EPT“If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generations of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis (or the atomic fact, or whatever you wish to call it) that all things are made of atoms—little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, you will see, there is an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied.”
Here are some sentences by some leading thinkers:
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“Knowledge is a public good and increases in value as the number of people possessing it increases.”
—John Wilbanks is vice president of science at Creative Commons.
—John Wilbanks is vice president of science at Creative Commons.
“Humans have a tendency to fall prey to the illusion that their economy is at the very center of the universe, forgetting that the biosphere is what ultimately sustains all systems, both man-made and natural - in this sense, ‘environmental issues’ are not about saving the planet—it will always survive and evolve with new combinations of atom—but about the prosperous development of our own species.”
— Carl Folke is the science director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University
— Carl Folke is the science director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University
“The same mathematics of networks that governs the interactions of molecules in a cell, neurons in a brain, and species in an ecosystem can be used to understand the complex interconnections between people, the emergence of group identity, and the paths along which information, norms, and behavior spread from person to person to person.”
—James Fowler is a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego
—James Fowler is a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego
“You can make sense of anything that changes smoothly in space or time, no matter how wild and complicated it may appear, by reimagining it as an infinite series of infinitesimal changes, each proceeding at a constant (and hence much simpler) rate, and then adding all those simple little changes back together to reconstitute the original whole.”
—Steven Strogatz is a mathematician at Cornell University
—Steven Strogatz is a mathematician at Cornell University
“I take the easy way out by quoting another eminent scientist. In Cosmos Carl Sagan said, ‘We are made of star stuff.’ That simple statement does not encompass the physics of the earliest moments of the universe, but it encompasses its evolutionary history, from the formation of the first stars, which enriched the universe with additional elements, to the creation of planetary systems, and life and humanity on the planet Earth. Because it emphasizes our intimate and direct connection with the cosmos, it admits the possibility that others are, or have been, or may be, likewise connected.”
—Jill Tarter is the director of the SETI Institute’s Center for SETI Research.
—Jill Tarter is the director of the SETI Institute’s Center for SETI Research.
TL, what would your sentence be?
