Why is there something rather than nothing?

In physics, you don't have to go around making trouble for yourself - nature does it for you.

I went off to college planning to major in math or philosophy-- of course, both those ideas are really the same idea.

Many of my heroes, like Galileo, Maxwell, Newton and, less explicitly, Einstein thought what they were doing was finding out what God is. All of them had this inspiration that if you want to find out what God is, you have to look at his work.

An ordinary mistake is one that leads to a dead end, while a profound mistake is one that leads to progress. Anyone can make an ordinary mistake, but it takes a genius to make a profound mistake.

Why is there something rather than nothing?

If you don't make mistakes, you're not working on hard enough problems. And that's a big mistake.