“There are three schools of magic. One: State a tautology, then ring the changes on its corollaries; that’s philosophy. Two: Record many facts. Try to see a pattern. Then make a wrong guess at the next fact; that’s science. Three: Awareness that you live in a malevolent universe controlled by Murphy’s Law, sometimes offset in part by Brewster’s Factor: that’s engineering.”

— Robert A. Heinlein , book The Number of the Beast

Source: The Number of the Beast (1980), Chapter XLVIII : L’Envoi or Rev. XXII: 13, p. 508

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Robert A. Heinlein 557

American science fiction author 1907–1988

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