"Quantum theory holds that objects can appear and disappear according to specific laws, and the behavior of an absent object is just as predictable as the behavior of a present one.  If laws are just properties of objects, how can those laws continue to operate when the object is not really there?"
Alan Guth, cosmologist 2002

"To the average person it might seem obvious that nothing can happen in nothing.  But to a quantum physicist, nothing is, in fact, something."
Brad Lemley, writer in Disover magazine 2002

"Physics is very good at describing the space-time movements of the very large, like super-galaxies, and the very small, like quarks and atoms, but ... physics does not explain much about the space-time movements of the objects swirling about me."
Jeffrey Roseman M.D. Ph.D  in a letter to Discover magazine 2002

"Beautiful are the things we see.
More beautiful those we understand
Much the most beautiful those we do not comprehend."
Niels Steensen (Steno) 1638 -1686

"All matter plus all gravity in the observable universe equals zero.  So the universe could come from nothing because it is, fundamentally, nothing."
Brad Lemley, writer in Disover magazine 2002

"any cosmological theory that does not lead to the eternal reproduction of universes will be considered as unimaginable as a species of bacteria that cannot reproduce."
Alan Guth, cosmologist 2002

"The universe burst into something from absolutely nothing ... and as it got bigger, it became filled with even more stuff that came from absolutely nowhere."
Alan Guth, cosmologist, from his theory of inflation, 2002

"The life of working scientists is long on tedium and short on glory.  They write grants, sit on committees, do paperwork.  There is pressure to play it safe and be competitive.  Cranks, by contranst, are free agents.  With no career to lose and no scientific framework to restrict them, they can publish at their own pace and dare to shoot for the moon.  All of which may explain why most cranks aren't scientists and presumably wouldn't want to be.  It may also explain why some scientists, when they talk about cranks, evince something close to envy. "
Jennifer Kahn, writter of Discover magazine 2002