
“There is always something to upset the most careful of human calculations.”
Book II, ch. 2.
The Japanese Family Storehouse (1688)
The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn (1991)
“There is always something to upset the most careful of human calculations.”
Book II, ch. 2.
The Japanese Family Storehouse (1688)
“The most technologically efficient machine that man has ever invented is the book.”
Source: Inventing the Future (1963), p. 161
On financial planning at a speech at the Smithsonian.
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985)
Context: The Benedictine monks who invented the mechanical clock in the 12th and 13th centuries believed that such a clock would provide a precise regularity to the seven periods of devotion... here is a great paradox: the clock was invented by men who wanted to devote themselves more rigorously to God; and it ended as the technology of greatest use to men who wished to devote themselves to the accumulation of money. Technology always has unforeseen consequences, and it is not always clear, at the beginning, who or what will win, and who or what will lose.... Gutenberg thought his invention would advance the cause of the Holy Roman See, whereas in fact, it turned out to bring a revolution which destroyed the monopoly of the Church.
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
Alan Kay (1971) at a 1971 meeting of PARC http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/09/27/invent-the-future/
Similar remarks are attributed to Peter Drucker and Dandridge M. Cole.
Cf. Dennis Gabor, Inventing the Future (1963): "The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented."
Nigel Calder reviewed Gabor's book and wrote, "we cannot predict the future, but we can invent it..."
1970s
Source: Adventures of a Mathematician - Third Edition (1991), Chapter 11, The 'Super', p. 222