Einstein was wrong when he said, 'God does not play dice'. Consideration of black holes suggests, not only that God does play dice, but that he sometimes confuses us by throwing them where they can't be seen.
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
"We are all time-travelers, heading into the future at the rate of one second per second."
"One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn't exist....Without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist."
"I have often been asked: What do you think about God? I have said that we cannot know for sure whether God exists or not. But I don't believe in a personal God."
"I believe that we are alone in the universe, or that we are the only intelligent life."
"Some people say I have a chip on my shoulder but it is actually my chin."
British theoretical physicist whose Hawking radiation work and A Brief History of Time (1988) brought black-hole physics to a mass audience while he lived with ALS for 55 years. Closely associated with Roger Penrose (his collaborator on singularity theorems) and Carl Sagan (fellow popularizer who wrote Brief History's foreword). For an intellectual contrast, see William Lane Craig, American philosopher of religion — Craig's Kalam cosmological argument depends on the Big Bang requiring a divine first cause; Hawking's no-boundary proposal was specifically designed to remove the moment that would require one — the cleanest cosmology-vs-natural-theology contrast in modern thought.
Found in 1 providers: gemini
1 source checked
Einstein's phrase meant the universe follows fixed, deterministic rules with no true randomness. Hawking argues the opposite: quantum mechanics proves randomness is real and inescapable. Black holes intensify this further — whatever crosses the event horizon is permanently lost to outside observers. The universe doesn't just embrace chance; it hides the outcomes where no measurement can reach them, making reality more fundamentally unknowable than Einstein ever conceded.
In 1974, Hawking proved black holes emit thermal radiation — a quantum result Einstein's classical relativity never predicted. His career's central mission was unifying quantum mechanics with general relativity, the precise tension this quote captures. Confined to a wheelchair by ALS yet producing transformative physics, Hawking personally understood confronting hidden, uncontrollable outcomes. Publicly correcting Einstein — the towering legend of modern physics — exemplifies his intellectual fearlessness and refusal to treat any authority as beyond challenge.
The 1970s marked quantum mechanics' full scientific triumph, yet Einstein's deterministic worldview remained philosophically compelling to many physicists. Hawking's 1974 black hole radiation paper electrified the field by merging quantum theory with curved spacetime for the first time. Space exploration was expanding humanity's cosmic perspective, and fierce debate raged over whether physical laws were ultimately deterministic. The information paradox Hawking introduced that decade remains one of theoretical physics' defining unsolved problems today.
AI-generated insights based on extensive research and information for context. Factual errors? Email [email protected].
Your cart is empty
