Gregory Benford Quotes

She sighed. “We’re just guessing.”
“When you have a Ph. D., you call them hypotheses, not guesses.”

To believe anything so far-fetched, I’d have to see a solid calculation.

The ship of theory could set sail on tides of mathematical grandeur and hope alone, but only data could fill its sails.

She was grateful for something more than smooth, meaningless phrases. Better, the man had not reverted to the hedged-in, minimize-possible-damage style. And the first of all the commandments shall be: Cover Thy Ass.

I like Orange County, though. It’s like L.A. without caffeine.

Law of the universe," she said. "The longer the menu description, the worse the food.

Ummm," Alicia said, trying to be polite. "Still sounds like we're just making this up as we go along." "We are." Max grinned. "Invent, then check. It's really the only way to make progress.

Data always overruled theory.

She needed some fresh illumination, all right, but not the kind that comes through the west window of a church.

But in the divisions among students lay a deeper strategy. The administration practiced tactics of divide-and-conquer, turning each student faction into a client, supplicants to the ever-expanding executive corps who thought of themselves as “management,” of faculty as workers and students as captive customers. In this they merely mirrored the national political style, a legacy of the Twen Cen.

“Diversity” had come to mean Balkanization.

Only senators and simpletons thought science took place in neatly drawn boxes.

When in enough doubt, let your subconscious work on the problem.

The desire to find something could provoke what she called “wantum mechanics,” fishing a result out of nothing but noise.

A damned big clue, but pointing at what? When in doubt, get some numbers.