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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index B > Gregory (Albert) Benford Quotes

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Gregory (Albert) Benford
(30 Jan 1941 - )

American astrophysicist and writer whose scientific career contributes a basis of scientific knowledge that underpins his science fiction works. His first short story appeared in 1965, since followed by many novels. He has also been prolific in nonfiction—both scientific and journalistic.

Science Quotes by Gregory (Albert) Benford (4 quotes)

Astronomy, Benjamin mused, was a lot like a detective story with the clues revealed first, and the actual body only later—if ever.
— Gregory (Albert) Benford
Eater (2000). In Gary Westfahl, Science Fiction Quotations: From the Inner Mind to the Outer Limits (2006), 323.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Body (557)  |  Detective (11)  |  First (1302)  |  Lot (151)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Story (122)

Benford's Law of Controversy: Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available.
— Gregory (Albert) Benford
In novel, Timescape (1992), no page numbering. The reference in the orginal text uses the past tense.
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Availability (10)  |  Available (80)  |  Controversy (30)  |  Information (173)  |  Inverse (7)  |  Inversely Proportional (7)  |  Law (913)  |  Passion (121)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Real (159)

We fondly imagine that evolution drives toward higher intelligence. But eagles would think evolution favored flight, elephants would naturally prefer the importance of great strength. Sharks would feel that swimming was the ultimate desirable trait, and eminent Victorians would be quite convinced that evolution preferred Victorians.
— Gregory (Albert) Benford
Eater (2000). In Gary Westfahl, Science Fiction Quotations: From the Inner Mind to the Outer Limits (2006), 116.
Science quotes on:  |  Desirable (33)  |  Eagle (20)  |  Elephant (35)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Favor (69)  |  Feel (371)  |  Flight (101)  |  Great (1610)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Importance (299)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Shark (11)  |  Strength (139)  |  Swimming (19)  |  Think (1122)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Victorian (6)

Why do the laws that govern [the universe] seem constant in time? One can imagine a Universe in which laws are not truly law-full. Talk of miracle does just this, invoking God to make things work. Physics aims to find the laws instead, and hopes that they will be uniquely constrained, as when Einstein wondered whether God had any choice when He made the Universe.
— Gregory (Albert) Benford
Gregory Benford, in John Brockman, What We Believe But Cannot Prove. In Clifford A. Pickover, Archimedes to Hawking: Laws of Science and the Great Minds Behind Them (2008), 182-183.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Choice (114)  |  Constant (148)  |  Constraint (13)  |  Do (1905)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Find (1014)  |  God (776)  |  Govern (66)  |  Hope (321)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Invoke (7)  |  Law (913)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truly (118)  |  Unique (72)  |  Universe (900)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Work (1402)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
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- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


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