Quotes from book
Dragon's Egg

Dragon's Egg

“In science fiction there is only a handful of books that stretch the mind—and this is one of them.”—Arthur C. Clarke In a moving story of sacrifice and triumph, human scientists establish a relationship with intelligent lifeforms—the cheela—living on Dragon’s Egg, a neutron star where one Earth hour is equivalent to hundreds of their years. The cheela culturally evolve from savagery to the discovery of science, and for a brief time, men are their diligent teachers. Praise for Dragon’s Egg “Bob Forward writes in the tradition of Hal Clement’s Mission of Gravity and carries it a giant step (how else?) forward.”—Isaac Asimov “Dragon’s Egg is superb. I couldn’t have written it; it required too much real physics.”—Larry Niven “This is one for the real science-fiction fan.”—Frank Herbert “Robert L. Forward tells a good story and asks a profound question. If we run into a race of creatures who live a hundred years while we live an hour, what can they say to us or we to them?”—Freeman J. Dyson “Forward has impeccable scientific credentials, and . . . big, original, speculative ideas.”—The Washington Post


“You are lucky. Very few theoretical scientists ever see their mathematical equations turned into working hardware in their lifetime.”

Source: Dragon's Egg (1980), Chapter 7, “Interaction” Section 6 (p. 255)

“If the computer had been a human, its eyebrows would have raised.”

Source: Dragon's Egg (1980), Chapter 6, “Contact” Section 3 (p. 202)

“No data is preferable to poor data.”

Source: Dragon's Egg (1980), Chapter 2, “Pulsar” Section 3 (p. 26)

“An animal doesn’t need to develop curiosity and intelligence if it has no problems that need solving.”

Source: Dragon's Egg (1980), Chapter 1, “Prologue” Section 4 (p. 7)

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