Quotes from Charles Seife

In Cantor's mind there were an infinite number of infinities-the transfinite numbers-each nested in the other. Aleph 0 is smaller than Aleph 1, which is smaller than Aleph 2, which is smaller than Aleph 3, and so forth. At the top of the chain sits the ultimate infinity that engulfs all other infinities: God, the infinity that defies all comprehension.

if history is any guide, a long, long road lies ahead before physicists will be able to tame fusion reactions

a mathematician could show how a triangle's angles sum to 180 degrees, or any other geometric fact. On the other hand, calculus was based on faith.

However, if we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for we would know the mind of God.

Insurance companies are nothing more than a dumping ground for risk; for an appropriate fee, you can have them assume a risk for you.

But if there were some sort of quantum sail, a one-way mirror that reflected virtual particles on one side but let them pass unhindered through the other, the vacuum energy would push the whole object toward the unreflective half of the sail. Millis admits that nobody has any clue how to do this.

December 31, 1999, is the evening when the great odometer in the sky clicks ahead.

We are all truly made of star stuff.18

GAS VERSUS PLASMA: In a gas (left), every electron is stuck to an atom. In a plasma (right), the electrons roam free, attracted by nuclei, but not attached to any single nucleus.

There was neither non-existence nor existence then; there was neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond. What stirred? Where? —THE RIG VEDA

But there is a dirty little secret. Fusion is not clean.

a fusion power plant would produce a larger volume of radioactive waste than a standard nuclear power plant.

Fusion is a bit cleaner than fission, but it still presents a major waste problem.

It's an open secret. Fusion isn't clean, and it probably never will be.

The navy evacuated more than six hundred people, many of whom developed "raw, weeping lesions" from the radiation. It was a public relations nightmare. AEC chairman Lewis Strauss tried to reassure the public that the island natives were "well and happy," but it was hard to hide the truth

Simple! On the very first day that I started working at the museum, I asked a scientist the very same question. He told me that the skeleton was sixty-five million years old. That was thirty-eight years ago.

Epstein was one of thousands, if not millions, of people—undoubtedly mostly men—who've been suckered into thinking a machine was a potential date.

Today most mathematicians accept the continuum hypothesis as true, though some study non-Cantorian transfinite numbers where the continuum hypothesis is taken to be false.)

All polynomials of degree n-those that have a leading term of x^n- split into n distinct terms. This is the fundamental theorem of algebra.

Zero is powerful because it is infinity's twin. They are equal and opposite, yin and yang. They are equally paradoxical and troubling. The biggest questions in science and religion are about nothingness and eternity, the void and the infinite, zero and infinity. The clashes over zero were the battles that shook the foundations of philosophy, of science, of mathematics, and of religion. Underneath every revolution lay a zero – and an infinity.

If you want to get people to believe something really, really stupid, just stick a number on it.

The body, the house of the spirit, is under the power of pleasure and pain," explains a god. "And if a man is ruled by his body then this man can never be free.

We tend to shy away from data that challenges our assumptions, that erodes our preconceptions. Getting rid of our wrong ideas is a painful and difficult process, yet it's that very process that makes data truly useful. A fact becomes information when it challenges our assumptions. These challenges are the raw material that forces our ideas to evolve, our tastes to change, our minds to grow.

My theory stands as firm as a rock; every arrow directed against it will return quickly to its archer. How do I know this? I have studied it…I have followed its roots, so to speak, to the first infallible cause of all created things. —GEORG CANTOR