Weinberg, as a young grocery clerk, advised the grocery manager to get
rid of rutabagas which nobody every bought. He did so. "Well, kid, that
was a great idea," said the manager. Then he paused and asked the killer
question, "NOW what's the least popular vegetable?"
Law: Once you eliminate your #1 problem, #2 gets a promotion.
-- Gerald Weinberg, "The Secrets of Consulting"
All science is either physics or stamp collecting.
-- Ernest Rutherford
All great ideas are controversial, or have been at one time.
“Consider a spherical bear, in simple harmonic motion...”
-- Professor in the UCB physics department
Today's scientific question is: What in the world is electricity?
And where does it go after it leaves the toaster?
-- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
I do hate sums. There is no greater mistake than to call arithmetic an
exact science. There are permutations and aberrations discernible to minds
entirely noble like mine; subtle variations which ordinary accountants fail
to discover; hidden laws of number which it requires a mind like mine to
perceive. For instance, if you add a sum from the bottom up, and then again
from the top down, the result is always different.
-- Mrs. La Touche
Pound for pound, the amoeba is the most vicious animal on earth.
Eureka!
-- Archimedes
A sine curve goes off to infinity, or at least the end of the blackboard.
-- Prof. Steiner
(1) A sheet of paper is an ink-lined plane.
(2) An inclined plane is a slope up.
(3) A slow pup is a lazy dog.
QED: A sheet of paper is a lazy dog.
-- Willard Espy, "An Almanac of Words at Play"
A method of solution is perfect if we can forsee from the start,
and even prove, that following that method we shall attain our aim.
-- Leibnitz
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
-- Albert Einstein
One man's "magic" is another man's engineering. "Supernatural" is a null word.
-- Robert Heinlein
“A fractal is by definition a set for which the Hausdorff Besicovitch
dimension strictly exceeds the topological dimension.”
-- Mandelbrot, "The Fractal Geometry of Nature"
According to convention there is a sweet and a bitter, a hot and a cold,
and according to convention, there is an order. In truth, there are atoms
and a void.
-- Democritus, 400 B.C.
All theoretical chemistry is really physics; and all theoretical chemists
know it.
-- Richard P. Feynman
Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do.
-- R. A. Heinlein
You should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than
about 10^12 to 1.
-- Ernest Rutherford
A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and
making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually
die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
-- Max Planck
For God's sake, stop researching for a while and begin to think!
This is not the age of pamphleteers. It is the age of the engineers. The
spark-gap is mightier than the pen. Democracy will not be salvaged by men
who talk fluently, debate forcefully and quote aptly.
-- Lancelot Hogben, Science for the Citizen, 1938
It is not every question that deserves an answer.
-- Publilius Syrus
When speculation has done its worst, two plus two still equals four.
-- S. Johnson
A fail-safe circuit will destroy others.
-- Klipstein
You can take all the impact that science considerations have on funding
decisions at NASA, put them in the navel of a flea, and have room left
over for a caraway seed and Tony Calio's heart.
-- F. Allen
We've sent a man to the moon, and that's 29,000 miles away. The center
of the Earth is only 4,000 miles away. You could drive that in a week,
but for some reason nobody's ever done it.
-- Andy Rooney
What is algebra, exactly? Is it one of those three-cornered things?
-- J.M. Barrie
The Encyclopaedia Galactica defines a robot as a mechanical apparatus designed
to do the work of a man. The marketing division of Sirius Cybernetics
Corporation defines a robot as 'Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun To Be With'.
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy defines the marketing division of the
Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as 'a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the
first against the wall when the revolution comes', with a footnote to effect
that the editors would welcome applications from anyone interested in taking
over the post of robotics correspondent.
Curiously enough, an edition of the Encyclopaedia Galactica that
had the good fortune to fall through a time warp from a thousand years in
the future defined the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics
Corporation as 'a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the
wall when the revolution came'.
-- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not desirable,
as one's hat keeps blowing off.
-- Woody Allen
God made the integers; all else is the work of Man.
-- Kronecker