Many different planets are many different distances from their host star; we find ourselves at this distance because if we were closer or farther away, the temperature would be hotter or colder, eliminating liquid water, an essential ingredient for our survival.

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

I think it's too fast to say that all sci-fi ultimately winds up having some place in science. On the other hand, imaginative minds working outside of science as storytellers certainly have come upon ideas that, with the passing decades, have either materialized of come close to materializing.

Science is the process that takes us from confusion to understanding.

The pinpoints of starlight we see with the naked eye are photons that have been streaming toward us for a few years or a few thousand.

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?

When you know the answer you want, it is often all too easy to figure out a way of getting it.