Martin Rees

“It would be sad if the expertise built up during the 40 years of the U.S. and Russian manned programmes were allowed to dissipate. But abandoning the shuttle, and committing to new launch ve...”

“It might seem paradoxical that the biggest scientific instruments of all are needed in order to probe the very smallest things in nature. The micro-world is inherently 'fuzzy' - the sharper...”

“Issues relating to global health and sustainability must stay high on the agenda if we are to cope with an ageing and ever-increasing population, with growing pressure on resources, and with...”

“Some global hazards are insidious. They stem from pressure on energy supplies, food, water and other natural resources. And they will be aggravated as the population rises to a projected nin...”

“The lives of those such as Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein are plainly of interest in their own right, as well as for the light they shed on the way these great scientists worked. But are...”

“As regards my own 'philosophy,' I continue to be inspired by the music, liturgy and architectural tradition of the Anglican Church in which I was brought up. No one can fail to be uplifted b...”

“I have no religious belief myself, but I don't think we should fight about it. In particular, I think that we should not rubbish moderate religious leaders like the Archbishop of Canterbury...”

“The first arrival of earthly life on another celestial body ranks as an epochal event not only for our generation, but in the history of our planet. Neil Armstrong was at the cusp of the Apo...”

“If you take 10,000 people at random, 9,999 have something in common: their interests in business lie on or near the Earth's surface. The odd one out is an astronomer, and I am one of that st...”

“Ever since Darwin, we've been familiar with the stupendous timespans of the evolutionary past. But most people still somehow think we humans are necessarily the culmination of the evolutiona...”

“The atmospheric CO2 concentration is rising - mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels. It's agreed that this build-up will, in itself, induce a long-term warming trend, superimposed on all...”

“During the 20th century, we came to understand that the essence of all substances - their colour, texture, hardness and so forth - is set by their structure, on scales far smaller even than...”

“Everything, however complicated - breaking waves, migrating birds, and tropical forests - is made of atoms and obeys the equations of quantum physics. But even if those equations could be so...”

“Some of the 'aha' insights that scientists strive for may have to await the emergence of post-human intellects.”

“There's now, for the first time, a huge gulf between the artefacts of our everyday life and what even a single expert, let alone the average child, can comprehend. The gadgets that now perva...”

“The bedrock nature of space and time and the unification of cosmos and quantum are surely among science's great 'open frontiers.' These are parts of the intellectual map where we're still gr...”

“A monkey is unaware that atoms exist. Likewise, our brainpower may not stretch to the deepest aspects of reality. The bedrock nature of space and time, and the structure of our entire univer...”

“The challenge of global warming should stimulate a whole raft of manifestly benign innovations - for conserving energy and generating it by 'clean' means (biofuels, innovative renewables, ca...”

“We can trace things back to the earlier stages of the Big Bang, but we still don't know what banged and why it banged. That's a challenge for 21st-century science.”

“When scientists are asked what they are working on, their response is seldom 'Finding the origin of the universe' or 'Seeking to cure cancer.' Usually, they will claim to be tackling a very...”