““Tell me, scientist to scientist, do you honestly think it will work?”
“We won’t know until we try,” Naqi said. Any other answer would have been politically hazardous: too much optimism and the politicians would have started asking just why the expensive project was needed in the first place. Too much pessimism and they would ask exactly the same question.”

— Alastair Reynolds , book Diamond Dogs

Turquoise Days, Chapter 2 (pp. 240-241)
Short fiction, Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days (2003)

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 "“Tell me, scientist to scientist, do you honestly think it will work?” “We won’t know until we try,” Naqi said. Any ot…" by Alastair Reynolds?

Alastair Reynolds 198

British novelist and astronomer 1966

Related quotes

“Tell me, scientist to scientist, do you honestly think it will work?”

Alastair Reynolds book Diamond Dogs

“We won’t know until we try,” Naqi said. Any other answer would have been politically hazardous: too much optimism and the politicians would have started asking just why the expensive project was needed in the first place. Too much pessimism and they would ask exactly the same question.

Turquoise Days, Chapter 2 (pp. 240-241)
Short fiction, Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days (2003)

“If we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we would know the mind of God.”

Stephen Hawking book Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays

Last lines. Hawking later wrote: "In the proof stage I nearly cut the last sentence in the book... Had I done so, the sales might have been halved.
Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays (1993)

“My mother made me a scientist without ever intending to. Every other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask her child after school: So? Did you learn anything today? But not my mother. “Izzy,” she would say, “did you ask a good question today?” That difference — asking good questions — made me become a scientist.”

Isidor Isaac Rabi (1898–1988) American physicist

As quoted in "Great Minds Start With Questions" in Parents Magazine (September 1993).

“We are so much accustomed to the humanitarian outlook that we forget how little it counted in earlier ages of civilisation. Ask any decent person in England or America what he thinks matters most in human conduct: five to one his answer will be "kindness." It's not a word that would have crossed the lips of any of the earlier heroes of this series. If you had asked St. Francis what mattered in life, he would, we know, have answered "chastity, obedience and poverty"; if you had asked Dante or Michelangelo, they might have answered "disdain of baseness and injustice"; if you had asked Goethe, he would have said "to live in the whole and the beautiful."”

Kenneth Clark (1903–1983) Art historian, broadcaster and museum director

But kindness, never. Our ancestors didn't use the word, and they did not greatly value the quality — except perhaps insofar as they valued compassion.
Source: Civilisation (1969), Ch. 13: Heroic Materialism

“We did that often, asking each other questions whose answers we already knew. Perhaps it was so that we would not ask the other questions, the ones whose answers we did not want to know.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book Purple Hibiscus

Source: Purple Hibiscus

“It’s not about where you were born, or where you come from that makes you a good scientist. What you need are good teachers, co-students, facilities, [he said]. I honestly don’t think my roots have much to do with it. I’m sure this won’t make me popular, but this is what I think.”

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (1952) Nobel prize winning American and British structural biologist

On his childhood roots in Tamil Nadu.
Appreciate science for what it is: Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

“If some of the current politicians had been around a few thousand years ago,” she’d said, “we never would have gotten out of Africa. Boats cost too much.”

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer

Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Cauldron (2007), Chapter 4 (pp. 46-47)

“Political scientists don't work at banks—which is a problem. As political issues become more important for the markets, analysts at banks are asked all sorts of questions they don't have the ability to answer. And if you're getting paid to answer questions—as analysts at banks are—you never want to be in the position of saying you don't know.”

Ian Bremmer (1969) American political scientist

"Diary of a Political Scientist," http://www.slate.com/id/2094743/entry/2095060/ Slate (February 5, 2004).

“I think that it's important for scientists to explain their work, particularly in cosmology. This now answers many questions once asked of religion.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

As quoted in "Return of the time lord" in The Guardian (27 September 2005)

“Edward, Edward," he said with a patronising smile, "there are no unanswered questions of any relevance. Every question that we need to ask has been answered fully. If you can't find the correct answer then you are obviously asking the wrong question.”

Jasper Fforde (1961) British novelist

Shades of Grey (2010), p206

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Alastair Reynolds 198

Related quotes

Related topics