If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get one read more

If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get one million miles to the gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.

So there he is at last. Man on the moon. The poor magnificent bungler! He can't even get to the read more

So there he is at last. Man on the moon. The poor magnificent bungler! He can't even get to the office without undergoing the agonies of the damned, but give him a little metal, a few chemicals, some wire and twenty or thirty billion dollars and, vroom! there he is, up on a rock a quarter of a million miles up in the sky.

The great work must inevitably be obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author himself are read more

The great work must inevitably be obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author himself are initiated into the mysteries. Communication then is secondary: it is perpetuation which is important. For this only one good reader is necessary.

Why shouldn't a PC work like a refrigerator or a toaster?

Why shouldn't a PC work like a refrigerator or a toaster?

Surgery is the red flower that blooms among the leaves and thorns that are the rest of medicine.

Surgery is the red flower that blooms among the leaves and thorns that are the rest of medicine.

The cell phone has transformed public places into giant phone-a-thons in which callers exist within narcissistic cocoons of private conversations. read more

The cell phone has transformed public places into giant phone-a-thons in which callers exist within narcissistic cocoons of private conversations. Like faxes, computer modems and other modern gadgets that have clogged out lives with phony urgency, cell phones represent the 20th Century's escalation of imaginary need. We didn't need cell phones until we had them. Clearly, cell phones cause not only a breakdown of courtesy, but the atrophy of basic skills.

This problem, too, will look simple after it is solved.

This problem, too, will look simple after it is solved.

In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." read more

In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

Form follows function. - "Lippincott's Magazine", March, 1896.

Form follows function. - "Lippincott's Magazine", March, 1896.