"Ordered complexity is a fortunate product of seemingly random processes."

"Life is our quest to find meaning in an inherently meaningless world."

"Sometimes it’s important to stop trying to fit in and take pride in standing out."

"There's no feeling that can't be generated, at least in theory, by manipulating the levels of different chemicals in the brain."

"Staying alone is the best way to know yourself as you are, and not turn into what others want you to become. Staying alone is the only way to protect your originality."

"Start with any question - however stupid it may sound - and keep asking why. This will lead you down a beautiful path, until you reach a "why" that very few have dared to ask, and the answer to which is not known."

"Not every battle is worth fighting, even if you end up winning."

"Invoking God whenever there is a question we can't answer doesn't seem like the correct strategy to me."

"Most people are content with looking at the sky from their windows; they want a roof above their heads so that they're safe from the sunlight and rain, and people around them so that they don't feel lonely. Some people, however, care more about freedom. They want to fly freely like a bird and look at the sky close-up, even if that means flying alone and getting burnt in sunlight or getting drenched in rain."

"The quest for objective truth is much like grappling in the dark, with only occasional flashes of light. However, the glimpse of the deep and underlying pattern that even these rare flashes reveal make the quest worth it. Obviously, this is a quest that is never-ending, often frustrating and might alienate you from most people. But the reward is in the feeling that instead of other human, you are in dialogue with the universe."

"Seek meaning and you will find it. Seek truth and you will find that there is no meaning."

"Humans on Earth are much like a group of naive, naughty and incorrigible kids left all by themselves in a vast and unexplored territory. Isn’t it extremely natural that there would be mishaps? What else did you expect?"

"Physics is bizarre both when we try to grow bigger and bigger into the cosmos and when we try to grow smaller and smaller into the atom. In fact, the reconciliation of general relativity (the physics of the cosmos) and quantum mechanics (the physics of the atom) remains one of the biggest challenges in physics today. In spite of that, the fact that we have reached from wondering whether the night sky is an overturned bowl with shining dots on its inner side to where we are today is exciting and impressive."

"For me, it’s less about becoming a physicist and more about freely exploring the beauty of physics. Physics has a way of asserting the coherence of the universe and the logical continuity of our experiences, observations and theories across different scales."

"What I usually do is unusual."

"Brilliance is in breaking the rules, not mastering the rules. If you want to become a showpiece that everyone admires but forgets the moment they put their eyes on something else, go ahead and master the rules and become successful in the conventional way. However, if you want to be the one who is hated yet feared, who cannot be forgotten, learn to break the rules. Dogs guarding the gates of the comfortable palace of convention don't bring paradigm changes. Lone wolves exploring the deep forest far away from the palace of convention do."

"Friends are like oxygen; the higher you rise, the lower the oxygen concentration."

"Once you understand that everything is pointless, it's like you have zoomed in on reality and can't zoom out again... Stuck in that view forever... Other people see beautiful pictures, but you see random arrangements of pixels."

"To me, a lack of surprise when talking about fundamental physics signals a lack of genuine curiosity and real passion, not expertise."

"I think it’s neither talent nor effort that separates a genius from an ordinary person. Rather, it’s the inherent dislike for whatever is conventional, and a reckless desire to explore the unknown even at the cost of failing."

"Nihilism is to the theoretical sciences what ethics is to the applied sciences."

"Sometimes, the solution is just to stop thinking and wait."

"It is said that something meaningful takes time. It is not surprising; one would take time to convince oneself that something is meaningful, because deep down we know that everything is meaningless, whether we admit it or not."

"Most of the time we are trying to judge what is true and what is not, we don’t really try to think logically. Instead, consciously or not, we tend to assume what we believe is correct is actually correct and direct most of our effort toward justifying our beliefs. And these beliefs are mostly not formed logically."

"Sometimes I wonder if AI is just taking us back to the beginning. If AI can create art or solve complex problems in seconds, AI might just be showing us how hollow the "problems" we solve using science and the "meaning" we seek through art really are - we invented all those "problems" so that we can be busy solving them and pretend that life is not meaningless and humans are special. But if a statistical machine with no consciousness and no real understanding of art or science can still create outputs of such high quality, maybe the meaning we find in these "human" quests is an illusion. So we are left with two options: either we accept that life is inherently meaningless and these problems are not fundamentally meaningful in the first place (since they don't seem to require human consciousness to be solved), or we accept that AI is (in some sense) conscious too. Either way, we must remove human life from the pedestal of meaning."

"Sometimes I feel we’re not just lost; we’re moving with conviction in the wrong direction, farther from truth. It is not only about forgetting how to think for ourselves, it's also about the way we seem to be thinking collectively."

"There are times you feel there is only a fine line separating the person you idolize from the person you hate. Ultimately, they are all human, and that should be reason enough to be exercise caution."

"If we say life is meaningless, it seems that life could have been meaningful, but is not. The reality is that we have no reason to believe that life could have been objectively meaningful in the first place."

"Friends are like negative feedback amplifiers, they will help you live a happy, stable life but negative feedback never allows you to go beyond the saturation point. Haters and rivals, in my view, give you positive feedback (analogous to oscillators, if you know a bit of electronics). You do something great, they hate on you and push you to do something even greater, and as you keep outdoing yourself, they keep hating you even more, and this goes on. In my view, I won't say I chose the lonely path. When I was young, even I dreamt of being "accepted", of living a normal, happy life. But somehow I was always left out. Today, I really don't care about fitting in the crowd anymore. Rather, I want to stand out from the herd and do some meaningful work. After all, I will be remembered for my works, not my relationships. One day, my entire life will flash like a movie before my eyes; it’s up to me to make sure it's worth watching."

"I was once asked if God agrees to answer just one question of mine, what would I ask. Well, I would ask whether some event (I'm talking about a fundamental event here) which has occurred in reality, is more likely to occur again (since it's a possible event) or less likely (since it has already occurred once)? Now, if something has occurred, you might think that it can occur again, because the conditions favoring this outcome exists. However, we can't be sure that the first occurrence of this event doesn't change these conditions, making a second occurrence of the same event much less likely. I think the answer to this question is crucial to understanding the fundamental nature of reality."

"People don’t care about you, whether you cry or you laugh. So it’s better to laugh and enjoy life your way. Let the world hate you, still keep doing what you love."

"Outside physics, superposition could be a dangerous notion. We often try to escape the responsibility of judging what is right and what is wrong by pushing it into the grey area. Objectively nothing is right or wrong, but at our level every action and decision is effectively objective, in the sense that they have consequences that cannot be ignored. And most of these actions are clearly either right or wrong. Our cowardice to accept that and pick a side - something we call diplomacy, coupled with our ego - something we often call self-respect, makes matters worse for us as a whole."

"I don’t believe in God. I believe in humans - both in their good and their bad. But I don't trust humans. So in the end, I believe in results."

"In life, we should always adopt the mentality of a striker and not a defender. The lone striker is trying to score a goal, and all the defenders are trying to prevent that. A defender has to face only one striker at a time, and a defender does not try to score himself, he just tries to prevent the opponent from scoring. Although both strikers and defenders are crucial on the football pitch, in the game of life, offence is often the best defence."

"You should never wait for permission or external validation to do what you feel is right - even if you may not have enough knowledge, experience or qualification initially. Waiting for permission is just an excuse to not step out of your comfort zone."

"The magic dazzles, but the machine delivers. Behind every magic is discipline grinding in silence."

"I have made many wrong decisions throughout the course of my life, and I do regret that. But I try not to focus too much on it. Humans make mistakes. The person you put your faith in may betray you any day, the choice you impulsively made may prove to be the wrong choice and so on… But whenever I feel regret, I convince myself that it could have been worse, and I have learned from my mistakes, these experiences have toughened me up and I am now better equipped to face the world."

"I don’t believe in God, but rather in a naturalistic worldview. I argue that God is an unnecessary and illogical hypothesis to explain the origin and nature of the universe. God is not only a bad explanation for the universe, but also a bad idea for humanity. In fact, sometimes it seems to me that God is the source of much of the evil, suffering, and injustice in the world. God sounds like the ultimate tyrant, who demands absolute obedience and worship, and threatens eternal punishment for those who disobey or question him. God is the enemy of reason, science, and progress. I think it is time to reject this monstrous fiction and embrace the truth of Nature. It is time to free ourselves from the shackles of religion and live by the light of reason. It is time to be human, and nothing more."

"What’s the point of discovering this and that piece of isolated knowledge unless we can knit it together into a single theory?"

"Nature usually seeks balance. Its usually not this or that, the answer can almost always be found somewhere in the middle. Music is a balance between predictability and unpredictability. It's the unpredictability that makes the drop the best part of a song, but completely unpredictable random noise is not music. And a completely predictable, simple, periodic sound does not qualify as music either."

"Most people say that what drives some people to devote their entire lives to discovering the fundamental truths of the universe is curiosity. But for me, I think it has more to do with the bewilderment at questions like why we exist at all or why are the laws of Nature the way they are? Answering such questions is extremely difficult, if not impossible. But if I’m trying to answer them, I’m kind of justifying my existence. I don’t want to just exist, without knowing - or at least trying to know - why and how I came to be. My very existence seems pointless to me if I don’t know why I exist."

"Whenever you feel down, lost or defeated, the best thing you can do is to lie down under the open skies. You are nothing more than an ordinary mortal. We all are. Existence is transient, but it is beautiful. And it seems to me that a single failure in life doesn’t really take away that beauty."

"I have difficulty believing someone in today's world, especially someone in a position of power, can really care more about justice than about money. I don’t blame them, it's the system that is flawed."

"Much of physics is made up to make the math work out, but physics still is probably the only path that can not only be meaningful, but can also take us as close to objective truth as possible. I find this even more surprising, since meaning and truth are often at odds with each other!"

"There's the famous saying that once you have tasted flight, you will always walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward. This sums up humankind’s fascination with flying. Today, flying is no more a dream. The Wright brothers’ first flight could be done within the fuselage of the Airbus A380. Some would say flying has lost its charm. But every time you are in your seat – gripping your armrest as the plane rolls forward on the runway with the jets roaring and flaps extended – you know that it hasn’t."

"My experience with science has taught me that our life is indeed outside our control. I don’t mean we are puppets in the hands of some supernatural deity. But we mostly operate unconsciously, and based on instincts which are outside our conscious control. So if you love Imagine Dragons very much and are, at this very moment, humming the line "I'm the one at the sail, I'm the master of my sea" from their song Believer, you are technically wrong! Well, okay, you can have a greater control over your life than somebody else, but all the same, there are certain things beyond your control. It's up to you how you steer the boat, but you can't control the pattern of the waves or the wind."

"When I first read the Sherlock Holmes quote that "From a drop of water, a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other," I thought Holmes was overestimating our powers of drawing an inference. But if you think about it, this is precisely how we do science. We had not seen or initially even thought of parallel universes, but just by studying a small portion of our own universe, we have been led to the hypothesis that parallel universes may exist. Just by studying a small portion of our universe, we have successfully discovered truths that we believe apply to the entire universe."

"I think it's very important to consider the ethical aspect of whatever we are developing, and learn not just to build, but to control it. The days when we could have rubbed stones against one another and created fire are over; we are dealing with stuff that's so complex and dangerous today, that we cannot simply play with science and technology like curious children anymore; we need to act like mature adults. At the same time, the way things are progressing and given humanity's resilience and what we have dealt with in the past, it's also true that today we probably have more in common with our ancestors than our descendants, and if we can tip the balance in our favour, we're in for something great! As I keep saying, the future could be exciting, only if we make it so!"

"Instead of holding other people responsible for our hardships, it is psychologically better to hold a uniform law of Nature responsible for it, since the latter doesn’t induce negativity in the mind."

"Everything is data. A reaction, a silence, a choice to act or not - each is a signal. Step back, and what feels personal suddenly dissolves into universal patterns. In the collective, we glimpse emergent order - beyond the control of any single individual."

"Never trust people who have different "friends" to turn to for different purposes; they are simply using you. Select their names from the file of your life and press "Delete"."

"Enmity cannot always be kept at bay if we are together, often staying alone is the answer. It is said that united we stand, divided we fall. But unite with the wrong kind of people, and you fall sooner than you could have possibly imagined."

"It is an interesting question whether the world would end in fire or in ice. Of course, both can be destructive, but personally I relate a little more with fire than with ice. The world may at times be too cold to keep you warm, so you should protect and nurture your fire. Only a strong fire can deal with ice. As long as you remember why you started, it's okay to mess up, feel overwhelmed or restless at times. A fire is never calm. But at the same time, keep producing real results, real output, things they can only dream of. Someone's validation is their work, not what people they've brainwashed think about them. So keep going, and keep burning down ice."

"The primary question of modeling is "how" and not "why." We are first only interested in the question of how to build a model that would reproduce the behavior of a real system. The question of why the system behaves that way comes much later, and what we usually do is study the model by tweaking the parameters and try to gain insights into the behavior of the real system based on the behavior of the model. Often the best way to understand why something is the way it is, is to figure out why it is not (or why it cannot be) some other way."

"To learn, you must begin with the assumption that you know next to nothing. You must be ready to consider any possibility, no matter how wild it may seem. A slight change in perspective can drastically change the realization of whether a possibility is likely or not."

"We constantly need reminders of the fact that we are privileged even to be alive."

"If you really want to solve a problem for the sake of knowing the answer, and not for the sake of getting credited as the one who solved the problem, you should not only work hard on the problem yourself, but also try to spread awareness about and get more people interested in the problem; the more the number of people working on the problem from different perspectives, the more the chances of it getting solved increases. That’s why I think science popularization is extremely important, in addition to individual learning and research."

"Great minds think alike; greater minds think differently and change the norm."

"I like playing with fire; the world's too cold to keep me warm."

"The key to unlocking the secrets of the universe might not lie in devising better experiments and formulating theories based on the results of these experiments. This approach has been remarkably successful in the past, but I think the future of physics belongs to mathematics - the only place where truth and beauty mean the same."

"If you want to contribute really significantly to your field - beyond routine stuff - then I believe simply loving your field is not enough. You also need to actively hate other activities, without projecting your views on anyone of course. Great people don’t become great because of a single choice; behind that choice is a conscious and complete sacrifice of all other possible choices."

"Prevention is not always better than cure. You can only avoid or prevent problems for so long. It’s better to face problems head-on, allow yourself to be broken and rebuild a stronger version of yourself. If you want progress, seek to overcome challenges, not prevent them from occurring."

"It is of utmost importance to popularize science with as much rigor and accuracy as possible. We must be careful not to tamper with the rigour of the subject to make it more accessible to the general public. It is more difficult to unlearn wrong ideas than learn a new idea."

"Science is cold and impersonal, but we humans are emotional. Indeed, I sometimes find myself hoping that I were a supercomputer instead of a human."

"Diplomacy is not about trying to maintain a good relationship with everyone. In diplomacy, you cannot have a fixed goal and work toward it. Since you cannot predict the moves of the other players in the game, all you can do is analyze the different possible outcomes corresponding to the different possible moves of the other players, and the probability of each outcome. This, in fact, is exactly what we do in quantum mechanics: we talk about the possibilities and probabilities of each possibility, corresponding to a particular measurement performed on a quantum system. In general, diplomacy is about building a strategy that leaves you in a relatively better off position regardless of what moves your opponents make. Diplomacy is a non-cooperative game."

"We can't prove everything, but we should believe things worth believing and not think about things not worth believing."

"You are trying very hard to answer a particular question, and then you have a fundamental insight that changes the entire worldview, answers a lot more than this particular question, and gives rise to a thousand new questions. And after a certain point, you really start to see the interconnectedness if it all, and everything kind of falls into place. There is a devilish intellectual satisfaction in uncovering the secrets of the universe. It's like we are playing with the mind of God. That's why I love physics: it's exciting, and it's totally worth it."

"You've to be a little selfish and flexible at times. It's not possible to be successful or do something impactful in the long run without a little manipulation, even if it may not feel right morally."

"Most people spend half their lives looking forward to something, and the other half realizing how pointless it really was. But some choose to walk a path others see as pointless — and spend the rest of their lives discovering truths about life and the universe that the others cannot even comprehend..."

"What is truth? No matter how hard we try, we cannot define truth without relating — directly or indirectly — to something subjective. Truth is something that never changes? Changes with respect to what? Time? What if time is emergent? The only alternative is to employ the method of exclusion and exclude everything that is not truth. Whatever remains after that would be the truth. However, nothing would remain. And that is the only truth we can be comfortably sure of."

"I wonder, if I were to define a system consisting of billions of humans, defining each human with the usual evolutionary traits, and make place for some randomness, and simulate it from the beginning of time, will we, as a civilization, ultimately end up at a better position in any of the simulations? Technically, only complete chaos is stable in time. Any system created with the intention of enforcing law and order will inevitably collapse sooner or later."

"The ultimate power doesn’t rest with science. Science just does its work. And a class of people always find ways to use science to their benefit and to exploit the underprivileged people."

"If by a final theory we mean the simplest possible theory that will explain everything in a single theoretical framework, I think we will discover such a theory in the course of time. I mean, we’re definitely going to discover something - either the thing itself, or at least we’re going to find out where and why exactly we went wrong, and whether we can go any further."

"Mostly, there are two kinds of people in your life you need to worry about: those with good intentions but average intelligence, and those with bad intentions but high intelligence. The former group wastes your time, and the latter group wastes your energy. And time and energy are canonically conjugate variables! There will always be people who make things difficult for you. Make sure you yourself are not one of them."

"In today’s world of breakneck competition, I often feel like I’m losing sight of that ultimate goal that got me started down this path in the first place. The uncertainty in life is appealing, to some extent, but when it comes to the ultimate goal I’m pursuing, or my ideologies and principles, I could honestly do with a bit more certainty. It’s not like I’m not making progress, but am I growing inside? To be honest, I don’t even get the time to ask this question to myself and reflect on it. And no point complaining, I’ve to accept it and move on. That’s the sad reality. I want to explore physics my own way, but society wants me to be a "physicist", in the most conventional sense of the word. At times, it indeed feels like I’m losing sight of the ultimate goal I’ve set for myself, and I can only hope that this is a temporary dip in the path leading to that goal and I still have enough energy left inside me to be able to rise up from this dip in due course of time."

"Physics is not just math, in my opinion. Yes, to make sense of the exciting physics theories you read about in popular science books, and to work on these ideas, you first need to have rigorous mathematical training. But still, physics is more than just mathematics and calculations. Revolutionary physics theories start with some wild idea, some intuition, and then we of course need math to develop the theory."

"Although it is often said collaboration is more important than competition, I think both are necessary to keep a check on the other and ensure steady progress. While mindless competition is not desirable, competition is essential to a certain extent to prove your individual strengths. Strength does not oppose the idea of peace, strength is necessary to ensure peace. As for collaboration, a collaboration can be meaningful and successful only if all the parties involved take it seriously. The major drawback of collaboration is that it makes you dependent on everyone involved. However, of course, it is not possible to work on large scale projects all by yourself."

"I think there are limits to what we can know about the fundamental nature of reality. But, more importantly, we must realize that our journey of uncovering the secrets of Nature, so far, has been a very successful journey. We have learned a lot, and we have been able to admire our ignorance in a better way. That's not a bad thing. We can't know everything, but that doesn't mean our journey has failed. What we have discovered is praiseworthy. And there's still so much more to discover."

"Although symmetry plays such an important role in physics, much of physics is focused on explaining the asymmetry in the universe. If the universe was perfectly symmetric, there would be very little to explain, and physics would not be such a vast and exciting field of study."

"Whenever I start thinking seriously about metaphysics, the first question I ask myself is this: Why is there something rather than nothing? That'd have been most simple: nothing exists. No matter, no consciousness, no laws. But it's not possible that nothing exists. Something must exist. We are here asking these questions. So what is this something? Is our universe the most complex, unpredictable and random system possible? No. Because there are certain laws; there is some order. And life exists. Life needs some order, some stability, some properties that remain constant over an appreciable period of time. Life simply can't exist in a completely random and unpredictable universe. And of course, our universe is not the simplest possible system, for that is nothingness. So, we are somewhere in between the simplest and the most complex forms of existence."

"There’s absolutely no point denying that money is extremely important. Pretending otherwise makes no sense. However, even money can't bring you back from the dead. And this is why I think death is the worst possible punishment; and some people really deserve it, because they don’t care about respect or reputation, and most of the other obstacles in the path to their dream life can be overcome by money."

"It is often overlooked that what we call "convention" is not constant, but evolving. Only those who not only are doing something different, but can also evolve at speeds much faster than what is "convention" at that point of time, can truly claim that they are different and they don’t follow the convention."

"Life is like a game we all have to play. Only thing is: there's a lot at stake in this game; it's not something we casually play with our friends over tea. And it’s best to learn to play this game individually. Life is not a team game. And even if you prefer to view the game of life as a team game, it is always a good idea not to rely too much on the other players."

"Emotions are, to some extent, necessary for survival. For instance, if you don’t get afraid and move away quickly from the middle of the road on seeing an approaching vehicle, you are most likely to perish. Love also has an evolutionary reason. Reproduction is highly essential for the continuation of the human race. And love binds us together and gives the offspring better chances of survival. I don't believe love is anything more than the result of certain chemical reactions in the brain. Love is biology's way of bringing us together to produce more humans. Of course, this is why love is so important to us (at least, most of us) and we continue to set much store by love. But personally, I view love as an unnecessary distraction and a waste of time. Maybe this is my way of rising above the natural instincts and the laws of Nature!"

"A completely happy life without struggle would be boring. And in some people (like me, and in fact I would say in most people), the best results come out when they are depressed, sad, struggling or under pressure. An airplane takes off against the wind."

"Even when you say you are unbiased, you are, in some sense, biased toward unbiasedness. I mean, technically, hating biasness is also a kind of bias."

"Science is not just our quest to understand the fundamental nature of reality, nor just our quest to improve the quality of life through technological advancements, but both. If the toiling masses didn’t feel the need for new technologies, science wouldn’t have evolved; and without the fulfillment of the basic requirements, there would be no question of contemplating the fundamental nature of reality. Theoretical physics wants to understand the fundamental nature of reality, but for that we need the help of technology. And new insights into theoretical physics will pave the way for new technology which will improve the quality of life (but may also do the opposite, in some cases)."

"What I'm really after is non-transience. This is probably why I have a certain disregard for rules and the convention, because they change. But chaos, perfect chaos everywhere, disorder - that doesn't change in its entirety. Maximum disorder or maximum entropy corresponds to an equilibrium state, and a perfect equilibrium will always remain in that state. That's what I'm after!"

"In science, everything is subject to change. No matter how good and revered a theory is, if we find something in contradiction with the theory, we reject it. That clearly isn’t the case with religion. Religious dogmas are unquestionable, they don't change. And also, people bend religion to their wills. They try to - and sometimes manage to - do the same with science. But it is easier to bend religion to your will than to bend science to your will. Alan Turing famously compared science to a differential equation, while religion is a boundary condition. Science is about finding the most general theory that best explains the world around us. We don’t need religion for that, much in the same way we don’t need the boundary conditions to find the general solution to a differential equation. And if we want to solve the equation for a particular case, we need the boundary conditions to get the exact answer. However, if we don’t choose the correct boundary conditions, we won’t get the correct answer. Religion is a wrong boundary condition. Another way to think about this is that religious beliefs limit scientists in their scientific pursuits, just like boundary conditions put restrictions on the solution of a differential equation. Anyway, the point is, I think science and religion are inherently incompatible. You’ve to choose one. There’s no way to unify the two in a sensible manner."

"We have discovered that there is some regularity in the world. For instance, certain experiments always produce the same results, or in other words, they are repeatable. To explain these experiments, we have strived to discover some laws: universal, fundamental laws that would explain a wide range of experiments or phenomena. This is what science does. From Newton’s days to the present, science has built up our view of the universe, using the convenient language of mathematics. Just like green insects living on a tree can camouflage better than red insects and survive, beautiful ideas (that gather a good amount of experimental support) survive in science. A natural selection of ideas has helped us filter incorrect and useless theories and move toward a universal theory."

"I think it's a good idea not to read too much about topics that are subjective in nature, because that can bias your judgment. Rather first think deeply and form your own opinion and then match them with other popular opinions."

"Theory is often found far ahead of experiment because human imagination and intellect is thankfully subject to much fewer constraints than existing experimental facilities and technology."

"Beyond a certain level, all theoretical physicists are left with are choices. No choice is perfect, you just have to choose the option that demands minimal modifications on established physics and still explains some anomaly or new phenomena with minimal external inputs. You need a lot of practice on how to think, being knowledgeable and trained in advanced concepts is necessary, but not sufficient."

"Just because we have something that is better than the standard, we shouldn't be satisfied with that and stop looking for something even better. That is how we push the standards."

"One of the greatest misconceptions about quantum mechanics is that it is the science of only the subatomic world. We often forget that classical mechanics is only a rough approximation of quantum mechanics. Yes, you can derive all of classical mechanics from quantum mechanics."

"The reason I bring up religion versus science in my writings frequently is that this is, in my experience, one of the best ways to engage the general public in scientific discussion."

"Initially, I was interested in consciousness. I was actually in a dilemma whether to pursue physics or neuroscience, but now I'm really happy to see that many prominent physicists worldwide are suggesting that physics and consciousness are related. This reassures me that I'm on the right path. I think it should be possible, in theory, to understand consciousness just by studying its parts using the laws of physics. But I think when a lot of parts interact in complex ways, new kinds of laws apply to the system (not necessarily fundamentally new laws). And only by using these laws can we study consciousness, so we should still try to find these laws, even if reductionism works in theory."

"A lot of people complain that they get depressed when they think about the possibility that life could be meaningless. However, precisely because life doesn't have an inherent and objective meaning, you are actually free to assign your own meaning to your life. You'd not be allowed this freedom if life had some predefined meaning. So I think the best we can do is make wise use of this freedom and try to live subjectively meaningful lives in this meaningless world. Life is objectively meaningless, and maybe that's why it's so beautiful."

"One of the most important skills is distinguishing the authentic and useful information from the noise. Previously, whatever information we could access was already filtered by experts. Now, however, social media and self-publishing has completely changed the scenario. Anyone can publish anything, and if they have money, they can even ensure it reaches a large number of people. And most of these people lack the expertise needed to judge whether the information is authentic or just noise. The filter is still there, but now it has shifted more toward our side. Previously, information was filtered before it reached the common people. Now, however, we get the unfiltered information. And we need to develop the filters and filter the authentic and useful information for ourselves."

"The dream of achieving immortality has been a long lasting dream of humankind. We are born, we spend some years on this Earth, and finally, we die. There has been no change in this inevitable truth. But deep down, we don't really want to live forever. Initially, we are full of enthusiasm and terrified at the prospect of dying. But gradually, we get bored and after a period of time, we actually want to die. For the sake of argument, let's assume you somehow succeed in becoming truly immortal. You can go on enjoying life for as long as you want. But when you do the thing you love the most continuously, the charm wears off. And gradually you'll start to hate the thing you loved doing the most, or at least, not love it with the same intensity. You will also gradually lose the ability to find other things to love. That's when you'd see no point in living any longer. Essentially, we want changes. An unchanging life, even if it is a life full of happiness and satisfaction, is boring."

"The world is not beautiful but staying alive is wonderful."

"Music is a subtle balance between predictability and unpredictability."

"It is actually true that I have a fascination with the idea of death. Of course, I don't want myself or others to die, and I don’t love death just to appear terrifying or cool. I love death because I see death as an agent that enforces fairness in an unfair world. Death treats us all in the exact same way. Before death, we are all the same, regardless of our wealth and societal status. In the end, we are all mortals."

"With our painful limitations, it is hard to be certain of anything after all. We could be dreamers in an entirely different world, or worse, actors in a temporary simulation run by an alien kid for a science exam (who probably failed the exam). Or mere programs in a giant quantum computer, which we call the universe."

"At times, I like to see people as mere subjects of this great psychological experiment of mine. Sometimes when I interact with people, I intentionally behave strangely with them just to see how they react to this, and by registering their reactions I try to form, or verify, my philosophy about human nature. And what I’ve noticed is that a sudden strange behavior on your part often catches your opponent unawares, and they are more likely to let something slip and reveal their true nature."

"The more different the objects you are trying to describe are, the more the amount of information you need to completely describe the objects. That's why physicists often try to prove the equivalence between two apparently different phenomena, and then describe them both using as little information and as elegantly as possible."

"It is said that Newton once compared himself to a boy playing on the seashore diverting himself now and then with a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, completely ignorant about the secrets of the great and boundless ocean before him. For a very long time, we have been doing just that - picking up the special stuff that is easier to study: smoother pebbles or prettier shells from an assortment of ordinary pebbles and shells. That’s alright, we can’t start off with the complex stuff. But still the fact remains that most pebbles are not smooth and most shells are not pretty. Now, I think, we should shift our gaze from the special pebbles and shells to the ordinary ones, and eventually venture farther and farther toward the undiscovered ocean before us."

"Humans have something special that other lower creatures do not: the power to wonder about the big questions. But we should always avoid anthropocentrism and cultivate a sense of humility and wonder in us. Sometimes we need an uncomfortable reminder of the transient nature of our world. The universe started off in the most orderly, low-entropy state. And it is moving toward the most disorderly, high-entropy state. We are just temporary manifestations of complexity, somewhere in between. In the end, nothing will remain of us."

"There are certain "big" questions about the fundamental nature of reality that are not scientific questions at all. These questions can’t ever be definitively answered, because there is no answer. These are not objective, meaningful questions in the first place, so whatever "answer" we come up with is subjective, and in the true sense, meaningless. Although it feels great to think about these philosophical problems, we should be careful not to waste too much time on them and know when to stop."

"The journey of life should, in my opinion, be more like an amusement park ride rather than traveling. We ride for the sake of enjoying the ride, not for any particular destination. Sometimes, we should worry as little as possible about the destination and enjoy the journey. Just live in the present. Enjoy life. Stop thinking about where you'd like to go. Of course, some amount of planning is required in life; we can't just live aimlessly. But the trouble is: most people get too caught up in the plans and forget to live the one life they have."

"The quest of a theory of everything is a quest that may never end, but one that is still worth pursuing. There are several reasons why we may never find a theory of everything, such as the limitations of our observations, the incompleteness of our mathematics, the complexity of our models, the unpredictability of our experiments, and the uncertainty of our interpretations. Also, there may be multiple theories of everything, each valid in a different context, or that there may be no theory of everything at all, but rather a fundamental randomness or indeterminacy in the nature of reality."

"I feel like we should avoid doing things we once used to enjoy and stop trying to relive the old days. This makes us weak. I know it might feel weirdly satisfying, but the best thing to do is to constantly seek new experiences and move on instead of going back to the experiences we had during some good period of our life that we can't get back."

"Every success is built on loads of failures that are not publicized. But I think it's very important to acknowledge the role played by the failures, and at times even take pride in failing... Failing gives you the opportunity for a comeback! Successful people are not successful just because of their talent or hard work. It's because they handled their failures well. I believe it's more important to teach children how to handle failures rather than how to become successful."

"There could be many different explanations that cover all the facts. The real job is to identify the explanation that works best with the least number of assumptions and inputs, and is falsifiable."

"I admit that life is not fair. But I think you will get more if you choose to live."

"If you are forced to experience something you were initially terrified of, you would learn to love it. I think this is a desperate attempt on our part to learn to live with our reality. Often people who were initially oppressed and terrified end up terrifying other people."

"It is almost impossible to maintain something at a constant and unchanging state for an appreciable amount of time. The state of nearly everything tends to change. Change comes naturally. And with change comes uncertainty. Only one thing is certain - uncertainty itself!"

"To me, the "good" people seem like fools; and I would choose "madness" over folly any day, and mind you, they're not the same."

"It's not true that I’ve a lot of courage, it's just that, for some strange reason, I don't feel fear."

"I think free will is an illusion, and human actions are determined by the laws of physics and the physical state of the brain. Quantum mechanics does not imply free will, because even though it introduces randomness and uncertainty at the microscopic level, it does not allow for any conscious control or intervention. And neuroscience shows that human decisions are influenced by subconscious processes and environmental factors that the conscious mind is often unaware of. Well, free will may be a useful and pragmatic concept, but probably not a scientific truth. Free will is a product of human perception and cognition, but it’s important because it serves as a basis for morality, responsibility, and agency."

"Long ago, we believed that some God is responsible for the functioning of the world, and that God is superior to us. With the advent of science, this view was challenged. We started to believe that the world runs according to certain laws, and it is possible for us to discover these laws. The universe is deterministic and orderly. However, with the progress of science, even this view was challenged. The universe is random. And of course, as Neil Tyson has said, the universe is under no obligation to make sense to us. But in the end, the universe is based on deep principles, much of which is unknown to us. The universe, deep down, may indeed be completely deterministic and orderly after all. The apparent randomness could be emergent from this deeper structure."

"Sometimes I feel humans have no place within the laws of physics; consciousness could just be an accident of combination. Occasionally , physics would come up with models that simulate some aspects of consciousness, but I don't think we will understand the full thing like this. Even the laws of physics are not laws etched in eternity, they just describe the behavior of the universe well. And there is no single law describing every aspect of the universe yet. Even the law of increasing entropy, perhaps one of the most universal laws we have, is actually a statistical law. In the end, I see the universe as a system that evolves spontaneously, guided by some optimization principles, but not fully governed by them."

"Happiness really is not the most important thing. Certain illusions can make us feel happy, for instance, but we are not content with illusions. We want to know the truth. And that's the whole point of science."

"You have to make a choice: you want to do something great, and initially face rejections, taunts etc., or you just want to live an ordinary life. The choice is yours. There is no correct or incorrect choice. But you must remember that greatness demands a lot of sacrifices on your part. Some people are okay with that, while it is too much for others."

"We can't understand the inner structure and properties of everything just by looking at them. We need to subject the object of interest to specific and special conditions, then we can gather information about the object from its reaction to these external conditions. For instance, to study the internal structure of solids using the method of X-ray diffraction, we pass light of specific wavelengths through the crystal at specific angles, and obtain a diffraction pattern, from which a lot of information about the structure of the crystal can be inferred. For another instance, in chemical reactions, the presence or absence of certain chemicals can be guessed by subjecting the sample to different reactions and/or processes, like heating, cooling etc. This same approach works for humans. To understand someone's true nature, you need to subject that person to unusual situations and register their reactions. You could, say, behave strangely with them on purpose. The point is that you can accurately guess someone's true nature only by studying their responses to a variety of different situations, especially the unusual situations."

"I am often asked why am I a nihilist? Well, yeah, I do consider myself a nihilist. But before you jump to the conclusion that I'm a depressed guy who thinks nothing meaningfully exists, everything is an illusion and that sort of thing, let me tell you: I am not a nihilist if that's your definition of nihilism. I just believe there is no inherent meaning in life and ultimately our lives are futile, and this only increases my urge to live my life in a way that is meaningful to me. I also believe that some features of the universe are the way they are because of chance, and not due to some divine reason."

"The idea of unification is a fundamental philosophy in physics. For instance, with the discovery of atoms, ice, water, and water vapor have been, in some sense, unified: all three are made up of water molecules arranged in different ways. Today we have some brilliant insights about unifying the strong, weak and electromagnetic forces. But it has been particularly difficult to unify gravity with the quantum-field-theoretic description of the electromagnetic, weak nuclear, and strong nuclear forces. When things are massive as well as tiny, both general relativity and quantum mechanics must be taken into account, but they are incompatible. If we try to unify them, we get infinities and other nonsensical results. We probably need a deeper theory to find out what's really going on."

"There are many things that need to be changed in today’s world. But if I could change just one thing, it would be poverty. So many talented young people can't pursue proper education due to poverty. So many people die due to different diseases because they can’t afford a proper treatment. I would want to see poverty eradicated from the world even if it's the last thing I do."

"Science is both a boon and a curse, and although we are making great advancements in science and technology, there are a lot of things to worry about, like climate change, artificial intelligence, nuclear wars, pandemics... There is always a chance of disaster when we are tampering with really big and deep things about which we understand very little."

"The biggest irony is that the biggest factors that pushed me into physics years back actually have little or no place in your life once you are actually in physics."

"Start as early as possible, because then you can afford to make more mistakes. Mistakes are inevitable and not always in your control."

"It shouldn't matter to a great extent whether you're winning or losing. Winning or losing depends on what goals you have set for yourself. As long as you are learning and improving and enjoying the process, you are a winner."

"Language is a human construct, and it is foolish to assume that language is capable of describing every fundamental truth of the universe."

"Mental health is probably one of the most serious issues today. Only someone with a mental illness understands what it's like to be a person with a mental illness, but there are a lot of people doing whatever the hell they want and blaming it on their mental health. They’re using mental health as an excuse. This is outrageous. It’s important to realize who’s really out of control and who’s faking it. Although I am completely clueless how this can actually be done. Think about it."

"Our science describes the world from a third person perspective. We know how inanimate objects work and everything, but conventionally science has ignored the fact that it is through our consciousness that we perceive everything."

"It seems that the future of theoretical physics is either dead, or something we cannot even imagine... I would like to think it's the latter."

"I think the future is exciting, and has lots of wonder in store for us. At this point of time, we may have more in common with our ancestors than our descendants. Of course, the future is, at the same time, uncertain and frightening; but it has always been so."

"I am an agnostic, and I also consider spending too much time on the question "Does God exist?" a waste of time. It will lead us nowhere. And the question is not well defined. What do we mean by God? Discussing God means getting lost in metaphysical speculation. In general, I believe that we don't need to invoke God to explain the universe. Either we will understand it fully in the course of time, or at least we will understand the fundamental principles on which it is based (even if we can't calculate every detail and every feature of it from this knowledge) or maybe there will always be some questions we won't ever be able to answer. It's foolish to assume that we can understand everything about the vast universe, although we have uncovered quite a lot. But I don't think it is a good idea to leave whatever we can't explain to God. It is better to just accept that we can't know everything."

"Before the birth of neuroscience, we thought the universe was the greatest mystery. But perhaps another one as great is the brain that sits on your shoulders. Billions of these nerve cells called neurons account for the fact that you are currently reading this. Billions of neurons are connected by synapses in our brain. Special chemicals called neurotransmitters dart between the synapses and give rise to your conscious experience. Synaptic connections form and deform – and you form and forget memories; synaptic connections strengthen as you practice an activity – and you master it to carry it out unconsciously; neural activity becomes rhythmic – and you fall asleep. Isn’t that amazing?"

"Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, in my opinion, is perhaps one of the greatest achievements in science. This may seem to be an overstatement to some, but I'm serious. What I love about this theory is that it explains the world without the need of a creator or designer or God. It explains how spontaneous processes in Nature can give rise to order and complexity and produce the illusion of design."

"I think neither theory nor experiment can reveal the true nature of reality. The theories we formulate are subject to our cognitive and psychological limitations. Experiments, on the other hand, will inevitably mess with reality as it was before the experiment was performed."

"I admit I have a certain disregard for anything conventional, and I also have this natural instinct not to trust people, not even when there’s absolutely no reason to mistrust them. But I think that’s, on the whole, a good strategy. I have no faith in, well, pretty much everything. And I don’t feel sad about that. That’s how it is. The world is absurd, mad and meaningless. And I have ruled out both physical and philosophical suicide. I’m learning to embrace the madness and absurdity."

"You need some serious training to become a scientist. It's not easy. You have to be curious as well as skeptical, you have to be good at spotting potential connections, generalizing concepts, handling equations, thinking radically, analyzing data and stuff like that. But I believe you can do anything you are determined about, as long as you are patient and hard-working."

"Always doing the exact opposite of what most people expect you to do in response to a certain situation isn't really being unpredictable. If you do that always, most people can predict your actions. Instead, try to appear really unpredictable, but act logically. You need to play the game smartly without overdoing things. To establish chaos, you need order in your mind. Method in madness."

"Science just tells you which possibilities actually take place in this world and which do not. Usually, science starts with some basic assumptions and builds a model based on these assumptions in order to explain, within the scope of this model, why these possibilities take place, and also makes predictions about the world based on this model when some initial conditions are known. Science, in my opinion, is the best use of our time. Science is not only useful and practical, but also filled with wonders. However, as much as I'd have loved to pretend otherwise, there's no point denying that probably even science won't be able to explain every aspect of the universe."

"The greatest dilemma responsible humans face is perhaps the dilemma between struggling to make the world a better place to live in and just enjoying life. I do realize that in practice it's impossible, or at least not worth the effort, to try to do good to the world, or change the world appreciably. I have one life; I have been given a limited amount of time to think, and I have decided to devote this time to try to find the ultimate truth of the universe; not the trivial and transient truths of society. I know the system is unfair and broken, but in the grand scheme of things, it hardly matters."

"Once you can overcome the fear of death, really overcome it, you essentially become unstoppable."

"In my opinion, time is the most valuable thing we know of. There is no shortage of space in the universe. In context of computation, we can easily increase the storage space of computers without any significant increase in costs. Space can be created, but time can’t. We all have a finite amount of time in this world, and it’s very important to realize this."

"Although it feels like we are free agents, at the end of the day, we are ultimately complex collections of atoms constrained by the laws of physics, stranded in this meaningless world for a short period of time."

"I am used to discouragement and injustice. Sometimes there's nothing to be done except feeling angry and hopeless, and a multitude of emotions try to take control of your mind. The more you learn to ignore your emotions and isolate yourself from the world, the wiser you become as a person. That’s why it's important to keep my emotions under control and maintain an indifferent attitude toward life."

"All you need to do is fly. It's up to you whether you'd rather be a bird or an airplane."

"Some people speak of my success; my failures are too many to count."

"Complexity obviously holds the key to a better understanding of complex systems, which are everywhere around us. It is due to complexity that there are interesting stuff and patterns in the world around us, like consciousness, without which you wouldn’t be reading this right now. With a better understanding of complexity, hopefully physics can break free of the constraints of calculational impasses and extend its reach to areas that are less fundamental. In this way, we can understand not just the astronomical and quantum realms using physics, but everything in between, everything around us."

"Initially, I was not interested in any particular science. I was not interested in anything, to be honest. I used to constantly brood over the commonplaces of existence. Maybe to get out of that constant brooding, I took to pondering over the universe, consciousness, etc. I mean, of course these things are, in some sense, commonplace, but are not well understood, leaving some room for revelations that are not commonplace. This pondering produced an inexplicably pleasant and wonderful effect on my mind – it felt rewarding. But slowly, it became clear to me that I can’t gaze at the night sky for my entire life, hoping for answers. That's when I started exploring physics and soon realized that physics is not just a science that determines the velocity of a falling object or the potential difference across a circuit. It is the most fundamental science, and my philosophy was to apply physics to pretty much everything. I started thinking that perhaps physics has the potential to provide the answers I seek. I am probably no better at physics than the average student, but physics is my passion. I love physics not because I'm exceptionally good at it, but because I think pursuing physics would be the best use of my time."

"Do science to know, not to show."

"Whenever things start going against you, remember that you are writing a story that will one day take the world by storm."

"If you don't love what you're doing, you'll always find excuses to take short breaks from your work. Even if you are ahead of the curve and you think you deserve a short break, harsh as it might sound, the duration of your short break is all your rivals need to outrun you. You must work as hard and as smart as you can, without collapsing. But there's no time for breaks. You must not stop. And yeah, you should not only move fast, but also choose the path that is best suited to you. Both hard work and smart work is necessary. Also, you shouldn't work hard and smart with the intention of getting the job done quickly so that you've more free time, you should work to get the best job done in a short time, so that you've time for more jobs. That should be the mindset."

"For all these years I've been kind of blindly searching for answers to questions that are generally considered profound and important. Now I realize I should've first framed the questions I want the answers to."

"People hating you might be an indication that you're doing great in life, since that makes them feel insecure. People love you only when they don’t see you as a threat to them. In my view, it's more pity disguised as love."

"Sometimes, I've been so worried and depressed that the very idea of bliss is unsettling."

"Not everyone is addicted to drugs; some people are addicted to the idea of becoming great, so much so that don't stop until they actually become great. And it never stops. They keep on pushing their boundaries. After a certain point, it is not the people around them they're competing with, it's just themselves."

"One of the major factors responsible for the pathetic state of the present system is that much of the system is built on trust, we take a lot for granted, and the people who break trust are not punished severely enough. It starts at the personal level, and goes up to the top. The solution is to build a system based entirely on logic - no loopholes and no exceptions."

"If you break the law, the laws are not rewritten; you’re put in prison. However, if the universe breaks the laws of physics, the laws are rewritten; because we are already inside the universe’s prison!"

"It's usually not enough to just work on improving your chances of success, you should also focus on decreasing your opponents' chances of success."

"You'll obviously think highly of yourself if you surround yourself with people below your standard. You'll then lose your urge to grow. Surround yourself with people better than you, and fight like anything to end up better than them."

"Seeking out trouble unnecessarily doesn't prove you have courage. Because bravery does not forgive stupidity. Don't go looking out for trouble; life has enough trouble in store for you. Prepare yourself for that. That's enough."

"I don't expect the universe to make sense to me, but the fact that I don't even get just this world around me bothers me sometimes. And when it does, I tell myself, the world makes sense only if you force it to."

"Sometimes I feel like a lot of things around us just don’t add up. Beyond being unacceptable, they simply don’t make any sense. In fact, sometimes I find it easier to believe we are living in some kind of a simulated world than trying to explain these aspects of the world."

"I have nothing against Artificial Intelligence. In fact, I sometimes feel that a society run by AI will, in some aspects, be better than the present human-run society. I mean, we have had our chance; we should as well give AI a chance. And AI is capable of doing stuff we humans find difficult, and we can easily do stuff that the AI finds difficult, so we, together with AI, can probably work wonders. Yes, AI poses a threat to us humans. But I think that’s not the biggest problem right now. The problem is that everything about AI is controlled by a few powerful people and top companies. The poor and underprivileged people are not really benefited by AI. We need to ensure equal access to technology, and strive to build a world where power is not concentrated in just a few hands."

"You shouldn't feel sorry for people in distress wondering what if this happened to me. If you do feel sorry for them, feel sorry because it happened to them."

"Be ready to face the world, instead of cowering behind a shield of negativity. And if you have to, be ready to lose this game, because you need to win bigger games in the future."

"Although jumping to conclusions is not desirable, sometimes you need to get things done even if you don't know the right course of action. Just do something and if things go wrong, set them right along the way. Life is too short to strive for perfection."

"If you are counting integers, you miss out on the infinitely many rational and irrational numbers in between the integers. That’s not always a problem, maybe you’re working just with integers. But whenever you’re working, you need to keep in mind the scope and limitations of your work."

"At one point of time, I used to think money was not important. There was something noble about not falling for money. But I’ve realized money is important. Yes, money can’t buy happiness, but having money means you’re likely to be happier, no point denying that."

"I kept telling myself it could've been worse until I realized it couldn't anymore. In response to almost any situation, you can convince yourself that it could’ve been worse. And in situations that are beyond your control, this might make you feel better. However, the idea of applying this strategy to every situation sounds more like extremism than optimism or realism."

"Either nothing happened, or else everything happened. Of course, the latter is our only choice, for if nothing really happened, we wouldn't be here pondering this."

"I often hear this question: what’s the ultimate truth? The question actually makes no sense because no truth is ultimate except one, and you can never experience that one truth, so technically, it’s not a truth to you. Imagine you’re on your deathbed. A whirlwind of faces, memories and emotions… you remember the silly reason for which you cried, the trivial reason for which you argued with the one who had your best interests at heart, the stupid reason you were so hard on yourself… and you wonder, what is left at the end? Nothing. And that’s the ultimate truth."

"Although it’s often said that physicists are just like detectives because they investigate the universe, I think it must also be emphasized that the job of a detective is, in general, more difficult than the job of a physicist. This is because physicists investigate the laws of Nature, which, although undoubtedly extremely difficult to determine, are nevertheless objective and probably always remain the same. Crime investigators, on the other hand, deal with human beings who are much more complicated and ever-changing systems always intent on deceiving the detectives. There is a reason why Sherlock Holmes is fiction, but Isaac Newton is not."

"Most of the groundwork of Einstein’s theories was laid down a long time before him. Einstein’s genius is that he challenged the conventional beliefs and connected the dots in the right way to create an entirely new and astonishing picture of the universe."

"To the people who know me, I am famous for being fickle-minded, and when I get interested in something, I dive deep into it, but lose interest eventually and move on to something else. The reason I'm saying this is that some people have wondered whether physics is also just a temporary obsession of mine. Well, the answer is no. I have been interested in physics for the last five years, and never for a single moment did my interest waver. Before these five years, I admit I used to hate physics and math. Well, maybe hate is a strong word: I did well in my physics and math exams and could understand what was being taught to me, but I just didn't care whether a braking car would stop after ten seconds or an image would be formed twenty centimeters from the mirror. At that time I was too caught up in neuroscience and consciousness to admire physics (and math). In fact, if you were to tell my five-years-younger self that he will end up writing a book on physics, he would've laughed his head off. And today, physics is a big part of my life. You never know what life has in store for you."

"All Nature cares about is that the human race evolves. It doesn’t care whether the life of each individual is fair or not. Somewhat like the fact that all we care about is that we survive, not that each cell in our body survives. Does this mean that the stronger ones will always bully the weaker ones? The rich will always exploit the poor? I think the answer is no. Maybe this will not vanish entirely, but this can’t go on indefinitely. Not because Nature or God will intervene. Rather, humans will intervene. Look at history. There have been revolutions. Always. And there will be too."

"In 1900, physicists were scratching their heads over blackbody radiation and ether. By 1925, we had discovered the general theory of relativity and much of quantum mechanics. In comparison, there has been no significant progress in theoretical physics between 2000 and 2025. Of course, overall we have made remarkable progress during this time; for instance, advances in Artificial Intelligence and the discovery of the Higgs boson. However, we have been unable to gain any fundamentally new insight about the fundamental nature of reality. The last significant achievement was the discovery and partial verification of the Standard Model of elementary particles. Since then, theoretical physicists have been engaged in a seemingly futile battle to unify the general relativistic description of gravity with the other three forces of Nature, described by quantum field theory. There have been numerous theories like string theory and loop quantum gravity. However, so far none of these theories have been able to satisfactorily answer all questions or garner enough experimental support to be taken seriously as a scientific theory. Although progress in theoretical physics has stalled in the last few decades, I don’t think that’s because today’s physicists are dumb, it might be because we are reaching the edge of knowledge. The more we progress, the more difficult it becomes to make further progress. But I find the idea that humanity might be at the edge of knowledge incredibly exciting!"

"According to me, there are four levels of understanding. The first level is the "What" level: just a superficial description of a concept. Then there is the "How" level: description of the concept in terms of known ideas. Then we have the "Why" level: an explanation of the concept in a much broader perspective. Finally, the highest level of understanding is the "Why not" level. Achieving this level of understanding involves out-of-the-box thinking from many different perspectives."

"I’d opt for a mind with a few great ideas and the ability to turn them into reality rather than a mind full of ideas without the ability to turn them into reality."

"Sometimes, I don't understand myself. So why on Earth would I expect people to understand me? Yeah, most people don’t understand me, and I couldn’t care less about that."

"I am en route on an airplane of an airline called Life, and my destination is unknown."

"A very good way of studying the evolution of complex systems is to look at the subtle interplay between the systems' energy, entropy and symmetry. These are extremely important players and studying how these parameters are related to one another provide us with new insights into the workings of the universe."

"When things are good, we find it hard to believe things could ever be bad again; and when things are bad, we have trouble believing things would ever be good again."

"I have no trouble believing that consciousness is an emergent phenomenon, and many consciousnesses have emerged from physical matter in the same, objective reality. Oneness might seem to be a very appealing idea, but we don't have enough scientific evidence that supports oneness. I think reality exists objectively, independently of our minds. Yeah, we definitely don't perceive the reality as it is, this reality is bizarre. But its existence doesn't depend on our minds. There's no strong evidence supporting the idea that our minds determine the state of the universe." 

"I don't think we deserve consciousness if we are not trying to figure out what consciousness is, although it's true that if consciousness was simple enough to be understood, we wouldn't be smart enough to understand it."

"The world is moving very fast these days, and writing has somewhat lost its value. Either because the writing becomes outdated or because people hardly have enough time and patience to read it. Also, publishing has become easier in today’s world. This means it has become difficult to find really good material. But I’d like to urge every budding writer to never give up on their dreams and keep writing good stuff. Regardless of what is happening in the publishing industry, good content is always valued by readers."

"Basically, almost everyone around you is trying to make money off you by stimulating your brain to experience certain emotions. And the irony is that they do this to stimulate similar emotions in their own brains."

"New developments in science usually don’t prove that our older theories are incorrect, rather that they are special cases, applicable under some special circumstances, of a more general theory."

"Doing physics is like talking with the universe. Doing mathematics is like talking with the one who designed the universe."

"Philosophy and metaphysics create a world of their own and allow you to explore it, but they never converge to the truth. Science converges to the truth."

"Maybe the poet had something else in mind when he wrote the poem, but we can find other - maybe even better - meanings."

"Nothing in this world excites me anymore, with the possible exception of the fact that science has been able to reveal so much about the bizarre nature of reality and there is still so much more to discover."

"It is hard, if not downright impossible, to tell what is real and what is not with any certainty."

"It’s often said that the more we know, the more we realize how much we don’t yet know. Well, of course that’s true. However, it’s also true that the more we know, the easier it is for us to learn more about that topic. Because what we have learned about it puts constraints on what there is yet to know about it, thus narrowing down the possibilities."

"It is important to realize that there is nothing to lose from investing a reasonable amount of money in scientific research. Even if a theory or an experiment fails to do the thing we originally wanted it to do, we learn a lot in the process, and this information usually comes in handy in other areas of science."

"You may have a Lamborghini, but you can't control the traffic on the road. Having a supercar is not enough to ensure that you go fast, there always are some factors beyond your control."

"I think the universe might be deterministic deep down, and it appears random and probabilistic to us due to our limited knowledge and incomplete understanding of it. The reason I say the universe might be deterministic is that even randomness can be deterministic. There are laws that apply to random systems; random doesn’t mean it can’t be studied or understood. All I mean by deterministic is that the universe functions according to some universal laws."

"Something must always remain; else ultimately nothing will."

"It's definitely a good idea to busy yourself with work and keep your mind off useless and negative things, but you should confront yourself and spend some time with yourself at least once daily."

"I prefer being alone, and I’m perfectly happy with that. If you genuinely feel good alone, that’s alright, you don’t need to force yourself to be extroverted and outgoing. Of course, I’m not asking you to shut yourself up in a room, but there’s nothing wrong in being an introvert." 

"The world doesn’t obey physical laws. Physical laws don't, for instance, cause the apple to fall down. The apple falls because this behavior is in sync with the way our universe evolves; that's the way our universe is. Physical laws do a great job of describing what we see in the world, but nothing more."

"I feel privileged to be alive during such a time in history when we already know so much about our universe, but there's also that thrill of discovering the beautiful unknown. Can't wait to see what happens next in theoretical physics!"

"Research can demand radical revisions to existing theories, or maybe the solution is simple and lurking just around the corner."

"It’s better to stay in the dark and play the game from the dark, simply because it becomes easy for your enemies to spot you if you come out in the light. It's not about courage, it's about cunning."

"The world can only provide you a platform after all. You are the rocket that needs to liftoff from the platform. If you are lucky, you will get a bigger platform than usual. However, if you don't have the fuel within yourself, no matter how big the platform, you won't be able to liftoff."

"Dark matter and dark energy are simply terms we have coined to phenomena which can't be explained at present. It is surely possible that we will discover some deeper theory in the future which would explain these phenomena, or shed light on what problems with our current theories have given rise to the misconception of the existence of these phenomena."

"My interest in physics was mainly sparked by reading popular science books. These books can really be a great source of inspiration, and I loved reading them. Not as demanding as textbooks. And instead of teaching you the old and conventional concepts, these books give you an overview of what’s happening in the field right now. Of course, you need to read textbooks if you want to become a scientist. I just think it’s a good idea to start reading popular science books from a young age to spark your interest in science."

"Almost every time there has been a conflict or contradiction in physics, a fundamentally new idea has settled it."

"If we wait long enough, Nature tries out all possible paths."

"I admit that sometimes it seems like I am winning the war against life, but I’m aware that my castles are built on sand - they can turn into dust any moment."

"I have plans, and not all of them will make you smile."

"I accept that I probably can't get myself out of this mess I've landed in, but what I can do is start enjoying living in this mess."

"Nothing’s fair in today’s world, but if everything was fair, we probably wouldn't exist. In the true sense, chaos is the only thing that’s fair. I am not talking about chaos theory. I am talking about real chaos. A state of complete disorder, from a physics viewpoint. Because a state of complete disorder is supposed to be the same at each point in space and time. I mean, it's a complete disorder. It's not governed by any rule(s). You can’t distinguish a particular region or direction from another region of direction in space, and in its entirety, it doesn’t change with time as well. If you could distinguish between different regions of the system or the states of the system at different times, the implication would be that there is some order, some rule(s) giving rise to the difference. But the problem with order and rules is that they don’t treat every point in space and time equally, which isn’t fair, and hence the difference. Of course, in the context of space and time, there’s nothing "fair" or "unfair." In the context of society, well, chaos would mean some sort of anarchy. Yeah, technically it’s fair. Because everything is in a state of disorder. It treats everyone equally, regardless of their background or status. Order, on the other hand, implies someone or something is in control. The rules always favor the ones who made the rules. But of course, most of us don’t really want anarchy."

"I do not seek to impose my views on anyone, but I hope to inspire curiosity and debate."

"Making sense of the world is no easy feat, especially when we are so good at finding meaningful patterns in things which are actually meaningless, and discarding the obvious, meaningful truth dancing in front of our eyes."

"At times, it feels good to think about the transient nature of existence, and at times it's depressing. But to me, it is more relieving than depressing. It helps me keep mental peace."

"Right now, we have a lot of threads or information in our hands. We are just trying to find the best needle (provided it exists) that can knit a complete theory of the universe using all these threads."

"It's no good having a lot of potential energy if you don't convert it to kinetic energy. Take risks, make mistakes, but never stop. Make sure there is progress. It's not always possible to determine whether the progress is in the right direction, but never choose not to act."

"What physicists essentially do is tweak the parameters in their theories and kind of "make things up" to somehow match our observations of physical phenomena. This is a reality check that many physicists need. In addition to learning the technicalities of our field, I think it's really important to sometimes pause and remind ourselves of the philosophy behind the approach we usually follow (without even realizing it) when doing physics, and question whether this is the only (or the best) way to the truth. We need to ask ourselves whether we want to be mere physicists or seekers of truth? And if we choose the latter path, are we really willing to challenge the status quo and approach physics in an entirely new way? I think the future of physics is exciting, but only if we make it so!"

"Although I like to think of myself as this curious science enthusiast fascinated with the universe and consciousness, I know that a much better and more accurate description would be an ordinary, powerless mortal who is just stranded in this damned world."

"I read somewhere that people's gaze turns us into objects of their world, rather than subjects of our own world. That's indeed relatable. I mean, I sometimes feel like I don't fit into this world. I think I'd be much better off alone. Or at least, I'd like to see society get what is deserves. It's not that I haven't tried to approach all of this in an optimistic and positive manner, but for whatever reasons, I've been utterly disappointed. Society only takes notice of "villains" when their power and influence have blown out of proportion, but don't forget that villains are not born, they are made by society. There are millions of oppressed and repressed people out there who are powerless right now; but one of them will rise to become the next villain."

"Have you ever tried taking the backseat and analyzing all of it from a third person perspective? Most people would say that it is important to always be behind the wheel and to be in control of your own life. I agree. But occasionally, I believe it is equally important to stop thinking of yourself as an active player and analyze the game from the perspective of the referee. Only then can you spot the patterns of the game."

"I think there are two ways to think about your life: a tragedy or a comedy. And I think the latter is probably the better option. I mean, when you think deeply about it, there is something similar about tragedy and comedy. And that life is a tragedy is probably true and relatable to many. But there’s hardly anything you can do thinking life’s a tragedy. On the other hand, if you accept that life is a comedy show and you’re a joker, you transcend all rules and ethics and come to terms with yourself: you're the joker, and life’s the biggest joke."

"It's better to walk your own path alone than waste your time doing what thousands of people have done before, and what thousands of people are blindly doing now. Always prefer being extraordinary alone to being friendly with a bunch of ordinary people. Move on, higher, alone."

"I don't want to speculate whether we are lost in math. Rather, I want to find physics in a better way within the math."

"Friends come and go on their own, enemies are here to stay until you eliminate them, provided they don't eliminate you first. Yeah, that sounds dark. But being dark is the only way you can find light in a dark world."

"Although a particle cannot exert a force on itself, there's a person who changed my life, and that person is myself."

"Dreams don't come true most of the time. Dreams just serve the purpose of persuading us to keep living a meaningless life in pursuit of some meaningless goal, but sooner or later the truth takes over us and we realize the pointlessness of it all."

"The blind pursuit of individual freedom and rights has only made us lose sight of long-term freedom of our civilization as a whole. The escaping nature of today's  generation is evident from their habit of creating big issues out of small things, and finding excuses to avoid facing life. If today's generation was really free, they wouldn't want to escape from reality. Sometimes, we need to disregard our ego; that does not show our weakness, rather the breadth of our perspective and our ability to adapt to different situations."

"There's no point denying that dark days await all of us. But the best we can do is have faith. Things will either work out in our favor or we will learn to live in unfavorable conditions. Even if the clouds don't pass, the Sun will definitely shine brighter!"

"If you ask why deeply enough, you will find that everything you take for granted is based on slippery logic that you can't fully explain. Of course, you don't need to do that to live a normal life. But if you choose to seek the truth, you have to face the consequences of these realizations. Not everybody can afford the truth, most are content with incomplete knowledge or worse, lies. The truth is pretty simple to understand, that's not the difficult part. The difficult part is accepting it."

"I sometimes think God is a criminal, and God's crime is manipulating a static and uniform state of existence to somehow set off a long series of events that led to the creation of the universe, and eventually life on this planet. I see this as a crime because this led to the creation of conscious beings who don't have enough capacity to understand the mysteries of their origin and existence. Like a lock without a key; a problem without a solution. But I'm glad this crime was committed. At least we have something to do with our lives: try and build a key to open this lock and bring God to justice!"

"Nothing really matters in the end."