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

Sometimes nature guards her secrets with the unbreakable grip of physical law. Sometimes the true nature of reality beckons from just beyond the horizon.

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

String theory is the most developed theory with the capacity to unite general relativity and quantum mechanics in a consistent manner. I do believe the universe is consistent, and therefore I do believe that general relativity and quantum mechanics should be put together in a manner that makes sense.

That is, you can have nothingness, absolute nothingness for maybe a tiny fraction of a second, if a second can be defined in that arena, but then it falls apart into a something and an anti-something. And that something is then what we call the universe. But can we really understand that or put rigorous mathematics or testable experiments against that? Not yet. So one of the big holy grail of physics is to understand why there is something rather than nothing.

For me it's been very exciting to contribute to the public's understanding of how rich and wondrous science is.

Sometimes attaining the deepest familiarity with a question is our best substitute for actually having the answer.