Quotes from Douglas E. Richards

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

Time flies like an arrow . . . but fruit flies like a banana.

To use the system to take out an entire building, let alone a city, you'd have to widen the beam a hundred- or a thousand

Trees are still more soothing than steel and cement, despite the lack of a purely intellectual argument as to why this should be so. " Carr

Battle not with monsters, Lest ye become a monster. And if you gaze into the abyss, The abyss gazes back into you.

I'm told it's a stunning advance in the mathematics and physics of the Calabi-Yau manifold. I had no idea what this was. But my science people tell me it's a six-dimensional space that results when the ten dimensions of superstring theory are rolled up.

Because in your political system, neither brilliance, nor even basic competence, seem to be prerequisites for getting elected to an office. Instead, the skills required seem to be popularity, and an ability to lie shamelessly with every breath, make false promises, and trash your opponents.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who

How many dictators and tyrants throughout history had been psychopathic? Erin suspected almost all of them.

The more I immerse myself in science and technology, the greater my need to retreat back to nature. I find it easier to contemplate life and philosophy surrounded by this environment. Our minds may have allowed us to transcend our environment, but our DNA still knows we were built to live in nature. Trees are still more soothing than steel and cement, despite the lack of a purely intellectual argument as to why this should be so.

including—most importantly—the progenitors of dogs and cats. Not surprisingly, dogs turned into man's best friend on most human worlds.

complete with carbon-14 signatures

But we also can't fathom how an egg cell can fabricate a baby.

Upton Sinclair?" "Yes. The quote is something like, 'It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

I'm doing you a favor," replied the colonel with a smile of his own. "Just remember what Patton said: Pressure makes diamonds." "Well, yeah," said the major in amusement. "If you're a lump of coal. If you're a human being, that same pressure turns you into splatter. Like a bug on a windshield.

Hall shook his head. "Humanity," he said sadly. "Sometimes it's really hard to be a fan.

unless you have the tech to recognize their quantum signatures

We used to spend quality time with a few people. Actually with them—physically. For hours on end. Now we spend time interacting with hundreds of people, but on our phones, or sitting in a chair all alone facing a computer screen.

Ash hadu an laa ilaaha illallaah he had written: There is no God but Allah wa ash hadu anna Muhammadan rasool-ullaah: And Muhammad is his Messenger. It was the Muslim shah?dah, their most profound statement of faith. In some sects the recitation of this phrase was the first of the Five Pillars of Islam and was the only formal step required for non-Muslims to convert into the religion.

If I would have had more time, I'd have written you a shorter letter.

Alfred North Whitehead had written, "It is the business of the future to be dangerous. The major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they occur.

The only way to universally make problems easier to solve was to have better tools to solve them.

Battle not with monsters, Lest ye become a monster. And if you gaze into the abyss, The abyss gazes back into you. Wortzman

had a test in school and I studied for an entire week, night and day. My friend spent the entire week playing video games and having fun at the beach. I ended up getting an A, and my friend got an F. So what if the teacher said, 'it's not fair that Bren got an A and his friend got an F. So we're going to give you both C's. Still passing, right? So it's no big deal. Still plenty of cushion away from an F. The A earners shouldn't be greedy.