For a smart material to be able to send out a more complex signal it needs to be nonlinear. If you hit a tuning fork twice as hard it will ring twice as loud but still at the same frequency. That's a linear response. If you hit a person twice as hard they're unlikely just to shout twice as loud. That property lets you learn more about the person than the tuning fork. - When Things Start to Think, 1999.
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Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.
We seem to have a compulsion these days to bury time capsules in order to give those people living in read more
We seem to have a compulsion these days to bury time capsules in order to give those people living in the next century or so some idea of what we are like.
Innovators are inevitably controversial.
Innovators are inevitably controversial.
Man's fear of ideas is probably the greatest dike holding back human knowledge and happiness.
Man's fear of ideas is probably the greatest dike holding back human knowledge and happiness.
Scientists are the easiest to fool. They think in straight, predictable, directable, and therefore misdirectable, lines. The only world they read more
Scientists are the easiest to fool. They think in straight, predictable, directable, and therefore misdirectable, lines. The only world they know is the one where everything has a logical explanation and things are what they appear to be. Children and conjurors - they terrify me. Scientists are no problem; against them I feel quite confident. -James P. Hogan.
We're all living in a chemical soup.
We're all living in a chemical soup.
Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. -Carl Sagan.
Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. -Carl Sagan.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I've found it!), read more
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I've found it!), but 'That's funny...' -Isaac Asimov.
The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder.
The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder.
