Take young researchers, put them together in virtual seclusion, give them an unprecedented degree of freedom and turn up the read more

Take young researchers, put them together in virtual seclusion, give them an unprecedented degree of freedom and turn up the pressure by fostering competitiveness.

I am sorry to say that there is too much point to the wisecrack that life is extinct on other read more

I am sorry to say that there is too much point to the wisecrack that life is extinct on other planets because their scientists were more advanced than ours.

For a smart material to be able to send out a more complex signal it needs to be nonlinear. If read more

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.

That thou seest, man, become too thou must; God, if thou seest God, dust, if thou seest dust.

That thou seest, man, become too thou must; God, if thou seest God, dust, if thou seest dust.

Telephone, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his read more

Telephone, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.

Gates is the ultimate programming machine. He believes everything can be defined, examined, reduced to essentials, and rearranged into a read more

Gates is the ultimate programming machine. He believes everything can be defined, examined, reduced to essentials, and rearranged into a logical sequence that will achieve a particular goal.

It's going to be a bummer if Mars turns out to be like us.

It's going to be a bummer if Mars turns out to be like us.

Science is simply common sense at its best--that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.

Science is simply common sense at its best--that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.