There are two kinds of scientific progress: the methodical
experimentation and categorization which gradually extend the
boundaries of knowledge, and the revolutionary leap of genius
which redefines and transcends those boundaries. Acknowledging
our debt to the former, we yearn nonetheless for the latter.
-- Academician Prokhor Zakharov,
"Address to the Faculty"
experimentation and categorization which gradually extend the
boundaries of knowledge, and the revolutionary leap of genius
which redefines and transcends those boundaries. Acknowledging
our debt to the former, we yearn nonetheless for the latter.
-- Academician Prokhor Zakharov,
"Address to the Faculty"
Related:
- To map the very stuff of life; to look into the
genetic mirror and watch a million generations
march past.
That, friends, is both our curse and our proudest achievement.... - Man's unfailing capacity to believe what he prefers to be true
rather than what the evidence shows to be likely and possible has
always astounded me.
We long for a caring Universe which will save us from our childish mistakes, and in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary we will pin all our hopes on the slimmest of doubts.... - We have reached an informational threshold which can only be crossed
by harnessing the speed of light directly.
The quickest computations require the fastest possible particles moving along the shortest paths.... - The genetic code does not, and cannot, specify the nature
and position of every capillary in the body or every neuron
in the brain.
What it {can} do is describe the underlying fractal pattern which creates them.... - A brave little theory, and actually quite coherent for a system of
five or seven dimensions--if only we lived in one.
-- Academician Prokhor Zakharov, "Now We Are Alone... - Have you ever wondered why clouds behave in such familiar ways when
each specimen is so unique?
Or why the energy exchange market is so unpredictable?... - Imagine the entire contents of the planetary datalinks, the sum total
of human knowledge, blasted into the Planetmind's fragile neural
network with the full power of every reactor on the planet.
Thousands of years of civilization compressed into a single searing burst of revelation.... - In one moment, Earth; in the next, Heaven.
-- Academician Prokhor Zakharov, "For I Have Tasted The Frui... - The popular stereotype of the researcher is that of a skeptic and a
pessimist.
Nothing could be further from the truth! Scientists must be optimists at heart, in order to block out the incessant chorus of those who say "It cannot be done....
