#inventions

When things get too complicated, it sometimes makes sense to stop and wonder: Have I asked the right question? ↗

— Enrico Bombieri

#inventions #math #perspective #science #science

Did you ever think about the creation of the flame-thrower? Someone, somewhere, at some time must have been sitting on his porch, and said, thoughtfully, 'I want to set him on fire.' gesturing to his neighbor. His friend who sat beside him and happened to be handy with tools said, 'I can do that.' Thus, we have a flame thrower. ↗

— John Larson

#humor #inventions #humor

But if inventions have increased man's power over nature very much, then the real value of money is better measured for some purposes in labour than in commodities. ↗

— Alfred Marshall

#commodities #increased #inventions #labour #man

[...] there is one inexorable law of technology, and it is this: when revolutionary inventions become widely accessible, they cease to be accessible. Technology is inherently democratic, because it promises the same services to all; but it works only if the rich are alone using it. When the poor also adopt technology, it stops working. A train used to take two hours to go from A to B; then the motor car arrived, which could cover the same distance in one hour. For this reason cars were very expensive. But as soon as the masses could afford to buy them, the roads became jammed, and the trains started to move faster. Consider how absurd it is for the authorities constantly to urge people to use public transport, in the age of the automobile; but with public transport, by consenting not to belong to the elite, you get where you're going before members of the elite do. ↗

— Umberto Eco

#inventions #technology #transport #age

But what has America to boast? What are the graces or the virtues which distinguish its inhabitants? What are their triumphs in war, or their inventions in peace? ↗

— Thomas Day

#boast #distinguish #graces #inhabitants #inventions

I thought of such Christian inventions as the ghetto and the Jewish badge of shame. The Nazis didn't have to go very far to pick up their know-how. ↗

— Lionel Blue

#christian #far #ghetto #go #i

Opera, next to Gothic architecture, is one of the strangest inventions of Western man. It could not have been foreseen by any logical process. ↗

— Kenneth Clark

#architecture #been #could #foreseen #gothic

In some cases, inventions prohibit innovation because we're so caught up in playing with the technology, we forget about the fact that it was supposed to be important. ↗

— Dean Kamen

#because #cases #caught #fact #forget

To me, innovations are the wheel, fire, language, movable type. There are not 3 million innovations; there are 3 million inventions. ↗

— Dean Kamen

#innovations #inventions #language #me #million

I think software patents are a bad idea. Many patents are given for trivial inventions. ↗

— Larry Wall

#bad idea #given #i #i think #idea