Who Proposed The Idea of Black Hole?

The black hole is a great source of mystery and inspiration for scientists and writers alike. These are abnormalities in space where the gravity is so strong that not even light, traveling at an enormous speed of 300,000 km/sec, can escape.

How did the idea of black hole come about?

In 1915, more than a hundred years ago, Albert Einstein published a theory of space and time or "spacetime" in which one of the crucial predictions was the bending of light as it approached a massy body, like the sun or a black hole.

That light bent in the presence of mass was confirmed in an experiment led by English astronomer Arthur Eddington in 1919. After this observation, Einstein's general relativity was taken more seriously, as it resurrected the original idea of black hole – which was published way back in 1784!

It was English astronomer John Michell who suggested the existence of a body so big that even light could not escape. As a result, such an object could not be seen directly but its gravitational effects on nearby bodies could be measured.

At that time, the term black hole did not exist. Astronomers instead used the term "dark stars" which is a pretty cool name to describe a stellar body hiding in plain sight.

In 1916, Karl Schwarzschild used Einstein's field equations of general relativity to calculate the radius up to which any object of mass must be "cramped" to make it a black hole. This is called the Schwarzschild radius.

For example: Earth crushed to the size of a pea would turn into a black hole.

Although the theory of general relativity implied the existence of a monstrous space object capable of trapping light in its grasp, Einstein wrote in a paper that a star would "never shrink" to zero size.

When will black hole form

A new development occurred in 1930. Indian physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar calculated how a star could actually shrink or collapse if it "ran out of hydrogen" or other nuclear fuels to burn.

Consequently, there come various stages in the star's life cycle. Upon collapse, the star may become a white dwarf - like our sun will - too feeble to burn bright in our skies.

Chandrasekhar predicted that a white dwarf with mass greater than "a limit" will be subject to further gravitational collapse, evolving into a different type of stellar remnant - a denser neutron star.

What would it take to form a black hole then? In 1939, American physicist Robert Oppenheimer produced a paper titled, "On Continued Gravitational Attraction" and in it calculated that a star would have to be at least three times as massive as the sun to become black hole.

Birth of black hole

The paper by Oppenheimer was the key factor in the rejuvenation of astrophysical research in the United States in the 1950s - mainly by John Archibald Wheeler.

In fact, the term black hole was coined in 1967 by Wheeler during a talk he gave at the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies. Not even light could escape from it, it was undetectable - hence, "black" hole.

One also could not tell from the outside what was inside the black hole. This means that the black hole contains a lot of information which is hidden from the outside world and Wheeler called this, "A Black Hole Has No Hair".

But in 1971, English mathematical physicist Roger Penrose described a way for information to be transferred from rotating black hole to an outside particle. Three years later, another method for the same was provided by cosmologist Stephen Hawking, as in Hawking radiation.

At around the same time in America, physicist Kip Thorne, one of Wheeler's doctoral students, developed the general relativistic theory of thin accretion disks around black holes, a flattened band of spinning matter around the event horizon.

Something you may have already seen in artist's impressions of the black hole:

Thorne compiled many theoretical results about the black holes in a 1994 book for non-scientists, titled Black Holes and Time Warps. It was a widely recognized book on the subject and translated into six languages.

Cut to present

The phenomenon of black hole captured the attention of some of the greatest minds in history and continues to surprise us even more in mainstream media.

Most recently, in the 2014 film "Interstellar" by director Christopher Nolan. Physicist Kip Thorne was also closely involved in the making and acted as executive producer.

Interstellar was a huge success - the science fiction movie project not only generated a fortune at the box office but also a new public interest regarding the black holes.

In 2019, the first picture of a black hole in Messier 87 was released based on data from 2017. It was compiled by the event horizon telescope - a collective effort of scientists from over 20 countries made it possible to see the distant space object by converting the entire planet Earth into a giant virtual telescope!

The image of black hole confirmed how lucky we are as a species at this particular time, with the capacity of the human mind to comprehend the universe, to have built all the science and technology to see it in glorious action.

On a fun ending note, black holes have come a long way - from gigantic mass eating monsters in space to the shape of a doughnut!

5 Science Quotes By Robert Oppenheimer

Robert Oppenheimer was an American physicist who is often called the father of the atomic bomb. Despite making significant contributions to the fields of quantum mechanics and astrophysics, Oppenheimer is famously remembered for his role in the Manhattan project.

From an early age, Oppenheimer was interested in arts and sciences. He wrote poetry and enjoyed solving physics problems. In a letter to his bother, dated 14 October 1929 Oppenheimer admitted: "It is occasionally true, that I need physics more than friends."

Oppenheimer is also known as a defender and promoter of science in the post war world. He toured Europe and Asia, giving lectures on the history of science, the role of science in society and the nature of the universe.

Regarding his part in the Los Alamos laboratory, Oppenheimer said: "You cannot stop such a thing if you are a scientist. It is good to find out how the world works. It is good to turn over to mankind the greatest possible power to control the world, and to deal with it according to its lights and its values."

At the same time, Oppenheimer was aware of the increasing political misuse of scientific discoveries, which is why, he joined Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell in establishing the World Academy of Art and Science. It was started to discuss the major concerns of humanity.

Following are five quotes by J. Robert Oppenheimer on science:

1. Science is not everything, but science is very beautiful. (last published words, 1966)

2. There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. (1949)

3. Science is the basis for radically new technological developments. Most people, when they think of science as a good thing, when they think of it as worthy of encouragement, have in mind that the conditions of their life have been altered just by such technology, of which they may be reluctant to be deprived. (1948)

4. It is a profound and necessary truth that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they are found because it was possible to find them.

5. Science starts with a preconception, with common sense. It moves on to observation, is marked by the discovery of paradox, and is then concerned with the correction of preconception. It moves then to further observation and for more refined experiment. (1958)

Oppenheimer was a polymath who obtained a PhD degree aged only 23, under the guidance of physicist Max Born. He served as the director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where Einstein was a resident scholar.

Under his directorship, Oppenheimer brought together the most brilliant minds of his time such as Bohr, Fermi, Dirac, Bethe and Feynman. In 1963, Oppenheimer was recognized by the president of United States with Enrico Fermi award.

A biographical film by Christopher Nolan is scheduled to be released this year, starring actor Cillian Murphy as Robert Oppenheimer. It is based on the book, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Five Quotes By Stephen Hawking On Religion

Stephen Hawking was one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century who made fundamental contributions to the theory of black holes. Hawking is well known to the general public by his record-breaking book A brief history of time, which sold over 25 million copies.

Hawking (1942–2018) was given just a few years to live in his twenties, as he was struck by the paralyzing motor neuron disease in 1963. Not only did he beat the odds, but also revolutionized physics for next half a century.

When Hawking ended his bestselling book with the sentence: If we discover the theory of everything... it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason, for then we would know the mind of God, he raised quite a few eyebrows. Hawking later explained that he had used the word "God" figuratively.

On numerous occasions, Hawking had commented that even if God were to be real, he would be bound by the rules of physics. Therefore, is the idea of an all powerful creator even necessary, Hawking wondered often.

For example, Hawking told New Scientist in 2007: (1) I'm not religious in the normal sense. I believe that the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws.

In 2011, Hawking would go on to say: (2) We are each free to believe what we want and it is my view that the simplest explanation is there is no God. There is probably no heaven, and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that, I am extremely grateful.

And it is true that Hawking lived life to the fullest. His life threatening disease did not hinder his goals and aspirations. Hawking said, I believe that disabled people should concentrate on things that their handicap doesn’t prevent them from doing and not regret those they can’t do.

In an interview to The Guardian, Hawking remarked on the question of death: (3) I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers. That is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.

On the question of creation, Hawking is clear: (4) Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.

It may be a coincidence but Stephen Hawking was born on the same day that Galileo Galilei died in 1642. It was Galileo, the father of modern physics, who laid the foundations of science and religion debate, building upon his inner contradictions as a deeply religious man.

Hawking continued the great legacy more than 300 years later. According to him, there is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority and science, which is based on observation and reason. This is also the view held by such greats as Dirac and Feynman. 

(5) We are just an advanced breed of monkeys—Hawking adds—on a minor planet of a very average star. We are so insignificant that I cannot believe the whole universe exists for our benefit (which is the view that religion has). But we can understand the Universe, and that makes us something very special.

5 Niels Bohr Quotes On Quantum Mechanics

Niels Bohr was a Danish physicist who made pioneering contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which Bohr was recognized with a Nobel Prize in 1922. Bohr was an active participant in the new quantum theory revolution that shook the foundations of classical physics.

Einstein, who was not ready to accept Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, as one of the cornerstones of modern physics, commented: God does not play dice with the universe. Bohr made peace with the uncertainty principle by developing the principle of complementarity.

According to complementarity, particles have certain pairs of interdependent properties that cannot all be observed or measured simultaneously. For example: position and momentum make such a pair.

Bohr regarded complementarity as an essential feature of quantum mechanics. It is said that Bohr replied to Einstein, who preferred the determinism of classical physics over the probabilistic new quantum physics: (1) "Stop telling God what to do."

In 1920, Bohr met Heisenberg for the first time. Bohr said, (2) What is it that we humans depend on? We depend on our words... Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others. But when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections.

Some physicists depended on mathematical analysis to make sense of the quantum world. However, Bohr was not satisfied. (3) Even the mathematical framework helps nothing, I (Bohr) would first like to understand how Nature avoids the contradictions. (1927)

Bohr said further: Our experience in recent years has brought light to the insufficiency of our simple mechanical conceptions and, as a consequence, has shaken the foundation on which the customary interpretation of observation was based.

We can still use the objectifying language of classical physics to make statements about observable facts. But we can say nothing about the atoms themselves.

In the 1927 Solvay conference, Bohr and Einstein went head-to-head on the metaphysical and philosophical implications of quantum mechanics. Two legends, one defending the new-age probabilistic physics and another fighting for classical determinism. At the end, it was Bohr who emerged victorious and successfully established the probabilistic character of quantum measurement.

Niels Bohr wrote in 1934: (4) Isolated material particles are abstractions, their properties being definable and observable only through their interaction with other systems. Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.

In a 1952 conversation with Heisenberg and Pauli in Copenhagen, Bohr quipped: (5) "Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it." This was most likely a reference to Einstein, who not only contributed to the new theory but also immediately taken aback by its bizarre results.

Five Quotes By Paul Dirac On Religion

Paul Dirac was one of the most influential physicists of the 20th century who made pioneering contributions to quantum mechanics. Dirac predicted the existence of anti-matter in 1928 and won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1933.

According to Dirac, (1) God is a mathematician of a very high order and He used very advanced mathematics in constructing the universe. Many believers take this quote as proof that the greatest scientific thinker of the past century is one of their own.

However, it is forgotten that as a devoted physicist Paul Dirac stayed away from religious activity as far as he could. Dirac was well known for being against organized religion as its influence grew politically.

At the same time, Dirac did not identify clearly as an atheist like other physicists as Bohr, Feynman and Hawking, but he described the possibilities for scientifically answering the question of God. Most biographers today would agree that Dirac was an agnostic.

In 1927 Solvay conference, scientists were discussing religious and/or spiritual implications of quantum mechanics, to which Dirac strongly objected, saying: (2) I cannot understand why we are talking about religion. If we are honest—and scientists have to be—we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination.

As a young man, Dirac was upset by dishonesty and self deception in religion. He understood how religion was a political tool as he said: (3) If religion is still being taught, it is by no means because its ideas still convince us, but simply because some of us want to keep the lower classes quiet. Quiet people are much easier to govern than clamorous and dissatisfied ones.

Niels Bohr was impressed by this viewpoint, regarding it as "quite lucid". Werner Heisenberg was tolerant, while Wolfgang Pauli commented: (4) Our friend Dirac has his own religion and its guiding principle is, There is no God and Dirac is his prophet. Everybody present burst into feeble laughter, including Dirac.

In 1963, Dirac wrote for Scientific American that God used advanced mathematics in constructing the universe and as we develop higher and higher mathematics we can hope to understand the universe better.

Dirac mellowed as he grew older but still did not commit himself to any definite view. In 1971, Dirac proposed, (5) if life can start very easily and does not need any divine influence, then I will say that there is no god.

In other words, the discovery of life elsewhere in the universe or creation of life in laboratory would convince Dirac that there is no god. In 1996, a team of scientists discovered evidence for microscopic fossil life in a meteorite from Mars. But more research needs to be done on this.

In the meantime, scientists are looking for earth-like planets or mimicking conditions necessary for the creation of life in laboratory. The possibilities are endless. It is only persistent observation and exploration that will bring us closer to answering the question of God.

7 Life Lessons From 7 Scientists To Inspire You

Michael Faraday: Faraday was a famous English chemist and physicist who could not finish his schooling due to poverty. As a teenager, Faraday self-taught himself while working at a book binding shop. He discovered the laws of electrolysis and electromagnetic induction.

Faraday's pioneering work inspired the likes of Maxwell, Einstein and Tesla. Faraday shows that hard work and self-belief can take you places. That one must be humble and receptive to understand that knowledge is not limited to school books, knowledge is everywhere.

Marie Curie: Two time Nobel Prize winner Madame Curie is best known for the discovery of Radium. Curie lost her mother and her elder sister when she was only 10 years old. Her paternal home was burned to the ground amid war in Poland.

Yet, Curie's tragic childhood did not stop her from becoming a scientist 20 years later. She told her daughters: “Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.”

Albert Einstein: German born physicist Albert Einstein settled in the United States after becoming an American citizen in 1940. As a university professor, Einstein was deeply disturbed by racism in the education system. He decided not to stay quiet about it, expressing publicly:

“The more I feel American, the more it pains me. I can escape the feeling of complicity in it only by speaking out that racism is America’s greatest disease”. Einstein was always known for challenging the norms. As a 15 year old, Einstein clashed with the authorities at his school as he believed that creative thought was lost in a strict rote learning.

Richard Feynman: Feynman was a Rockstar among physicists. He always jumped into an adventure challenging himself and the authority in question. Once Feynman learned Portuguese just to impress his Brazilian colleagues. He played Bongo drums and performed for students with his friend Ralph Leighton.

Feynman drew pictures of contemporary scientists including Dirac, Bethe and painted flowers in spare time. He always had time for hobbies beside solving the mysteries of physics. Feynman openly criticized NASA exposing the safety risks after the challenger disaster. What do you care what other people think? An attitude that Richard Feynman carried till the end of his life and you should too in your adventures in life.

Stephen Hawking: In life, one must be ever ready to face mental as well as physical challenges. Stephen Hawking was a promising student at the prestigious Cambridge university when he suddenly was diagnosed with the motor neuron disease.

The doctors advised Hawking to put his affairs in order as he had only a few more years to live. Despite all the odds, Hawking went on to complete his PhD couple years later, and also revolutionized physics for next half a century. He wrote several best selling books, starred as himself on many popular shows and experienced zero gravity. Stephen Hawking lived life to the fullest.

Isaac Newton: Newton needs no introduction. As the story goes, his genius was unleashed by the falling of an apple. Newton invented the necessary mathematics to explain the dozens of unexplained natural phenomena. He gave the three laws of motion and did pioneering work in optics.

But it is a misconception that Newton did all the work by himself. For one, Newton could not afford the publication of Principia and took the help of noted astronomer Edmund Halley. Secondly, Newton borrowed the idea for calculus from ancient Greek mathematics. Third, Newton built upon the works of Kepler and Galileo and acknowledged this by saying: “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Nikola Tesla: Serbian inventor and engineer Nikola Tesla worked for Edison machine works for over a year. Impressed by Tesla’s ingenuity, Thomas Edison offered to pay a hefty bonus for improving the designs of his DC dynamos, but it turned out to be a joke. Later on, the two inventors would feud over whose electrical system would power the world.

A college dropout who set out to revolutionize how humans consumed electric power, Tesla teaches forgiving and focusing on one’s own work. Work talks. Tesla believed: “The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine.” Today, the entire world runs on alternating current electrical systems.

Five Quotes By Steven Weinberg on Religion

Steven Weinberg (1933–2021) was an American physicist who won the physics Nobel Prize in 1979 for his contribution to the unification of electromagnetism and weak force. This is similar to Maxwell unifying electricity and magnetism in the 19th century.

Weinberg was not only famous as a scientist but also for his writings and talks outside of science. He did important work in philosophy, politics and history. Weinberg gave the following four tips to students to succeed in the sciences:

1. You don't have to know everything
2. Specialize in a developing field
3. Don't be afraid to be wrong
4. Read more of science history

It is well known that Weinberg was an outspoken atheist and against organized religion. He once said: (1) With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

In another interview, when asked whether he believed in God, Weinberg replied assertively: (2) If by God you mean a personality who is concerned about human beings, who did all this out of love for human beings, who watches us and who intervenes, then I would have to say in the first place how do you know, what makes you think so?

According to Weinberg: (3) One of the great achievements of science has been, if not to make it impossible for intelligent people to be religious, then at least to make it possible for them not to be religious. We should not retreat from this accomplishment.

German theoretical physicist Albert Einstein, an agnostic by belief, had once said: The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible. Meaning, one can study the universe and by doing so hope to understand its mysterious workings without having to rely on the supernatural.

Weinberg added to this adage, in one of his books, as he wrote: (4) The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless. Weinberg meant, whatever the universe is about, it sure as heck isn’t about us, as claimed by religion.

Steven Weinberg had also warned that the world needs to wake up from its long nightmare of religious belief. He said: (5) Anything that we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion should be done, and may in fact be our greatest contribution to civilization.

Weinberg enjoyed an illustrious career from Cornell to Princeton and from Berkeley and Harvard to MIT where he thought of the Nobel worthy idea to unify fundamental forces of nature. He never retired and continued teaching physics and astronomy until his death

Five Quotes By Richard Feynman On Politics

Nobel Prize winning American physicist Richard Feynman, known for pioneering the field of quantum electrodynamics, was more famous for his outspokenness. "I learned from my father: have no respect whatsoever for authority," Feynman once said.

Richard never showed admiration for any politician. Given how individualistic and anti-authoritarian Feynman was, if forced to run for President, it would probably be as an independent. Following are Feynman's views on politics.

Governance:

In 1963, Feynman stated during a lecture: I believe in limited government. I believe that government should be limited in many ways, and what I am going to emphasize is only an intellectual thing.

No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated.

Feynman added: Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literary or artistic expression.

According to Richard Feynman, it is the duty of a government to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and development of the human race.

Patriotism:

Feynman played a crucial role on the Rogers Commission, which investigated the 1986 Challenger disaster. He was dying of cancer at the time, but felt it was necessary to use his last productive days on the government project.

Feynman wrote in his report: NASA owes it to the citizens from whom it asks support to be frank, honest, and informative. For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.

Democracy:

Feynman believed democracy to be a scientific type of government. Only in this system, Feynman declared, new ideas can be developed, tried out and tossed away if necessary, with more ideas brought in  — a trial and error system.

Feynman said: Democracy was a result of the fact that science was already showing itself to be a successful venture at the end of the eighteenth century. It was clear to people even then that doubt and discussion were essential to progress.

Deficit:

Feynman joked in 1987: There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it is only a hundred billion. It is less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.

Elections:

Feynman demonstrated why a scientist can never become the president. Suppose two politicians are running for president, and one goes through the farm section and is asked, "What are you going to do about the farm question?" And he knows right away — bang, bang, bang.

The second campaigner goes: "I don't know anything about farming. But it seems to me it must be a very difficult problem, because for twelve, fifteen, twenty years people have been struggling with it. And it must be a hard problem...

…So the way I intend to solve the farm problem is to gather around me a lot of people who know something about it, to look at all the experience that we have had with this problem before, to take a certain amount of time at it, and then to come to some conclusion in a reasonable way about it."

According to Feynman, the second candidate would not get anywhere in America. This is in the attitude of mind of the populace, that they have to have an answer and that a man who gives an answer is better than a man who gives no answer, when in most cases, it is the other way around.

Because there is lack of respect for people who are trying to solve problems, such a candidate can get to nowhere. Whereas, the politician can make tall claims and promises and fool people time and time again. The attitude of the populace is to blame, says Feynman.

Summing up:

Richard Feynman favored democratically elected government and likened it to the scientific method. He envisions a system in which doubt and discussion are not frowned upon. As an independent thinker Feynman is against all kinds of authority — religious, political or scientific.

Why Richard Feynman was an avowed atheist

Richard Feynman was a Nobel Prize winning American physicist who made fundamental contributions to quantum electrodynamics, a theory which explains the interaction between light and matter.

Feynman was more famous as a beloved teacher whose lectures helped a many graduate and undergraduate students discover their love for physics.

Throughout his life, Feynman was openly against the dogmas of faith. Richard asked difficult and sometimes provocative questions in the search of truth. Once Feynman was interrogated if he preferred being called an agnostic instead?


Feynman replied candidly: Agnostic for me would be trying to weasel out and sound a little nicer than I am about this. I call myself an atheist.

Despite being an atheist, Feynman would use the following analogy: One way to understand physics is to think that the gods are playing a great game, let's say a chess game, while we observe from the sidelines.

We do not know what the rules are of the game. But if we watch long enough, we may eventually catch on to a few of the rules. The rules are what we mean by fundamental physics.

Richard Feynman (1918-1988) was born to Lucille Feynman, a homemaker and Melville Feynman, a uniform sales manager. Feynman's parents were both from Jewish families but not religious in the slightest. By youth, Feynman described religion as a culture of faith and science as a culture of doubt. The two were incompatible.

In 1959, Feynman explained why he was an atheist. He said:

It doesn't seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage...

...so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil — which is the view that religion has. The stage is too big for the drama.

Feynman always looked forward to science and religion dialogues. He was all for advocating an atheistic worldview. Following is an excerpt from 1964 lecture at Galileo symposium in Italy:

"The remark which I (Feynman) read somewhere, that science is all right as long as it doesn't attack religion. As long as it doesn't attack religion it need not be paid attention to and nobody has to learn anything. So it can be cut off from society except for its applications, and thus be isolated."

People love science for its results. While ignoring the process of careful reasoning, persistent questioning and investigating. The lack of courage and curiosity create a people who have no reason to want to know. To this, Feynman adds: I suggest, maybe correctly and perhaps wrongly, that we (scientists) are too polite.

Some people wrongly say, according to Feynman, that the laws of physics are God-like. God is always invented to explain those things that you do not understand. When you finally discover how something works, you get some laws which you're taking away from God and you don't need him anymore.

But you need God for the other mysteries, the question of life and death, for instance. God is associated with those things that you do not yet understand. Therefore I (Feynman) don't think that the laws can be considered to be like God because they have been figured out.

If the path of science is that of doubt, uncertainty and not knowing, how can one be clear of one's purpose in life?

Feynman says: Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.

There are many things I (Feynman) don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask "Why are we here?" I might think about it a little bit, and if I can't figure it out then I go on to something else.

But I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose — which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell. Possibly. It doesn't frighten me. Thus, Richard Feynman was a lifelong atheist.

10 Inspiring Quotes From Richard Feynman's Letters

Richard Feynman was a Nobel Prize winning American physicist whose letters have grabbed the attention of media far and wide. They included jokes, anecdotes, puzzles and news for his parents while he worked at institutions across America.

The following 10 quotes by Richard Feynman are extracted from the book titled, Don't you have time to think? edited by his daughter Michelle Feynman. The book, published in April 2005, is a unique collection of Feynman's letters.

1) Letter to mom Lucille Feynman, Oct 1939: Professor Wheeler was called away suddenly last night so I took over his course in mechanics for the day. I spent all last night preparing. It went very nicely and smoothly. It was a good experience - I guess someday I will do a lot of that.

Physicist John Wheeler was Feynman's doctoral advisor. This was probably Feynman's first lecture he gave in the absence of Prof Wheeler, as mentioned. He seems to have enjoyed teaching and wanted to share that feeling with his mother.

2) Tell pop I have made out a time schedule so as to efficiently distribute my time and will follow it quite closely. There are many hours when I haven't marked down just what to do but I do what I feel is most necessary then or what I am most interested in.

Like most students Feynman also struggled to manage time. At the time this was written Feynman was quite early in his twenties. As suggested by his father, Feynman made a time table to achieve maximum level of productivity in a day.

3) 1940: I am listening to a course in physiology, study of life processes, in the biology dept. It is a graduate course. I don't know at all as much as the 3 other fellows in the class but I can understand and follow everything easily.

Just like this, Feynman was led to new adventures in life by his curiosity. In a 1979 interview given to Omni magazine Feynman said: I don't know anything, but I do know that everything is interesting if you go into it deeply enough.

4) Letter to Arline, the love of his life, year 1945: I feel I am a reservoir for your strength. Without you, I would be empty and weak, like I was before I knew you... but your moments of strength make me strong and thus I am able to comfort you with your own strength when you are down.

5) Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible. Letter to J. M. Szabados (November 1965)

6) Letter to Koichi Mano, February 1966: You say you are a nameless man. You are not to your wife and to your child. You will not long remain so to your immediate colleagues if you can answer their simple questions when they come into your office.

You are not nameless to me. Do not remain nameless to yourself — it is too sad a way to be. Know your place in the world and evaluate yourself fairly, not in terms of the naïve ideals of your own youth, nor in terms of what you erroneously imagine your teacher's ideals are.

7) Do not read so much, look about you and think of what you see there. Letter to Ashok Arora, January 1967.

8) The real question of government versus private enterprise is argued on too philosophical and abstract a basis. Theoretically, planning may be good. But nobody has ever figured out the cause of government stupidity — and until they do (and find the cure), all ideal plans will fall into quicksand. 1963 letter to his wife, Gweneth.

9) Tell your son to stop trying to fill your head with science — for to fill your heart with love is enough! Note to the mother of Marcus Chown.

10) Last letter to Arline, written in 1946, after her untimely death due to prolonged tuberculosis: I adore you sweetheart. I find it hard to understand in my mind what it means to love you after you are dead. But I still want to comfort and take care of you — and I want you to love me and care for me.

I want to have problems to discuss with you — I want to do little projects with you. My darling wife, I do adore you. You, dead, are so much better than anyone else alive. I love my wife. My wife is dead. PS: Please excuse my not mailing this but I don't know your new address.