Andrew Thomas > Quotes

“We see beauty in simplicity because we can see its underlying efficiency.”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight: The simple link between relativity and quantum mechanics

“I have long contended that consciousness is the way information feels.”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight 9: The Physics Of Consciousness

“as an explosion. Imagine a stick of dynamite standing in a stationary position on a table. Nothing is moving, so the total momentum of”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight 3: The secret of time

“the two forces of electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force were, in fact, the same force behaving in two different ways at our everyday low energies. If it is sufficiently hot enough then the electromagnetic force and the weak force would merge into a single force. This was confirmed in the 1980s in CERN, the European laboratory for particle physics, when they recreated the temperature of the early universe and demonstrated the existence of the so-called electroweak force.”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight: The simple link between relativity and quantum mechanics

“An excellent definition can be found in the book Quantum Enigma by Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner: "Whenever any property of a microscopic object affects a macroscopic object, that property is 'observed' and becomes a physical reality." For example, when a microscopic photon hits the macroscopic screen in the double-slit experiment, then”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight: The simple link between relativity and quantum mechanics

“Leibniz imagined the mind as a large machine, a processing unit, a factory, a mechanism — which seems fair enough. Leibniz imagined walking around a large mill. You would see cogs and levers moving, but, as David Eagleman says: "It would be preposterous to suggest that the mill is thinking or feeling or perceiving. How could a mill fall in love or enjoy a sunset? A mill is just made of pieces and parts. And so it is with the brain, Leibniz asserted. If you could expand the brain to the size of a mill and stroll around inside it, you would only see pieces and parts. When we look inside the brain, we see neurons, synapses, chemical transmitters, electrical activity. We see billions of active, chattering cells. Where are you? Where are your thoughts? Your emotions? To Leibniz, the mind seemed inexplicable by mechanical causes.”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight 9: The Physics Of Consciousness

“To divide all the difficulties under examination into as many parts as possible, and as many as were required to solve them in the best way, and to conduct my thoughts in a given order, beginning with the simplest and most easily understood objects, and gradually ascending, as it were step by step, to the knowledge of the most complex.”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight 9: The Physics Of Consciousness

“So in the MWI, the problematic quantum jump is just transferred from the object under observation to the measurement apparatus. The MWI shuffles the two outcomes off into two different "parallel universes" like a criminal attempting to hide the evidence of a crime, but it is clear that, as far as linearity is concerned, the MWI is no improvement over the existing quantum measurement problem — despite the claims of its advocates. The same cannot be said for environmental decoherence which remains perfectly linear throughout the observation process.”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight: The simple link between relativity and quantum mechanics

“the whole block of spacetime from the start of the universe to the end of the universe exists as one unchanging block. This is called the block universe model.”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight 3: The secret of time

“many experiments which intrigued him. He was particularly interested in the properties of light. By using a spinning colour”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight 3: The secret of time

“So a nuclear reactor is based on a nuclear chain reaction in much the same way as we have seen a nuclear bomb is also based on a nuclear chain reaction.”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden in Plain Sight 8: How to Make an Atomic Bomb

“As the great physicist John Wheeler said: "To my mind there must be, at the bottom of it all, not an equation, but an utterly simple idea. And to me that idea, when we finally discover it, will be so compelling, so inevitable, that we will say to one another: 'Oh, how beautiful. How could it have been otherwise?”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight: The simple link between relativity and quantum mechanics

“We assume the complete physical equivalence of a gravitational field and a corresponding acceleration of the reference system.”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight 6: Why Three Dimensions?

“The Schwarzschild radius of the universe is the huge distance of 1.5 × 1027m (calculated from the mass of 1054kg) — a distance which is larger than the radius of the current observable universe. So the whole mass of the universe is contained within its Schwarzschild radius. This means that, for the universe as a whole, the repulsive effect becomes highly-significant. Gravity would act to expand the universe.”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight 2: The Equation of the Universe

“Quantum mechanics tells us that everything is connected as one object: the universe. And relativity tells us that the universe is the only thing that exists.”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight: The simple link between relativity and quantum mechanics

“Scientific discovery consists of seeing what everyone else has seen, but thinking what no one else has thought.”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight: The simple link between relativity and quantum mechanics

“If a loved one dies, you might take some comfort from the knowledge that this period of time in which your loved one is dead has, in fact, no greater reality than the time when your loved one was alive. According to physics, it is just as valid to consider your loved one as alive as it is to consider them dead!”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight: The simple link between relativity and quantum mechanics

“Three is a natural result for the number of dimensions. It is natural because it is a number close to one. The closer to one, the better, the more in line with our expectations.”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight 6: Why Three Dimensions?

“The process of unification could be equated to a tree, with each theory being a leaf on the end of a twig.”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight: The simple link between relativity and quantum mechanics

“the addition of a fifth dimension has the effect of introducing the electromagnetic field in four-dimensional spacetime.”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight 6: Why Three Dimensions?

“greatest”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight: The simple link between relativity and quantum mechanics

“the fifth dimension is proposed to be circular and microscopic.”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight 6: Why Three Dimensions?

“instead of time defining the behaviour of a clock, the light clock essentially defines time!”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight 3: The secret of time

“The combined speed of any object's motion through space and its motion through time is always precisely equal to the speed of light.”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight 6: Why Three Dimensions?

“Fractals are the geometry of chaos, and they are found throughout Nature.”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight 4: The uncertain universe

“Just like a wine glass breaking, or a car rusting, the entropy of a closed system will always increase with time.”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight: The simple link between relativity and quantum mechanics

“We can see that the Kolmogorov complexity describes the compressibility of the pattern:”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight 6: Why Three Dimensions?

“Bertrand Russell once described mathematical beauty in the following words: "Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty — a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight 6: Why Three Dimensions?

“The clue to unification is the universe itself. "Uni" means "one". The universe is the one thing that exists. It is everything that exists.”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight: The simple link between relativity and quantum mechanics

“If someone was to tell you that the sum of all the numbers was minus one twelfth I suspect you might imagine the person was mildly crazy. Well, this is actually an established mathematical fact: the sum of all the numbers is minus one twelfth (or, in decimals, -0.083).”
― Andrew Thomas, Hidden In Plain Sight 6: Why Three Dimensions?