Sean Carroll Quotes

Those swirls in the cream mixing into the coffee? That's us. Ephemeral patterns of complexity, riding a wave of increasing entropy from simple beginnings to a simple end. We should enjoy the ride. ~ Sean Carroll

Our actual universe evolves to empty space. ~ Sean Carroll

Albert Szent-Györgyi, a Hungarian physiologist who won the Nobel Prize in 1937 for the discovery of vitamin C, once offered the opinion that "life is nothing but an electron looking for a place to rest. ~ Sean Carroll

Life ends, and that's part of what makes it special. What exists is here, in front of us, what we can see and touch and affect. Our lives are not dress rehearsals in which we plan and are tested in anticipation of the real show to come. This is it, the only performance we're going to get to give, and it is what we make of it. ~ Sean Carroll

The universe is not a miracle. It simply is, unguided and unsustained, manifesting the patterns of nature with scrupulous regularity. Over billions of years it has evolved naturally, from a state of low entropy toward increasing complexity, and it will eventually wind down to a featureless equilibrium. We are the miracle, we human beings. Not a break-the-laws-of-physics kind of miracle; a miracle in that it is wondrous and amazing how such complex, aware, creative, caring creatures could have arisen in perfect accordance with those laws. Our lives are finite, unpredictable, and immeasurably precious. Our emergence has brought meaning and mattering into the world. ~ Sean Carroll

Where misunderstanding dwells, misuse will not be far behind. No theory in the history of science has been more misused and abused by cranks and charlatans - and misunderstood by people struggling in good faith with difficult ideas - than quantum mechanics. ~ Sean Carroll

The world keeps happening, in accordance with its rules; it's up to us to make sense of it and give it value. ~ Sean Carroll

The strength of the electromagnetic interaction, for example, is fixed by a number called the "fine-structure constant," a famous quantity in physics that is numerically close to 1/137. ~ Sean Carroll

(The neutron is a bit of a drama queen.) ~ Sean Carroll

If everything in the universe evolves toward increasing disorder, it must have started out in an exquisitely ordered arrangement. This whole chain of logic, purporting to explain why you can't turn an omelet into an egg, apparently rests on a deep assumption about the very beginning of the universe. It was in a state of very low entropy, very high order. Why did our part of the universe pass though a period of such low entropy? ~ Sean Carroll

Each day, the moon's gravitational field tugs at the earth as it rotates underneath. At CERN, this tiny stress caused the total length of the LEP tunnel to stretch and contract by about a millimeter (one-twenty-fifth of an inch) every day. Not such a big deal in a seventeen-mile-long beam pipe, but enough to cause a tiny fluctuation in the energy of the electrons and positrons - one that was easily detectable by the high-precision instruments. After some initial puzzlement at the daily energy variations, the CERN physicists quickly figured out what was going on. ~ Sean Carroll

The most famous story about gravity involves Isaac Newton and an apple that supposedly fell on his head, inspiring him to concoct his theory of universal gravitation. (It's mostly famous because Newton himself couldn't stop telling it later in life, in an unnecessary attempt to add some extra juice to his reputation as a genius.) ~ Sean Carroll

The world is not magic - and that's the most magical thing about it. ~ Sean Carroll

In 1965, physicist Richard Feynman opined, "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics," and the sentiment is equally applicable today. ~ Sean Carroll

A hundred quintillion googols! ~ Sean Carroll

Human beings are not nearly as coolly rational as we like to think we are. Having set up comfortable planets of belief, we become resistant to altering them, and develop cognitive biases that prevent us from seeing the world with perfect clarity. We aspire to be perfect Bayesian abductors, impartially reasoning to the best explanation - but most often we take new data and squeeze it to fit with our preconceptions. ~ Sean Carroll

One is our tendency to give higher credences to propositions that we want to be true. This can show up at a very personal level, as what's known as self-serving bias: ~ Sean Carroll

The behavior of temperature and heat and so forth can certainly be understood in terms of atoms: That's the subject known as "statistical mechanics." But it can equally well be understood without knowing anything whatsoever about atoms: That's the phenomenological approach we've been discussing, known as "thermodynamics." It is a common occurrence in physics that in complex, macroscopic systems, regular patterns emerge dynamically from underlying microscopic rules. Despite the way it is sometimes portrayed, there is no competition between fundamental physics and the study of emergent phenomena; both are fascinating and crucially important to our understanding of nature. ~ Sean Carroll

But recently I have learned from discussions with a variety of scientists and other non-philosophers (e.g., the scientists participating with me in the Sean Carroll workshop on the future of naturalism) that they lean the other way: free will, in their view, is obviously incompatible with naturalism, with determinism, and very likely incoherent against any background, so they cheerfully insist that of course they don't have free will, couldn't have free will, but so what? It has nothing to do with morality or the meaning of life. Their advice to me at the symposium was simple: recast my pressing question as whether naturalism (materialism, determinism, science...) has any implications for what we may call moral competence. For instance, does neuroscience show that we cannot be responsible for our choices, cannot justifiably be praised or blamed, rewarded or punished? Abandon the term 'free will' to the libertarians and other incompatibilists, who can pursue their fantasies untroubled. Note that this is not a dismissal of the important issues; it's a proposal about which camp gets to use, and define, the term. I am beginning to appreciate the benefits of discarding the term 'free will' altogether, but that course too involves a lot of heavy lifting, if one is to avoid being misunderstood. ~ Daniel C. Dennett

Is time real? ... In one sense, it's a silly question. The "reality" of something is only an interesting issue if its a well-defined concept whose actual existence is in question, like Bigfoot or supersymmetry. For concepts like "time," which are unambiguously part of a useful vocabulary we have for describing the world, talking about "reality" is just a bit of harmless gassing. They may be emergent or fundamental, but they're definitely there. ~ Sean Carroll

When society puts some small fraction of its wealth into asking and answering big questions, it reminds us all of the curiosity we have about our universe. And that leads to all sorts of good places. ~ Sean Carroll

The physical notion of determinism is different from destiny or fate in a subtle but crucial way: because Laplace's Demon doesn't actually exist, the future may be determined by the present, but literally nobody knows what it will be. ~ Sean Carroll

STUDYING TIME MACHINES IN FLATLAND ~ Sean Carroll

The result is a complete fiasco. Our simple estimate of what the vacuum energy should be comes out to about 10105 joules per cubic centimeter. That's a lot of vacuum energy. What we actually observe is about 10-15 joules per cubic centimeter. So our estimate is larger than the experimental value by a factor of 10120 - a 1 followed by 120 zeroes. Not something we can attribute to experimental error. This has been called the biggest disagreement between theoretical expectation and experimental reality in all of science. ~ Sean Carroll

It's possible that we are being watched and judged by a race of super-intelligent aliens, who will think badly of us and destroy the Earth if we allow ourselves to be cowed by frivolous lawsuits and don't turn on the LHC. When possibilities become as remote as what we're speaking about here, it's time to take the risks and get on with our lives. ~ Sean Carroll

The idea of "Ten Commandments" is a deeply compelling one. It combines two impulses that are ingrained in our nature as human beings: making lists of ten things, and telling other people how to behave. ~ Sean Carroll

As we understand the world better, the idea that it has a transcendent purpose seems increasingly untenable. ~ Sean Carroll

Life is not a substance, like water or rock; it's a process, like fire or a wave crashing on the shore. It's a process that begins, lasts for a while, and ultimately ends. Long or short, our moments are brief against the expanse of eternity. ~ Sean Carroll

Lederman is also a charismatic personality, famous among his colleagues for his humor and storytelling ability. One of his favorite anecdotes relates the time when, as a graduate student, he arranged to bump into Albert Einstein while walking the grounds at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. The great man listened patiently as the eager youngster explained the particle-physics research he was doing at Columbia, and then said with a smile, That is not interesting. ~ Sean Carroll

(A substantial fraction of the atoms in the body of a typical physicist were once in the form of pizza.) ~ Sean Carroll

The construction of meaning is a fundamentally individual, subjective, creative enterprise, and an intimidating responsibility. ~ Sean Carroll

Science and religion both make claims about the fundamental workings of the universe. Although these claims are not a priori incompatible (we could imagine being brought to religious belief through scientific investigation), I will argue that in practice they diverge. If we believe that the methods of science can be used to discriminate between fundamental pictures of reality, we are led to a strictly materialist conception of the universe. While the details of modern cosmology are not a necessary part of this argument, they provide interesting clues as to how an ultimate picture may be constructed. ~ Sean Carroll

Christopher Savage have calculated that in reasonable models, we expect about ten dark-matter particles to interact with the atoms in a typical human body every year. The effects of every individual interaction are pretty negligible, so don't worry about getting a dark matter stomachache. ~ Sean Carroll

An elegant mechanism emerges: a broken symmetry, hidden from our view by a field pervading space. ~ Sean Carroll

Part of the sting was taken away when the American Physical Society awarded its 2010 Sakurai Prize in theoretical physics to Hagen, Englert, Guralnik, Higgs, Brout, and Kibble - in that order, which seems to have been chosen specifically to make it impossible for anyone to complain. (Anderson might have reasonably complained.) ~ Sean Carroll

If you believe that the atoms that are inside your brain and your body act differently because they are in a living person than if they were in a rock or a crystal, then what you're saying is that the laws of physics are wrong. ~ Sean Carroll

Einstein's paper on the photoelectric effect was the work for which he ultimately won the Nobel Prize. It was published in 1905, and Einstein has another paper in the very same journal where it appeared - his other paper was the one that formulated the special theory of relativity. That's what it was like to be Einstein in 1905; you publish a groundbreaking paper that helps lay the foundation of quantum mechanics, and for which you later win the Nobel Prize, but it's only the second most important paper that you publish in that issue of the journal. ~ Sean Carroll

Historically, nature has been very good at surprising us. ~ Sean Carroll

We are part of the universe that has developed a remarkable ability: We can hold an image of the world in our minds. We are matter contemplating itself. ~ Sean Carroll

Walter Wagner, the man who had gone to court to stop the Large Hadron Collider from beginning operations. A serious charge had been leveled: the LHC was a hazard to the very existence of life on earth. JO: So, roughly speaking, what are the chances the world is going to be destroyed? Is it one in a million, one in a billion? WW: Well, the best we can say right now is about a one-in-two chance. JO: Hold on a second. It's ... fifty-fifty? WW: Yeah, fifty-fifty ... If you have something that can happen, and something that won't necessarily happen, it's going to either happen, or it's going to not happen, and, so, the best guess is one in two. JO: I'm not sure that's how probability works, Walter. ~ Sean Carroll

If an ontology predicts almost nothing it ends up explaining almost nothing, and there's no reason to believe it. ~ Sean Carroll

The interaction of gravity with other forces seems to be able to create order while still making the entropy go up - temporarily, anyway. That is a deep clue to something important about how the universe works; sadly, we aren't yet sure what that clue is telling us. ~ Sean Carroll

This is not a universe that is advancing toward a goal; it is one that is caught in the grip of an unbreakable pattern. ~ Sean Carroll

The trick is to think of life as a process rather than a substance. When a candle is burning, there is a flame that clearly carries energy. When we put the candle out, the energy doesn't "go" anywhere. The candle still contains energy in its atoms and molecules. What happens, instead, is that the process of combustion has ceased. Life is like that: it's not "stuff"; it's a set of things happening. When that process stops, life ends. ~ Sean Carroll

Writing is controlled substance. It acts with the least mediation and strongest effect. ~ Sean Wilsey

In a capitalist society, persons who create capital, like Michael Eisner, are given the staggering rewards. ~ Carroll O'Connor

We swallow our quiet snot together. ~ Sean Kilpatrick

Women must be careful what we say to one another. We are almost all we have. ~ Andrew Sean Greer

Where I come from, all of us wanted to be footballers. We played all the time; that's all we did at school or wherever until it went dark and you couldn't see the ball. ~ Sean Bean

Like all good cult followers, we will gloss over the imperfections of The Quiet Man … Like little blemishes on the faces of those we love, they serve only to increase our affection. ~ Sean Crosson

The egoist ... destroys the universal importance accorded to moral law by showing that life independent of it is possible. Secondly, and even more intolerably to the pious, he manages to do so with shameless enjoyment. ~ John Carroll

Before entering the seminary, I had not encountered the life-changing potential of reading as a source of meaning, as a way of ordering one's inner life, and being rooted in the world. ~ James Carroll

A method of schooling founded by the Italian educator Maria Montessori that emphasizes collaborative, explorative learning, and whose alumni include Google's founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page; Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales; video-game designer Will Wright; Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos; chef Julia Child; and rap impresario Sean Combs. ~ Daniel Coyle

The twelve jurors were all writing very busily on the slates. "What are they doing?" Alice whispered to the Gryphon. "They can't have anything to put down yet, before the trial's begun."
"They're putting down their names," the Gryphon whispered in reply, "for fear they should forget them before the end of the trial. ~ Lewis Carroll

Everything is borrowed. ~ Sean Aeon

The voices didn't join in this time, as she hadn't spoken, but to her surprise, they all thought in chorus." - LEWIS CARROLL, Through the Looking-Glass ~ Connie Willis

A thick stick in one's hand makes people respectful. ~ Lewis Carroll

I don't want to be anybody's prisoner. I want to be a Queen. ~ Lewis Carroll

Indeed, linear extrapolations make no large-scale sense in a universe that has spatial and temporal curvature. ~ Peter J. Carroll

Bards don't believe in goodbyes - we know that the roads we walk are winding, and we generally tend to come back to people and places we've known and been before, and often at just the right time." I smiled. "We'll meet again. ~ Sean Gibson

Sean reaches out between us and takes my wrist. He press his thumb on my pulse. My heartbeat trips and surges against his skin. I'm pinned by his touch, a sort of fearful magic. We stand and stand, and I wait for my pulse against his finger to slow, but it doesn't Finally, he releases my wrist and says, I'll see you on the cliffs tomorrow. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

I got into Taekwondo when I was nine, and I started training Muay Thai and Brazilian Jujitsu later in life. ~ Sean Patrick Flanery

What do you know about this business?' the King said to Alice. 'Nothing,' said Alice. 'Nothing WHATEVER?' persisted the King. 'Nothing whatever,' said Alice. ~ Lewis Carroll

My diet is always terrible, unfortunately. I don't know moderation. ~ Sean Astin

It's easy to gain weight when you're in the studio. ~ Sean Kingston

Normally I'd have given up by now, but he was so cute I decided that he was entitled to be difficult. I mean, I may get distracted sometimes, but I always saved a special space at the back of my mind for Sean, like the Presidential Suit at Ritz Carlton. Throughout the first two years of high school, I let him stay there in peace, undisturbed by my meaningless flings which came and went in the hotel lobby. ~ Rainbowbrook

I spend a fair chunk of time in Los Angeles, and after about ten days of warmth and unbroken clear skies, you start to yearn for a bit of good old British gloom and rain! ~ Sean Bean

The doorbell rang, and I assumed it was Fran and Roger having come back because
they had forgotten something. I took my time, lacing my boots, and the buzzer became more impatient.
"I'm coming, shithead!" I yelled. Yes, I should have known better. For of course, it was not Roger or Fran. I threw open the door to find Declan Tyler standing there, looking half-insulted and half-amused.
"Got a pet name for me already?" he asked. ~ Sean Kennedy

My mother was always working for a job, so I guess I was always trained that I should have multiple jobs, multiple aspirations. And I remember she had multiple aspirations, always hearing about her dreams and things she did in the past and things she wanted to do. ~ Sean Combs

I am an example of a person who got zeroed into a philosophy early. ~ Pete Carroll

Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, lying down on one side, to look through into the garden with one eye; but to get through was more hopeless ~ Lewis Carroll

I'm only thankful that I had her as long as I did. ~ Sean Waller

My interactions with Sorkin were agonisingly weird. He is by far the weirdest person I have ever met. I had dinner with him and a few hours before I got an e-mail from his assistant saying, 'Sean, this does not need to be a long conversation. Aaron is only going to use it to win your trust.' ~ Sean Parker

Being a Sith was not just about feeling hatred and anger; it was finding a way to focus those feelings toward the attainment of mastery. ~ Sean Williams

Enforcing equality to compensate for the monstrous unfairness of nature destroys liberty. But total liberty leads to various forms of aristocracy and decay. Yet total equality leads to oppressive statism and decay. However, equality of opportunity leads to a vibrantly chaotic and creative meritocracy. ~ Peter J. Carroll

Tut, tut, child!' said the Duchess. 'Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it.' And she squeezed herself up closer to Alice's side as she spoke. ~ Lewis Carroll

You must forgive my cousin, Mr. Carroll; his manners are deplorable."
Colonel Fitzwilliam feigned offence and turned to the butler while addressing his cousin's barb. "Mr. Carroll and I have an understanding, don't we, man? He knows I prefer to walk in unannounced. ~ KaraLynne Mackrory

They're saying that you and Sean Kendrick were burning up the cliffs." Tommy spins me again and grins at me. "And when I say you and Sean Kendrick, I mean you and Sean Kendrick. And by burning, I mean burning. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Humans are replaceable, seconds are not."--Darth Chratis ~ Sean Williams

Suddenly I realized I was standing on the hot wood of the dock, still touching elbows with Adam, staring at the skull-and-crossbones pendant. And when I looked up into his light blue eyes, I saw that he was staring at my neck. No. Down lower.
"What'cha staring at?" I asked.
He cleared his throat. "Tank top or what?" This was his seal of approval, as in, Last day of school or what? or, Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders or what? Hooray! He wasn't Sean, but he was built of the same material. This was a good sign.
I pumped him for more info, to make sure. "What about my tank top?"
"You're wearing it." He looked out across the lake, showing me his profile. His cheek had turned bright red under his tan. I had embarrassed the wrong boy. Damn, it was back to the football T-shirt for me.
No it wasn't, either. I couldn't abandon my plan. I had a fish to catch.
"Look," I told Adam, as if he hadn't already looked. "Sean's leaving at the end of the summer. Yeah, yeah, he'll be back next summer, but I'm afraid I won't be able to compete once he's had a taste of college life and sorority girls. It's now or never, and desperate times call for desperate tank tops."
Adam opened his mouth to say something. I shut him up by raising my hand. Imitating his deep boy-voice, I said, "I don't know why you want to hook up with that jerk." We'd had this conversation whenever we saw each other lately. I said in my normal voice, "I just do, okay? Let me do it, and don't get in ~ Jennifer Echols