Well, gauge theory is very fundamental to our understanding of physical forces these days. But they are also dependent on a mathematical idea, which has been around for longer than gauge theory has.

I was indeed very slow as a youngster.

This book is about physics and its about physics and its relationship with mathematics and how they seem to be intimately related and to what extent can you explore this relationship and trust it.

Ordinary photons do have spin, they have a notion of helicity so they spin around their direction on motion.

Some years ago, I wrote a book called the Emperor's New Mind and that book was describing a point of view I had about consciousness and why it was not something that comes about from complicated calculations.

People think of these eureka moments and my feeling is that they tend to be little things, a little realisation and then a little realisation built on that.

Well I didn't actually see the Matrix but I've seen other movies where with similar sorts of themes.

As for morality, well that's all tied up with the question of consciousness.

If you didn't have any conscious beings in the world, there really wouldn't be morality but with consciousness that you have it.

But I think it is a serious issue to wonder about the other platonic absolutes of say beauty and morality.

My own way of thinking is to ponder long and I hope deeply on problems and for a long time which I keep away for years and years and I never really let them go.

As you say, the way string theory requires all these extra dimensions and this comes from certain consistency requirements about how string should behave and so on.

I'm pretty tenacious when it comes to problems.

So what I'm saying is why don't we think about changing Schrodinger's equation at some level when masses become too big at the level that you might have to worry about Einstein's general relativity.

In the book, I make the point that here we have string theory and here we have twistor theory and we don't know if either one of them is the right approach to nature.

The basic theory in twistor theory is not to add extra dimensions.

Well, I don't know if I can comment on Kant or Hegel because I'm no real philosopher in the sense of knowing what these people have said in any detail so let me not comment on that too much.

And these little things may not seem like much but after a while they take you off on a direction where you may be a long way off from what other people have been thinking about.

The idea is if you use those two shapes and try to colour the plane with them so the colours match, then the only way that you can do this is to produce a pattern which never repeats itself.

Well, gauge theory is very fundamental to our understanding of physical forces these days. But they are also dependent on a mathematical idea, which has been around for longer than gauge theory has.

Some people take the view that the universe is simply there, and it runs along - it's a bit as though it just sort of computes, and we happen by accident to find ourselves in this thing. I don't think that's a very fruitful or helpful way of looking at the universe.

Some people take the view that we happen by accident. I think that there is something much deeper, of which we have very little inkling at the moment.

There is a certain sense in which I would say the universe has a purpose. It's not there by chance.

If the computer-guided robots turn out to be our superiors in every respect, then will they not find that they can run the world better without the need of us at all? Humanity itself will then have become obsolete.

I became hooked on the idea of being able to shoot an image and process it myself, and end up with a product.

After I'd produced about two dozen pen and ink drawings, one evening I decided that they needed poems to accompany them. I still have no idea where that notion came from, but it took me about two hours to produce verses for these creatures.

Yeah, that's what kind of, we get the idea a little bit yeah, because other people from different countries also try as hard as they can to get a medal or a gold medal in the Olympic Games. And you know, if they can work hard, we can work hard as well.

What's fascinating is that when you write a script, it's almost a stream of consciousness. You have an idea that it means something, but you're not always sure what. Then when you get on the set, the actors teach you.

I also do not like the idea of soft money, these issue ads - people don't know where the money is coming from, millions and millions of dollars outside of the control of a candidate - there's no accountability.

From the beginning, the series has been story driven - I began with a story idea - but research feeds it.

Then I decided I couldn't just crawl in the corner and die, so I started putting pen to paper and wrote some songs. I had no idea what for or who I was going to work with. I tried to find my way and direction.

The idea is, if I can't heal from my art, then how can you heal?

There is sometimes a peculiar confusion in the West that equates progress to whatever is recent or whatever is new, and it is time we understood that progress has nothing to do with the chronology of an idea.

The idea of licking stamps seemed great fun for me.

Learn about the world, the way it works, any kind of science and anthropology, it's really an interesting place we live in. Evolution is a really fantastic idea, even more than the idea of God I think.

It's slightly complicated for people to grasp the idea of a head of state in human form.

As far as I know, only a small minority of mathematicians, even of those with Platonist views, accept the idea that there may be mathematical facts which are true but unknowable.

So my idea of neurotic is spending too much time trying to correct a wrong. When I feel that I'm doing that, then I snap out of it.

I'm into the idea of responsibility and edification and these things have found me and I have found them. I wanted to be in the movie and I made it known to Mike.

Religion has caused more harm than any other idea since the beginning of time. There's nothing good I can say about it. People use it as a crutch.

Many of the Europeans who want Israel to go away don't even know why they do. Nearly a third of those interviewed concede they have no idea what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about. It's enough to know that Israelis are Jews.

It was an idea we had when Al was in the Senate - to organize and moderate an annual conference that would look at government policy through the lens of the family to help identify ways that the family can be supported and strengthened.

Growing up in Hollywood it seemed like every kid was the child of some star. We had no idea that other people would think we were special, because there was no other lifestyle to compare it to.

When employers tell me they prefer married men, and encourage their men to have homes of their own, because it makes them so much steadier, I wonder if they have any idea of all that that implies.

As a matter of fact they'd blacken us down. I guess there's a reason that according to what the Caucasian wanted us to look like. He wanted us to look-if we were Black, then he had his idea of what we look like.

All my pictures are built around the idea of getting in trouble and so giving me the chance to be desperately serious in my attempt to appear as a normal little gentleman.

I understand about this idea of terror and what it means to Americans and this idea that we can't just walk around free like we did; life has changed.

In The Name of the King is the right title. To be honest, I don't know who had the final idea for the title but I liked it and it has a strong connection to the movie's story.

Yeah, I had an idea to make a very scary movie, based on a kind of serial murderer that preys on tourists.