There's a passage about 'rivers of molten rock that wound their way... until they cooled and lay like twisted dragon-shapes vomited from the tormented earth.' That's a perfect description: how did Tolkien know, a quarter century before anyone ever saw a picture of Io? Talk about Nature imitating Art.

It was one thing to have guessed it, another to have had that guess confirmed beyond possibility of refutation.

The intelligent minority of this world will mark 1 January 2001 as the real beginning of the 21st century and the Third Millennium.

The universe must be full of voices, calling from star to star in a myriad tongues. One day we shall join that cosmic conversation.

I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected President but refuses because he doesn't want to give up power.

Perhaps no other year before or since 1984 has been awaited with such eager anticipation.

The information age has been driven and dominated by technopreneurs. We now have to apply these technologies in saving lives, improving livelihoods and lifting millions of people out of squalor, misery and suffering. In other words, our focus must now move from the geeks to the meek.