Attributed to David Wheeler by Butler Lampson in his Turing Lecture https://web.archive.org/web/20070221210039/http://research.microsoft.com/Lampson/Slides/TuringLecture.doc (17 February 1993)
Lampson uses the phrase without attribution in Authentication in distributed systems: theory and practice https://doi.org/10.1145/138873.138874 (November 1992)
Profile of Yuri Knorozov http://cemyk.org/pages/en/yuri-knorosov.php
Computer Literacy Bookshops Interview http://karthikr.wordpress.com/2006/04/06/donald-knuth-%e2%80%94-computer-literacy-bookshops-interview-1993/ Computer Literacy Bookshops Interview (1993)
On why bioinformatics is very exciting
“You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.”
Variant: We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”
Source: Computer-Aided Design: A Statement of Objectives (1960), p. iii; Abstract.
2010 Senate Campaign, Remarks regarding Christopher Dodd
Source: Peter Schiff criticizes Chris Dodd's plan to overhaul financial regulators, Altimari, Daniela, September 22, 2009 11:26 AM, Capitol Watch Blog, Courant, 2009-09-23 http://blogs.courant.com/capitol_watch/2009/09/peter-schiff-criticizes-chris.html,
introduction to De Curvis Elasticis, Additamentum I to his Methodus Inveniendi Lineas Curvas Maximi Minimive Proprietate Gaudentes 1744; translated on pg10-11, "Leonhard Euler's Elastic Curves" https://www.dropbox.com/s/o09w82abgtftpfr/1933-oldfather.pdf, Oldfather et al 1933
Context: All the greatest mathematicians have long since recognized that the method presented in this book is not only extremely useful in analysis, but that it also contributes greatly to the solution of physical problems. For since the fabric of the universe is most perfect, and is the work of a most wise Creator, nothing whatsoever takes place in the universe in which some relation of maximum and minimum does not appear. Wherefore there is absolutely no doubt that every effect in the universe can be explained as satisfactorily from final causes, by the aid of the method of maxima and minima, as it can from the effective causes themselves. Now there exist on every hand such notable instances of this fact, that, in order to prove its truth, we have no need at all of a number of examples; nay rather one's task should be this, namely, in any field of Natural Science whatsoever to study that quantity which takes on a maximum or a minimum value, an occupation that seems to belong to philosophy rather than to mathematics. Since, therefore, two methods of studying effects in Nature lie open to us, one by means of effective causes, which is commonly called the direct method, the other by means of final causes, the mathematician uses each with equal success. Of course, when the effective causes are too obscure, but the final causes are more readily ascertained, the problem is commonly solved by the indirect method; on the contrary, however, the direct method is employed whenever it is possible to determine the effect from the effective causes. But one ought to make a special effort to see that both ways of approach to the solution of the problem be laid open; for thus not only is one solution greatly strengthened by the other, but, more than that, from the agreement between the two solutions we secure the very highest satisfaction.
“It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.”
Source: Life, the Universe and Everything
Flash Crowd, section 7, in Three Trips in Time and Space (1973), edited by Robert Silverberg, p. 65
