Quote Origin: This Is Only a Work of Fiction. The Truth, As Always, Will Be Far Stranger

Arthur C. Clarke? Stanley Kubrick? Mark Twain? J. B. S. Haldane? Question for Quote Investigator: Rapid computer hardware and software developments combined with extreme speculations about a technological singularity have led some science fiction writers to complain that envisioning the future has become too difficult. I am reminded of the following disclaimer for a novel: …

The Optimum Population of the World Should Be About One Hundred Thousand

Arthur C. Clarke? Fred Hoyle? Georg Borgstrom? Donald W. Mann? Gretchen C. Daily? Anne H. Ehrlich? Paul Ehrlich? Kenneth Smail? Question for Quote Investigator: The world population is projected to exceed 8 billion in 2022. Also, the United Nations Population Division forecasts that before 2100 the population will exceed 10 billion. Interestingly, some countries currently have …

The Only Way of Discovering the Limits of the Possible Is To Venture a Little Way Past Them Into the Impossible

Arthur C. Clarke? Tobias Dantzig? Robert Heinlein? Jerome Agel? Harold Faber? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The science fiction luminary Arthur C. Clarke once said something like: the best way to find the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible. I have seen several different versions of this remark. Would you …

The First Ultraintelligent Machine Is the Last Invention That Humanity Need Ever Make

Irving John Good? Arthur C. Clarke? Philip J. Davis? Reuben Hersh? Vernor Vinge? Raymond Kurzweil? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: A prominent computer researcher in the 1950s or 1960s predicted that humanity would create a superintelligent machine sometime during the twentieth century. The researcher believed that this machine would be humanity’s last invention. Would you please …

Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence

Carl Sagan? Marcello Truzzi? Pierre-Simon Laplace? David Hume? Benjamin Bayly? Elihu Palmer? William Craig Brownlee? F. B. Barton? William Denton? Ely Vaughan Zollars? Joseph Rinn? James Oberg? Arthur C. Clarke? Dear Quote Investigator: Tabloid newspapers have printed remarkable claims about alien abductions, mischievous ghosts, bigfoot sightings, and other anomalies. Skeptics have countered these reports by …

Sometimes I Think We’re Alone, and Sometimes I Think We’re Not. In Either Case, the Idea Is Quite Staggering

Arthur C. Clarke? Stanley Kubrick? Christiane Kubrick? Jeremy Bernstein? Porky Pine? Walt Kelly? Frank Interlandi? Carl Sagan? Jerome Agel? Buckminster Fuller? David Shepley? Lee Alvin DuBridge? Anonymous? Quote Investigator: Astronomers have been searching for evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence for more than a century. Is humankind alone in the universe, or is humankind sharing the cosmos …

We Can Never Run Out of Energy or Matter. But We Can All Too Easily Run Out of Brains

Arthur C. Clarke? Gerard K. O’Neill? Apocryphal Dear Quote Investigator: The famous science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke was optimistic concerning the ability of human ingenuity to transcend current limitations. He believed that future technologies would overcome raw material shortages. The only constraint he feared was a lack of engaged human brains. Would you please …

Time Is What Keeps Everything From Happening At Once

Albert Einstein? Ray Cummings? Mark Twain? Arthur C. Clarke? John Archibald Wheeler? Arthur Power Dudden? Susan Sontag? Dear Quote Investigator: Albert Einstein has received credit for a humorous remark about time: The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once. Would you please explore the provenance of this quip? Quote Investigator: …

It Has Yet To Be Proved That Intelligence Has Real Survival Value

Arthur C. Clarke? Paraphrase? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The intelligence of humanity has enabled its absolute dominance of the biosphere; however, this trait has also generated frightening existential risks such as the danger of nuclear warfare. Science fiction luminary Arthur C. Clarke has received credit for the following remark: It has yet to be proved …

Quote Origin: People Tend To Overestimate What Can Be Done In One Year And To Underestimate What Can Be Done In Five Or Ten Years

Bill Gates? Arthur C. Clarke? J. C. R. Licklider? Roy Amara? Alfred Mayo? George H. Heilmeier? Manfred Kochen? Raymond Kurzweil? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Predicting the technological future of mankind is enormously difficult. One recurring flaw in such projections has been identified. Here are three versions: We tend to overestimate the effect of a …