrong
Remind
Steps
Over
Concepts
Instrument
Science Fiction
Always
Making
Least
Itself
Fringe
American
May
Fiction
Us
Should
Keep
Ever
Humans
Last
Ever since Darwin, we've been familiar with the stupendous timespans of the evolutionary past. But most people still somehow think we humans are necessarily the culmination of the evolutionary tree. No astronomer could believe this.
Martin Rees
People
Past
Believe
Think
Tree
Astronomer
Evolutionary
Darwin
Somehow
Could
Since
Most
Still
Culmination
Been
Familiar
Ever
Necessarily
Humans
One of President Obama's first acts was to give a massive boost to America's scientific community.
Martin Rees
First
Community
President
Boost
Obama
Give
Massive
Scientific
America
Acts
Given the scale of issues like global warming and epidemic disease, we shouldn't underestimate the importance of a can-do attitude to science rather than a can't-afford-it attitude.
Martin Rees
Attitude
Science
Scale
Rather
Given
Like
Global
Underestimate
Importance
Global Warming
Issues
Can-Do
Than
Disease
Epidemic
Warming
It might seem paradoxical that the biggest scientific instruments of all are needed in order to probe the very smallest things in nature. The micro-world is inherently 'fuzzy' - the sharper the detail we wish to study, the higher the energy that is required and the bigger the accelerator that is needed.
Martin Rees
Nature
Wish
Energy
Paradoxical
Detail
Fuzzy
Seem
Higher
Smallest
Study
Sharper
Accelerator
Instruments
Scientific
Very
Probe
Order
Bigger
Biggest
Might
Required
Inherently
Things
Needed
The Cern laboratory in Geneva was set up in 1955 to bring together European scientists who wished to pursue research into the nuclear and sub-nuclear world. Physicists then had greater clout than other scientists because the memory of their role in the Second World War was fresh in people's minds.
Martin Rees
War
Together
Memory
People
World
Research
Other
Minds
Physicists
Pursue
Had
Wished
Geneva
Greater
Because
Fresh
Scientists
Up
Laboratory
Than
Role
Clout
Then
Who
European
Nuclear
Second
Bring
World War
Set
Second World War
If we ever established contact with intelligent life on another world, there would be barriers to communication. First, they would be many light years away, so signals would take many years to reach them: there would be no scope for quick repartee. There might be an IQ gap.
Martin Rees
Life
Communication
World
Light
First
Signals
Would
Would-Be
Take
Contact
Reach
Another
Repartee
Years
Scope
Quick
Intelligent
Intelligent Life
Established
Them
Might
Barriers
Many
Gap
Away
Ever
There is an ever-widening gap between what science allows and what we should actually do. There are many doors science can open that should be kept closed, on prudential or ethical grounds.
Martin Rees
Science
Closed
Doors
Open
Between
Ethical
Should
Grounds
Many
Gap
Actually
Kept
Darwin and his successors taught us how our biosphere evolved, and thereby transformed our conception of humanity's place in nature. In the twenty-first century, space scientists are setting Darwin in a grander cosmic context - probing the origins of Earth, stars, atoms and the universe itself.
Martin Rees
Nature
Humanity
Space
Atoms
Stars
Universe
Setting
Our
Earth
Evolved
Cosmic
Darwin
Conception
How
Context
Scientists
His
Itself
Taught
Probing
Place
Transformed
Grander
Century
Us
Thereby
Twenty-First
Origins
Ironically, it is only when disaster strikes that the shuttle makes the headlines. Its routine flights attracted less media interest than unmanned probes to the planets or the images from the Hubble Telescope. The fate of Columbia (like that of Challenger in 1986) reminded us that space is still a hazardous environment.
Martin Rees
Fate
Space
Strikes
Telescope
Only
Hazardous
Columbia
Environment
Reminded
Headlines
Like
Disaster
Attracted
Makes
Still
Hubble
Than
Ironically
Interest
Us
Planets
Less
Flights
Media
Challenger
Routine
Images
Shuttle
It would be sad if the expertise built up during the 40 years of the U.S. and Russian manned programmes were allowed to dissipate. But abandoning the shuttle, and committing to new launch vehicles and propulsion systems, is actually a prerequisite for a vibrant manned programme.
Martin Rees
Sad
Programmes
Dissipate
Abandoning
Systems
Launch
Would
Would-Be
Russian
Allowed
Vehicles
New
Built
Were
Years
Up
Committing
Vibrant
Expertise
Manned
Prerequisite
Actually
Shuttle
Programme
The lives of those such as Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein are plainly of interest in their own right, as well as for the light they shed on the way these great scientists worked. But are 'routine' scientists as fascinating as their science? Here I have my doubts.
Martin Rees
Great
Science
Light
Own
Way
Those
Charles
Darwin
Well
Shed
Scientists
Einstein
Interest
Plainly
Worked
Doubts
Fascinating
Lives
Routine
Right
Albert
Albert Einstein
Here
The Blair government perhaps ranks as the best the U.K. has had for 50 years. It cannot match the scale of Attlee's reforms, but has a fine record of constitutional reform and economic competence. In my own areas - science and innovation - there have been well-judged and effective changes.
Martin Rees
Government
Best
Science
Innovation
Own
Changes
Scale
Ranks
Fine
Record
Constitutional
My Own
Blair
Economic
Area
Had
Perhaps
Match
Been
Years
Effective
Reform
Reforms
Cannot
Competence
Just as there are many Jews who keep the Friday ritual in their home despite describing themselves as atheists, I am a 'tribal Christian,' happy to attend church services.
Martin Rees
Home
Happy
Church
Tribal
Christian
Jews
Despite
Atheists
Ritual
Attend
Am
Friday
Just
Themselves
Who
Many
Describing
Keep
Services
Everything, however complicated - breaking waves, migrating birds, and tropical forests - is made of atoms and obeys the equations of quantum physics. But even if those equations could be solved, they wouldn't offer the enlightenment that scientists seek. Each science has its own autonomous concepts and laws.
Martin Rees
Science
Physics
Complicated
Made
Atoms
Own
Birds
Waves
Everything
Those
Solved
Seek
Laws
Tropical
Could
Concepts
Quantum
Equations
Quantum Physics
Scientists
However
Forests
Offer
Autonomous
Breaking
Even
Each
Enlightenment
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