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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The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
It's impossible to move, to live, to operate at any level without leaving traces, bits, seemingly meaningless fragments of personal read more
It's impossible to move, to live, to operate at any level without leaving traces, bits, seemingly meaningless fragments of personal information.
In a manner which matches the fortuity, if not the consequence, of Archimedes' bath and Newton's apple, the 3.6 million read more
In a manner which matches the fortuity, if not the consequence, of Archimedes' bath and Newton's apple, the 3.6 million year old fossil footprints were eventually noticed one evening in September 1976 by the paleontologist Andrew Hill, who fell while avoiding a ball of elephant dung hurled at him by the ecologist David Western.
Facts are the air of scientists. Without them you can never fly.
Facts are the air of scientists. Without them you can never fly.
...there is no prescribed route to follow to arrive at a new idea. You have to make the intuitive leap. read more
...there is no prescribed route to follow to arrive at a new idea. You have to make the intuitive leap. But the difference is that once you've made the intuitive leap you have to justify it by filling in the intermediate steps. In my case, it often happens that I have an idea, but then I try to fill in the intermediate steps and find that they don't work, so I have to give it up.
Whenever anyone says, 'theoretically,' they really mean, 'not really.'.
Whenever anyone says, 'theoretically,' they really mean, 'not really.'.
The tools we use have a profound (and devious!) influence on our thinking habits, and, therefore, on our thinking abilities.
The tools we use have a profound (and devious!) influence on our thinking habits, and, therefore, on our thinking abilities.
Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind.
Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind.
I am dying from the treatment of too many physicians.
I am dying from the treatment of too many physicians.
