A Quote by Arthur C. Clarke
It is really quite amazing by what margins competent but conservative scientists and engineers can miss the mark, when they start with the preconceived idea that what they are investigating is impossible.
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I knew a lot of black scientists, engineers, and mathematicians, and female mathematicians and engineers, women of all backgrounds. So this idea that anyone could be an engineer, a mathematician, or whatever, was something that I had grown up with and thought was really normal.
It is impossible to devise an experiment without a preconceived idea; devising an experiment, we said, is putting a question; we never conceive a question without an idea which invites an answer. I consider it, therefore, an absolute principle that experiments must always be devised in view of a preconceived idea, no matter if the idea be not very clear nor very well defined.
One could count on one's fingers the number of scientists throughout the world with a general idea of the history and development of their particular science: there is none who is really competent as regards sciences other than his own. As science forms an indivisible whole, one may say that there are no longer, strictly speaking, scientists, but only drudges doing scientific work.
A child sees everything, looks straight at it, examines it, without any preconceived idea; most people, after they are about eleven or twelve, quite lose this power, they see everything through a few preconceived ideas which hang like a veil between them and the outer world.
I was quite intrigued by the idea of following the exploits of people who are often in the margins.
What is competent? Who is it that can adjudicate what is competent or not competent? If the guys that are running the most important banks in our country aren't competent enough, well then, who is competent enough?
Civil engineers build bridges. Electrical engineers, power grids. Software engineers, apps. From the engineers who created the Great Pyramids to the engineers who are designing and developing tomorrow's autonomous vehicles, these visionaries and their tangible creations are inextricably linked.
I really admire really good reporters. Obviously not the gossip ones, but it could be quite an interesting profession, depending on what you're investigating.
If I could be really competent, that goes such a long way toward things, because the majority of things are not competent. If I can be competent, and have moments of originality, that's all I would ask for.
Being in an area of the planet where scientists believe mankind started is quite amazing.
That's how the scientists discover new science. They start out with a hypothesis--an idea--and then others believe enough in the idea that they make it true. You see?
Before Eminem, the idea that there would be a white rapper that anybody would really check for was fantastic or amazing or impossible.
One hears a lot of talk about the hostility between scientists and engineers. I don't believe in any such thing. In fact I am quite certain it is untrue... There cannot possibly be anything in it because neither side has anything to do with the other.
It is often said that experiments should be made without preconceived ideas. That is impossible. Not only would it make every experiment fruitless, but even if we wished to do so, it could not be done. Every man has his own conception of the world, and this he cannot so easily lay aside. We must, example, use language, and our language is necessarily steeped in preconceived ideas. Only they are unconscious preconceived ideas, which are a thousand times the most dangerous of all.
I think feature film can be quite conservative, because you have to now get audiences to come out, and it's quite a hard thing to do. Of course, television can be conservative too.
I don't think that they have many of the scientists who were involved in the weapons program to talk to at this time, and there were thousands of people, engineers and scientists, they know where the weapons are.
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