Michio Kaku · 416 pages
Rating: (12.6K votes)
“By 2100, our destiny is to become like the gods we once worshipped and feared. But our tools will not be magic wands and potions but the science of computers, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and most of all, the quantum theory.”
“There is so much noise on the Internet, with would-be prophets daily haranguing their audience and megalomaniacs trying to push bizarre ideas, that eventually people will cherish a new commodity: wisdom.”
“To understand the difficulty of predicting the next 100 years, we have to appreciate the difficulty that the people of 1900 had in predicting the world of 2000.”
“Today, your cell phone has more computer power than all of NASA back in 1969, when it placed two astronauts on the moon. Video games, which consume enormous amounts of computer power to simulate 3-D situations, use more computer power than mainframe computers of the previous decade. The Sony PlayStation of today, which costs $300, has the power of a military supercomputer of 1997, which cost millions of dollars.”
“The real bottleneck is software. Creating software can be done only the old-fashioned way. A human -sitting quietly in a chair with a pencil, paper and laptop- is going to have to write the codes... One can mass-produce hardware and increase it's power by piling on more and more chips, but you cannot mass-produce the brain.”
“For example, you might have a sever sunburn as a child. Many decades later, you might develop skin cancer at that same site. This means it probably took that long for the other mutation to occur and finally tip the cell into a cancerous mode.”
“There are two competing trends in the world today: one is to create a planetary civilization that is tolerant, scientific, and prosperous, but the other glorifies anarchy and ignorance that could rip the fabric of our society.”
“If you remove a single transistor in the digital computer’s central processor, the computer will fail.”
“In my field, physics, I see that most of us are engage in physics not for the money but for the sheer joy of discovery an innovation.”
“Each of the genes of the human body is spelled out explicitly in this dictionary, but what each does is still largely a mystery.”
“The point is: whenever there is a conflict between modern technology and the desires of our primitive ancestors, these primitive desires win each time. That’s the Cave Man Principle.”
“Social animals, on the other hand, are more intelligent than those with just a reptilian brain.”
“will we no longer be the most intelligent being on earth,”
“Cuando estamos sentados en una silla, creemos que la tocamos, pero en realidad estamos suspendidos sobre ella, flotando a menos de un nanometro sobre el asiento,”
“Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world. —ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER”
“Sin un científico no hay futuro. Los guapos y atractivos personajes pueden ganarse la admiración de la sociedad, pero todas las invenciones maravillosas relacionadas con el futuro son consecuencia del trabajo de científicos anónimos que no reciben por ello elogio alguno.”
“Bilim şüphesiz ki iki tarafı keskin bir kılıçtır; çözüme ulaştırdığı sayıda problem yaratır, ve yarattığı her problem bir öncekinden hep daha zordur.”
“They found that temperature and carbon dioxide levels have oscillated in parallel, like two roller coasters moving together, in synchronization over many thousands of years. When one curve rises or falls, so does the other. Most important, they found a sudden spike in temperature and carbon dioxide content happening just within the last century. This is highly unusual, since most fluctuations occur slowly over millennia. This unusual spike is not part of this natural heating process, scientists claim, but is a direct indicator of human activity.”
“Animals cannot speak and understand English”
“Cualquier imagen tridimensional contiene una enorme cantidad de información: un montón de veces la información almacenada en una imagen bidimensional.”
“En otras palabras, los ordenadores superrápidos del futuro serán como sabios autistas, es decir, podrán memorizar amplias cantidades de información, pero no podrán hacer mucho más y serán incapaces de sobrevivir por sus propios medios en el mundo real.”
“La única predicción importante que no se ha cumplido es la clonación humana.”
“si un gato puede comerse un ratón en un minuto, ¿cuánto tiempo tardan un millón de gatos en comerse un millón de ratones? Respuesta: un minuto.)”
“The handsome and the beautiful may earn the admiration of society, but all the wondrous inventions of the future are a by-product of the unsung, anonymous scientists.”
“Alrededor de 2020, o poco después, la ley de Moore dejará gradualmente de ser válida, y es posible que Silicon Valley se convierta poco a poco en un simple cinturón industrial, salvo que se encuentre una tecnología sustitutiva. Según las leyes de la física, la era del silicio llegará a su fin a medida que entremos en la era postsilicio. Los transistores serán tan pequeños que la teoría cuántica o la física atómica tomarán el relevo, y los electrones se escaparán de los cables.”
“¿Acaso los robots heredarán la Tierra? Sí, pero serán nuestros hijos. MARVIN MINSKY”
“And Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, said in 1943, “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
“Liquid water is the universal solvent, the mixing bowl where the first DNA probably got off the ground. If liquid-water oceans are found on these planets, it could alter our understanding of life in the universe. Journalists in search of a scandal say, “Follow the money,” but astronomers searching for life in space say, “Follow the water.”
“cuando se produce un conflicto entre la tecnología moderna y los deseos de nuestros primitivos antepasados, los deseos primitivos siempre ganan. Este es el Principio del Hombre de las Cavernas.”
“The last thing the justice system is, is just.”
“Talk about sloppy seconds. Was there such a thing as sloppy thousandths?”
“One of the deadliest storm surges in American history occurred on Lake Okeechobee in Florida, in 1928, when hurricane winds blowing across the long fetch of the lake raised a storm surge that killed 1,835 people.”
“He's been asleep since the war began. He knows this now. In defending himself from death he lost his grip on life. He thinks of Emina, risking her life to deliver expired pills to someone she's never met. Of the young man who ran into the street to save her when she was shot. Of the cellist who plays for those killed in a mortar attack. He could run now, but he doesn't.”
“I drag my gaze back to Seth. He's covered in blood and sweat. He points at me and then at his eyes and then at his chest. He wants me to watch him... I shake my head. I can't. It's too much. He does the gestures again. And again.”
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