Marcelo Gleiser > Quotes

“As the island of Knowledge grows, so do the shores of our ignorance –the boundary between the known and the unknown. Learning more about the world doesn’t lead to a point closer to a final destination but to more questions and mysteries.”
― Marcelo Gleiser, The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning

“The map of what we call reality is an ever-shifting mosaic of ideas.”
― Marcelo Gleiser, The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning

“Unless you are intellectually numb, you can’t escape the allure of the quantum, the tantalizing possibility that we are immersed in mystery, forever bound within the shores of the Island of Knowledge. Unless you are intellectually numb, you can’t escape the awe-inspiring feeling that the essence of reality is unknowable.”
― Marcelo Gleiser, The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning

“Whereas it (modern science) does say that we are an accident in an indifferent universe, it also says that we are a rare accident and thus not pointless.”
― Marcelo Gleiser

“Science is much better at finding things that exist than at ruling out things that don't.”
― Marcelo Gleiser

“There were no witnesses to what was about to happen. 'Happen' didn't yet exist. Reality was timeless. Space also didn't exist. The distance between two points was immeasurable. The points themselves could be anywhere, hovering and bouncing. Infinity tangled into itself. There was no here and now. Only Being.”
― Marcelo Gleiser, The Dancing Universe: From Creation Myths to the Big Bang

“There is an enormous difference between life and intelligent life.”
― Marcelo Gleiser

“Perfection is too hard a burden to impose on nature.”
― Marcelo Gleiser

“It’s what we don’t know that matters.”
― Marcelo Gleiser, The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning

“Só aqueles que buscam obstinadamente a verdade sabem dos tormentos que enfrentam no caminho... e merecem gozar a glória do triunfo.”
― Marcelo Gleiser, A Harmonia do Mundo

“We’re living in very strange times. The idea of being popular for being outrageous is coming from the leadership,”
― Marcelo Gleiser

“Apenas aqueles que passaram longos anos buscando a verdade, imersos na escuridão da ignorância, podem compreender o júbilo transcendente da descoberta.”
― Marcelo Gleiser, A Harmonia do Mundo

“If large portions of the world remain unseen or inaccessible to us, we must consider the meaning of the word “reality” with great care.”
― Marcelo Gleiser, The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning

“Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the Old One. I, at any rate, am convinced that He is not playing at dice.”
― Marcelo Gleiser, The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning

“The current leading candidates for dark matter are particles predicted to exist from supersymmetric theories, extensions of current particle physics that include a new symmetry of Nature. The reader may recognize the “super” in supersymmetry from superstring theory, a candidate theory for unifying general relativity and quantum mechanics. As of the winter of 2014, no evidence for supersymmetry had been found, despite decades of intense search and the enthusiastic support of many physicists. At this point, it is unclear and somewhat doubtful that supersymmetry is realized in Nature.”
― Marcelo Gleiser, The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning

“We explain the world the way we think about it. There's no way out of our minds.”
― Marcelo Gleiser

“Uma vez criado, o conhecimento não pode ser calado jamais. Sempre haverá aqueles que lutarão para preservá-lo, difundi-lo, movidos por razões nobres ou perversas.”
― Marcelo Gleiser, A Harmonia do Mundo

“Lucretius wrote in The Nature of Things:        Especially since this world is the product of Nature,        the happenstance        Of the seeds of things colliding into each other by pure chance        In every possible way, no aim in view, at random, blind,        Till sooner or later certain atoms suddenly combined        So that they lay the warp to weave the cloth of mighty things:        Of earth, of sea, of sky, of all species of living beings.”
― Marcelo Gleiser, The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning

“Creation, in all its splendor and misery, in all the beauty and ugliness of its myriad forms, is how God manifests His presence in time. Creation is God in time.”
― Marcelo Gleiser, A Tear at the Edge of Creation: A Radical New Vision for Life in an Imperfect Universe

“humana é capaz de desvendar todos os mistérios. Isto é”
― Marcelo Gleiser, À escuta do infinito: Estamos mais perto de Deus?

“bond between humans and Nature is the root of Indigenous cultural identity and moral landscape. Plants and animals are as entitled to the land as humans. People share with animals the need to forage and to hunt, not being above or below them. Indigenous cultures see themselves as belonging, together with all life, to the sacred land. The land doesn’t belong to people; people belong to the land. This moral hierarchy—Nature before people—is essential to how Indigenous cultures relate to the natural environment around them.”
― Marcelo Gleiser, The Dawn of a Mindful Universe: A Manifesto for Humanity's Future – Science and Reason to Preserve Life and Civilization in Crisis

“Healthy science needs a combination of humility and hope: humility to accept the extent of our ignorance and hope that new discoveries will illuminate the current darkness. However, when we are at the edge of knowledge and data is not forthcoming, well-grounded speculation is the only strategy at our disposal. Without imagination science stagnates.”
― Marcelo Gleiser, The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning

“how we try to make sense of the world and of our place in it—it should be obvious that our approach is fundamentally limited in scope. This realization should open doors, not close them, since it makes the search for knowledge an open-ended pursuit, an endless romance with the unknown.”
― Marcelo Gleiser, The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning

“O importante aqui é valorizar o processo, é o querer entender que atribui significado às nossas vidas. A essência fundamental do apetite humano é essa curiosidade pelo saber, qualquer que seja ele. A ciência é apenas um dos canais que utilizamos para conhecer o mundo e também a nossa essência.”
― Marcelo Gleiser, À escuta do infinito: Estamos mais perto de Deus?

“What is the stuff that makes everything that is?” they asked. That this remains the defining question of modern particle physics serves to show that the value of a great question is that it keeps generating answers that, in turn, keep changing as our methods of inquiry change.”
― Marcelo Gleiser, The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning

“One can’t build a skyscraper out of ideas, and one can’t build models without concepts and laws.”
― Marcelo Gleiser

“Que outro motivo justificaria a dedicação de toda uma vida ao estudo dos fenômenos naturais, senão uma profunda veneração pela sua beleza? A ciência vai muito além da sua mera prática. Por trás das fórmulas complicadas, das tabelas de dados experimentais e da linguagem técnica, encontra-se uma pessoa tentando transcender as barreiras imediatas da vida diária, guiada por um insaciável desejo de adquirir um nível mais profundo de conhecimento e de realização própria.”
― Marcelo Gleiser, The Dancing Universe: From Creation Myths to the Big Bang