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.

All science is either physics or stamp collecting. -E. Rutherford.

All science is either physics or stamp collecting. -E. Rutherford.

Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.

Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.

FORTRAN --'the infantile disorder'--, by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in read more

FORTRAN --'the infantile disorder'--, by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is now too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use.
PL/I --'the fatal disease'-- belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set.
It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.
The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence.
APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums.

What goes up must come down. Ask any system administrator.

What goes up must come down. Ask any system administrator.

Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination. - The Quest for Certainty.

Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination. - The Quest for Certainty.

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.

The Internet is like a giant jellyfish. You can't step on it. You can't go around it. You've got to read more

The Internet is like a giant jellyfish. You can't step on it. You can't go around it. You've got to get through it.

The dedicated physician is constantly striving for a balance between personal, human values, scientific realities and the inevitabilities of God's read more

The dedicated physician is constantly striving for a balance between personal, human values, scientific realities and the inevitabilities of God's will.