The laws of physics we know have been fine-tuned in order to keep the cosmos fertile for its own reproduction. Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman: Is the Universe Alive? Science 2010
Space: a vast empty ocean where a planet like ours is a remote island. Alone in the void. Or is it? New research is beginning to unveil a hidden force, one that shapes the entire universe and penetrates space with trillions of invisible connections. Instantly linking every place in our world and joining our future with our past. Now we’re beginning to grasp these mystical powers. Is the force with us? Morgan Freeman’s Through the Wormhole s7e5: Is the Force With Us?
But how can we venture to reprove or praise the universe! Let us beware of attributing to it heartlessness and unreason or their opposites: it is neither perfect nor beautiful nor noble, and has no desire to become any of these; it is by no means striving to imitate mankind! It is quite impervious to all our aesthetic and moral judgements! It has likewise no impulse to self-preservation or impulses of any kind; neither does it know any laws. Let us beware of saying there are laws in nature. There are only necessities: there is no one to command, no one to obey, no one to transgress. Friedrich Nietzsche
The supply of matter in the universe was never more tightly packed than it is now, or more widely spread out. For nothing is ever added to it or subtracted from it. It follows that the movement of atoms today is no different from what it was in bygone ages and always will be. So the things that have regularly come into being will continue to come into being in the same manner; they will be and grow and flourish so far as each is allowed by the laws of nature. Titus Lucretius Carus, On the Nature of Things
The fundamental problem of cosmology is that the laws of physics as we know them break down at the instant of the Big Bang. Well, some people say, What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with having the laws of physics collapse? For a physicist this is a disaster! All our lives we’ve dedicated to the proposition that the universe obeys noble laws. Laws that can be written down in the language of mathematics. And here we have the centrepiece of the universe itself – a centrepiece – beyond physical law. Michio Kaku
But now we’re looking for a law of physics to prevent time travel. And lo and behold we can’t find it. Michio Kaku
What we usually consider as impossible are simply engineering problems ... there’s no law of physics preventing them. Michio Kaku
The laws of physics allow that to happen. And it means that our whole universe, everything we see, everything that matters to us today, could have arisen out of precisely nothing. Lawrence Krauss
It’s clear that the universe is full of powerful black holes. The densities are so great that the laws of physics break down as we know them. Lawrence Krauss
The second law of thermodynamics ... Entropy always increases because it is always more likely. Brian Cox, Wonders of the Universe 1/4: Destiny, BBC 2011
Evolution doesn’t have a free hand: it is constrained by the universal laws of physics. Brian Cox, Wonders of Life IV: Size Matters, BBC 2013
The natural world is beautiful but complex. The sky is dense with colour. Shapes form and disappear. But this seemingly infinite complexity is just a shadow of something deeper – the underlying laws of nature. The world is beautiful to look at but it’s even more beautiful to understand. Forces of Nature with Brian Cox I: The Universe in a Snowflake, BBC 2016
Those laws themselves are beautiful and universal. ibid.
All animals with brains are bilaterally symmetrical. ibid.
I can’t change the laws of physics. Star Trek s1e4: The Naked Time, Scotty to Kirk
Physical reality is consistent with universal laws. Where the laws do not operate, there is no reality. All of this ... is unreal. Star Trek s3e6: Specter of the Gun, Spock
Geordi: Everything was normal and then suddenly it’s like the laws of physics went right out the window.
Q: And why shouldn’t they? They’re so inconvenient. Star Trek: The Next Generation s6e6: True Q
Julian, I can’t break the laws of physics. Nobody can. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine s7e5: Chrysalis, O’Brien
We physicists ... we hope for very simple laws of nature that will account for everything we see. But when we have them there will always be a question – why those laws? Steven Weinberg, interview Professor Richard Dawkins
I am really not impressed with the amount of fine-tuning there is, with the exception of this one – dark energy. ibid.
String theory you know is our best hope for a theory unifying all the forces of nature ... It’s the best game in town. ibid.
Nature, so far as it is the object of scientific research, is a collection of facts governed by laws: our knowledge of nature is our knowledge of laws. William Whewell, Astronomy and General Physics 1834
There are reasons to doubt that what we call the laws of physics necessarily apply everywhere in the universe – or that they were applicable to every time in its history. Michael Brooks, 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense
The remarkable feature of physical laws is that they apply everywhere, whether or not you choose to believe in them. After the laws of physics, everything else is opinion. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Death by Black Hole
Newton: he could write the laws of nature in perfect mathematical sentences. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey III: When Knowledge Conquered Fear, National Geographic 2014
In order for an idea to become a scientific law, it has to be unbreakable. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos: Deeper, Deeper, Deeper Still VI
The fundamental laws necessary for the mathematical treatment of a large part of physics and the whole of chemistry are thus completely known, and the difficulty lies only in the fact that application of these laws leads to equations that are too complex to be solved. Paul Dirac
The methods of theoretical physics should be applicable to all those branches of thought in which the essential features are expressible with numbers. Paul Dirac
On his return to Cambridge, Newton has discovered fundamental laws of the universe. Mystery Files s2e6: Isaac Newton, National Geographic 2011
Newton’s three laws of motion: Law I: Inertia; Law II: Force = Mass x Acceleration; Law III: Action & Reaction. Isaac Newton: The Last Magician, BBC 2013
His [Newton] greatest contribution to science was his discovery of a set of universal laws to describe the cosmos. Great Scientists: Sir Isaac Newton, National Geographic 2011
Trying to spot the laws. Trying to spot the relationship. The laws of the elementary particles are very special. The whole universe is made up of these little particles. The light from the most distant galaxy shows that there too the same laws hold. They too are made up of the same little particles that we are ... They determine the behaviour of matter. And it’s fascinating to try to figure out what these laws are. Professor Murray Gell-Mann, interview BBC Horizon
Why does it matter if the two laws that we have are incompatible? Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe II, PBS 2003
It’s a triumph of mathematics: with nothing but these tiny vibrating strands of energy. ibid.
So what exactly in Nature sets the values of these twenty constants so precisely? ibid.
It follows from the fact of our existence that the laws of physics must be friendly enough to allow life to arise .. If the laws and constants of physics had been even slightly different, the universe would have developed in such a way that life would have been impossible. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion p141
Martin Rees, in Just Six Numbers, lists six fundamental constants, which are believed to hold all around the universe. ibid. p141
The six numbers may turn out to be no freer to vary than is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. ibid. p144
The fact of your own existence is the most unbelievable fact you will ever be asked to believe. On one planet – possibly the only one planet in the entire universe – the laws of physics which elsewhere produce nothing more interesting than bits of rock and sand and water etc. on one planet the laws of physics filtered through a very strange and particular process called Evolution by Natural Selection produced an outstanding array of complex, beautiful, elegant things which carry a gigantic illusion of design. Richard Dawkins, lecture Duke University October 2010
Just as the constant increase of entropy is the basic law of the universe, so it is the basic law of life to be ever more highly structured and to struggle against entropy. Václav Havel