Applause” light that tells a studio audience when to clap.

I want to carry in my heart forever the key word of the Olympics – ‘passion.’

Not every change is an improvement but every improvement is a change; you can’t do anything BETTER unless you can manage to do it DIFFERENTLY, you’ve got to let yourself do better than other people!

I keep trying to explain to people that the archetype of intelligence is not Dustin Hoffman in ‘The Rain Man;’ it is a human being, period. It is squishy things that explode in a vacuum,...

When you are older, you will learn that the first and foremost thing which any ordinary person does is nothing.

Wow,” the empty air finally said. “Wow. That puts a pretty different perspective on things, I have to say. I’m going to remember this the next time I feel an impulse to blame myself for...

If our extinction proceeds slowly enough to allow a moment of horrified realization, the doers of the deed will likely be quite taken aback on realizing that they have actually destroyed the world. Therefore I...

Okay, so either (a) I just teleported somewhere else entirely (b) they can fold space like no one’s business or (c) they are simply ignoring all the rules.

Though I have friends aplenty in academia, I don’t operate within the academic system myself.

And then Harry Potter had launched in to a speech that was inspiring, yet vague. A speech to the effect that Fred and George and Lee had tremendous potential if they could just learn to...

Intelligence is the source of technology. If we can use technology to improve intelligence, that closes the loop and potentially creates a positive feedback cycle.

Like that’s the only reason anyone would ever buy a first-aid kit? Don’t take this the wrong way, Professor McGonagall, but what sort of crazy children are you used to dealing with?””Gryffindors,” spat Professor McGonagall,...

What people really believe doesn’t feel like a BELIEF, it feels like the way the world IS.

In our skulls, we carry around 3 pounds of slimy, wet, greyish tissue, corrugated like crumpled toilet paper. You wouldn’t think, to look at the unappetizing lump, that it was some of the most powerful...

You couldn’t changed history. But you could get it right to start with. Do something differently the FIRST time around.This whole business with seeking Slytherin’s secrets… seemed an awful lot like the sort of thing...

Textbook science is beautiful! Textbook science is comprehensible, unlike mere fascinating words that can never be truly beautiful. Elementary science textbooks describe simple theories, and simplicity is the core of scientific beauty. Fascinating words have...

Without thinking about it at all, Harry stepped in front of Hermione.There was an intake of breath from behind him, and then a moment later Hermione brushed past and stepped in front of him. “Run,...

The media thinks that only the cutting edge of science, the very latest controversies, are worth reporting on. How often do you see headlines like ‘General Relativity still governing planetary orbits’ or ‘Phlogiston theory remains...

Why does any kind of cynicism appeal to people? Because it seems like a mark of maturity, of sophistication, like you’ve seen everything and know better. Or because putting something down feels like pushing yourself...

For an instant Harry imagined… Just for an instant, before his imagination blew a fuse and called an emergency shut down and told him never to imagine that again.

The systematic experimental study of reproducible errors of human reasoning, and what these errors reveal about underlying mental processes, is known as the heuristics and biases program in cognitive psychology. This program has made discoveries...

By far, the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it.

If I could create a world where people lived forever, or at the very least a few billion years, I would do so. I don’t think humanity will always be stuck in the awkward stage...

But it is cute. It’s such a boy thing to do.Drop dead.Aw, you say the most romantic things.

I wouldn’t be surprised if tomorrow was the Final Dawn, the last sunrise before the Earth and Sun are reshaped into computing elements.

“Someday,” said the Boy-Who-Lived, “when the distant descendants of Homo sapiens are looking back over the history of the galaxy and wondering how it all went so wrong, they will conclude that the original mistake...

To worship a sacred mystery was just to worship your own ignorance.

The human species was not born into a market economy. Bees won’t sell you honey if you offer them an electronic funds transfer. The human species imagined money into existence, and it exists – for...

Anything that could give rise to smarter-than-human intelligence – in the form of Artificial Intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, or neuroscience-based human intelligence enhancement – wins hands down beyond contest as doing the most to change the...

The obvious choice isn’t always the best choice, but sometimes, by golly, it is. I don’t stop looking as soon I find an obvious answer, but if I go on looking, and the obvious-seeming answer...