“Any sufficiently advanced technology is equivalent to magic.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host
“Any technology that does not appear magical is insufficiently advanced.”
— Gregory Benford, book Foundation's Fear
This is derived from the third of Arthur C. Clarke's three laws : "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." There are other variants which had inverted this including one known as Gehm's corollary http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/cyc/l/law.htm, published several years earlier : "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced." The earliest variant seems to be "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology." It has been called "Niven's Law" and attributed to Larry Niven by some, and to Terry Pratchett by others, but without any citation of an original source in either case — the earliest occurrence yet located is an anonymous one in Keystone Folklore (1984) by the Pennsylvania Folklore Society. <br class="br">Foundation's Fear (1997)
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Gregory Benford87
Science fiction author and astrophysicist 1941Related quotes
“Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.”
Larry Niven (1938) American writer
Anonymous saying, this is an inversion of the third of Arthur C. Clarke's three laws : "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." It has been attributed to Niven, and even called "Niven's Law" by some, and to Terry Pratchett by others, but without any citation of an original source in either case, and the earliest occurrence yet located is in Keystone Folklore (1984) by the Pennsylvania Folklore Society.
Misattributed
“Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host
Profiles of the Future (revised edition, 1973)
On Clarke's Laws
Source: Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry Into the Limits of the Possible
“There are certain truths that, in themselves, are as dangerous as any advanced technology.”
Alastair Reynolds book Pushing Ice
Source: Pushing Ice (2005), Chapter 30 (p. 435)
“Any sufficiently advanced form of magick will appear indistinguishable from science.”
Peter J. Carroll (1953) British occultist
Source: PsyberMagick (1995), p. 15
Daniel Alan Vallero (1953) American scientist
Source: D.A. Vallero (2007) "Biomedical Ethics for Engineers: Ethics and Decision Making in Biomedical and Biosystem Engineering" ISBN: 978-0-7506-8227-5.
Steven M. Greer (1955) American ufologist
Source: Quoted in: Researcher's Close Encounters Convince Him Of Extraterrestrials The Virginian-Pilot, Roy A. Bahls, http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=VP&p_theme=vp&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EAFF84CB5EACDC1&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM (22 March 1995)
Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author
From Hawking's article A Brief History of Relativity http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,993018-6,00.html, in Time magazine (31 December 1999)
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (1956) 6th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran
2006, 2006 International Qods Conference address
“It is not that there is some magic technology. It is what are you going to do with it?”
Hal Abelson (1947) computer scientist
Source: mitcet http://www.edpath.com/mitcet.htm