Far from being accidental details, the properties of nature's basic building blocks are deeply entwined with the fabric of space and time.

My best teachers were not the ones who knew all the answers, but those who were deeply excited by questions they couldn't answer.

All mathematics is is a language that is well tuned, finely honed, to describe patterns; be it patterns in a star, which has five points that are regularly arranged, be it patterns in numbers like 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 that follow very regular progression.

So many galaxies, so many planets out there in the universe circling so many stars... it just feels like there's a very good chance that there is another Earth-like planet out there that is able to support some kind of life similar to what we're familiar with.

When we benefit from CT scanners, M.R.I. devices, pacemakers and arterial stents, we can immediately appreciate how science affects the quality of our lives.

The central idea of string theory is quite straightforward. If you examine any piece of matter ever more finely, at first you'll find molecules, atoms, sub-atomic particles. Probe the smaller particles, you'll find something else, a tiny vibrating filament of energy, a little tiny vibrating string.

To tell you the truth, I've never met anybody who can envision more than three dimensions. There are some who claim they can, and maybe they can; it's hard to say.