When Columbus took off, the purpose was to improve trade relations with China. That problem has not been solved to this very day, but just look at the by-products.

Knowing he [Bob Serber] was going to the [first atom bomb] test, I asked him how he planned to deal with the danger of rattlesnakes. He said, 'I'll take along a bottle of whiskey.' … I ended by asking, 'What would you do about those possibilities [of what unknown phenomena might cause a nuclear explosion to propagate in the atmosphere]?' Bob replied, 'Take a second bottle of whiskey.'

If not for me, the H-bomb would have been developed in Russia first. In the U.S., we'd now be speaking Russian.

The main purpose of science is simplicity and as we understand more things, everything is becoming simpler.

Society's emissions of carbon dioxide may or may not turn out to have something significant to do with global warming-the jury is still out.

One may say that predictions are dangerous particularly for the future. If the danger involved in a prediction is not incurred, no consequence follows and the uncertainty principle is not violated.

Life improves slowly and goes wrong fast, and only catastrophe is clearly visible.