“We have a word game in English called "Twenty questions." To play Twenty Questions, one player imagines some object, and the other players must guess what it is by asking questions that can be answered with a "yes" or a "no." I imagine every language has a similar game, and, for those of us who speak the language of science, the game is called The Scientific Method.”

— K. Barry Sharpless

Nobel Banquet speech, 2001

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We have a word game in English called "Twenty questions." To play Twenty Questions, one player imagines some object, an…" by K. Barry Sharpless?

K. Barry Sharpless 4

American chemist 1941

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Language Education in a Knowledge Context (1980)

“Following von Neumann and Morgenstern [7, p. 30], we distinguish between games with complete information, to be sometimes briefly called C-games in this paper, and games with incomplete information, to be called I-games. The latter differ from the former in the fact that some or all of the players lack full information about the "rules" of the game, or equivalently about its normal form (or about its extensive form). For example, they may lack full information about other players' or even their own payoff functions, about the physical facilities and strategies available to other players or even to themselves, about the amount of information the other players have about various aspects of the game situation, etc.
In our own view it has been a major analytical deficiency of existing game theory that it has been almost completely restricted to C-games, in spite of the fact that in many real-life economic, political, military, and other social situations the participants often lack full information about some important aspects of the "game" they are playing.”

John Harsanyi (1920–2000) hungarian economist

Source: "Games with Incomplete Information Played by “Bayesian” Players," 1967, p. 163: Lead paragraph's

“And my name is Iwata. I'm about making games and I'm about playing games. Last night, I played Super Smash Bros. That's my game. I kicked some… you know what and I took his name. His name was Reggie. As Nintendo president, I'm also all about asking questions. So Reggie, I have a question for you: Who's your daddy?”

Satoru Iwata (1959–2015) Japanese video game programmer and businessman

Referring to Reggie Fils-Aime's opening comments at E³ 2004 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRAeKepPDX8
E³ 2005

“Let us assume that we invited an unknown person to a game of cards. If this person answered us, “I don’t play,” we would either interpret this to mean that he did not understand the game, or that he had an aversion to it which arose from economic, ethical, or other reasons. Let us imagine, however, that an honorable man, who was known to possess every possible skill in the game, and who was well versed in its rules and its forbidden tricks, but who could like a game and participate in it only when it was an innocent pastime, were invited into a company of clever swindlers, who were known as good players and to whom he was equal on both scores, to join them in a game. If he said, “I do not play,” we would have to join him in looking the people with whom he was talking straight in the face, and would be able to supplement his words as follows: “I don’t play, that is, with people such as you, who break the rules of the game, and rob it of its pleasure. If you offer to play a game, our mutual agreement, then, is that we recognize the capriciousness of chance as our master; and you call the science of your nimble fingers chance, and I must accept it as such, it I will, or run the risk of insulting you or choose the shame of imitating you.” … The opinion of Socrates can be summarized in these blunt words, when he said to the Sophists, the leaned men of his time, “I know nothing.””

Johann Georg Hamann (1730–1788) German philosopher

Therefore these words were a thorn in their eyes and a scourge on their backs.
Socratic Memorabilia, J. Flaherty, trans. (Baltimore: 1967), pp. 165-167.

““Do you play chess, by the by?” asked Vance.
“Used to. But no more. A beautiful game, though—if it wasn't for the players.””

S. S. Van Dine book The Bishop Murder Case

Ch 11
The Bishop Murder Case (1929)

“The truly great English midfield player of the generation. Didn’t just play the game, he thought about the game. You could see every pass, every decision, was based on his intelligence and understanding.”

Paul Scholes (1974) English footballer

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/andrea-pirlo-dream-xi-paul-scholes-the-only-englishman-as-juventus-star-leaves-out-cristiano-ronaldo-in-favour-of-pippo-inzaghi-9992885.html
Andrea Pirlo