We are all made out of star stuff

Against astounding odds we are here and moreover we are so exquisitely configured that we can think about the past, we can envision the future.

Some members of our species can write the 9th symphony or create the pyramids or paint the Mona Lisa or figure out quantum mechanics.

So that gives me just a sense of deep gratitude that we are here, a gratitude that kind of borders on reverence and we should all have that sense.

Look how amazing it is that entropy and evolution can combine together to yield these kinds of cogitating structures that only exist on the cosmic timeline for a mere moment, but we are that moment, celebrate that!

That to me is a way to not feel that bleakness about where the universe is heading.

You need to look at the world in a variety of different ways, right? 

So the physicist looks at it in terms of the ingredients and the laws, the chemist puts those together into atoms and molecules, the biologist then cells and life and so on.

And the act of engaging with the world through building that car engine or doing a laboratory course, is another way of touching and engaging and being part of the reality and I think you need it all.

So at times you need to be pulled away from the big ideas because ultimately, the work is right here in the gutter, in the dirt, that's where you make the progress.

 When you are at the forefront of research and you are grabbing hold of the reins of reality, able to lift millions of tons of rock into the sky which is what an atomic bomb can do, you know it's intoxicating. 

And you can easily put aside the ethical ramification of what you're working on but ultimately as a human being you come back to it and these individuals at least a good number of them from the Manhattan project did come back to the realisation of what their work had brought on the world.

There is no way to stop research, there is no way to stop exploration, that's who we are, that's where we come from and that's our live blood.

words by the superstring theorist, 

Brian Green