The grand design

Stephen Hawking & Leonard Mlodinow
Bantam Press 2010

3. What is reality?

p 44
Strict realists often argue that the proof that scientific theories represent reality lies in their success. But different theories can successfully describe the same phenomenon through disparate conceptual frameworks.

p 46

According to model-dependent realism, it is pointless to ask whether a model is real, only whether it agrees with observation.

6. Choosing our universe

p 140
The histories that contribute to the Feynman sum don't have an independent existence, but depend on what is being measured. We create history rather than history creating us.

7. The apparent miracle

p 150
The fact that the earth is closest to the sun at this time [winter]—only 91.5 million miles away, as opposed to around 94.5 million miles away from the sun in early July— has a negligible effect on the temperature compared with the effect of its tilt.

8. The grand design

p 172
There is no model-independent test of reality.

Essays
Marc Girod