There’s an ancient philosophical joke that’s much subtler than it seems. Question: Why is the Universe here? Answer: Where else would it be?
Science is the only religion of mankind.
Personally, I refuse to drive a car - I won't have anything to do with any kind of transportation in which I can't read.
Moon-Watcher and his companions had no recollection of what they had seen, after the crystal had ceased to cast its hypnotic spell over their minds and to experiment with their bodies. The next day, a...
If we both believe that we have nothing to learn from the other, is it not obvious that we will both be wrong?
How foolish that expectation had been! He knew now that one might as well hope to see the wind, or speculate about the true shape of fire.
For the last century, almost all top political appointments [on the planet Earth] had been made by random computer selection from the pool of individuals who had the necessary qualifications. It had t...
But it had been widely argued that advanced intelligence could never arise in the sea; there were not enough challenges in so benign and unvarying an environment.
Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each gr...
Throbbed into silence… And that’s the way it was—goodbye, wonderful and terrible Twentieth
Electronic diplomacy was not possible over solar-system distances. Some elder statesmen, accustomed to the instantaneous communications that Earth had long taken for granted, had never reconciled them...
A man’s beliefs were his own affair, so long as they did not interfere with the liberty of others.
Yet if there were no hazards there would be no achievement, no sense of adventure.
This would involve disconnection—the computer equivalent of death. Despite
There were some things that only time could cure. Evil men could be destroyed, but nothing could be done with good men who were deluded.
The core of Jupiter, forever beyond human reach, was a diamond as big as the Earth.
The Lassans were insatiably inquisitive, and the concept of privacy was almost unknown to them. A Please Do Not Disturb sign was often regarded as a personal challenge, which led to interesting compli...
Seems like it, answered Bowman. The unit checks out perfectly. Even under two hundred percent overload, there’s no fault prediction indicated. The two men were standing in the tiny workshop-cum-lab in...
Poole and Bowman had often humorously referred to themselves as caretakers or janitors aboard a ship that could really run itself. They would have been astonished, and more than a little indignant, to...
One hemisphere was a giant bull’s-eye, a series of concentric rings where solid rock had once flowed in kilometer-high ripples under some ancient hammer blow from space.