John Allen Paulos (1945) American mathematician
Source: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988), Chapter 2, “Probability and Coincidence” (pp. 37-38; ellipsis represents elision of examples)
Part One, Three
The Dud Avocado (1958)
Context: There are, I know (it was in our philosophy course in college), at least a hundred different reasons why some particular event takes place. So I thrashed about again trying to find some other truth and in the instant that it flashed through my head, I think I got as close to my raison d’etre as I ever have.
John Allen Paulos (1945) American mathematician
Source: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988), Chapter 2, “Probability and Coincidence” (pp. 37-38; ellipsis represents elision of examples)
Michael Flynn book Eifelheim
Source: Eifelheim (2006), Chapter XII (p. 209)
J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) British writer
Conversation http://www.jgballard.ca/interviews/macbeth_interview_1967.html with George MacBeth on Third Programme (BBC) (1 February 1967)], published in The New S.F. (1969), edited by Langdon Jones
“The great events of the world take place in the brain…”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet
Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate
Friedrich Hayek (1991). "On being an economist." In: W. W. Bartley and S. Kresge (eds.), The Trend of Economic Thinking; Essays on Political Economists and Economic History, Volume III, London. Routledge. p. 38
1980s and later
David Boreanaz (1969) American actor, famous for Angel and Buffy
BBC interview http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/buffy/angel/interviews/boreanaz/printpage.html
Georgette Heyer (1902–1974) British historical romance and detective fiction novelist
Source: Powder And Patch
David Gilmour (1946) guitarist, singer, best known as a member of Pink Floyd
"Childhood's End", on Obscured by Clouds (1972)
Context: Who are you and who am I
To say we know the reason why
Some are born, some men die,
Beneath one infinite sky?
There'll be war, there'll be peace,
But everything one day will cease,
All the iron turned to rust,
All the proud men turned to dust,
And so all things time will mend,
So this song will end.