Sometimes the probabilities are very close to certainties, but they're never really certainties

Of course the word chaos is used in rather a vague sense by a lot of writers, but in physics it means a particular phenomenon, namely that in a nonlinear system the outcome is often indefinitely, arbitrarily sensitive to tiny changes in the initial condition

In our work, we are always between Scylla and Charybdis; we may fail to abstract enough, and miss important physics, or we may abstract too much and end up with fictitious objects in our models turning into real monsters that devour us.

We are driven by the usual insatiable curiosity of the scientist, and our work is a delightful game.

I have been interested in phenomena involving complexity, diversity and evolution since I was a young boy.

Perhaps we see equations as simple because they are easily expressed in terms of mathematical notation already invented at an earlier stage of development of the science, and thus what appears to us as elegance of description really reflects the interconnectedness of Nature's laws at different levels.

Both biological and cultural diversity are now severely threatened and working for their preservation is a critical task.