My favourite fellow of the Royal Society is the Reverend Thomas Bayes, an obscure 18th-century Kent clergyman and a brilliant mathematician who devised a complex equation known as the Bayes theorem, which can be used to work out probability distributions. It had no practical application in his lifetime, but today, thanks to computers, is routinely used in the modelling of climate change, astrophysics and stock-market analysis.
Bill BrysonConsider the Lichen. Lichens are just about the hardiest visible organisms on Earth, but the least ambitious.
Bill BrysonThe great failure in education, much of the time, is the lack of excitement and stimulus
Bill Bryson