I believe the process of going from confusion to understanding is a precious, even emotional, experience that can be the foundation of self-confidence.

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.

...quantum mechanics—the physics of our world—requires that you hold such pedestrian complaints in abeyance.

I've seen children's eyes light up when I tell them about black holes and the Big Bang.

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

A watch worn by a particle of light would not tick at all. Light realizes the dreams of Ponce de Leon and the cosmetics industry: it doesn't age.

Black holes provide theoreticians with an important theoretical laboratory to test ideas. Conditions within a black hole are so extreme, that by analyzing aspects of black holes we see space and time in an exotic environment, one that has shed important, and sometimes perplexing, new light on their fundamental nature.