...things are the way they are in our universe because if they weren't, we wouldn't be here to notice.

Understanding requires insight. Insight must be anchored.

The fact that I don't have any particular need for religion doesn't mean that I have a need to cast religion aside the way some of my colleagues do.

Physics grapples with the largest questions the universe presents. Where did the totality of reality come from? Did time have a beginning?

Over the centuries, monumental upheavals in science have emerged time and again from following the leads set out by mathematics.

In essence, we string theorists have been trying to work out the score of the universe, the harmonies of the universe, the mathematical vibrations that the strings would play. So musical metaphors have been with us in science since the beginning.

We can certainly go further than cats, but why should it be that our brains are somehow so suited to the universe that our brains will be able to understand the deepest workings?