No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.
Great decisions in the realm of thought and momentous discoveries and solutions of problems are only possible to an individual working in solitude.
To get some sense of how much scope there is for more such discoveries, we can
calculate as follows. The periodic table contains about a hundred different types of atoms, which means that the number of combinations made up of four different
elements is about 100 × 99 × 98 × 97 = 94,000,000. A list of numbers like 6, 2, 1,
7 can represent the proportions for using the four elements in a recipe. To keep
things simple, assume that the numbers in the list must lie between 1 and 10, that
no fractions are allowed, and that the smallest number must always be 1. Then there are about 3,500 different sets of proportions for each choice of four elements, and 3,500 × 94,000,000 (or 330 billion) different recipes in total.
calculate as follows. The periodic table contains about a hundred different types of atoms, which means that the number of combinations made up of four different
elements is about 100 × 99 × 98 × 97 = 94,000,000. A list of numbers like 6, 2, 1,
7 can represent the proportions for using the four elements in a recipe. To keep
things simple, assume that the numbers in the list must lie between 1 and 10, that
no fractions are allowed, and that the smallest number must always be 1. Then there are about 3,500 different sets of proportions for each choice of four elements, and 3,500 × 94,000,000 (or 330 billion) different recipes in total.
Book: Economic Growth, The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics
We discover in ourselves what others hide from us, and we recognize in others what we hide from ourselves.
There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don’t know.
The self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.
Nobody is bored when he is trying to make something that is beautiful or to discover something that is true.
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.