How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"Tachyon collision? I don't know." Greg's levity evaporated. "My point is, the foundation of everything is shaky. Even logic itself has holes in it. Theories are based on pictures of the world—human pictures." He looked upward and Marjorie's eyes followed. Constellations hung like blazing chandeliers. (24.80)
The constellations in combination with Markham's quote provide excellent imagery for discussing truth in Timescape. The stars exist, but we view them through human pictures, a.k.a. the constellations. Also, depending on where you are, you see different pictures, different truths. For example, they have different constellations in the southern hemisphere than in the northern one.
Quote #8
It was odd how [Penny] could be a very intelligent, uncompromising literature student one moment, and then in the next come on as ordinary, middle-America, relentlessly oatmeal. Maybe she was part of this time, of things changing. (28.119)
Of course, truths don't have to be grand truths about life, the universe, and everything—they can be smaller everyday truths, too. Is Penny a conservative "middle-America" sort, or a more liberal literary type? Do these social categories only describe the world at large but never individual people? Will the real Penny please stand up?
Quote #9
Gordon smiled. The public thought of science as an absolute, sure thing, money in the bank. They never knew how some slight error could give you wildly wrong results. (39.45)
Science deals in empirical truth, which is basically something learned through observation and experimentation. Thing is, the more we observe and experiment, the more we learn. As such, science can never give us a sure thing—but that doesn't mean it can't provide us with useful, working truths.