Newton Lee Quotes

Love may be a grand thing, but goddamn if it doesn't take up more than its fair share of space inside a man.

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.

Or perhaps that's just me assigning subterranean levels to every goddamn breath he takes.

As the world is increasingly interconnected, everyone shares the responsibility of securing cyberspace.

Everyone is using science and technology to enhance or to alter our body chemistry in order to stay healthy and be more in control of our lives. We are all transhumanists to varying degrees.

Direct democracy benefits everyone as long as it does not drown out minority voices.

Whichever form of government that democracy will create in the future, the great American experiment will go down in history as the freest and the bravest in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Every lifelong couple has their own variants of the butterfly dream!

Transhumanism will save democracy from its demise.

Information is power. Disinformation is abuse of power.

Dictatorship of the majority over the minority would be an encroachment on the rights of the individual and their prerogative to personal freedom.

One of the functions of entertainment, I think, is education. - Roy E. Disney

Journalists should be watchdogs, not lapdogs.

The two-way street of Total Information Awareness is the road that leads to a more transparent and complete picture of ourselves, our governments, and our world.

While information is the oxygen of the modern age, disinformation is the carbon monoxide that can poison generations.

Even a large majority of beautiful music, great literature, and wonderful work of arts depicts human suffering, injustice, fears, and unfulfilled desires.

I keep wondering why the Academy decided that they needed a separate category for animated films just at a moment when there are a lot of people who couldn't tell you whether a film is animated or not. - Roy E. Disney

Without collaboration and synergy among various communities and socioeconomic groups, democracy will eventually fail as it “wastes exhausts and murders itself,” in the words of America’s founding father John Adams.

The useful information for the millions outweighs the privacy of the few.

War is legitimized state-sponsored terrorism in a grand scale.

The U.S. government needs to learn from successful private businesses that run an effective and efficient operation in serving their customers and outwitting their competitors.

If we take a small step in extolling peacemakers as much as honoring war heroes, we will be making a giant leap towards peace.

Technological singularity is inevitable given the human nature to discover, create, and change the world that we live in.

Ignorance and apathy will eventually lead to the annihilation of humanity if left unchecked.

J. Robert Oppenheimer observed people’s reaction to the use of nuclear weapons and he said, “A few people laughed. A few people cried. Most people were silent.” If we keep silent and sit on the sidelines instead of speaking up and marching forward, human suffering will continue and inevitably escalate.

Modern humanity with some 5,000 years of recorded history has been experiencing growing pains, with no end in sight. It is high time for humanity to grow up and to transcend itself by embracing transhumanism.

The Transhumanist Party offers the most inclusive ideology for all ethnicities and races, the religious and the atheists, conservatives and liberals, the young and the old regardless of socioeconomic status, gender identity, or any other individual qualities.

While games are fun to play, children should grow up not just being the consumers of technology but also the creators of technology.

Every major technological innovation propels humanity forward to the point of no return.

An open internet is an open platform for debating opposing views. It allows unpopular voices to be heard.

To err is human, whether we are religious, atheist, or agnostic.

All living things are recycled.

Had the early cavemen fought with atomic bombs instead of rocks and cattle bone clubs, the human species would have been extinct eons ago. With great power comes great responsibility.

The dark-matter hypothesis is preferred mostly because the only other possibility—that we are wrong about Newton’s laws, and by extension general relativity—is too scary to contemplate.

The truth is that Percy has always been important to me, long before I fell so hard for him there was an audible crash. It's only lately that his knee bumping mine under a narrow pub table leaves me fumbling for words. A small shift in the gravity between us and suddenly all my stars are out of alignment, planets knocked from their orbits, and I’m left stumbling, without map or heading, through the bewildering territory of being in love with your best friend.

Elon Musk (of Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity), Jeff Bezos (of Amazon), and Reed Hastings (of Netflix) are other great shapers from the business world. In philanthropy, Muhammad Yunus (of Grameen), Geoffrey Canada (of Harlem Children’s Zone), and Wendy Kopp (of Teach for America) come to mind; and in government, Winston Churchill, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Lee Kuan Yew, and Deng Xiaoping. Bill Gates has been a shaper in both business and philanthropy, as was Andrew Carnegie. Mike Bloomberg has been a shaper in business, philanthropy, and government. Einstein, Freud, Darwin, and Newton were giant shapers in the sciences. Christ, Muhammad, and the Buddha were religious shapers. They all had original visions and successfully built them out.

Whatever fortune or misfortune awaits in the subsequent reincarnations, a purgatory by definition does not last forever. We will be forced to either go backward to the Amish way of life devoid of technology or move forward to a transhumanist world embracing technology.

In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, "to be, or not to be, that is the question." In the 21st century, "to code, or not to code, that is the challenge.

The enormous amount of financial resources and creative energy that nations have spent on wars and weapons could have been redirected to curing deadly diseases, feeding the hungry, eliminating poverty, promoting art and culture, investing in renewable clean energy, and solving a host of other important challenges facing humanity.

Had Albert Einstein accepted the Israeli cabinet’s offer to become the country’s President in 1952, the Middle East would have been a very different place today because of Einstein’s commitment to pacifism.

Change was a constant in Walt Disney’s commitment to tell a story well, to bring it to an audience through the technology of the day, and to push that technology so that rather than controlling the story, it enhanced the story and gave it an opportunity to touch people, to speak to each of them individually, to make it believable.

The Transhumanist Party aims to motivate and mobilize both female and male scientists and engineers to take on additional responsibilities as rational politicians. It does not mean replacing democracy with technocracy. It means that our government needs help in making the right policies and investing in science, health, and technology for the improvement of the human condition and the long-term survival of the human race.

So long as Percy and I were together. The world could have been a blank canvas and I still would have been exactly this livid with happiness, just to be with him.

I want him to come lie down with me, fit his body around mine like spoons in a drawer and not ask a thing and not be bothered by the silence.

I just think it's fortunate that Sir Isaac Newton didn't share the sense of humor of a member of the public, because had he done so, he would of been so amused by the simple effects of gravity, that he would of never gotten round making a comprehensive study of it's causes. That's the punchline! 'a comprehensive study of it's courses'! I worked for that! Will you be telling this joke at work? I don't think so! And yes, I am aware that I say this to you while hanging precariously of this art-deco balcony. And I do so deliberately in the hope that I will fall to my death, and that you will learn about the thin line between slap-stick and tragedy.

Percy rests his chin on top of my head, his hands on my shoulders as we too turn our faces to the shore. 'Did you know—' he says. 'Oh, are we playing the did you know game?' 'Did you know this year is not going to be a disaster?' 'I don’t believe it.' 'It is not going to be a disaster,' he repeats overtop of me, 'because it is you and I and the Continent and not even Lockwood or your father can wreck it completely. I promise.' He nudges the side of my head with his nose until I consent to look up at him, then does that tipped-head smile again, and I swear to God it's so adorable I forget my own damn name. 'France on the horizon, Captain,' I say. 'Steel thyself, mate,' he replies.

I look down at his hand and laugh without quite knowing why. “You deserve some sort of reward for putting up with me.” “You’re my reward.” “Shit reward I am.” “Why do you think everyone needs some sort of recompense for being around you?” he says, his voice so gentle I almost start to cry. ... He wraps an arm around me and I can feel the light touch of his hand on the back of my neck, fingers stroking my hair. "You don't owe me sex, you don't owe me anything. I'm with you because I want to be, and if we're together it'll be because we both want to be. And we're going to London together because we want to, and it's going to be a disaster, but that's alright because we'll have each other, and there's no one on this goddamn planet I'd rather be with than you.

Shout at me, I want to tell him. Fight back, because I deserve it. I deserve to be fed all the ways I've made him feel unwanted, slapped, with my own selfishness, But he's Percy, so he doesn't say another cruel word. Even at his worst, he's so much better than me.

And Percy is right there beside me on that beautiful, glowing street and he is just as beautiful and glowing as it is. The stars dust gold leafing on his skin. And we are looking at each other, just looking, and I swear there are whole lifetimes lived in those small, shared seconds.

Shout at me, I want to tell him. Fight back, because I deserve it. I deserve to be fed all the ways I've made him feel unwanted, slapped with my own selfishness, But he's Percy, so he doesn't say another cruel word. Even at his worst, he's so much better than me.

Shout at me, I want to tell him. Fight back, because I deserve it. I deserve to be fed all the ways I've made him feel unwanted, slapped with my own selfishness. But he's Percy, so he doesn't say another cruel word. Even at his worst, he's so much better than me.

The subject of this chapter is string theory, and I begin it with these reflections for two reasons. First, because the main thing that is wrong with string theory, as presently formulated, is that it does not respect the fundamental lesson of general relativity that spacetime is nothing but an evolving system of relationships. Using the terminology I introduced in earlier chapters, string theory is background dependent, while general relativity is background independent. At the same time, string theory is unlikely to be in its final form. Even if, as is quite possible, string theory is ultimately reformulated in a background independent form, history may record that Einstein's view of Newton applies also to the string theorists: when it was necessary to ignore fundamental principle in order to make progress, they had the courage and the judgment to do so.

Newton's law of gravity says that the acceleration of any object as it orbits another is proportional to the mass of the body it is orbiting.......Thus if you know the speed of a body in orbit around a star and its distance from the star, you can measure the mass of that star. The same holds for stars in orbit around the center of their galaxy; by measuring the orbital speeds of the stars, you can measure the distribution of mass in that galaxy.

...you're not the first I've interrupted by mistake. You've not shocked me, and you've not surprised me either." I look up at him too quickly, and my vision swims. He puts a steadying hand on my shoulder. "If you thought I was ignorant as to the nature of your relationship with Mr. Newton, you may need to reexamine your concept of appropriate of physical fondness between friends." I nod, trying to pretend its fine when really my muscles are clenched, and I'm fighting the urge to run. I don't want to have this conversation. I don't know where it's going, but my instincts tell me to scoot away from it. I can feel my shoulders rise, and perhaps he notices for he lets his his hands fall away, and instead, folds them in his lap. Perhaps its only in my own mind, but it feels like a deliberate gesture, as though he's putting his hands away to show he won't raise them against me. "We aren't that obvious," I say, and when Scipio gives me a pointed look I add," I know plenty of lads who are fond without being unchaste. "But its clear you're not those lads." I'm not sure he hears the way my breath hitches for he quickly adds, "which is fine. Who gives a fig for chastity anyways." He laughs at his own joke, glancing over at me like he hoping I might join in. I wonder suddenly if this is what it's meant to be like with a father and a son and a first real love.

There are certain men who are sacrosanct in history; you touch on the truth of them at your peril. These are such men as Socrates and Plato, Pericles and Alexander, Caesar and Augustus, Marcus Aurelius and Trajan, Martel and Charlemagne, Edward the Confessor and William of Falaise, St. Louis and Richard and Tancred, Erasmus and Bacon, Galileo and Newton, Voltaire and Rousseau, Harvey and Darwin, Nelson and Wellington. In America, Penn and Franklin, Jefferson and Jackson and Lee. There are men better than these who are not sacrosanct, who may be challenged freely. But these men may not be. Albert Pike has been elevated to this sacrosanct company, though of course to a minor rank. To challenge his rank is to be overwhelmed by a torrent of abuse, and we challenge him completely. Looks are important to these elevated. Albert Pike looked like Michelangelo's Moses in contrived frontier costume. Who could distrust that big man with the great beard and flowing hair and godly glance? If you dislike the man and the type, then he was pompous, empty, provincial and temporal, dishonest, and murderous. But if you like the man and the type, then he was impressive, untrammeled, a man of the right place and moment, flexible or sophisticated, and firm. These are the two sides of the same handful of coins. He stole (diverted) Indian funds and used them to bribe doubtful Indian leaders. He ordered massacres of women and children (exemplary punitive operations). He lied like a trooper (he was a trooper). He effected assassinations (removal of semi-military obstructions). He forged names to treaties (astute frontier politics). He was part of a weird plot by men of both the North and South to extinguish the Indians whoever should win the war (devotion to the ideal of national growth ) . He personally arranged twelve separate civil wars among the Indians (the removal of the unfit) . After all, those were war years; and he did look like Moses, and perhaps he sounded like him.

The mind calls out for a third theory to unify all of physics, and for a simple reason. Nature is in an obvious sense "unified." The universe we find ourselves in is interconnected, in that everything interacts with everything else. There is no way we can have two theories of nature covering different phenomena, as if one had nothing to do with the other. Any claim for a final theory must be a complete theory of nature. It must encompass all we know. Physics has survived a long time without that unified theory. The reason is that, as far as experiment is concerned, we have been able to divide the world into two realms. In the atomic realm, where quantum physics reigns, we can usually ignore gravity. We can treat space and time much as Newton did-as an unchanging background. The other realm is that of gravitation and cosmology. In that world, we can often ignore quantum phenomena. But this cannot be anything other than a temporary, provisional solution. To go beyond it is the first great unsolved problem in theoretical physics.

The problem is that while quantum theory changed radically the assumptions about the relationship between the observer and the observed, it accepted without alteration Newton’s old answer to the question of what space and time are. Just the opposite happened with Einstein’s general relativity theory, in which the concept of space and time was radically changed, while Newton’s view of the relationship between observer and observed was retained. Each theory seems to be at least partly true, yet each retains assumptions from the old physics that the other contradicts.

Rule 1, by dictating how a quantum system changes in time, plays the same essential role in the theory that Newton’s laws of motion played in pre-quantum physics. Like Newton’s laws, Rule 1 is deterministic. It takes an input state and evolves it to a definite output state at a later time. This means it takes input states which are constructed as superpositions to output states which are similarly constructed from superpositions. Probability plays no role. But measurements, as described by Rule 2, do not evolve superpositions to other superpositions. When you measure some quantity, like pet

...Here, let me see. Stop rubbing it so I can -" He wicks his hand away from his eye just as I lean, and his elbow collides with the side of my face, hard enough that I'm knocked sideways. I try to grab the bedpost, but my hands are so slippery that Islide right off, and crash to the floor, my head connecting painfully with the corner of the drawer I left open. The bottle of oil falls off the edge and shatters into a soupy, amber pool. "What happened! Are you alright?" Percy's got one eye open but blinking frantically, hand extended blindly to me. "I'm fine!" I touch the back of my head, and it comes back damp and red. "No, wait, I'm bleeding." "You're bleeding!?" He yelps. "It's fine! " "It's clearly not if you're bleeding." I can feel a trickle down the back of my neck, and I clap a hand against it, like I can force the blood to stay inside me if I just press tightly enough. "It's fine!" My wrist is wet, and I look just as a drizzle of blood courses down my arm into the crook of my elbow. "God, this is really bleeding!" My vision swims, and when I reach to steady myself I put my hand straight into the oily puddle of lineament, and I crash backward onto the floor. Percy tries to come to my aid, but with one eye closed, he misjudges were he places his foot and steps on me. I screech and he slips and he slips, one leg tangled up in the sheets, and then suddenly the bedroom door bangs opens and there's Scipio. I scream and Percy screams and Scipio lets loud a horrified gurgle, and then Felicity appears behind him in the doorway, claps her hands over her eyes, tries to run with her hands still covered, and slips in one of the dripping puddles we left on the stairs. Her feet go out from under her, and she lands flat on her back at the top of the stairs, hands still valiantly clapped over her eyes, which rather ruins it all.

This unification of forces and motion has a simple consequence. In a particle theory, you can freely add all kinds of forces, so there is nothing to prevent a proliferation of constants describing the workings of each force. But in string theory, there can be only two fundamental constants. One, called the string tension, describes how much energy is contained per unit-length of string. The other, called the string coupling constant, is a number denoting the probability of a string breakdown into two strings, thus giving rise to a force; as it is a probability, it is a simple number, without units. All the other constants in physics must be related to these two numbers. For example, Newton's gravitational constant turns out to be related to the product of their values.

Rule 1, by dictating how a quantum system changes in time, plays the same essential role in the theory that Newton’s laws of motion played in pre-quantum physics. Like Newton’s laws, Rule 1 is deterministic. It takes an input state and evolves it to a definite output state at a later time. This means it takes input states which are constructed as superpositions to output states which are similarly constructed from superpositions. Probability plays no role. But measurements, as described by Rule 2, do not evolve superpositions to other superpositions. When you measure some quantity, like pet preference or position, you get a definite value. And afterward the state is the one corresponding to that definite value. So even if the input state is a superposition of states with definite values of some observable quantity, the output state is not, as it corresponds to just one value. Rule 2 does not tell you what the definite value is; it only predicts probabilities for the different possible outcomes to occur. But these probabilities are not spurious; they are part of what quantum mechanics predicts. Rule 2 is essential, because that is how probabilities enter quantum mechanics. And probabilities are essential in many cases; they are what experimentalists measure. However, quantum mechanics requires that Rule 1 and Rule 2 never be applied to the same process, because the two rules contradict each other. This means we must always distinguish measurements from other processes in nature.

In my opinion the Doctor is a man.

The dark-matter hypothesis is preferred mostly because the only other possibility-that we are wrong about Newton's laws, and by extension general relativity-is too scary to contemplate.

Einstein solved the puzzle by playing the same great trick that Newton and Galileo had originally played to establish the relativity of motion. He realized that the distinction between electrical and magnetic effects depends on the motion of the observer. So Maxwell's unification was deeper than even Maxwell had suspected. Not only were the electric and magnetic fields different aspects of a single phenomenon, but different observers would draw the distinction differently; that is, one observer might explain a particular phenomenon in terms of electricity, while another observer, moving relative to the first, would explain the same phenomenon in terms of magnetism. But the two would agree about what was happening. And so Einstein's special theory of relativity was born, as a joining of Galileo's unification of rest and motion with Maxwell's unification of electricity and magnetism.

Newton’s concept of space was the opposite, for he understood space to be absolute. This means atoms are defined by where they are in space but space is in no way affected by the motion of atoms. In a relational world, there are no such asymmetries. Things are defined by their relationships. Individuals exist, and they may be partly autonomous, but their possibilities are determined by the network of relationships. Individuals encounter and perceive one another through the links that connect them within the network, and the networks are dynamic and ever evolving.

Why do you have a gun in your suitcase?

Maybe I should get a gun...

I am Lee Oswald.

Fifty years and people are still talking about who did it.

Something about his voice was familiar.

Today, Stephen Hawking6, just as Newton did so many years before him, is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge.

Monty?” He turns, and yes, it is indeed my brother propped against the wall, his hair tousled and his shirt untucked. “Christ.” He covers his eyes. “Adrian.” Beside him, an equally askew Percy Newton gives me a sheepish smile. “Good morning.

We?” Mr. Newton asks, and I cringe at the error. I now sound even more insane, like I have an imagined equipage accompanying me. “My fiancée and I.” “Good Lord, you’re engaged?” He presses a hand to his forehead with a laugh. “I feel so old.” He smiles again, and it is so sincerely kind that it has the adverse effect entirely and I feel my eyes well up. I look to the side quickly, like there’s anything subtle in a sudden head whip. If he notices, Mr. Newton is too kind to comment.

I want to talk to you,” I say. Henry crosses his arms. “Why?” I didn’t anticipate that would require explanation. “You’re my brother.” “And that makes us what, exactly?” “Well. Related.” “Does that matter?” “It does to me,” I say, looking to Mr. Newton for support, but he’s fixated on Henry. “I didn’t know you existed until now, and I can’t . . . I can’t just leave like we never met. We can . . . can I . . . can I buy you a meal? Or a drink or—give me as long as that takes. One meal. Or just an hour. Or less, if you’re . . . busy.” I need to stop negotiating myself down or I’ll end up agreeing to three words and a firm handshake before I’ve given him a chance to agree. “Please, one conversation. I didn’t know you existed until today and I’m trying to . . .” I flap a hand at my face, like that might indicate my attempts to get my head on straight. “Don’t you want that too?

Are you around next Sunday?” Mr. Newton encourages. “We’ve business in Southampton this week, but perhaps we might meet up after.” When no one says anything, he prompts with obvious emphasis, “Monty? What do you think?” Henry—Monty—I sincerely have no idea what his name is—looks as though he’s been asked to select a date for his execution. “Must we?” “Don’t,” Mr. Newton says quietly, and they stare at each other for a moment. I can sense some unspoken conversation passing through the air between them. When Henry says nothing more, Mr. Newton turns to me. His smile is truly starting to test the limits of his face. “Brilliant. We’ll see you back here then.” He reaches out a hand to me again and starts to say, “It was so lovely to meet—” But I leap to my feet, strangling the spyglass lenses, and dismiss myself before I am forced to shake hands with a man who is not my brother.

Did you . . . ? Have you just . . . ? Oh my God!” Mr. Newton lets out a breathy laugh. He’s more flushed than Monty, and I feel, for a moment, a bit less like a rotted fish carcass some feral cat deposited on their doorstep. To Percy Newton, I suspect I am at least a fresh fish. “What are you doing here? I mean obviously you’re here to see Monty. This is so . . . my God, I knew you when you were a baby. Though I don’t suppose that really counts, as one can’t truly know a baby; notoriously poor conversationalists, babies. Back then we all called you . . .” He stops, seems to swallow whatever he was about to say, then finishes instead, “Adrian. We called you Adrian because that’s your name—what else would we call you?” He must mistake my general discomfort for confusion, for he says, by way of explanation, “I grew up with your family—with Monty.

He unfolds the letter, then says, “So I’ll give you a quick summary and then you can go.” “Could I . . . ?” I start to reach for the letter, desperate to read it, then realize what he said and stop. “I can’t go.” Monty nods toward the door leading to the front office. “Straight back the way you came. You won’t get lost.” “Monty,” Mr. Newton says, his voice edged. Monty gives him a wide-eyed What? look, to which Mr. Newton replies, “Stop being a prick.” Monty looks away, his neck going red.

He slides a paper across the desk to me—it seems closer kin to a scrap of newsprint wrapped around a fish than a calling card. Written upon it in aggressively poor penmanship are the words Hoffman Enterprises, Exeter Street, Covent Garden. “The proprietor’s called Newton. I’ve had some dealings with his company before, and they’re honest men.

Henry glances at his office door, and a moment later, a dark-skinned man in a rough coat enters, his cloud of curly hair pulled back into a knot at the nape of his neck. “Monty, why is there a skull with the . . .” He catches sight of me and breaks off, looking between us. “Sorry. I didn’t realize you had a meeting.” Henry—Monty—what?—sighs. I swear, even that small twitch is enough to make the dimples in both his cheeks pop out. I only inherited one from our father, but he appears to have the matching set. “Johanna sent it. I believe it’s meant to be some kind of present. Or possibly we are meant to keep it for her until she’s next in London. It’s always so hard to tell, and it has arrived so near to your birthday.” “I would imagine the latter.” The dark-skinned man takes a wide stride over the pile of papers I inadvertently scattered and extends a hand to me. He has a broad smile, which is deployed in full as he says, “Good day. I’m Percy Newton.