572 quotes found
"I don't know whether Napoleon did or did not try to get across there and I don't care. I don't know much about history, and I wouldn't give a nickel for all the history in the world. It means nothing to me. History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today. **Interview in Chicago Tribune (25 May 1916)"
"An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous."
"International financiers are behind all war. They are what is called the international Jew: German-Jews, French-Jews, English-Jews, American-Jews ... the Jew is the threat."
"History is bunk. What difference does it make how many times the ancient Greeks flew their kites?"
"Jews have always controlled the business [...]. The motion picture influence of the United States and Canada [...] is exclusively under the control, moral and financial, of the Jewish manipulators of the public mind."
"The only statement I care to make about the Protocols is that they fit in with what is going on. They are sixteen years old, and they have fitted the world situation up to his time. They fit it now."
"There's just one thing that's permanent in this world, and that's change. And when a man gets too old to change, why, then, he dies. And after that, who knows? Do we go on somewhere else? We'd all like to think so; it seems sometimes as though something inside us was telling us that we do. But if we do live on, then one thing is sure: The fellows who are afraid all the time that they may lose what they've got will lose out over there just the way they lose out here. And the big prizes will keep right on going to the fellows who do their duty and have faith. That's all there is to happiness, according to my way of thinking—just doing your duty and having faith."
"Money doesn't change men. It merely unmasks them. If a man is naturally selfish, or arrogant, or greedy, the money brings it out; that's all."
"So, while the people are indeed supreme over the written Constitution, the spiritual constitution is supreme over them. The French Revolutionists wrote constitutions too—every drunken writer among them tossed off a constitution. Where are they? All vanished. Why? Because they were not in harmony with the constitution of the universe. The power of the Constitution is not dependent on any Government, but on its inherent rightness and practicability."
"I've never made a flight in an airplane, and I don't know that I'm particularly anxious to. I would, though, like to take a trip in a . Bring one out here some time, won't you, Doctor Eckener, and give me a ride?"
"But to do for the world more than the world does for you--that is Success."
"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few engage in it."
"I adopted the theory of Reincarnation when I was twenty six. Religion offered nothing to the point. Even work could not give me complete satisfaction. Work is futile if we cannot utilise the experience we collect in one life in the next. When I discovered Reincarnation it was as if I had found a universal plan. I realised that there was a chance to work out my ideas. Time was no longer limited. I was no longer a slave to the hands of the clock. Genius is experience. Some seem to think that it is a gift or talent, but it is the fruit of long experience in many lives. Some are older souls than others, and so they know more. The discovery of Reincarnation put my mind at ease. If you preserve a record of this conversation, write it so that it puts men's minds at ease. I would like to communicate to others the calmness that the long view of life gives to us."
"Nothing is particularly hard if you subdivide it into small jobs."
"The genius of the Jew is to live off people, not off land, nor off the production of commodities from raw materials, but off people. Let other people till the soil; the Jew, if he can, will live off the tiller. Let other people toil at trades and manufacture; the Jew will exploit the fruits of their work. That is his particular genius. If this genius be described as parasitic, the term would seem to be justified by a certain fitness."
"We have only started on our development of our country — we have not as yet, with all our talk of wonderful progress, done more than scratch the surface. The progress has been wonderful enough — but when we compare what we have done with what there is to do, then our past accomplishments are as nothing. When we consider that more power is used merely in ploughing the soil than is used in all the industrial establishments of the country put together, an inkling comes of how much opportunity there is ahead. And now, with so many countries of the world in ferment and with so much unrest everywhere, is an excellent time to suggest something of the things that may be done — in the light of what has been done. When one speaks of increasing power, machinery, and industry there comes up a picture of a cold, metallic sort of world in which great factories will drive away the trees, the flowers, the birds, and the green fields. And that then we shall have a world composed of metal machines and human machines. With all of that I do not agree. I think that unless we know more about machines and their use, unless we better understand the mechanical portion of life, we cannot have the time to enjoy the trees, and the birds, and the flowers, and the green fields."
"I am not a reformer. I think there is entirely too much attempt at reforming in the world and that we pay too much attention to reformers. We have two kinds of reformers. Both are nuisances. The man who calls himself a reformer wants to smash things. He is the sort of man who would tear up a whole shirt because the collar button did not fit the buttonhole. It would never occur to him to enlarge the buttonhole. This sort of reformer never under any circumstances knows what he is doing. Experience and reform do not go together. A reformer cannot keep his zeal at white heat in the presence of a fact. He must discard all facts."
"The economic fundamental is labour. Labour is the human element which makes the fruitful seasons of the earth useful to men. It is men's labour that makes the harvest what it is. That is the economic fundamental: every one of us is working with material which we did not and could not create, but which was presented to us by Nature."
"As long as we look to legislation to cure poverty or to abolish special privilege we are going to see poverty spread and special privilege grow."
"Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again. There is no disgrace in honest failure; there is disgrace in fearing to fail."
"Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black."
"I will build a car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one — and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God's great open spaces."
"We are not against borrowing money and we are not against bankers. We are against trying to make borrowed money take the place of work. We are against the kind of banker who regards a business as a melon to be cut. The thing is to keep money and borrowing and finance generally in their proper place, and in order to do that one has to consider exactly for what the money is needed and how it is going to be paid off."
"The people are on the side of sound money. They are so unalterably on the side of sound money that it is a serious question how they would regard the system under which they live, if they once knew what the initiated can do with it."
"Bankers play far too great a part in the conduct of industry..."
"The average successful banker is by no means so intelligent and resourceful a man as is the average successful business man. Yet the banker through his control of credit practically controls the average business man."
"The banker is, as I have noted, by training and because of his position, totally unsuited to the conduct of industry. If, therefore, the controllers of credit have lately acquired this very large power, is it not to be taken as a sign that there is something wrong with the financial system that gives to finance instead of to service the predominant power in industry? It was not the industrial acumen of the bankers that brought them into the management of industry."
"My objection to bankers has nothing to do with personalities. I am not against bankers as such. We stand very much in need of thoughtful men, skilled in finance. The world cannot go on without banking facilities. We have to have money. We have to have credit. Otherwise the fruits of production could not be exchanged. We have to have capital. Without it there could be no production. But whether we have based our banking and our credit on the right foundation is quite another matter."
"The bankers who do straight banking should regard themselves as naturally the first men to probe and understand our monetary system—instead of being content with the mastery of local banking-house methods; and if they would deprive the gamblers in bank balances of the name of "banker" and oust them once for all from the place of influence which that name gives them, banking would be restored and established as the public service it ought to be, and the iniquities of the present monetary system and financial devices would be lifted from the shoulders of the people."
"If the present faulty system is more profitable to a financier than a more perfect system would be, and if that financier values his few remaining years of personal profits more highly than he would value the honour of making a contribution to the life of the world by helping to erect a better system, then there is no way of preventing a clash of interests. But it is fair to say to the selfish financial interests that, if their fight is waged to perpetuate a system just because it profits them, then their fight is already lost. Why should finance fear? The world will still be here. Men will do business with one another. There will be money and there will be need of masters of the mechanism of money. Nothing is going to depart but the knots and tangles. There will be some readjustments, of course. Banks will no longer be the masters of industry. They will be the servants of industry."
"Business will control money instead of money controlling business. The ruinous interest system will be greatly modified. Banking will not be a risk, but a service. Banks will begin to do much more for the people than they do now, and instead of being the most expensive businesses in the world to manage, and the most highly profitable in the matter of dividends, they will become less costly, and the profits of their operation will go to the community which they serve."
"Money is only a tool in business. It is just a part of the machinery. You might as well borrow 100,000 lathes as $100,000 if the trouble is inside your business. More lathes will not cure it; neither will more money. Only heavier doses of brains and thought and wise courage can cure. A business that misuses what it has will continue to misuse what it can get."
"Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success."
"The man who has the largest capacity for work and thought is the man who is bound to succeed."
"If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own."
"The provision of a whole new system of electric generation emancipated industry from the leather belt and line shaft, for it eventually became possible to provide each tool with its own electric motor. This may seem only a detail of minor importance. In fact, modern industry could not be carried out with the belt and line shaft for a number of reasons. The motor enabled machinery to be arranged in the order of the work, and that alone has probably doubled the efficiency of industry, for it has cut out a tremendous amount of useless handling and hauling. The belt and line shaft were also tremendously wasteful – so wasteful indeed that no factory could be really large, for even the longest line shaft was small according to modern requirements. Also high speed tools were impossible under the old conditions – neither the pulleys nor the belts could stand modern speeds. Without high speed tools and the finer steels which they brought about, there could be nothing of what we call modern industry."
"Through all the years that I have been in business I have never yet found our business bad as a result of any outside force. It has always been due to some defect in our own company, and whenever we located and repaired that defect our business became good again - regardless of what anyone else might be doing. And it will always be found that this country has nationally bad business when business men are drifting, and that business is good when men take hold of their own affairs, put leadership into them, and push forward in spite of obstacles. Only disaster can result when the fundamental principles of business are disregarded and what looks like the easiest way is taken. These fundamentals, as I see them, are:"
"The average man won't really do a day's work unless he is caught and cannot get out of it. There is plenty of work to do if people would do it."
"Let them fail; let everybody fail! I made my fortune when I had nothing to start with, by myself and my own ideas. Let other people do the same thing. If I lose everything in the collapse of our financial structure, I will start in at the beginning and build it up again."
"What we need is some financial engineers."
"A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large."
"You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do."
"A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business."
"When I see an Alfa Romeo go by, I tip my hat."
"You will find men who want to be carried on the shoulders of others, who think that the world owes them a living. They don't seem to see that we must all lift together and pull together."
"There's enough alcohol in one year's yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for one hundred years."
"It is perhaps well enough that the people of the Nation do not know or understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."
"Variant: If the American people knew the corruption in our money system there would be revolution before morning."
"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
"Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time."
"My best friend is one who brings out the best in me."
"Any man who thinks he is going to be happy and prosperous by letting the government take care of him should take a close look at the American Indian."
"Industrialist Henry Ford hated jazz. He thought it was a Jewish conspiracy to use black music to get good white people into booze, cigarettes and sex."
"He draws upon his subconscious mind."
"Only workers are forbidden to be internationalists. It’s perfectly proper for J. P. Morgan and Henry Ford; for the bankers, the munitions trusts, the chemical companies. It’s proper for scientists, stamp collectors, athletic associations, musicians, spiritualists, people who raise bees, to be internationalist – but not workers. Only the clasped hands of the workers across the boundaries are struck down in every country."
"One of the strangest demonstrations for peace at that time was the Ford Peace Party which chartered a ship, the Oscar II, known as the Peace Ship. It sailed on December 4, 1915 and its slogan was: "Get the boys out of the trenches by Christmas." Henry Ford paid all the expenses of the trip, it was rumored. The pilgrims for peace numbered about 30 determined souls, including Miss Addams, Miss Balch, Miss Beckenridge of Chicago and amazingly enough William C. Bullit of Philadelphia. The roster of prominent, honest Americans who stood squarely for peace and for keeping us out of war was impressive, including statesmen, ministers, professors, labor leaders, women leaders, writers, editors and even capitalists. However, we of the IWW took no part in any of these pacifist activities. To us it was a grim joke to see an anti-union exploiter like Ford a participant in a peace movement. We were suspicious of non-working-class elements of all sorts and held ourselves aloof from them. Yet, it was the IWW that bore the full impact of wartime prosecution as soon as war was declared."
"If there is any certainty as to what a businessman is, he is assuredly the things Ford was not."
"we feel that we don't want abstract equality rights, we want material equality. That means the redistribution of the wealth in this society. And that means that people like Nelson Rockefeller and Henry Ford or the Bishop Estate or Dillingham or whatever, they have to redistribute the wealth that they have robbed from the poor working people of the world. I mean, they made if off our backs. Henry Ford, he made the first Model T. After that, who made all the other cars. So it wasn't him, it was the people who work in the automobile factories, who sweat in 100 degree temperatures; who risk industrial accidents for a lousy $150 a week. And he makes millions every year. And he ain't produced shit. I mean, he just sits behind his desk and writes papers, either that or signs checks. That's the reality of the way society functions. And what we say, we do want a redistribution of that wealth-spread it among the people it's been robbed from. Return it to the people it belongs to."
"the IWW's positive side, certainly it was militant, it was courageous, that it fitted the period, that it belonged to the pioneer days and that it fought for the interests of the poorest, the most lonely, the most despised, those that the AFL couldn't organize, the foreign born, the women, and as the Negroes began coming into industry, the Negroes. Of course, I should say that when we first started in 1905, there were not too many Negro workers in the north. They came up later. Henry Ford was responsible for bringing a great many of them, on all kinds of false pretenses and the steel industries brought them up also to act as strike breakers. However, they were very susceptible to the organization put forward by Foster and others."
"The model for us rich guys should be Henry Ford. When Ford famously introduced the $5 day, which was twice the prevailing wage at the time, he didn't just increase the productivity of his factories, he converted exploited autoworkers who were poor into a thriving middle class who could now afford to buy the products that they made. Ford intuited what we now know is true, that an economy is best understood as an ecosystem and characterized by the same kinds of feedback loops you find in a natural ecosystem, a feedback loop between customers and businesses. Raising wages increases demand, which increases hiring, which in turn increases wages and demand and profits, and that virtuous cycle of increasing prosperity is precisely what is missing from today's economic..."
"In 1932 Dearborn police had fired into a crowd of 4,000 seeking entrance to the Ford plant to protest against mass lay-offs, and had killed four men and wounded many others. Ever since Henry Ford announced a $5-a-day minimum wage for unskilled labor in 1913, the automobile industry had had the reputation of paying "fat" wages. But the auto workers received less than an average of $1,300 a year in 1925, when times were good, and less than $1,000 in 1935. A report to the NRA (by the Henderson committee) showed that 45 per cent of these workers were paid less than $1,000 in 1934. In one plant three-fifths of the employees received less than $800, while a third got less than $400. UAW aggressiveness in 1936 evidently was felt by the car manufacturers. With the exception of Henry Ford, always an independent, they acted in concert in most matters affecting the industry."
"Every year Jews make more and more the controlling masters of the producers in a nation of one hundred and twenty millions; only a single great man, Ford, to their fury still maintains full independence."
"I regard Ford as my inspiration."
""Progress" is for the convinced ochlocrats a consoling Utopia of madly increased comfort and technicism. This charming but dull vision was always the pseudoreligious consolation of millions of ecstatic believers in ochlocracy and in the relative perfection and wisdom of Mr. and Mrs. Averageman. Utopias in general are surrogates for heaven; they give a meager solace to the individual that his sufferings and endeavors may enable future generations to enter the chiliastic paradise. Communism works in a similar way. Its millennium is almost the same as that of ochlocracy. The Millennium of Lenin, the Millennium of Bellamy, the Millennium as represented in H. G. Wells's, [[w:The Shape of Things to Come|[The Shape] Of Things to Come]], the Millennium of Adolf Hitler and Henry Ford — they are all basically the same; they often differ in their means to attain it but they all agree in the point of technical perfection and the classless or at least totally homogeneous society without grudge or envy."
"It will take a hundred years to tell whether he helped us or hurt us, but he certainly didn't leave us where he found us."
"A point of great importance would be first to know: what is the capacity of the earth? And what charge does it contain if electrified? Though we have no positive evidence of a charged body existing in space without other oppositely electrified bodies being near, there is a fair probability that the earth is such a body, for by whatever process it was separated from other bodies — and this is the accepted view of its origin — it must have retained a charge, as occurs in all processes of mechanical separation."
"Alternate currents, especially of high frequencies, pass with astonishing freedom through even slightly rarefied gases. The upper strata of the air are rarefied. To reach a number of miles out into space requires the overcoming of difficulties of a merely mechanical nature."
"Russians are lucky - they have socialism and Stalin."
"Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe. This idea is not novel. Men have been led to it long ago by instinct or reason; it has been expressed in many ways, and in many places, in the history of old and new. We find it in the delightful myth of Antaeus, who derives power from the earth; we find it among the subtle speculations of one of your splendid mathematicians and in many hints and statements of thinkers of the present time. Throughout space there is energy. Is this energy static or kinetic! If static our hopes are in vain; if kinetic — and this we know it is, for certain — then it is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature."
"Ere long intelligence—transmitted without wires—will throb through the earth like a pulse through a living organism. The wonder is that, with the present state of knowledge and the experiences gained, no attempt is being made to disturb the electrostatic or magnetic condition of the earth, and transmit, if nothing else, intelligence."
"There is something within me that might be illusion as it is often case with young delighted people, but if I would be fortunate to achieve some of my ideals, it would be on the behalf of the whole of humanity. If those hopes would become fulfilled, the most exciting thought would be that it is a deed of a Serb."
"Nature may reach the same result in many ways. Like a wave in the physical world, in the infinite ocean of the medium which pervades all, so in the world of organisms, in life, an impulse started proceeds onward, at times, may be, with the speed of light, at times, again, so slowly that for ages and ages it seems to stay, passing through processes of a complexity inconceivable to men, but in all its forms, in all its stages, its energy ever and ever integrally present. A single ray of light from a distant star falling upon the eye of a tyrant in bygone times may have altered the course of his life, may have changed the destiny of nations, may have transformed the surface of the globe, so intricate, so inconceivably complex are the processes in Nature. In no way can we get such an overwhelming idea of the grandeur of Nature than when we consider, that in accordance with the law of the conservation of energy, throughout the Infinite, the forces are in a perfect balance, and hence the energy of a single thought may determine the motion of a universe."
"There is an influence which is getting strong and stronger day by day, which shows itself more and more in all departments of human activity, and influence most fruitful and beneficial—the influence of the artist. It was a happy day for the mass of humanity when the artist felt the desire of becoming a physician, an electrician, an engineer or mechanician or—whatnot—a mathematician or a financier; for it was he who wrought all these wonders and grandeur we are witnessing. It was he who abolished that small, pedantic, narrow-grooved school teaching which made of an aspiring student a galley-slave, and he who allowed freedom in the choice of subject of study according to one's pleasure and inclination, and so facilitated development."
"Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more."
"In a crystal we have the clear evidence of the existence of a formative life-principle, and though we cannot understand the life of a crystal, it is none the less a living being."
"When the great truth accidentally revealed and experimentally confirmed is fully recognized, that this planet, with all its appalling immensity, is to electric currents virtually no more than a small metal ball and that by this fact many possibilities, each baffling imagination and of incalculable consequence, are rendered absolutely sure of accomplishment; when the first plant is inaugurated and it is shown that a telegraphic message, almost as secret and non-interferable as a thought, can be transmitted to any terrestrial distance, the sound of the human voice, with all its intonations and inflections, faithfully and instantly reproduced at any other point of the globe, the energy of a waterfall made available for supplying light, heat or motive power, anywhere — on sea, or land, or high in the air — humanity will be like an ant heap stirred up with a stick: See the excitement coming!"
"Of all the frictional resistances, the one that most retards human movement is ignorance, what Buddha called 'the greatest evil in the world.' The friction which results from ignorance ... can be reduced only by the spread of knowledge and the unification of the heterogeneous elements of humanity. No effort could be better spent."
"As soon as it is completed, it will be possible for a business man in New York to dictate instructions, and have them instantly appear in type at his office in London or elsewhere. He will be able to call up, from his desk, and talk to any telephone subscriber on the globe, without any change whatever in the existing equipment. An inexpensive instrument, not bigger than a watch, will enable its bearer to hear anywhere, on sea or land, music or song, the speech of a political leader, the address of an eminent man of science, or the sermon of an eloquent clergyman, delivered in some other place, however distant. In the same manner any picture, character, drawing, or print can be transferred from one to another place. Millions of such instruments can be operated from but one plant of this kind. More important than all of this, however, will be the transmission of power, without wires, which will be shown on a scale large enough to carry conviction."
"Money does not represent such a value as men have placed upon it. All my money has been invested into experiments with which I have made new discoveries enabling mankind to have a little easier life."
"Let the future tell the truth and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine."
"The idea of atomic energy is illusionary but it has taken so powerful a hold on the minds, that although I have preached against it for twenty-five years, there are still some who believe it to be realizable."
"I have harnessed the cosmic rays and caused them to operate a motive device."
"If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. … I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor."
"Edison was by far the most successful and, probably, the last exponent of the purely empirical method of investigation. Everything he achieved was the result of persistent trials and experiments often performed at random but always attesting extraordinary vigor and resource. Starting from a few known elements, he would make their combinations and permutations, tabulate them and run through the whole list, completing test after test with incredible rapidity until he obtained a clue. His mind was dominated by one idea, to leave no stone unturned, to exhaust every possibility."
"I came from Paris in the Spring of 1884, and was brought in intimate contact with him [Thomas Edison]. We experimented day and night, holidays not excepted. His existence was made up of alternate periods of work and sleep in the laboratory. He had no hobby, cared for no sport or amusement of any kind and lived in utter disregard of the most elementary rules of hygiene. There can be no doubt that, if he had not married later a woman of exceptional intelligence, who made it the one object of her life to preserve him, he would have died many years ago from consequences of sheer neglect. So great and uncontrollable was his passion for work."
"I hold that space cannot be curved, for the simple reason that it can have no properties. It might as well be said that God has properties. He has not, but only attributes and these are of our own making. Of properties we can only speak when dealing with matter filling the space. To say that in the presence of large bodies space becomes curved is equivalent to stating that something can act upon nothing. I, for one, refuse to subscribe to such a view."
"The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. No big laboratory is needed in which to think. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born."
"The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of the planter — for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way. He lives and labors and hopes."
"When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do this will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket. We shall be able to witness and hear events—the inauguration of a President, the playing of a World Series game, the havoc of an earthquake or the terror of a battle—just as though we were present."
"But the female mind has demonstrated a capacity for all the mental acquirements and achievements of men, and as generations ensue that capacity will be expanded; the average woman will be as well educated as the average man, and then better educated, for the dormant faculties of her brain will be stimulated to an activity that will be all the more intense and powerful because of centuries of repose. Woman will ignore precedent and startle civilization with their progress."
"I have satisfied myself that the [cosmic] rays are not generated by the formation of new matter in space, a process which would be like water running up a hill. Nor do they come to any appreciable amount from the stars. According to my investigations the sun emits a radiation of such penetrative power that it is virtually impossible to absorb it in lead or other substances. ... This ray, which I call the primary solar ray, gives rise to a secondary radiation by impact against the cosmic dust scattered through space. It is the secondary radiation which now is commonly called the cosmic ray, and comes, of course, equally from all directions in space. [The article continues: The phenomena of radioactivity are not the result of forces within the radioactive substances but are caused by this ray emitted by the sun. If radium could be screened effectively against this ray it would cease to be radioactive, he said.]"
"Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality."
"The scientists from Franklin to Morse were clear thinkers and did not produce erroneous theories. The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane."
"Much has been said about Yugoslavia and its people, but many Americans may be under a wrong impression for political enemies and agitators have spread the idea that its inhabitants belong to different nations animated by mutual hate and held together against their will, by a tyrannical power. The fact is that all Yugoslavs — Serbians, Slavonians, Bosnians, Herzegovinians, Dalmations, Montenagrins, Croatians and Slovenes — are of the same race, speak the same language and have common national ideals and traditions. At the termination of the World War, Alexander brought about a political union creating a powerful and resourceful State. This was hailed with joy by all the Slavs of the Balkans, but it took time before the people found themselves in the new conditions. The Croatians and Slovenes were never in a position to fight for their independence. It was the Serbians who fought the battles for freedom and the price of liberty was paid in Serbian blood. All true Croatians and Slovenes remember that gratefully. They also know that the Serbians have an unequaled aptitude and experience in warfare and are best qualified to direct the forces of the country in a crisis. Ever since united Yugoslavia came into being through Alexander's efforts, political enemies have done all they could to disrupt it by sowing seeds of discord and disseminating malicious reports. … The death of the King has shaken the country to its very foundations, but the enemies who say that it means the disruption of Yugoslavia will hope in vain, for the noble blood of the great man has only served to cement its parts more firmly and strengthen the national structure. Alexander will live long in the memory of his people, a heroic figure of imposing stature, both the Washington and Lincoln of the Yugoslavs; like Washington an able and intrepid general who freed his country from oppression; like Lincoln a wise and patriotic leader who suffered martyrdom."
"Einstein's relativity work is a magnificent mathematical garb which fascinates, dazzles and makes people blind to the underlying errors. The theory is like a beggar clothed in purple whom ignorant people take for a king...[I]ts exponents are brilliant men but they are metaphysicists rather than scientists."
"When we speak of man, we have a conception of humanity as a whole, and before applying scientific methods to the investigation of his movement we must accept this as a physical fact. But can anyone doubt to-day that all the millions of individuals and all the innumerable types and characters constitute an entity, a unit? Though free to think and act, we are held together, like the stars in the firmament, with ties inseparable. These ties cannot be seen, but we can feel them. I cut myself in the finger, and it pains me: this finger is a part of me. I see a friend hurt, and it hurts me, too: my friend and I are one. And now I see stricken down an enemy, a lump of matter which, of all the lumps of matter in the universe, I care least for, and it still grieves me. Does this not prove that each of us is only part of a whole? For ages this idea has been proclaimed in the consummately wise teachings of religion, probably not alone as a means of insuring peace and harmony among men, but as a deeply founded truth. The Buddhist expresses it in one way, the Christian in another, but both say the same: We are all one. Metaphysical proofs are, however, not the only ones which we are able to bring forth in support of this idea. Science, too, recognizes this connectedness of separate individuals, though not quite in the same sense as it admits that the suns, planets, and moons of a constellation are one body, and there can be no doubt that it will be experimentally confirmed in times to come, when our means and methods for investigating psychical and other states and phenomena shall have been brought to great perfection. Still more: this one human being lives on and on. The individual is ephemeral, races and nations come and pass away, but man remains. Therein lies the profound difference between the individual and the whole."
"For every person who perishes from the effects of a stimulant, at least a thousand die from the consequences of drinking impure water. This precious fluid, which daily infuses new life into us, is likewise the chief vehicle through which disease and death enter our bodies. The germs of destruction it conveys are enemies all the more terrible as they perform their fatal work unperceived. They seal our doom while we live and enjoy. The majority of people are so ignorant or careless in drinking water, and the consequences of this are so disastrous, that a philanthropist can scarcely use his efforts better than by endeavoring to enlighten those who are thus injuring themselves. By systematic purification and sterilization of the drinking water the human mass would be very considerably increased. It should be made a rigid rule which might be enforced by law to boil or to sterilize otherwise the drinking water in every household and public place. The mere filtering does not afford sufficient security against infection. All ice for internal uses should be artificially prepared from water thoroughly sterilized. The importance of eliminating germs of disease from the city water is generally recognized, but little is being done to improve the existing conditions, as no satisfactory method of sterilizing great quantities of water has yet been brought forward. By improved electrical appliances we are now enabled to produce ozone cheaply and in large amounts, and this ideal disinfectant seems to offer a happy solution of the important question."
"The production of artificial food as a means for causing an increase of the human mass naturally suggests itself, but a direct attempt of this kind to provide nourishment does not appear to me rational, at least not for the present. Whether we could thrive on such food is very doubtful. We are the result of ages of continuous adaptation, and we cannot radically change without unforeseen and, in all probability, disastrous consequences. So uncertain an experiment should not be tried. By far the best way, it seems to me, to meet the ravages of the evil, would be to find ways of increasing the productivity of the soil. With this object the preservation of forests is of an importance which cannot be overestimated, and in this connection, also, the utilization of water-power for purposes of electrical transmission, dispensing in many ways with the necessity of burning wood, and tending thereby to forest preservation, is to be strongly advocated. But there are limits in the improvement to be effected in this and similar ways. To increase materially the productivity of the soil, it must be more effectively fertilized by artificial means. The question of food-production resolves itself, then, into the question how best to fertilize the soil. What it is that made the soil is still a mystery. To explain its origin is probably equivalent to explaining the origin of life itself. The rocks, disintegrated by moisture and heat and wind and weather, were in themselves not capable of maintaining life. Some unexplained condition arose, and some new principle came into effect, and the first layer capable of sustaining low organisms, like mosses was formed. These, by their life and death, added more of the life sustaining quality to the soil, and higher organisms could then subsist, and so on and on, until at last highly developed plant and animal life could flourish. But though the theories are, even now, not in agreement as to how fertilization is effected, it is a fact, only too well ascertained, that the soil cannot indefinitely sustain life, and some way must be found to supply it with the substances which have been abstracted from it by the plants. The chief and most valuable among these substances are compounds of nitrogen, and the cheap production of these is, therefore, the key for the solution of the all-important food problem. Our atmosphere contains an inexhaustible amount of nitrogen, and could we but oxidize it and produce these compounds, an incalculable benefit for mankind would follow. Long ago this idea took a powerful hold on the imagination of scientific men, but an efficient means for accomplishing this result could not be devised. The problem was rendered extremely difficult by the extraordinary inertness of the nitrogen, which refuses to combine even with oxygen. But here electricity comes to our aid: the dormant affinities of the element are awakened by an electric current of the proper quality. As a lump of coal which has been in contact with oxygen for centuries without burning will combine with it when once ignited, so nitrogen, excited by electricity, will burn. I did not succeed, however, in producing electrical discharges exciting very effectively the atmospheric nitrogen until a comparatively recent date, although I showed, in May, 1891, in a scientific lecture, a novel form of discharge or electrical flame named "St. Elmo's hotfire," which, besides being capable of generating ozone in abundance, also possessed, as I pointed out on that occasion, distinctly the quality of exciting chemical affinities. This discharge or flame was then only three or four inches long, its chemical action was likewise very feeble, and consequently the process of oxidation of nitrogen was wasteful. How to intensify this action was the question. Evidently electric currents of a peculiar kind had to be produced in order to render the process of nitrogen combustion more efficient."
"There can be no doubt that, of all the frictional resistances, the one that most retards human movement is ignorance. Not without reason said that man of wisdom, Buddha: "Ignorance is the greatest evil in the world." The friction which results from ignorance, and which is greatly increased owing to the numerous languages and nationalities, can be reduced only by the spread of knowledge and the unification of the heterogeneous elements of humanity. No effort could be better spent. But however ignorance may have retarded the onward movement of man in times past, it is certain that, nowadays, negative forces have become of greater importance. Among these there is one of far greater moment than any other. It is called organized warfare. When we consider the millions of individuals, often the ablest in mind and body, the flower of humanity, who are compelled to a life of inactivity and unproductiveness, the immense sums of money daily required for the maintenance of armies and war apparatus, representing ever so much of human energy, all the effort uselessly spent in the production of arms and implements of destruction, the loss of life and the fostering of a barbarous spirit, we are appalled at the inestimable loss to mankind which the existence of these deplorable conditions must involve. What can we do to combat best this great evil?"
"It has been argued that the perfection of guns of great destructive power will stop warfare. So I myself thought for a long time, but now I believe this to be a profound mistake. Such developments will greatly modify, but not arrest it. On the contrary, I think that every new arm that is invented, every new departure that is made in this direction, merely invites new talent and skill, engages new effort, offers new incentive, and so only gives a fresh impetus to further development. Think of the discovery of gun-powder. Can we conceive of any more radical departure than was effected by this innovation? Let us imagine ourselves living in that period: would we not have thought then that warfare was at an end, when the armor of the knight became an object of ridicule, when bodily strength and skill, meaning so much before, became of comparatively little value? Yet gunpowder did not stop warfare: quite the opposite it acted as a most powerful incentive."
"As regards the security of a country against foreign invasion, it is interesting to note that it depends only on the relative, and not the absolute, number of the individuals or magnitude of the forces, and that, if every country should reduce the war-force in the same ratio, the security would remain unaltered. An international agreement with the object of reducing to a minimum the war-force which, in view of the present still imperfect education of the masses, is absolutely indispensable, would, therefore, seem to be the first rational step to take toward diminishing the force retarding human movement."
"So we find that the three possible solutions of the great problem of increasing human energy are answered by the three words: food, peace, work. Many a year I have thought and pondered, lost myself in speculations and theories, considering man as a mass moved by a force, viewing his inexplicable movement in the light of a mechanical one, and applying the simple principles of mechanics to the analysis of the same until I arrived at these solutions, only to realize that they were taught to me in my early childhood. These three words sound the key-notes of the Christian religion. Their scientific meaning and purpose now clear to me: food to increase the mass, peace to diminish the retarding force, and work to increase the force accelerating human movement. These are the only three solutions which are possible of that great problem, and all of them have one object, one end, namely, to increase human energy. When we recognize this, we cannot help wondering how profoundly wise and scientific and how immensely practical the Christian religion is, and in what a marked contrast it stands in this respect to other religions. It is unmistakably the result of practical experiment and scientific observation which have extended through the ages, while other religions seem to be the outcome of merely abstract reasoning. Work, untiring effort, useful and accumulative, with periods of rest and recuperation aiming at higher efficiency, is its chief and ever-recurring command. Thus we are inspired both by Christianity and Science to do our utmost toward increasing the performance of mankind. This most important of human problems I shall now specifically consider."
"The ultimate results of development in these three directions are: first, the burning of coal by a cold process in a battery; second, the efficient utilization of the energy of the ambient medium; and, third the transmission without wires of electrical energy to any distance. In whatever way these results may be arrived at, their practical application will necessarily involve an extensive use of iron, and this invaluable metal will undoubtedly be an essential element in the further development along these three lines. If we succeed in burning coal by a cold process and thus obtain electrical energy in an efficient and inexpensive manner, we shall require in many practical uses of this energy electric motors that is, iron. If we are successful in deriving energy from the ambient medium, we shall need, both in the obtainment and utilization of the energy, machinery again, iron. If we realize the transmission of electrical energy without wires on an industrial scale, we shall be compelled to use extensively electric generators once more, iron. Whatever we may do, iron will probably be the chief means of accomplishment in the near future, possibly more so than in the past. How long its reign will last is difficult to tell, for even now aluminium is looming up as a threatening competitor. But for the time being, next to providing new resources of energy, it is of the greatest importance to making improvements in the manufacture and utilization of iron. Great advances are possible in these latter directions, which, if brought about, would enormously increase the useful performance of mankind. Iron is by far the most important factor in modern progress. It contributes more than any other industrial product to the force accelerating human movement. So general is the use of this metal, and so intimately is it connected with all that concerns our life, that it has become as indispensable to us as the very air we breathe. Its name is synonymous with usefulness. But, however great the influence of iron may be on the present human development, it does not add to the force urging man onward nearly as much as it might. First of all, its manufacture as now carried on is connected with an appalling waste of fuel that is, waste of energy. Then, again, only a part of all the iron produced is applied for useful purposes. A good part of it goes to create frictional resistances, while still another large part is the means of developing negative forces greatly retarding human movement. Thus the negative force of war is almost wholly represented in iron."
"Aluminium, however, will not stop at downing copper. Before many years have passed it will be engaged in a fierce struggle with iron, and in the latter it will find an adversary not easy to conquer. The issue of the contest will largely depend on whether iron shall be indispensable in electric machinery. This the future alone can decide. The magnetism as exhibited in iron is an isolated phenomenon in nature. What it is that makes this metal behave so radically different from all other materials in this respect has not yet been ascertained, though many theories have been suggested. As regards magnetism, the molecules of the various bodies behave like hollow beams partly filled with a heavy fluid and balanced in the middle in the manner of a see-saw. Evidently some disturbing influence exists in nature which causes each molecule, like such a beam, to tilt either one or the other way. If the molecules are tilted one way, the body is magnetic; if they are tilted the other way, the body is non-magnetic; but both positions are stable, as they would be in the case of the hollow beam, owing to the rush of the fluid to the lower end. Now, the wonderful thing is that the molecules of all known bodies went one way, while those of iron went the other way. This metal, it would seem, has an origin entirely different from that of the rest of the globe. It is highly improbable that we shall discover some other and cheaper material which will equal or surpass iron in magnetic qualities."
"A far better way, however, to obtain power would be to avail ourselves of the sun's rays, which beat the earth incessantly and supply energy at a maximum rate of over four million horsepower per square mile. Although the average energy received per square mile in any locality during the year is only a small fraction of that amount, yet an inexhaustible source of power would be opened up by the discovery of some efficient method of utilizing the energy of the rays. The only rational way known to me at the time when I began the study of this subject was to employ some kind of heat- or thermodynamic-engine, driven by a volatile fluid evaporate in a boiler by the heat of the rays. But closer investigation of this method, and calculation, showed that, notwithstanding the apparently vast amount of energy received from the sun's rays, only a small fraction of that energy could be actually utilized in this manner. Furthermore, the energy supplied through the sun's radiations is periodical, and the same limitations as in the use of the windmill I found to exist here also. After a long study of this mode of obtaining motive power from the sun, taking into account the necessarily large bulk of the boiler, the low efficiency of the heat-engine, the additional cost of storing the energy and other drawbacks, I came to the conclusion that the "solar engine," a few instances excepted, could not be industrially exploited with success. Another way of getting motive power from the medium without consuming any material would be to utilize the heat contained in the earth, the water, or the air for driving an engine. It is a well-known fact that the interior portions of the globe are very hot, the temperature rising, as observations show, with the approach to the center at the rate of approximately 1 degree C. for every hundred feet of depth. The difficulties of sinking shafts and placing boilers at depths of, say, twelve thousand feet, corresponding to an increase in temperature of about 120 degrees C., are not insuperable, and we could certainly avail ourselves in this way of the internal heat of the globe. In fact, it would not be necessary to go to any depth at all in order to derive energy from the stored terrestrial heat. The superficial layers of the earth and the air strata close to the same are at a temperature sufficiently high to evaporate some extremely volatile substances, which we might use in our boilers instead of water. There is no doubt that a vessel might be propelled on the ocean by an engine driven by such a volatile fluid, no other energy being used but the heat abstracted from the water. But the amount of power which could be obtained in this manner would be, without further provision, very small. Electricity produced by natural causes is another source of energy which might be rendered available. Lightning discharges involve great amounts of electrical energy, which we could utilize by transforming and storing it. Some years ago I made known a method of electrical transformation which renders the first part of this task easy, but the storing of the energy of lightning discharges will be difficult to accomplish. It is well known, furthermore, that electric currents circulate constantly through the earth, and that there exists between the earth and any air stratum a difference of electrical pressure, which varies in proportion to the height."
"When I advanced this system of telegraphy, my mind was dominated by the idea of effecting communication to any distance through the earth or environing medium, the practical consummation of which I considered of transcendent importance, chiefly on account of the moral effect which it could not fail to produce universally. As the first effort to this end I proposed at that time, to employ relay-stations with tuned circuits, in the hope of making thus practicable signaling over vast distances, even with apparatus of very moderate power then at my command. I was confident, however, that with properly designed machinery signals could be transmitted to any point of the globe, no matter what the distance, without the necessity of using such intermediate stations. I gained this conviction through the discovery of a singular electrical phenomenon, which I described early in 1892, in lectures I delivered before some scientific societies abroad, and which I have called a "rotating brush." This is a bundle of light which is formed, under certain conditions, in a vacuum-bulb, and which is of a sensitiveness to magnetic and electric influences bordering, so to speak, on the supernatural. This light-bundle is rapidly rotated by the earth's magnetism as many as twenty thousand times pre second, the rotation in these parts being opposite to what it would be in the southern hemisphere, while in the region of the magnetic equator it should not rotate at all. In its most sensitive state, which is difficult to obtain, it is responsive to electric or magnetic influences to an incredible degree. The mere stiffening of the muscles of the arm and consequent slight electrical change in the body of an observer standing at some distance from it, will perceptibly affect it. When in this highly sensitive state it is capable of indicating the slightest magnetic and electric changes taking place in the earth. The observation of this wonderful phenomenon impressed me strongly that communication at any distance could be easily effected by its means, provided that apparatus could be perfected capable of producing an electric or magnetic change of state, however small, in the terrestrial globe or environing medium."
"The photograph shown in Fig. 3 illustrates, as its title explains, an actual transmission of this kind effected with apparatus used in other experiments here described. To what a degree the appliances have been perfected since my first demonstrations early in 1891 before a scientific society, when my apparatus was barely capable of lighting one lamp (which result was considered wonderful), will appear when I state that I have now no difficulty in lighting in this manner four or five hundred lamps, and could light many more. In fact, there is no limit to the amount of energy which may in this way be supplied to operate any kind of electrical device."
"After demonstrating the practicability of this method of transmission, the thought naturally occurred to me to use the earth as a conductor, thus dispensing with all wires. Whatever electricity may be, it is a fact that it behaves like an incompressible fluid, and the earth may be looked upon as an immense reservoir of electricity, which, I thought, could be disturbed effectively by a properly designed electrical machine. Accordingly, my next efforts were directed toward perfecting a special apparatus which would be highly effective in creating a disturbance of electricity in the earth."
"However extraordinary the results shown may appear, they are but trifling compared with those which are attainable by apparatus designed on these same principles. I have produced electrical discharges the actual path of which, from end to end, was probably more than one hundred feet long; but it would not be difficult to reach lengths one hundred times as great. I have produced electrical movements occurring at the rate of approximately one hundred thousand horse-power, but rates of one, five, or ten million horse-power are easily practicable. In these experiments effects were developed incomparably greater than any ever produced by human agencies, and yet these results are but an embryo of what is to be."
"That communication without wires to any point of the globe is practicable with such apparatus would need no demonstration, but through a discovery which I made I obtained absolute certitude. Popularly explained, it is exactly this: When we raise the voice and hear an echo in reply, we know that the sound of the voice must have reached a distant wall, or boundary, and must have been reflected from the same. Exactly as the sound, so an electrical wave is reflected, and the same evidence which is afforded by an echo is offered by an electrical phenomenon known as a "stationary" wave that is, a wave with fixed nodal and ventral regions. Instead of sending sound-vibrations toward a distant wall, I have sent electrical vibrations toward the remote boundaries of the earth, and instead of the wall the earth has replied. In place of an echo I have obtained a stationary electrical wave, a wave reflected from afar. Stationary waves in the earth mean something more than mere telegraphy without wires to any distance. They will enable us to attain many important specific results impossible otherwise. For instance, by their use we may produce at will, from a sending-station, an electrical effect in any particular region of the globe; we may determine the relative position or course of a moving object, such as a vessel at sea, the distance traversed by the same, or its speed; or we may send over the earth a wave of electricity traveling at any rate we desire, from the pace of a turtle up to lightning speed. With these developments we have every reason to anticipate that in a time not very distant most telegraphic messages across the oceans will be transmitted without cables. For short distances we need a "wireless" telephone, which requires no expert operators. The greater the spaces to be bridged, the more rational becomes communication without wires. The cable is not only an easily damaged and costly instrument, but it limits us in the speed of transmission by reason of a certain electrical property inseparable from its construction. A properly designed plant for effecting communication without wires ought to have many times the working capacity of a cable, while it will involve incomparably less expense. Not a long time will pass, I believe, before communication by cable will become obsolete, for not only will signaling by this new method be quicker and cheaper, but also much safer. By using some new means for isolating the messages which I have contrived, an almost perfect privacy can be secured. I have observed the above effects so far only up to a limited distance of about six hundred miles, but inasmuch as there is virtually no limit to the power of the vibrations producible with such an oscillator, I feel quite confident of the success of such a plant for effecting transoceanic communication. Nor is this all. My measurements and calculations have shown that it is perfectly practicable to produce on our globe, by the use of these principles, an electrical movement of such magnitude that, without the slightest doubt, its effect will be perceptible on some of our nearer planets, as Venus and Mars. Thus from mere possibility interplanetary communication has entered the stage of probability. In fact, that we can produce a distinct effect on one of these planets in this novel manner, namely, by disturbing the electrical condition of the earth, is beyond any doubt. This way of effecting such communication is, however, essentially different from all others which have so far been proposed by scientific men. In all the previous instances only a minute fraction of the total energy reaching the planet—as much as it would be possible to concentrate in a reflector could be utilized by the supposed observer in his instrument. But by the means I have developed he would be enabled to concentrate the larger portion of the entire energy transmitted to the planet in his instrument, and the chances of affecting the latter are thereby increased many millionfold. Besides machinery for producing vibrations of the required power, we must have delicate means capable of revealing the effects of feeble influences exerted upon the earth. For such purposes, too, I have perfected new methods. By their use we shall likewise be able, among other things, to detect at considerable distance the presence of an iceberg or other object at sea. By their use, also, I have discovered some terrestrial phenomena still unexplained. That we can send a message to a planet is certain, that we can get an answer is probable: man is not the only being in the Infinite gifted with a mind."
"While I have not, as yet, actually effected a transmission of a considerable amount of energy, such as would be of industrial importance, to a great distance by this new method, I have operated several model plants under exactly the same conditions which will exist in a large plant of this kind, and the practicability of the system is thoroughly demonstrated. The experiments have shown conclusively that, with two terminals maintained at an elevation of not more than thirty thousand to thirty-five thousand feet above sea-level, and with an electrical pressure of fifteen to twenty million volts, the energy of thousands of horse-power can be transmitted over distances which may be hundreds and, if necessary, thousands of miles. I am hopeful, however, that I may be able to reduce very considerably the elevation of the terminals now required, and with this object I am following up an idea which promises such a realization. There is, of course, a popular prejudice against using an electrical pressure of millions of volts, which may cause sparks to fly at distances of hundreds of feet, but, paradoxical as it may seem, the system, as I have described it in a technical publication, offers greater personal safety than most of the ordinary distribution circuits now used in the cities. This is, in a measure, borne out by the fact that, although I have carried on such experiments for a number of years, no injury has been sustained either by me or any of my assistants."
"It is probable that we shall soon have a self-acting heat-engine capable of deriving moderate amounts of energy from the ambient medium. There is also a possibility—though a small oneï—that we may obtain electrical energy direct from the sun. This might be the case if the Maxwellian theory is true, according to which electrical vibrations of all rates should emanate from the sun. I am still investigating this subject. Sir William Crookes has shown in his beautiful invention known as the "radiometer" that rays may produce by impact a mechanical effect, and this may lead to some important revelation as to the utilization of the sun's rays in novel ways. Other sources of energy may be opened up, and new methods of deriving energy from the sun discovered, but none of these or similar achievements would equal in importance the transmission of power to any distance through the medium. I can conceive of no technical advance which would tend to unite the various elements of humanity more effectively than this one, or of one which would more add to and more economize human energy. It would be the best means of increasing the force accelerating the human mass. The mere moral influence of such a radical departure would be incalculable. On the other hand if at any point of the globe energy can be obtained in limited quantities from the ambient medium by means of a self-acting heat-engine or otherwise, the conditions will remain the same as before. Human performance will be increased, but men will remain strangers as they were."
"Universal Peace, assuming it to be in the fullest sense realizable, might not require eons for its accomplishment, however probable this may appear, judging from the imperceptibly slow growth of all great reformatory ideas of the past. ... Our accepted estimates of the duration of natural metamorphoses, or changes in general, have been thrown in doubt of late. The very foundations of science have been shaken."
"A state of human life vaguely defined by the term "Universal Peace," while a result of cumulative effort through centuries past, might come into existence quickly, not unlike a crystal suddenly forms in a solution which has been slowly prepared. But just as no effect can precede its cause, so this state can never be brought on by any pact between nations, however solemn. Experience is made before the law is formulated, both are related like cause and effect. So long as we are clearly conscious of the expectation, that peace is to result from such a parliamentary decision, so long have we a conclusive evidence that we are not fit for peace. Only then when we shall feel that such international meetings are mere formal procedures, unnecessary except in so far as they might serve to give definite expression to a common desire, will peace be assured.To judge from current events we must be, as yet, very distant from that blissful goal. It is true that we are proceeding towards it rapidly. There are abundant signs of this progress everywhere. The race enmities and prejudices are decidedly waning."
"We begin to think cosmically. Our sympathetic feelers reach out into the dim distance. The bacteria of the "Weltschmerz," are upon us. So far, however, universal harmony has been attained only in a single sphere of international relationship. That is the postal service. Its mechanism is working satisfactorily, but — how remote are we still from that scrupulous respect of the sanctity of the mail bag! And how much farther again is the next milestone on the road to peace — an international judicial service equally reliable as the postal!"
"General disarmament being for the present entirely out of question, a proportionate reduction might be recommended. The safety of any country and of the world's commerce depending not on the absolute, but relative amount of war material, this would be evidently the first reasonable step to take towards universal economy and peace. But it would be a hopeless task to establish an equitable basis of adjustment. Population, naval strength, force of army, commercial importance, water-power, or any other natural resource, actual or prospective, are equally unsatisfactory standards to consider."
"To conquer by sheer force is becoming harder and harder every day. Defensive is getting continuously the advantage of offensive, as we progress in the satanic science of destruction. The new art of controlling electrically the movements and operations of individualized automata at a distance without wires, will soon enable any country to render its coasts impregnable against all naval attacks."
"The distance at which it can strike, and the destructive power of such a quasi-intelligent machine being for all practical purposes unlimited, the gun, the armor of the battleship and the wall of the fortress, lose their import and significance. One can prophesy with a Daniel's confidence that skilled electricians will settle the battles of the near future. But this is the least. In its effect upon war and peace, electricity offers still much greater and more wonderful possibilities. To stop war by the perfection of engines of destruction alone, might consume centuries and centuries. Other means must be employed to hasten the end."
"Fights between individuals, as well as governments and nations, invariably result from misunderstandings in the broadest interpretation of this term. Misunderstandings are always caused by the inability of appreciating one another's point of view. This again is due to the ignorance of those concerned, not so much in their own, as in their mutual fields. The peril of a clash is aggravated by a more or less predominant sense of combativeness, posed by every human being. To resist this inherent fighting tendency the best way is to dispel ignorance of the doings of others by a systematic spread of general knowledge. With this object in view, it is most important to aid exchange of thought and intercourse."
"Mutual understanding would be immensely facilitated by the use of one universal tongue. But which shall it be, is the great question. At present it looks as if the English might be adopted as such, though it must be admitted that it is not the most suitable. Each language, of course, excels in some feature.... A practical answer to that momentous question must perforce be found in times to come, for it is manifest that by adopting one common language the onward march of man would be prodigiously quickened. I do not believe that an artificial concoction, like Volapuk, will ever find universal acceptance, however time-saving it might be. That would be contrary to human nature. Languages have grown into our hearts."
"Our senses enable us to perceive only a minute portion of the outside world. Our hearing extends to a small distance. Our sight is impeded by intervening bodies and shadows. To know each other we must reach beyond the sphere of our sense perceptions. We must transmit our intelligence, travel, transport the materials and transfer the energies necessary for our existence. Following this thought we now realize, forcibly enough to dispense with argument, that of all other conquests of man, without exception, that which is most desirable, which would be most helpful in the establishment of universal peaceful relations is — the complete '. To achieve this wonder, electricity is the one and only means. Inestimable good has already been done by the use of this all powerful agent, the nature of which is still a mystery. Our astonishment at what has been accomplished would be uncontrollable were it not held in check by the expectation of greater miracles to come. That one, the greatest of all, can be viewed in three aspects: Dissemination of intelligence, transportation, and transmission of power."
"Within a few years a simple and inexpensive device, readily carried about, will enable one to receive on land or sea the principal news, to hear a speech, a lecture, a song or play of a musical instrument, conveyed from any other region of the globe. The invention will also meet the crying need for cheap transmission to great distances, more especially over the oceans. The small working capacity of the cables and the excessive cost of messages are now fatal impediments in the dissemination of intelligence which can only be removed by transmission without wires."
"The ideal solution of the problem of transportation will be arrived at only when the complete annihilation of distance in the transmission of power in large amounts shall have become a commercial reality. That day we shall invade the domain of the bird. When the vexing problem of aerial navigation, which has defied his attempts for ages, is solved, man will advance with giant strides."
"That electrical energy can be economically transmitted without wires to any terrestrial distance, I have unmistakably established in numerous observations, experiments and measurements, qualitative and quantitative. These have demonstrated that is practicable to distribute power from a central plant in unlimited amounts, with a loss not exceeding a small fraction of one per cent, in the transmission, even to the greatest distance, twelve thousand miles — to the opposite end of the globe."
"I have obtained... spark discharges extending through more than one hundred feet and carrying currents of one thousand amperes, electromotive forces approximating twenty million volts, chemically active streamers covering areas of several thousand square feet, and electrical disturbances in the natural media surpassing those caused by lightning, in intensity. Whatever the future may bring, the universal application of these great principles is fully assured, though it may be long in coming. With the opening of the first power plant, incredulity will give way to wonderment, and this to ingratitude, as ever before."
"It should be borne in mind that electrical energy obtained by harnessing a waterfall is probably fifty times more effective than fuel energy. Since this is the most perfect way of rendering the sun's energy available, the direction of the future material development of man is clearly indicated."
"Electric current, after passing into the earth travels to the diametrically opposite region of the same and rebounding from there, returns to its point of departure with virtually undiminished force. The outgoing and returning currents clash and form nodes and loops similar to those observable on a vibrating cord. To traverse the entire distance of about twenty-five thousand miles, equal to the circumference of the globe, the current requires a certain time interval, which I have approximately ascertained. In yielding this knowledge, nature has revealed one of its most precious secrets, of inestimable consequence to man. So astounding are the facts in this connection, that it would seem as though the Creator, himself, had electrically designed this planet just for the purpose of enabling us to achieve wonders which, before my discovery, could not have been conceived by the wildest imagination."
"The economic transmission of power without wires is of all-surpassing importance to man. By its means he will gain complete mastery of the air, the sea and the desert. It will enable him to dispense with the necessity of mining, pumping, transporting and burning fuel, and so do away with innumerable causes of sinful waste. By its means, he will obtain at any place and in any desired amount, the energy of remote waterfalls — to drive his machinery, to construct his canals, tunnels and highways, to manufacture the materials of his want, his clothing and food, to heat and light his home — year in, year out, ever and ever, by day and by night. It will make the living glorious sun his obedient, toiling slave. It will bring peace and harmony on earth."
"It is not a dream, it is a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering, only expensive — blind, faint-hearted, doubting world! ... Humanity is not yet sufficiently advanced to be willingly led by the discover's keen searching sense. But who knows? Perhaps it is better in this present world of ours that a revolutionary idea or invention instead of being helped and patted, be hampered and ill-treated in its adolescence — by want of means, by selfish interest, pedantry, stupidity and ignorance; that it be attacked and stifled; that it pass through bitter trials and tribulations, through the heartless strife of commercial existence. So do we get our light. So all that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle."
"According to an adopted theory, every ponderable atom is differentiated from a tenuous fluid, filling all space merely by spinning motion, as a whirl of water in a calm lake. By being set in movement this fluid, the ether, becomes gross matter. Its movement arrested, the primary substance reverts to its normal state. It appears, then, possible for man through harnessed energy of the medium and suitable agencies for starting and stopping ether whirls to cause matter to form and disappear. At his command, almost without effort on his part, old worlds would vanish and new ones would spring into being. He could alter the size of this planet, control its seasons, adjust its distance from the sun, guide it on its eternal journey along any path he might choose, through the depths of the universe. He could make planets collide and produce his suns and stars, his heat and light; he could originate life in all its infinite forms. To cause at will the birth and death of matter would be man's grandest deed, which would give him the mastery of physical creation, make him fulfill his ultimate destiny."
"When a child is born its sense-organs are brought in contact with the outer world. The waves of sound, heat, and light beat upon its feeble body, its sensitive nerve-fibres quiver, the muscles contract and relax in obedience: a gasp, a breath, and in this act a marvelous little engine, of inconceivable delicacy and complexity of construction, unlike any on earth, is hitched to the wheel-work of the Universe."
"The little engine labors and grows, performs more and more involved operations, becomes sensitive to ever subtler influences and now there manifests itself in the fully developed being — Man — a desire mysterious, inscrutable and irresistible: to imitate nature, to create, to work himself the wonders he perceives. Inspired to this task he searches, discovers and invents, designs and constructs, and covers with monuments of beauty, grandeur and awe, the star of his birth. He descends into the bowels of the globe to bring forth its hidden treasures and to unlock its immense imprisoned energies for his use. He invades the dark depths of the ocean and the azure regions of the sky. He peers in the innermost nooks and recesses of molecular structure and lays bare to his gaze worlds infinitely remote. He subdues and puts to his service the fierce, devastating spark of Prometheus, the titanic forces of the waterfall, the wind and the tide. He tames the thundering bolt of Jove and annihilates time and space. He makes the great Sun itself his obedient toiling slave. Such is his power and might that the heavens reverberate and the whole earth trembles by the mere sound of his voice."
"What has the future in store for this strange being, born of a breath, of perishable tissue, yet Immortal, with his powers fearful and Divine? What magic will be wrought by him in the end? What is to be his greatest deed, his crowning achievement? Long ago he recognized that all perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, or a tenuity beyond conception, filling all space, the Akasha or luminiferous ether, which is acted upon by the life-giving Prana or Creative Force, calling into existence, in never ending cycles, all things and phenomena. The primary substance, thrown into infinitesimal whirls of prodigious velocity, becomes gross matter; the force subsiding, the motion ceases and matter disappears, reverting to the primary substance. Can man control this grandest, most awe-inspiring of all processes in nature? Can he harness her inexhaustible energies to perform all their functions at his bidding? more still cause them to operate simply by the force of his will? If he could do this, he would have powers almost unlimited and supernatural. At his command, with but a slight effort on his part, old worlds would disappear and new ones of his planning would spring into being. He could fix, solidify and preserve the ethereal shapes of his imagining, the fleeting visions of his dreams. He could express all the creations of his mind on any scale, in forms concrete and imperishable. He could alter the size of this planet, control its seasons, guide it along any path he might choose through the depths of the Universe. He could cause planets to collide and produce his suns and stars, his heat and light. He could originate and develop life in all its infinite forms."
"To create and to annihilate material substance, cause it to aggregate in forms according to his desire, would be the supreme manifestation of the power of Man's mind, his most complete triumph over the physical world, his crowning achievement, which would place him beside his Creator, make him fulfill his Ultimate Destiny."
"This growing tendency of women to overshadow the masculine is a sign of a deteriorating civilization."
"Woman's determined competition with man in the business world is breaking down some of the best traditions"
"Perhaps the male in human society is useless. I am frank to admit that I don't know. If women are beginning to feel this way about it--and there is striking evidence at hand that they do--then we are entering upon the cruelest period of the world's history."
"The tendency of women to push aside man, supplanting the old spirit of cooperation with him in all the affairs of life, is very disappointing to me."
"While I am not a believer in the orthodox sense, I commend religion, first, because every individual should have some ideal — religious, artistic, scientific, or humanitarian — to give significance to his life. Second, because all the great religions contain wise prescriptions relating to the conduct of life, which hold good now as they did when they were promulgated."
"There is no conflict between the ideal of religion and the ideal of science, but science is opposed to theological dogmas because science is founded on fact. To me, the universe is simply a great machine which never came into being and never will end. The human being is no exception to the natural order. Man, like the universe, is a machine. Nothing enters our minds or determines our actions which is not directly or indirectly a response to stimuli beating upon our sense organs from without. Owing to the similarity of our construction and the sameness of our environment, we respond in like manner to similar stimuli, and from the concordance of our reactions, understanding is born. In the course of ages, mechanisms of infinite complexity are developed, but what we call "soul " or "spirit," is nothing more than the sum of the functionings of the body. When this functioning ceases, the "soul" or the "spirit" ceases likewise."
"The year 2100 will see eugenics universally established. In past ages, the law governing the survival of the fittest roughly weeded out the less desirable strains. Then man's new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. As a result, we continue to keep alive and to breed the unfit. The only method compatible with our notions of civilization and the race is to prevent the breeding of the unfit by sterilization and the deliberate guidance of the mating instinct, Several European countries and a number of states of the American Union sterilize the criminal and the insane. This is not sufficient. The trend of opinion among eugenists is that we must make marriage more difficult. Certainly no one who is not a desirable parent should be permitted to produce progeny. A century from now it will no more occur to a normal person to mate with a person eugenically unfit than to marry a habitual criminal."
"Marconi is a good fellow. Let him continue. He is using seventeen of my patents."
"I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success...Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything."
"Never trust a Jew!"
"If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration. My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists."
"He'll be a child of the storm."
"We think of his contribution much oftener than that of Ampere and Ohm … the induction motor and our power system are enduring monuments to Nikola Tesla."
"The world, I think, will wait a long time for Nikola Tesla's equal in achievement and imagination."
"Nikola Tesla is proof that real greatness surpasses national borders and differences."
"Tesla is entitled to the enduring gratitude of mankind."
"As an eminent pioneer in the realm of high frequency currents... I congratulate you on the great successes of your life's work."
"Tesla has done great things that will take the rest of us a long time to fully exploit. Lets just hope we exploit them for the right reasons!"
"Nikola Tesla is the true unsung prophet of the electronic age; without whom our radio, auto ignition, telephone, alternating current power generation and transmission, radio and television would all have been impossible."
"The invention of the wheel was perhaps rather obvious; but the invention of an invisible wheel, made of nothing but a magnetic field, was far from obvious, and that is what we owe to Nikola Tesla."
"Tesla has contributed more to electrical science than any man up to his time."
"I am sending [Dr. Tesla]...my gratitude and my respect in overflowing measure."
"All scientific men will be delighted to extend their warmest congratulations to Tesla and to express their appreciation of his great contributions to science."
"Nikola Tesla's achievements in electrical science are monuments that symbolize America as a land of freedom and opportunity … Tesla's mind was a human dynamo that whirled to benefit mankind."
"The evolution of electric power from the discovery of Faraday to the initial great installation of the Tesla polyphase system in 1896 is undoubtedly the most tremendous event in all engineering history."
"I misunderstood Tesla. I think we all misunderstood Tesla. We thought he was a dreamer and visionary. He did dream and his dreams came true, he did have visions but they were of a real future, not an imaginary one. Tesla was the first man to lift his eyes high enough to see that the rarified stratum of atmosphere above our earth was destined to play an important role in the radio telegraphy of the future, a fact which had to obtrude itself on the attention of most of us before we saw it. But Tesla also perceived what many of us did not in those days, namely, the currents which flowed way from the base of the antenna over the surface of the earth and in the earth itself."
"Tesla, with his almost preternatural insight into alternating current phenomenon that had enabled him some years before to revolutionize the art of electric power transmission through the invention of the rotary field motor, knew how to make resonance serve, not merely the role of a microscope to make visible the electric oscillations, as Hertz had done, but he made it serve the role of a stereopticon to render spectacular to large audiences the phenomena of electric oscillations and high frequency currents....He did more to excite interest and create an intelligent understanding of these phenomena in the years 1891–1893 than anyone else, and the more we learn about high frequency phenomena, resonance, and radiation today, the nearer we find ourselves approaching what we at one time were inclined, through a species of intellectual myopia, to regard as the fascinating but fantastical speculations of a man whom we are now compelled, in the light of modern experience and knowledge, to admit was a prophet. But Tesla was no mere lecturer and prophet. He saw to the fulfillment of his prophesies and it has been difficult to make any but unimportant improvements in the art of radio-telegraphy without traveling part of the way at least, along a trail blazed by this pioneer who, though eminently ingenious, practical, and successful in the apparatus he devised and constructed, was so far ahead of his time that the best of us then mistook him for a dreamer. I never came anywhere near having an appreciation of what Mr. Tesla had done in this art until a very late date..."
"[Dr. Tesla's] lectures opened a new physical world to me... [He was] one of the kindest men I've ever encountered. The hours which I was permitted to spend together with [him] will always be among the fondest memories of my life."
"Nothing in life is certain except death, taxes and the second law of thermodynamics. All three are processes in which useful or accessible forms of some quantity, such as energy or money, are transformed into useless, inaccessible forms of the same quantity. That is not to say that these three processes don't have fringe benefits: taxes pay for roads and schools; the second law of thermodynamics drives cars, computers and metabolism; and death, at the very least, opens up tenured faculty positions."
"Of course, one way of thinking about all of life and civilization is as being about how the world registers and processes information. Certainly that's what sex is about; that's what history is about."
"For hundreds of millions of years, Sex was the most efficient method for propagating information of dubious provenance: the origins of all those snippets of junk DNA are lost in the sands of reproductive history. Move aside, Sex: the world-wide Web has usurped your role."
"Quantum mechanics is weird. I don't understand it. Just live with it. You don't have to understand the nature of things in order to build cool devices…If you can figure out how to take advantage of this quantum multitasking, we can build computers that can do computations that no classical computer could do even if it were the size of the entire universe."
"The pilots I worked with in the aerospace industry were willing to put on almost anything to keep them safe in case of a crash,"
"Could anyone in his right mind speak seriously of any limited nuclear war? It should be quite clear that the aggressor's actions will instantly and inevitably trigger a devastating counterstroke by the other side. None but completely irresponsible people could maintain that a nuclear war may be made to follow rules adopted beforehand, with nuclear missiles exploding in a "gentlemanly manner" over strictly designated targets and sparing the population."
"If the present White House leadership runs the gauntlet of common sense and the people's will for peace and challenges us by starting MX missile deployment, then the Soviet Union will respond by deploying a new intercontinental ballistic missile of the same class, with its characteristics in no way inferior to those of the MX."
"Frankly, we doubt the veracity and seriousness of the United States in regard to achieving results that would be acceptable to both sides in Geneva."
"The aggressor too should know that the preemptive use of nuclear weapons would not insure victory. With modern detection systems and the combat readiness of the Soviet Union's strategic nuclear forces, the United States would not be able to deal a crippling blow to the socialist countries. The aggressor will not be able to evade an all-crushing retaliatory strike."
"I observe you have thought proper to insert the last number of the Philosophical Magazine your opinion that my attempts at the safety tubes and apertures were borrowed from what I have heard of Sir Humphrey Davy's researches. The principles upon which a safety lamp might be constructed I stated to several persons long before Sir Humphrey Davy came into this part of the country. The plan of such a lamp was seen by several and the lamp itself was in the hands of the manufacturers during the time he was here."
"I am glad to learn that the Parliament Bill has been passed for the Darlington Railway. I am much obliged by the favourable sentiments you express towards me, and shall be happy if I can be of service in carrying into execution your plans."
"To tell you the truth although it would put £500 in my pockets to specify my own patent rails, I cannot do so after the experience I have had."
"The rage for railroads is so great that many will be laid in parts where they will not pay."
"I was threatened to be ducked in the pond if I proceeded, and of course we had a great deal of the survey to take by stealth at the time when the persons were at dinner; we would not get it by night, for we were watched day and night and guns were discharged over the ground belonging to Captain Bradshaw to prevent us. I can state further, I was twice turned off the ground myself by his men; and they said if I did not go instantly they would carry me off to Worsley."
"I got leave to go from Killingworth to lay down a railway at Hetton, and next to Darlington, and after that I went to Liverpool to plan the line to Manchester. I there pledged myself to attain a speed of ten miles an hour. I said I had no doubt the engine would go much faster, but we had better be moderate at the beginning. The directors said I was quite right, for if when they came to Parliament I talked of going at a greater rate than ten miles an hour, I would put a cross on the concern. It was not an easy task for me to keep engines down to ten miles an hour, but it must be done, and did my best. I had to place myself in the most unpleasant of all situations, the witness-box of a Parliamentary Committee. Someone inquired if I was a foreigner, and another hinted that I was mad. Many became alarmed at this "Watt run wild," and in order to prevent these mad steam engines running beyond an old horse trot, they got two eminent engineers to act as Lunacy Commissioners. These gentlemen proved it was practically and commercially inexpedient. I put up with insult and rebuff, and went on with my plans, determined not to be put down. Improvements were made every day, and to-day a train has brought me from London in the morning and enabled me to take my place in this room."
"This railway is the most absurd scheme that ever entered into the head of a man to conceive. Mr. Stephenson never had a plan — I do not believe he is capable of making one. He is either ignorant or something else which I will not mention. His is a mind perpetually fluctuating between opposite difficulties; he neither knows whether he is to make bridges over roads or rivers, or of one size or another; or to make embankments, or cuttings, or inclined planes, or in what way the thing is to be carried into effect. When you put a question to him upon a difficult point, he resorts to two or three hypothesis, and never comes to a decided conclusion. Is Mr. Stephenson to be the person upon whose faith this Committee is to pass this Bill involving property to the extent of £400,000/£500,000 when he is so ignorant of his profession as to propose to build a bridge not sufficient to carry off the flood water of the river or to permit any of the vessels to pass which of necessity must pass under it."
"It will hereafter be scarcely believed that an invention so eminently scientific, and which could never have been derived but from the sterling treasury of science, should have been claimed on behalf of an engine-wright of Killingworth, of the name of Stephenson — a person not even possessing a knowledge of the elements of chemistry."
"Left home in company with John Dixon to attend the internment of George Stephenson at Chesterfield. I fear he died an unbeliever. When I reflect on my first acquaintance with him and the resulting consequences my mind seems lost in doubt as to the beneficial results — that humanity has been benefited in the diminished use of horses and by the lessened cruelty to them, that much ease, safety, speed, and lessened expense in travelling is obtained, but as to the results and effects of all that railways had led my dear family into, being in any sense beneficial is uncertain."
"George Stephenson told me as a young man that railways will supersede almost all other methods of conveyance in this country — when mail-coaches will go by railway, and railroads will become the great highway for the king and all his subjects. I know there are great and almost insurmountable difficulties to be encountered; but what I have said will come to pass as sure as you live."
"If we die we want people to accept it. We are in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us, it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life. Our God-given curiosity will force us to go there ourselves because in the final analysis, only man can fully evaluate the moon in terms understandable to other men."
"Do good work."
"I can think of nothing else than this machine."
"It is not worth my while to manufacture in three countries only; but I can find it very worthwhile to make it for the whole world."
"These foundations decisively changed incentives for people and impelled the engines of prosperity, paving the way for the Industrial Revolution. First and foremost, the Industrial Revolution depended on major technological advances exploiting the knowledge base that had accumulated in Europe during the past centuries. It was a radical break from the past, made possible by scientific inquiry and the talents of a number of unique individuals. The full force of this revolution came from the market that created profitable opportunities for technologies to be developed and applied. It was the inclusive nature of markets that allowed people to allocate their talents to the right lines of business. It also relied on education and skills, for it was the relatively high levels of education, at least by the standards of the time, that enabled the emergence of entrepreneurs with the vision to employ new technologies for their businesses and to find workers with the skills to use them. It is not a coincidence that the Industrial Revolution started in England a few decades following the Glorious Revolution. The great inventors such as James Watt (perfecter of the steam engine), Richard Trevithick (the builder of the first steam locomotive), Richard Arkwright (the inventor of the spinning frame), and Isambard Kingdom Brunel (the creator of several revolutionary steamships) were able to take up the economic opportunities generated by their ideas, were confident that their property rights would be respected, and had access to markets where their innovations could be profitably sold and used."
"Almost everybody is sure... that it is proceeding with unprecedented speed; and... that its effects will be more radical than anything that has gone before. Wrong, and wrong again. Both in its speed and its impact, the information revolution uncannily resembles its two predecessors... The first industrial revolution, triggered by James Watt's improved steam engine in the mid-1770s... did not produce many social and economic changes until the invention of the railroad in 1829... Similarly, the invention of the computer in the mid-1940s... it was not until 40 years later, with the spread of the Internet in the 1990s, that the information revolution began to bring about big economic and social changes... the same emergence of the “super-rich” of their day, characterized both the first and the second industrial revolutions... These parallels are close and striking enough to make it almost certain that, as in the earlier industrial revolutions, the main effects of the information revolution on the next society still lie ahead."
"In science its main worth is temporary, as a stepping-stone to something beyond. Even the Principia, as Newton, with characteristic modesty entitled his great work, is truly but the beginning of a natural philosophy, and no more an ultimate work than Watt's steam-engine, or Arkwright's spinning-machine."
"If the Steam Engine be the most powerful instrument in the hands of man, to alter the face of the physical world, it operates, at the same time, as a powerful moral lever in forwarding the great cause of civilization. ...If ...we are now met to consider of placing a monument to the memory of Mr. Watt beside the monuments of those who fell in the splendid victories of the last war, let it not be said that there is no connexion between the services of this modest and unobtrusive benefactor of his country, and the triumphs of the heroes which those monuments are destined to commemorate. ...It has been often said, that many of the great discoveries in science are due to accident; but it was well remarked by [Humphry Davy]... that this cannot be the case with the principal discovery of Mr. Watt. ... Again, it has frequently happened that those philosophers, who have made brilliant and useful discoveries... have only been able to turn their discoveries to the purpose of averting evils threatening, and often destroying, the precarious tenure of human existence. Thus Franklin disarmed the thunderbolt, and conducted it innocuous through our buildings, and close to our fire-sides—thus Jenner stripped a loathsome and destructive disease of its virulence, and rendered it harmless of devastation—thus [Davy]... sent the safety lamp into our mines to save... their useful inhabitants from the awful explosion of the fire damp. But the discovery of Mr. Watt went further: he subdued and regulated the most terrific power in the universe,—that power which, by the joint operation of pressure and heat, probably produces those tremendous convulsions of the earth, which in a moment subvert whole cities, and almost change the face of the inhabited globe. This apparently ungovernable power Mr. Watt reduced to a state of such perfect organization and discipline... that it may now be safely manœuvred and brought into irresistible action—irresistible, but still regulated, measured, and ascertained—or lulled into the most complete and secure repose, at the will of man, and under the guidance of his feeble hand. Thus one man directs it into the bowels of the earth, to tear asunder its very elements, and bring to light its hidden treasures; another places it upon the surface of the waters, to control the winds of heaven, to stem the tides, to check the currents, and defy the waves of the ocean; a third, perhaps and a fourth, are destined to apply this mighty power to other purposes, still unthought of and unsuspected, but leading to consequences, possibly not less important than those which it has already produced. ... those benefits, conferred by Mr. Watt on the whole civilized world, have been most experienced by his own country, which owes a tribute of national gratitude to a man, who has thus honoured her by his genius, and promoted her well being by his discoveries."
"Earth, thou grain of sand on the shore of the Universe of God; thou Bethlehem, amongst the princely cities of the heavens; thou art, and remainest, the Loved One amongst ten thousand suns and worlds, the Chosen of God! Thee will He again visit, and then thou wilt prepare a throne for Him, as thou gavest Him a manger cradle; in His radiant glory wilt thou rejoice, as thou didst once drink His blood and tears, and mourn His death! On thee has the Lord a great work to complete."
"The hypothesis of molecular vortices is defined to be that which assumes — that each atom of matter consists of a nucleus or central point enveloped by an elastic atmosphere, which is retained in its position by attractive forces, and that the elasticity due to heat arises from the centrifugal force of those atmospheres revolving or oscillating about their nuclei or central points. According to this hypothesis, quantity of heat is the vis viva of the molecular revolutions or oscillations."
"Discrepancy between theory and practice, which in sound physical and mechanical science is a delusion, has a real existence in the minds of men; and that fallacy, through rejected by their judgments, continues to exert and influence over their acts."
"This law (regarding the theoretical efficiency of heat engines by Mr. Joule), and the law of the maximum efficiency of heat engines, are particular cases of a general law which regulates all transformation of energy, and is the basis of the Science of Energetics."
"An essential distinction exists between two stages in the process of advancing our knowledge of the laws of physical phenomena; the first stage consists in observing the relations of phenomena, whether of such as occur in the ordinary course of nature, or of such as are artificially produced in experimental investigations, and in expressing the relations so observed by propositions called formal laws. The second stage consists in reducing the formal laws of an entire class of phenomena to the form of a science; that is to say, in discovering the most simple system of principles, from which all the formal laws of the class of phenomena can be deduced as consequences."
"A physical theory, like an abstract science, consists of definitions and axioms as first principles, and of propositions, their consequences; but with these differences:—first, That in an abstract science, a definition assigns a name to a class of notions derived originally from observation, but not necessarily corresponding to any existing objects of real phenomena, and an axiom states a mutual relation amongst such notions, or the names denoting them; while in a physical science, a definition states properties common to a class of existing objects, or real phenomena, and a physical axiom states a general law as to the relations of phenomena; and, secondly,—That in an abstract science, the propositions first discovered are the most simple; whilst in a physical theory, the propositions first discovered are in general numerous and complex, being formal laws, the immediate results of observation and experiment, from which the definitions and axioms are subsequently arrived at by a process of reasoning differing from that whereby one proposition is deduced from another in an abstract science, partly in being more complex and difficult, and partly in being to a certain extent tentative, that is to say, involving the trial of conjectural principles, and their acceptance or rejection according as their consequences are found to agree or disagree with the formal laws deduced immediately from observation and experiment."
"A hypothetical theory is necessary, as a preliminary step, to reduce the expression of the phenomena to simplicity and order before it is possible to make any progress in framing an abstractive theory."
"The evil influence of the supposed inconsistency of theory and practice upon speculative science, although much less conspicuous than it was in the ancient and middle ages, is still occasionally to be traced. This it is which opposes the mutual communication of ideas between men of science and men of practice, and which leads scientific men sometimes to employ, on problems that can only be regarded as ingenious mathematical exercises, much time and mental exertion that would be better bestowed on questions having some connection with the arts, and sometimes to state the results of really important investigations on practical subjects in a form too abstruse for ordinary use; so that the benefit which might be derived from their application is for years lost to the public; and valuable practical principles which might have been anticipated by reasoning, are left to be discovered by slow and costly experience."
"[O]f that scientifically practical skill which produces the greatest effect with the least possible expenditure of material and work, the instances are comparatively rare. In too many cases we see the strength and the stability which ought to be given by the skilful arrangement of the parts of a structure supplied by means of clumsy massiveness, and of lavish expenditure of material, labour, and money; and the evil is increased by a perversion of the public taste, which causes works to be admired, not in proportion to their fitness for their purposes, or to the skill evinced in attaining that fitness, but in proportion to their size and cost."
"With respect to those works which, from unscientific design, give way during or immediately after their erection, I shall say little; for with all their evils, they add to our experimental knowledge, and convey a lesson, though a costly one."
"But a class of structures fraught with much greater evils exist in great abundance throughout the country—namely, those in which the faults of an unscientific design have been so far counteracted by massive strength, good materials, and careful workmanship, that a temporary stability has been produced, but which contain within themselves sources of weakness, obvious to a scientific examination... that must inevitably cause their destruction within a limited number of years."
"Another evil, and one of the worst which arises from the separation of theoretical and practical knowledge, is the fact that a large number of persons, possessed of an inventive turn of mind and of considerable skill in the manual operations of practical mechanics, are destitute of that knowledge of scientific principles which is requisite to prevent their being misled by their own ingenuity. Such men too often spend their money, waste their lives, and it may be lose their reason in the vain pursuits of visionary inventions, of which a moderate amount of theoretical knowledge would be sufficient to demonstrate the fallacy ; and for want of such knowledge, many a man who might have been a useful and happy member of society, becomes a being than whom it would be hard to find anything more miserable. The number of those unhappy persons — to judge from the patent-lists, and from some of the mechanical journals — must be much greater than is generally believed."
"The most absurd of all their delusions commonly called the , or to speak more accurately, the inexhaustible source of power—is, in various forms, the subject of several patents in each year."
"The ill-success of the projects of misdirected ingenuity has very naturally the effect of driving those men of practical skill, who, though without scientific knowledge, possess prudence and common sense, to the opposite extreme of caution, and of inducing them to avoid all experiments, and to confine themselves to the careful copying of successful existing structures and machines; a course which, although it avoids risk, would, if generally followed, stop the progress of all improvement. A similar course has sometimes... been adopted by men possessed of scientific as well as practical skill: such men having, in certain cases, from deference to popular prejudice, or from a dread of being reputed us theorists, considered it advisable to adopt the worse and customary design for a work in preference to a better but unusual design."
"Some of the evils which are caused by the fallacy of an incompatibility between theory and practice having been described, it must now be admitted, that at the present time those evils show a decided tendency to decline. The extent of intercourse, and of mutual assistance, between men of science and men of practice, the practical knowledge of scientific men, and the scientific knowledge of practical men, have been for some time steadily increasing; and that combination and harmony of theoretical and practical knowledge—that skill in the application of scientific principles to practical purposes, which in former times was confined to a few remarkable individuals, now tends to become more generally diffused."
"Mechanical knowledge may... be distinguished into three kinds; purely scientific knowledge, purely practical knowledge, and that intermediate kind of knowledge which relates to the application of scientific principles to practical purposes, and which arises from understanding the harmony of theory and practice."
"The objects of instruction in purely scientific mechanics and physics are, first, to produce in the student that improvement of the understanding which results from the cultivation of natural knowledge, and that elevation of mind which flows from the contemplation of the order of the universe; and secondly, if possible, to qualify him to become a scientific discoverer."
"In this branch of study exactness is an essential feature; and mathematical difficulties must not be shrunk from when the nature of the subject leads to them."
"The ascertainment and illustration of truth are the objects; and structures and machines are looked upon merely as natural bodies are; namely, as furnishing experimental data for the ascertaining of principles and examples for their application."
"The third and intermediate kind of instruction, which connects the first two... relates to the application of scientific principles to practical purposes. It qualifies the student to plan a structure or a machine for a given purpose, without the necessity of copying some existing example, and to adapt his designs to situations to which no existing example affords a parallel. It enables him to compute the theoretical limit of the strength or stability of a structure, or the efficiency of a machine of a particular kind—to ascertain how far an actual structure or machine fails to attain that limit—to discover the cause of such shortcomings—and to devise improvements for obviating such causes; and it enables him to judge how far an established practical rule is founded on reason, how far on mere custom, and how far on error."
"In the original discovery of a proposition of practical utility, by deduction from general principles and from experimental data, a complex algebraical investigation is often not merely useful, but indispensable; but in expounding such a proposition as a part of practical science, and applying it to practical purposes, simplicity is of the importance:—and... the more thoroughly a scientific man has studied higher mathematics, the more fully does he become aware of this truth—and... the better qualified does he become to free the exposition and application of principles from mathematical intricacy."
"Sir John Herschel's "Outlines of Astronomy"—[is] a work in which one of the most profound mathematicians in the world has succeeded admirably in divesting of all mathematical intricacy the explanation of the principles of that natural science which employs higher mathematics most."
"[T]he symbols of algebra, when employed in abstruse and complex theoretical investigations, constitute a sort of thought-saving machine, by whose aid a person skilled in its use can solve problems respecting quantities, and dispense with the mental labour of thinking of the quantities denoted by the symbols, except at the beginning and the end of the operation."
"In treating of the practical application of scientific principles, an algebraical formula should only be employed when its shortness and simplicity are such as to render it a clearer expression of a proposition or rule than common language would be, and when there is no difficulty in keeping the thing represented by each symbol constantly before the mind."
"In theoretical science, the question is—What are we to think? and when a doubtful point arises, for the solution of which either experimental data are wanting, or mathematical methods are not sufficiently advanced, it is the duty of philosophic minds not to dispute about the probability of conflicting suppositions, but to labour for the advancement of experimental inquiry and of mathematics, and await patiently the time when they shall be adequate to solve the question."
"But in practical science, the question is—What are we to do?—a question which involves the necessity for the immediate adoption of some rule of working. In doubtful cases, we cannot allow our machines and our works of improvement to wait for the advancement of science; and if existing data are insufficient to give an exact solution of the question, that approximate solution must be acted upon which the best data attainable show to be the most probable. A prompt and sound judgment in cases of this kind is one of the characteristics of a Practical Man in the right sense of that term."
"It is possible to express the laws of thermodynamics in the form of independent principles, deduced by induction from the facts of observation and experiment, without reference to any hypothesis as to the occult molecular operations with which the sensible phenomena may be conceived to be connected; and that course will be followed in the body of the present treatise. But, in giving a brief historical sketch of the progress of thermodynamics, the progress of the hypothesis of thermic molecular motions cannot be wholly separated from that of the purely inductive theory."
"Hypothesis Of Molecular Vortices. In thermodynamics as well as in other branches of molecular physics, the laws of phenomena have to a certain extent been anticipated, and their investigation facilitated, by the aid of hypotheses as to occult molecular structures and motions with which such phenomena are assumed to be connected. The hypothesis which has answered that purpose in the case of thermodynamics, is called that of "molecular vortices," or otherwise, the "centrifugal theory of elasticity. (On this subject, see the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, 1849; Edinburgh Transactions, vol. xx.; and Philosophical Magazine, passim, especially for December, 1851, and November and December, 1855.)"
"Science Of Energetics. Although the mechanical hypothesis just mentioned may be useful and interesting as a means of anticipating laws, and connecting the science of thermodynamics with that of ordinary mechanics, still it is to be remembered that the science of thermodynamics is by no means dependent for its certainty on that or any other hypothesis, having been now reduced, to a system of principles, or general facts, expressing strictly the results of experiment as to the relations between heat and motive power. In this point of view the laws of thermodynamics may be regarded as particular cases of more general laws, applicable to all such states of matter as constitute Energy, or the capacity to perform work, which more general laws form the basis of the science of energetics, — a science comprehending, as special branches, the theories of motion, heat, light, electricity, and all other physical phenomena."
"We have... used the word stress to denote the mutual action between two portions of matter. This word was borrowed from common language, and invested with a precise scientific meaning by the late Professor Rankine to whom we are indebted for several other valuable scientific terms."
"Our world model was built specifically to investigate five major trends of global concern – accelerating industrialization, rapid population growth, widespread malnutrition, depletion of nonrenewable resources, and a deteriorating environment. The model we have constructed is, like every model, imperfect, oversimplified, and unfinished... Our conclusions are : (1.) If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity..."
"The value of global modelling has been severely restricted by poor appreciation of the constraints under which governments and politicians operate. Equally, the value of governments and politicians has been severely restricted by largely ignoring the very real but less immediate problems tackled by modellers."
"Mihajlo Mesarovic and Eduard Pestel have made a deliberate attempt to gain approbation from the skeptical segment of the intellectual community and to disassociate their work from that of Forrester and Meadows."
"Eduard Pestel is also known... for his blunt pleas to make global modelling relevant to decision makers."
"Pestel was a very forceful person and quickly saw the power of system dynamics."
"Eduard Pestel recalled that the Club of Rome’s founder, Aurelio Peccei, was tremendously impressed “by the fact that all computer runs exhibited—sooner or later at some point in time during the next century—a collapse mode regardless of any ‘technological fixes’ employed,” and that Peccei “obviously saw his fears confirmed.”"
"Mesarovic and Pestel are critical of the Forrester-Meadows world view, which is that of a homogeneous system with a fully predetermined evolution in time once the initial conditions are specified"
"Mihajlo Masarovic and Eduard Pestel (1974) attempted a radical innovation by developing complex models that combined demographic projections with economic, social, environmental, and political trends, with the objective of revealing that the population predicted by the UN would necessarily lead to an an explosion of the world system during the 21st century, causing an increase in mortality and a rapid population decline."
"I have read with very great interest Mr. Metcalfe's paper, as we at the Midvale Steel Co. have had the experience, during the past ten years, of organizing a system very similar to that of Mr. Metcalfe. The chief idea in our system, as in his, is, that the authority for doing all kinds of work should proceed from one central office to the various departments, and that there proper records should be kept of the work and reports made daily to the central office, so that the superintending department should be kept thoroughly informed as to what is taking place throughout the works, and at the same time no work could be done in the works without proper authority. The details of the system have been very largely modified as time went on, and a consecutive plan, such as Mr. Metcalfe proposed, would have been of great assistance to us in carrying out our system. There are certain points, however, in Mr. Metcalfe's plan, which I think our experience shows to be somewhat objectionable. He issues to each of the men a book, something like a check-book, containing sheets which they tear out, and return to the office after stating on them the work which they have done. We have found that any record which passes through the average workman's hands, and which he holds for any length of time, is apt either to be soiled or torn. We have, therefore, adopted the system of having our orders sent from the central office to the small offices in the various departments of the works, in each of which there is a clerk who takes charge of all orders received from, and records returned to, the central office, as well as of all records kept in the department."
"In concluding let me say that we are now but on the threshold of the coming era of true cooperation. The time is fast going by for the great personal or individual achievement of any one man standing alone and without the help of those around him. And the time is coming when all great things will be done by the cooperation of many men in which each man performs that function for which he is best suited, each man preserves his individuality and is supreme in his particular function, and each man at the same time loses none of his originality and proper personal initiative, and yet is controlled by and must work harmoniously with many other men."
"I think no book is more stimulating than the history of a devoted and successful life."
"The differential rate system of piece-work consists briefly in offering two different rates for the same job: a high price per piece, in case the work is finished in the shortest time possible and in perfect condition, and a low price, if it takes a longer time to do the job, or if there are any imperfections in the work. (The high rate should be such that the workman can earn more per day than is usually paid in similar establishments.) This is directly the opposite of the ordinary plan of piece-work, in which the wages of the workmen are reduced when they increase their productivity."
"The art of management has been defined, "As knowing exactly what you want men to do, and then seeing that they do it in the best and cheapest way." No concise definition can fully describe an art, but the relations between employers and men form without question the most important part of this art. In considering the subject, therefore, until this part of the problem has been fully discussed, the remainder of the art may be left in the background."
"That there is a difference between the average and the first class man is known to all employers, but that the first class man can do in most cases from two to four times as much is known to few, and is fully realized only by those who have made a thorough and scientific study of the possibilities of men."
"The greater part of the systematic soldiering, however, is done by the men with the deliberate object of keeping their employers ignorant of how fast work can be done. So universal is soldiering for this purpose, or under any of the ordinary systems of compensating labor, who does not devote a considerable part of his time to studying just how slowly he can work and still convince his employer that he is going at a good pace."
"After a workman has had the price per piece of the work he is doing lowered two or three times as a result of his having worked harder and increased his output, he is likely to entirely lose sight of his employer's side of the case and to become imbued with a grim determination to have no more cuts if soldiering can prevent it."
"The writer feels that management is also destined to become more of an art, and that many of the, elements which are now believed to be outside the field of exact knowledge will soon be standardized tabulated, accepted, and used, as are now many of the elements of engineering."
"In the past the man has been first; in the future the system must be first. This in no sense, however, implies that great men are not needed. On the contrary, the first object of any good system must be that of developing first-class men; and under systematic management the best man rises to the top more certainly and more rapidly than ever before."
"This paper has been written:"
"The principal object of management should be to secure the maximum prosperity for the employer coupled with the maximum prosperity for each employee."
"Scientific management... has for its very foundation the firm conviction that the true interests of the two are one and the same; that prosperity for the employer cannot exist through a long term of years unless it is accompanied by prosperity for the employe, and vice versa; and that it is possible to give the workman what he most wants high wages and the employer what he wants a low labor cost for his manufactures."
"These new duties are grouped under four heads:"
"Perhaps the most prominent single element in modern scientific management is the task idea. The work of every workman is fully planned out by the management at least one day in advance, and each man receives in most cases complete written instructions, describing in detail the task which he is to accomplish, as well as the means to be used in doing the work. And the work planned in advance in this way constitutes a task which is to be solved, as explained above, not by the workman alone, but in almost all cases by the joint effort of the workman and the management. This task specifies not only what is to be done but how it is to be done and the exact time allowed for doing it."
"The labor should include rest breaks so that the worker has time to recover from fatigue. Now one of the very first requirements for a man who is fit to handle pig iron as a regular occupation is that he shall be so stupid and so phlegmatic that he more nearly resembles in his mental make-up the ox than any other type. The man who is mentally alert and intelligent is for this very reason entirely unsuited to what would, for him, be the grinding monotony of work of this character. Therefore the workman who is best suited to handling pig iron is unable to understand the real science of doing this class of work."
"It is only through enforced standardization of methods, enforced adoption of the best implements and working conditions, and enforced cooperation that this faster work can be assured. And the duty of enforcing the adoption of standards and enforcing this cooperation rests with management alone."
"In order to have any hope of obtaining the initiative of his workmen the manager must give some special incentive to his men beyond that which is given to the average of the trade. This incentive can be given in several different ways, as, for example, the hope of rapid promotion or advancement; higher wages, either in the form of generous piecework prices or of a premium or bonus of some kind for good and rapid work; shorter hours of labor; better surroundings and working conditions than are ordinarily given, etc., and, above all, this special incentive should be accompanied by that personal consideration for, and friendly contact with, his workmen which comes only from a genuine and kindly interest in the welfare of those under him."
"Broadly speaking, then, the best type of management in ordinary use may be defined as management in which the workmen give their best initiative and in return receive some special incentive from their employers. This type of management will be referred to as the management of “initiative and incentive” in contradistinction to scientific management, or task management, with which it is to be compared."
"What I want to try to prove to you and make clear to you is that the principles of scientific management when properly applied, and when a sufficient amount of time has been given to make them really effective, must in all cases produce far large and better results, both for the employer and the employees, than can possibly be obtained under even this very rare type of management which I have been outlining, namely, the management of ‘initiative and incentive’, in which those on the management’s side deliberately give a very large incentive to their workmen, and in return the workmen respond by working to the very best of their ability at all times in the interest of their employers. I want to show you that scientific management is even far better than this rare type of management."
"I ordinarily begin with a description of the pig-iron handler. For some reason, I don’t know exactly why, this illustration has been talked about a great deal, so much, in fact, that some people seem to think that the whole of scientific management consists in handling pig-iron. The only reason that I ever gave this illustration, however, was that pig-iron handling is the simplest kind of human effort; I know of nothing that is quite so simple as handling pig-iron. A man simply stoops down and with his hands picks up a piece of iron, and then walks a short distance and drops it on the ground. Now, it doesn’t look as if there was very much room for the development of a science; it doesn’t seem as if there was much room here for the scientific selection of the man nor for his progressive training, nor for cooperation between the two sides; but, I can say, without the slightest hesitation, that the science of handing pig-iron is so great that the man who is fit to handle pig-iron as his daily work cannot possibly understand the science; the man who is physically able to handle pig-iron and is sufficiently phlegmatic and stupid to choose this for his occupation is rarely able to comprehend the science of handling pig-iron; and this in ability of the man who is fit to do the work to understand the science of doing his work becomes more and more evident as the work becomes more complicated, all the way up the scale. I assert, without the slightest hesitation, that the high-class mechanic has a far smaller chance of ever thoroughly understanding the science of his work than the pig-iron handler has of understanding the science of his work, and I am going to try and prove to your satisfaction, gentlemen, that the man who is fit to work at any particular trade is unable to understand the science of that trade without the kindly help and cooperation of men of a totally different type of education, men whose education is not necessarily higher but a different type from his own."
"I dare say that most of you gentlemen know that a good many pig-iron handlers can never learn to shovel right; the ordinary pig-iron handler is not the type of man well suited to shoveling. He is to stupid; there is too much mental strain, too much knack required of a shoveled for the pig-iron handler to take kindly to shoveling."
"You gentlemen may laugh, but that is true, all right; it sounds ridiculous, I know, but it is fact. Now if the problem were put up to any of you man to develop science of shoveling as it was put up to us, that is, to a group of men who had deliberately set out to develop the science of all kinds of all laboring work, where do you think you would begin? When you started to study the science of shoveling I make the assertion that you would be within two days – just as we were in two days –well on the way toward development of the science of shoveling. At least you would outlined in your minds those elements which required careful, scientific study in order to understand science of shoveling. I do not want to go into all of the details of shoveling, but I will give you some of the elements, one or two of the most important elements of the science of shoveling; that is, the elements that reach further and have more serious consequences than any other. Probably the most important element in the science of shoveling is this: There must be some shovel load at which a first-class shoveler will do his biggest day’s work. What is that load? To illustrate: when we went to the Bethlehem Steel Works and observed the shoveler in the yard of that company, we found that each of the good shovelers in that yard owned his own shovel; they preferred to buy their own shovels rather than to have the company furnish them. There was a larger tonnage of ore shoveled in that woks than of any other material and rice coal came next in tonnage. We would see a first-class shoveler go from shoveling rice coal with a load of 3.5 ponds to the shovel to handling ore from the Massaba Range, with 38 pounds to the shove Now, is 3.5 pounds the proper shovel load or is the 38 pounds the proper load? They cannot both be right. Under scientific management the answer to this question is not a matter of anyone’s opinion; it is a question for accurate, careful, scientific investigation."
"The Chairman: Mr. Taylor, do you believe that any system of scientific management induced by a desire for greater profits would revolutionize the minds of the employers to such an extent that they would immediately, voluntarily and generally enforce the golden rule.?"
"There is another and higher leadership, that of the intellect, by which the methods and thoughts of one man may affect the whole civilized world. Industrial leaders who have most prominently attracted our attention in the past are those who have, by their inventions or their direction of activities, accumulated large fortunes ; but none of these are as great as the man who by the force of his intellect leads people throughout the civilized world to benefit themselves and others. Such a man was the late Frederick Winslow Taylor who, in his determination to eliminate error and to base our industrial relations on fact, set an example which will have an effect all over the world."
"Mr. Frederick Taylor's system in part or whole had been applied in many factories which I visited in my four years. You knew its outward sighs as soon as you entered the yard. Order, routing, were first laws, and the old cluttered shops where you fell over scattered material and picked your way around dump heaps were now models of classified order. A man knew where to find the thing he needed, and things were placed where it took the fewest steps to reach them. Quite as conspicuous as the physical changes in the shop was the change in what may be called its human atmosphere. Under the Taylor System the business of management was not only planning but controlling what it planned. Management laid out ahead the day's work for each man at his machine; to him they went with their instructions, to them he went for explanations and suggestions. Office and shop intermingled. They realized their mutual dependence as never before, learned to respect each other for what they were worth. Watching the functioning, one realized men had come to feel more or less as Taylor himself felt: that nothing of moment was ever accomplished save by cooperation, which must be "intimate and friendly." Praised once for his work on the art of cutting metal he said a thing all leaders would do well to heed: "I feel strongly that work of any account in order to be done rightly should be done through true cooperation, rather than through the individual effort of any one man; and, in fact, I should feel rather ashamed of any achievement in which I attempted to do the whole thing myself.""
"Among the names of those who have led the great advance of the industrial arts during the past thirty years, that of Frederick Winslow Taylor will hold an increasingly high place. Others have led in electrical development, in the steel industry, in industrial chemistry, in railroad equipment, in the textile arts, and in many other fields, but he has been the creator of a new science, which underlies and will benefit all of these others by greatly increasing their efficiency and augmenting their productivity. In addition, he has literally forged a new tool for the metal trades, which has doubled, or even trebled, the productive capacity of nearly all metal-cutting machines. Either achievement would entitle him to high rank among the notable men of his day; — the two combined give him an assured place among the world's leaders in the industrial arts."
"The near future will show us the service which has been rendered to the mechanical arts by this generous publication of researches pursued with such uncommon perseverance. But even now we can admire without reserve the scientific method which has controlled this whole work. It is an example unique in the history of the mechanic arts. We have all admired the researches of Sir Lothian Bell, on blast furnaces, and those of Sir on the regenerative furnace; but notwithstanding the high scientific value of the work of these two great engineers, on reading their papers neither of them leaves an impression on the mind which can be compared with that of Mr. Taylor's paper. It is a model which every young engineer will have to study."
"One of the hardest-to-down myths about the evolution of mass production at Ford is one which credits much of the accomplishment to 'scientific management.' No one at Ford—not Mr. Ford, Couzens, Flanders, Wills, Pete Martin, nor I—was acquainted with the theories of the 'father of scientific management,' Frederick W. Taylor. Years later I ran across a quotation from a two-volume book about Taylor by Frank Barkley Copley, who reports a visit Taylor made to Detroit late in 1914, nearly a year after the moving assembly line had been installed at our Highland Park plant. Taylor expressed surprise to find that Detroit industrialists 'had undertaken to install the principles of scientific management without the aid of experts.' To my mind this unconscious admission by an expert is expert testimony on the futility of too great reliance on experts and should forever dispose of the legend that Taylor's ideas had any influence at Ford."
"Frederick W. Taylor was the first man in recorded history who deemed work deserving of systematic observation and study. On Taylor's 'scientific management' rests, above all, the tremendous surge of affluence in the last seventy-five years which has lifted the working masses in the developed countries well above any level recorded before, even for the well-to-do. Taylor, though the Isaac Newton (or perhaps the Archimedes) of the science of work, laid only first foundations, however. Not much has been added to them since – even though he has been dead all of sixty years."
"We never had any use for Taylor or any of the efficiency or scientific management crowd. They never realized that human toil was the last thing in the world you had to be efficient about; the only way to be really efficient is to eliminate it entirely, and this would have been heresy to any of the Taylor, Gant, Barth, Cook efficiency crowd."
"With the triumph of scientific management, unions would have nothing left to do, and they would have been cleansed of their most evil feature: the restriction of output. To underscore this idea, Taylor fashioned the myth that 'there has never been a strike of men working under scientific management', trying to give it credibility by constant repetition. In similar fashion he incessantly linked his proposals to shorter hours of work, without bothering to produce evidence of "Taylorized" firms that reduced working hours, and he revised his famous tale of Schmidt carrying pig iron at Bethlehem Steel at least three times, obscuring some aspects of his study and stressing others, so that each successive version made Schmidt's exertions more impressive, more voluntary and more rewarding to him than the last. Unlike Harrington Emerson, Taylor was not a charlatan, but his ideological message required the suppression of all evidence of worker's dissent, of coercion, or of any human motives or aspirations other than those his vision of progress could encompass."
"When Taylor began his efforts at the Midvale Steel Company in the 1880s, several members of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers were likewise interested in labor management. Industrial capitalism was running up against renewed resistance from the growing ranks of labor, still committed to a sense of work integrity and craftsmanship. Task management, or scientific management as it came to be called, began to take shape in the eighties as the way to break the worker's threatening resistance. The heart of this approach is the systematic reduction of work into discrete, routinized tasks, totally separated from any policy decisions about the job. ... For capitalism to be firmly in control, it must monopolize information and techniques as surely as it controls the rest of the means of production. The worker must be permitted only to perform certain specific narrow tasks as planned by management."
"Despite the pseudo-scientific apologies for the Taylorist approach, the public readily developed a very negative view of it. As the Taylor Society admitted with surprising candor, scientific management was widely seen as "the degradation of workmen into obedient oxen under the direction of a small body of experts—into men debarred from creative participation in their work.""
"Commons provided the cardinal reason for the unions' absence of hostility to Taylorism: "... the unions have generally come to the point of confining their attention to wages — that is, to distribution — leaving to employers the question of production." ... The "management's rights" clause found in every U.S. union contract ... vests the sole right to set work methods, job design, assignments, etc. with management. ... In fact, well before the War the idea began spreading that unionization, with its standard "management's rights" clause contracts, was the best approach for fitting the Taylorist yoke on the workers. The efficacy of this "trojan horse" tactic of union mediation led Thompson to prescribe industrial unionism over the AFL's craft unionism as the best way the secure the Taylor system in industry."
"The greatest problem before engineers and managers today is the economical utilization of labor. The limiting of output by the workman, and the limiting by the employer of the amount a workman is allowed to earn, are both factors which militate against that harmonious co-operation of employer and employee which is essential to their highest common good."
"The aim of our efficiency has not been to produce goods, but to harvest dollars... The production of goods was always secondary to the securing of dollars."
"Finance and industry must be socialized somehow. If we refuse to do it from the bottom we shall have to do it from the top, and doing it from the top means the emergence of many Prussias — with wars upon wars."
"The mechanical engineer today is carrying forward, under the direction of science, the work that was begun by the mechanic who first learned to chip flint or make a fire ; and it is he alone that can lead the mechanic of today to a better understanding of his problems, and the capitalist to a better appreciation of their solution."
"Scientific investigation is rapidly putting at our disposal vast amounts of knowledge concerning materials and forces, which it is the business of the engineer to utilize for the benefit of the community. Well-designed plants and efficiency labor-saving devices, to be seen on every hand, bear testimony that he is doing at least a portion of his work well. When, however, it comes to the operation of these plants and the utilization of these labor-saving devices, the lack of co-operation between employer and employee, and the inefficient utilization of labor, very much impair their efficiency. The increase of this efficiency is essentially the problem of the manager, and the amount to which it can be increased by proper study is, in most cases, so great as to be almost incredible."
"Whatever we do must be in accord with human nature. We cannot drive people; we must direct their development... The general policy of the past has been to drive, but the era of force must give way to that of knowledge, and the policy of the future will be to teach and to lead, to the advantage of all concerned"
"There is another and higher leadership, that of the intellect, by which the methods and thoughts of one man may affect the whole civilized world. Industrial leaders who have most prominently attracted our attention in the past are those who have, by their inventions or their direction of activities, accumulated large fortunes ; but none of these are as great as the man who by the force of his intellect leads people throughout the civilized world to benefit themselves and others. Such a man was the late Frederick Winslow Taylor who, in his determination to eliminate error and to base our industrial relations on fact, set an example which will have an effect all over the world"
"Taylor’s friend Henry Gantt explains to his fellow engineers in the middle of the First World War that they must "develop a task system on the basis of democracy that will yield as good, or better, results than those now in operation under autocracy""
"It is becoming perfectly clear that the principles underlying industrial and military efficiency are the same and that a nation, to be efficient in a military sense, must first be efficient industrially"
"Engineers were the only members of the community "who understand the needs of the nation, desires of the workmen, and the power of the productive forces""
"For more than twenty years Mr. Gantt has been closely interested in advanced work in the field of labor management. For more than ten years his name has been identified with certain methods which, nevertheless, are yet but partially and imperfectly understood by many, and because of this incomplete understanding are sometimes supposed to be summed up in the "Bonus System" of wage payment."
"The achievement of Gantt offers a means of measuring the human or social efficiency of industry... Gantt's method has made it possible to ascertain the cause of the diseased industry just as blood analysis established the cause of malaria. While the latter made the completion of the Panama Canal possible, the former will transform industry from servitude into creative service and its pensioners into respectable members of the community... Unlike statistical diagrams, curve records, and similar static forms of presenting facts of the past (Gantt) charts... are kinetic, moving, and project through time the integral elements of service rendered in the past toward the goal in the future."
"Mr. Gantt concentrated his attention on the development of a method of charting which would show a comparison between performance and promises... he had used a chart on which the work for machines was "laid out" according to the time required to do it. The Gantt Progress Chart, as developed from this early form, was found to help in the making of definite plans and to be highly effective in getting those plans executed. The rate at which the work goes forward is continuously compared with the advance of time, which induces action to accelerate or retard that rate. These charts are not static records of the past - they deal with the present and future and their only connection with the past is with respect to its effect upon the future."
"For continuous flow production such as this I know of nothing better for recording output and comparing performance with capacity or what ought to be produced, than the straight line charts developed by Mr. H. L. Gantt, which show required and actual production in terms of both quantity and time. Their use, however, is not limited to the class of work just described."
"The basic value of any proposition is its commercial aspect, and naturally the first query of inventor, capitalist and layman is : "What conditions exist that will make a market for automobiles or create a desire in the public mind for their use?" Some will say progression, the spirit of which surrounds us everywhere; others say, expediency and the desire for saving- minutes and even seconds; others, again, their convenience and readiness for instant use; all of which are true but do not in a broad sense answer the question, but create another as to what has made all these things desirable on the part of the public as things necessary to its comfort and welfare."
"When we review all that has been done by mechanical devices toward the displacement of animal power, it is very hard to refrain from drawing a conclusion that the horse must go; that is, speaking in the broad sense of the word. Mechanically propelled vehicles for all purposes are here."
"The simplicity attached to the operation of an electric vehicle by any person of ordinary intelligence is too well known to need comment at this point ; but it is found from experience that there is the same difference in the care taken of an electric vehicle that there is among men who attend dynamos and steam engines, or drive horses, with a corresponding difference in troubles and aggravations."
"The unsightly appearance of automobiles has been commented upon this country a great deal."
"Nowhere in the world of business at the present moment are conditions and methods changing more rapidly than in the work shop and factory itself. The application of new methods of processing, the invention of new tools, and the use of new combinations of cutting steels, are some of the things that in themselves are revolutionizing not only factory practice, but the character and skill of the labor employed; which results in a tendency toward a vast increase in output per capita. These things are in turn all forcing new methods and ways into industrial administration."
"Factories today are being run less and less by the authority of experience only, and more and more by the authority of figures and facts. The superintendent and manager of long experience and intuitive knowledge only is forced to make room for the younger man, of less experience, perhaps, but who modernizes his work by the jurisdiction of figures alone."
"The writer has found, in analyzing and diagnosing organization and accounting work, that charts can express more on one page than is sometimes expressed in several chapters of writing, and has been the author and originator of many methods of charting industrial expressions. It is necessary, as a first step, for analytical and other purposes, to make a chart expressing all of the relations governing the organization of a business so as to show the very foundation upon which all authorities, accounting, and business transactions are based and conducted. There have been more failures scored both personally and financially for lack of these very elements in a business than by reason of any other one thing. As well try to build a house without a foundation as to try to conduct a business, especially a manufacturing business, without proper organization."
"The actual manufacture of material into a specific product is a sort of digestive process which must have a functioning organization purposed to meet the required ends, just as the human body has, and it is governed by similar conditions. It must also be directed by a specific intelligence and must have internal and external avenues of correspondence to keep it alive; and, like a living organism, must adhere to the eternal economy of things and show a profit by its activities or it cannot progress. To exemplify this in a simple way, the writer has laid out Figure I, showing the prime elements composing the anatomy of an industrial body. One does not have to draw on the imagination very far to make a comparison of this anatomy with that of man. It has its mind, will power, and brain to direct it, as indicated by the stockholders, directors and executive officers, a heart which keeps in flow the circulating medium internally ; and avenues of correspondence with the outside world which furnish to it the very elements of existence. This chart shows first, that the stockholders are simply elements belonging to the general public who have made an investment for some specific purpose; second, that immediately after this, the election of directors sets into action the first internal factor in the body, which is then divided into different functioning powers by the election of executive officers."
"Figure II, which is one of the most interesting and valuable charts made by the writer in his work for the larger industrials. While it is reduced here to the simplest possible expression, it at the same time contains all of the elements which govern the laying out of an organization of any magnitude. This is the Chart of Prime and Working Authorities, showing exactly where each authority is related to the others and how far each authority may extend in the business. The writer has retained in this chart the administrative, commercial and manufacturing sections in the Authorities for Position as exhibited in Figure I, and Industrial has separated these different sections into purpose of showing how the authorities governing different departments are related to the industrial body as a whole."
"Organization aims to unite individuals into a body which shall work together for a common end. Specifically, organization prepares for the transaction of business by electing and appointing officers and committees, delegating authorities and bringing into systematic connection and cooperation, each and every part of the industrial body. Right organization, in short, puts vitality into the entire factory, secures the efficient working-together of all employees, from the manager's office to the mechanic's bench, routes materials, sub-divides work, inspects output and delivers the right goods, fully processed, at the shipping room door on the correct delivery date."
"In analyzing organization work, a single chart can frequently express more than any amount of detailed written explanation. First of all, clearly define author- ities within your establishment ; then chart those authorities simply and graphically, so that every workman knows to whom he is responsible, and every executive knows who is responsible to him. Place this chart conspicuously in every department where each employee can see it. In case of disputed authority, final proof is immediately at hand. There is then no loop-hole through which a neglectful workman, foreman or executive can crawl no longer does he have the excuse that he thought somebody else was going to do it. In clean-cut form, his duties and relations to other men of the organization are laid down once and for all, and responsibility rests on the right man. Failure so to specify responsibilities inevitably means confusion all down the line."
"Clinton E. Woods... has become well known to electrical workers in the West during the last few years. Mr. Woods was born in Massachusetts in 1863, and at an early age was left an orphan and obliged to earn a living and acquire an education as best he might. In 1886 he drifted into steam and electrical work, being first identified with the local central station at Pittsfield, Mass; afterward at Peekskill and Newburg, N. Y. From this he worked at general construction and engineering until 1889, entered the employment of the National Electric Manufacturing Company, Eau Claire, Wis., as its inspecting engineer, and served in that capacity until 1892, when he was made electrician-in-chief. This position he held until the spring of 1893, when he entered the Standard Electric company of Chicago. His work has won for him reputation and prominence in the electrical field. He has designed for this company a complete line of arc, alternating and constant potential dynamos, motors, etc., such accessories as transformers and instruments for perfecting the system, during the last twelve months. Mr. Woods is not only an electrician but a manufacturer, having advanced many improved methods of manufacturing dynamo-electric machinery, which have greatly enhanced the value of his work from an artistic and mechanical standpoint. From the knowledge and ability Mr. Woods has displayed and opportunity for results which are in his possession, much is looked for from his future work. track."
"Clinton Edgar Woods was the son of a coach builder and a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in mechanical and electrical engineering. He was one of the few American electric car pioneers to focus attention on the utilitarian application of electric traction right from its beginning in 1897. Woods set up the American Electric Vehicle Company with the support of none other than , the "utility car" of Chicago, and a number of "Standard Oil magnates"."
"C.E. Woods would perhaps be described by Law as a "heterogeneous engineer" who marshaled physical as well as social resources to help build an automotive industry."
"Most often it is the case that people know that something big can be manipulated with it [i.e., the screw], but not how and in what way it is connected to time, and that untold time, and finally such force of machines, wheels, and shafts is necessary as cannot be produced nor be had."
"I had not only opportunity of seeing how different things have been made, but also manual work made me strong."
"[His work is addressed]... not to the learned and experienced mathematicians who are already, or should be, better acquainted with them... [and most of whom] have studied mechanics more as a subject of curiosity and a hobby, than with any view of service to the public. The people we had in mind were rather the mechanic, handicraftsman and the like, who, without education or knowledge of foreign languages have no access to many sources of information..."
""Theatrum machiuamm universale," &c. by Jacob Leupold, Leipsic, seven volumes, folio, 1724, 1727,1774. This is the greatest and most complete work of this kind that ever was published. The first volume is little more than an introduction to the work; the second and third volumes contain a description of hydraulic machines; the next two volumes relate to machines for raising weights, the theory of levelling, and other subjects; and the sixth treats principally on machines connected with the construction of bridges; the seventh volume is entitled, "Theatre arithmetico geometrique," where the author treats of all instruments employed in these two sciences This work would have been much more considerable if its author had lived to complete the immense task he had undertaken."
"In the Histoire de l'Academie for the year 1725, p. 78, it is stated that when M. du Fay was at Strasbourg, M. Jacob Leupold had a pump which threw water in a continuous stream, using only one piston, and that he made a great mystery of it; but that M. du Fay immediately stated the reason of it."
"Jacob Leupold (1674-1727) German engineer who collected, for the first time in print, the basic principles of mechanical engineering."
"Leupold is also credited as an early inventor of air pumps. He designed his first pump in 1705, and in 1707 he published a book Antlia pneumatica illustrata. In 1711 following an advice of its president Wilhelm Leibniz, Prussian Academy of Sciences acquired Leupold's pump. In 1720 Leupold started to work on the manuscript of his prominent encyclopedie Theatrium machinarum, a nine-volume series on machine design and technology, published between 1724 and 1739 . It was the first systematic analysis of mechanical engineering in the world."
"The schedule is a moral contract or agreement with the men as to a particular machine operation, rate of wages and time. Any change in men [etc.] calls for a new schedule."
"The individual effort method of increasing the reward of the wage-earner includes all that is best in other methods, and attempts to exclude all that is objectionable. Its good points are summed up as follows:"
"Staff standards are not theological abstractions, but scientific approximations, and are evolved for the use of the line, the sole justification of the standards being that they will make line work more efficient. Staff standards being for the benefit of the line and often entrusted to line officials, must be put in the form of permanent instructions so that all may understand what is being aimed at, and deviations by the line be noted and reprimanded."
"We have not put our trust in Kings; let us not put it in natural resources, but grasp the truth that exhaustless wealth lies in the latent and as yet undeveloped capacities of individuals, of corporations, of States."
"Twelve Principles of Efficiency"
"It is psychology, not soil or climate, that enables a man to raise five times as many potatoes per acre as the average in his own state."
"The type for the great newspaper is set up by linotype operators. Apprenticeship is rigorously limited. Some operators can never get beyond the 2500-em class, others with no more personal effort can set 5000 ems. Do the employers test out applicants for apprenticeship so as to be sure to secure boys who will develop into the 5000-em class? They do not: they select applicants for any near reason except the fundamental important one of innate fitness."
"In selecting human assistants such superficialities as education, as physical strength, even antecedent morality, are not as important as the inner attitudes, proclivities, character, which after all determine the man or woman."
"The competent specialist who has supplemented natural gifts and good judgment by analysis and synthesis can perceive attitudes and proclivities even in the very young, much more readily in those semi-matured, and can with almost infallible certainty point out, not only what work can be undertaken with fair hope of success, but also what slight modification or addition and diminution will more than double the personal power."
"The estimate that at least $1,000,000 a day could be saved by the pursuit of methods of scientific management was first made by Mr. Harrington Emerson. It is submitted that, with aggregate operating expenses by the railroads in 1908 of $1,669,938,717, of which $1,035,437,528 was for labor, this estimate appears moderate."
"By the time of Frederick Winslow Taylor's death, the gospel of industrial efficiency preached by American scientific managers was commonplace on both sides of the Atlantic. In the following years of world war, reconstruction, and adjustment, scientific management attracted a new generation of advocates and practitioners, many of whom would have perplexed and shocked Taylor and his immediate circle. Of the entrepreneurs of scientific management who succeeded Frank Gilbreth, Harrington Emerson, Richard Feiss, and other pioneers, none was more successful than (1886-1944). Unlike Taylor and his colleagues, Bedaux was and still is a mysterious figure. Secretive to a fault, he avoided professional contacts, refused to write for popular or technical journals, and spurned publicity. Yet he was a master salesman whose operations were global in scope and impact. Only in recent years, with the discovery of the papers of the British Bedaux Company, is it possible to gauge the impact of Bedaux and his extraordinary career."
"Good science makes a clean environment."
"Everything you can touch and depend on in our society goes back to science."
"We want to get young people excited about inventing so they'll be future inventors, and change the world."
"The invention process is a great exercise for kids. It compels them to define an actual problem, formulate an original solution, develop a product, and share the results or products with their friends and peers."
"Science is the most important thing you can study in school."
"The passion and beauty and joy of science is that we humans have invented a process to understand the universe in a way that is true for everyone. We are finding universal truths."
"I encourage you to look at the world around you and think about how it works. My friends, you can go forth and make this world a better place."
"Without clouds we wouldn't have rain. Without rain there is no water, no crops and no food for you and me. Humans would not exist without the sun, heat, water and oxygen from plants."
"When people start rejecting the fundamental understanding of the world that scientific process brings you, well, that's bad in my opinion."
"When people, some of them very intellectual, claim that evolution is not true, I get a little nervous."
"I might be trying to change the world, but I also better be funny while I'm doing it. I've never lost sight of that."
"I can be educational, but if I'm not funny and entertaining, too, who's going to come and listen to me or watch me on TV."
"I don't want people memorizing the planets or counting how many plants there are in the world. But I want them to know that the world is 4.56 billion years old, and I want them to know how we know it is 4.56 billion years old. It's wonderful and exciting, and it creates a reverence for nature. When I see people reject all that, it's kind of creepy."
"I find both humor and grimness in most issues."
"I'm an educator. You do what you have to do to get what you are saying across, and if that means being funny, that's what I do."
"There are major issues that people - as taxpayers and voters - will have to make informed decisions on in the near future. They will need to understand the science and the ethical considerations to form their opinions. Some of these are issues that will affect humanity for decades to come."
"Global climate change is a big deal to me. We need to change our ways."
"Change the world - even if ever so slightly - is my goal."
"The single biggest impact a person can have on the Earth is driving a car, either driving a fuel-efficient car or just driving it less."
"It will take more time for the change we have to effect, but we don't have more time. The carbon dioxide on Earth, just in the last four years, has increased from .03 percent to .04 percent. And the change will have a significant impact on everyone."
"Half the humans are women, so I think half the scientists should be women - a legacy of my parents."
"The Earth has never warmed this fast. We need to see how much we can change the world in the next 20 years."
"The Earth is just a speck of sand in the universe. And there's no cavalry coming over the hill to rescue it."
"The more we learn about volcanoes, the more we learn about the earth. Learning about the earth is more important than it has ever been."
"Carbon dioxide has never entered the atmosphere so fast. In 1976 the carbon dioxide level was at 0.03 percent. We've lived through a change to 0.04 percent."
"People like to grab stuff, hold things in their hands and make things happen. Children’s museums are ideal for these kinds of things. There’s nothing more fun, to me."
"If I were the king of the forest, and I’m not, we would have more astronomy."
"When you compare Mars to Earth, and Venus to Earth, you can see the problem [earthlings face]. We do not want to become Venus."
"It's not cool ... or it's not cool enough. The world is getting warmer, that's all there is to it. I want you guys to stop this. I want you to change the world."
"It is this fragile nature of the earth's atmosphere that I want everybody to appreciate. It's what I call your place in space."
"To exclude kids in formal education from science is bad for everybody."
"I will assert that U.S. economic growth is in lockstep with science and technology and, by extension, science education."
"If we found life on Mars, it would change everybody's view of our place in space."
"Spacecraft sent to Mars, Saturn, Mercury, the moon, comets, and asteroids have been making incredible discoveries, with more to come from recent launches to Jupiter, the moon, and Mars. The country needs more of these robotic space exploration missions, not less."
"Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology. It's like, it's very much analogous to trying to do geology without believing in tectonic plates. You're just not gonna get the right answer. Your whole world is just gonna be — a mystery. Instead of an exciting place."
"I say to the grownups, 'If you want to deny evolution and live in your world that's completely inconsistent with everything we've observed in the universe that's fine. But don't make your kids do it.'"
"When you have a portion of the population that doesn't believe in (evolution) it holds everybody back, really."
"We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future."
"How could there be billions of stars more distant than 6,000 years, if the world is only 6,000 years old?"
"I just want to remind us all there are billions of people in the world who are deeply religious, who get enriched by the wonderful sense of community by their religion. But these same people do not embrace the extraordinary view that the Earth is somehow only 6,000 years old."
"If we continue to eschew science ... we are not going to move forward. We will not embrace natural laws. We will not make discoveries. We will not invent and innovate and stay ahead."
"Please, you don't want to raise a generation of science students who don't understand how we know our place in the cosmos, who don't understand natural law."
"Nature is bottom up. It's compelling and complex, and it fills me with joy and it's inconsistent with the top down view."
"You don’t need a PhD in climate science to understand what’s going on, that we have overwhelming evidence that the climate is changing. That you cannot tie any one event to that is not the same as doubt about the whole thing."
"Look at the facts. We need you to change things, not deny what's happening."
"What we want to do is not just less, but do more for less. I want the United States to lead the world in this. The more we mess around with this denial, the more we lose.""
"We have overwhelming evidence that the climate is changing. That you cannot tie any one event to that is not the same as doubt about the whole thing. There is no debate in the scientific community."
""The problem is we have this thin atmosphere and a lot of people trying to breathe it. It's this thinness of the atmosphere that has allowed humankind to accidentally change the climate of the planet."
"I stand by my assertions that although you can know what happens to any individual species that you modify, you cannot be certain what will happen to the ecosystem. Also, we have a strange situation where we have malnourished fat people. It’s not that we need more food. It’s that we need to manage our food system better. So when corporations seek government funding for genetic modification of food sources, I stroke my chin."
"I went to Monsanto, and I spent a lot of time with the scientists there, and I have revised my outlook, and I'm very excited about telling the world. When you’re in love, you want to tell the world."
"Was it appropriate to jail the guys from Enron? ... Was it appropriate to jail people from the cigarette industry who insisted that this addictive product was not addictive, and so on? ... In these cases, for me, as a taxpayer and voter, the introduction of this extreme doubt about climate change is affecting my quality of life as a public citizen. ... That there is a chilling effect on scientists who are in extreme doubt about climate change, I think that is good."
"Gender is determined by your chromosomes."
"Nye, a Cornell University graduate with a degree in mechanical engineering, studied under the late astronomer Carl Sagan."
"Nye has won numerous daytime Emmy Awards and has been named outstanding performer in a children's series."
"Nye, who grew up in Washington, D.C., graduated from Cornell University in 1977 with a degree in mechanical engineering. He was lured to the West Coast by Boeing and made an immediate and significant contribution, designing a hydraulic pressure resonance suppressor for their 747s."
"Nye worked for Boeing from 1977 through most of 1980, but left to take a position as a licensed mechanical engineer for the state of Washington."
"In 1992, Nye began doing his own show, 'Bill Nye , the Science Guy,' on PBS. The series' 100 shows produced four Emmys for Nye in eight seasons before he began developing other interests, such as doing short documentaries for the Discovery Channel. His latest production, 'The 100 Greatest Discoveries,' is currently airing on the Science Channel."
"Nye is a former Boeing engineer whose name (besides meaning 'new' in Danish) has become synonymous with wacky popular science ever since he became a cast member on KING/5's now defunct late-night comedy show, 'Almost Live.'"
"Bill Nye is many things: comedian, scientist, author, inventor, TV personality."
"He has a cult following among science teachers."
"It's his gift. He makes science understandable and fun, and he knows how to connect with people."
"Nye has been instrumental in making science fun for preteen audiences‚ but when he is speaking at a collegiate venue he focuses more on topics he’s serious about."
"Nye, who earned a mechanical engineering degree from Cornell University, combined his love of science with his flair for comedy when he won a Steve Martin look-alike contest in Seattle."
"He eventually quit his day job as an engineer to focus on comedy writing and performing. The decision led to the creation of 'Bill Nye the Science Guy,' which won 28 Emmys in five years. He also won seven national Emmy Awards for writing, performing and producing."
"A graduate of Cornell University, Nye began his career as an engineer. In fact, Boeing still uses his hydraulic pressure resonance suppressor today."
"Nye developed his character 'Bill Nye the Science Guy' while living in Seattle and working on the comedy show 'Almost Live.'"
"By the mid-1990s he had his own television show, 'Bill Nye the Science Guy,' which was shot entirely in Seattle. Nye and his show won several Emmys."
"His latest television series is called 'Eyes of Nye'" Lately, Nye has focused considerable attention on environmental science."
"Bill Nye left a lasting impression on youngsters (and their parents) who watched his Emmy Award-winning television show “ Bill Nye the Science Guy” from 1993 to ’97. They saw him explain chemical reactions using steel wool, electricity, oxygen and a balloon, and saw him demonstrate gravity by throwing a watermelon, milk carton, tofu, a lamp, a computer and a TV off a building top."
"His show made science fun, and kids loved it."
"Nye grew up in a science-minded family in Washington, D.C. His mom was a math and science whiz. His dad manufactured sundials. His grandfather was an organic scientist. Fittingly, one of young Bill’s favorite hangouts was the original Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, which looked like a small Quonset hut."
"Bill Nye [is] executive director of the Planetary Society, the Pasadena, Calif.-based nonprofit that advocates for space exploration."
"Nye, a mechanical engineer who once worked for Boeing Co., is best known for his PBS TV science show that ran from 1993 to 1998. He made science entertaining. He still does as a science educator."
"If you could invent a better battery, one that can store more energy using less exotic metal, one that could handle the heat without loss of performance or just plain catching on fire, we could store energy from the wind and the Sun and have it available whenever we need it. You would change the world all right. You might also get rich – crazy rich!"
"When I looked at the science of engineering and saw that it had disappeared after its ancient heritage, that its masters have perished, and that their memories are now forgotten, I worked my wits and thoughts in secrecy about philosophical shapes and figures, which could move the mind, with effort, from nothingness to being and from idleness to motion. And I arranged these shapes one by one in drawings and explained them."
"Among Islamic books studied or translated in Toledo, there were several which discussed mechanical devices, including astronomical instruments and several types of water clock. One author who wrote on this subject was al-Muradi, and he illustrated elaborate gear trains, some with epicyclic and segmental gears."
"The manuscript (of The Book of Secrets in the Results of Ideas) was copied in 1266 from the original text written by Ibn Khalaf al-Muradi in the eleventh century. The only copy is in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence, Italy. A unique source of medieval Arabic technology, it presents designs for more than 30 devices, including water clocks, calendars, and war machines."
"It is impossible to over-emphasize the importance of al-Jazari's work in the history of engineering. Until modern times there is no other document from any cultural area that provides a comparable wealth of instructions for the design, manufacture and assembly of machines… Al-Jazari did not only assimilate the techniques of his non-Arab and Arab predecessors, he was also creative. He added several mechanical and hydraulic devices. The impact of these inventions can be seen in the later designing of steam engines and internal combustion engines, paving the way for automatic control and other modern machinery. The impact of al-Jazari's inventions is still felt in modern contemporary mechanical engineering [2].""
"Students are here not for service or for culture, but for the selfish end of preparing for salary to come. Constantly I hear them asking, 'If I change over to your course, what kind of a job will it help me to get when I graduate?' Students are weighing every subject they take on the scales of jobs to come."
"It is the business of the production engineer to know every single item that constitutes his finished product, and every step involved in the handling of every piece. He must know what is the most advantageous manufacturing quantity of every single item so as to secure uniformity of flow as well as economy of manufacture. He must know how long each step ought to take under the best attainable working conditions. He must be able to tell at any time the exact condition as regards quantity and state of finishedness of every part involved in his manufacturing process."
"The engineer must be able not only to design, but to execute. A draftsman may be able to design, but unless he is able to execute his designs to successful operation he cannot be classed as an engineer. The production engineer must be able to execute his work as he has planned it. This requires two qualifications in addition to technical engineering ability: He must know men, and he must have creative ability in applying good statistical, accounting, and " system" methods to any particular production work he may undertake."
"With regard to men, he must know how to stimulate ambition, how to exercise discipline with firmness, and at the same time with sufficient kindness to insure the good-will and cooperation of all. The more thoroughly he is versed in questions of economics and sociology, the better prepared will he be to meet the problems that will daily confront him. As economic production depends not only on equipment and plant, but on the psychological effect of wage systems, he must be able to discriminate in regard to which wage system is best applicable to certain classes of product."
"A manufacturing organization being a live, human thing, is like a municipality. Many of our shops are as fruitful fields for riddance of graft as are many of our cities. The graft in the shop consists mostly in the distortion of the managing and planning body into a wire-pulling and influence machine with easy berths filled by incompetents or idlers. This condition often exists not because of any intentional desire to be disloyal on the part of the employees, but simply on account of the work being allowed to drift without systematic attention to departmental organization."
"The Methods of Industrial Management. — A committee of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers made an extensive canvass in the fall of 1912 to determine what were the new elements in modern management as well as what the committee designated as the regulative principles of industrial management. The committee confirmed Adam Smith's statement made in 1776 in his Wealth of Nations, in which he held that the application of the principle of division of labor was the basis of manufacture. The committee also agreed with Charles Babbage, who in his work entitled Economy of Machinery and Manufacture written in 1832, added another principle, namely the transference of skill."
"The prominent element in present-day industrial management to be: the mental attitude that consciously applies the transference of skill to all the activities of industry."
"The regulative principles of management along scientific lines include four important elements:"
"Besides being in the forefront of the movement to add managerial training to the engineering curriculum, Diemer was among the first American educators to propose that manual technical skills (carpentry, metalworking, and the like) be taught in high schools and in special secondary institutions comparable to modern vocational-technical schools. He recognized that Penn State, with its long-standing two-year course in mechanic arts and its well-equipped shops, was in an ideal position to produce teachers for these manual training classes. With Dean Jackson's blessing, the Department of Industrial Engineering took over supervision of mechanic arts and renamed it the industrial education course. Seniors had the opportunity to do practice teaching in those few Pennsylvania high schools already equipped for shop instruction."
"Engineering is the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man."
"In June, 1699, Captain Savery exhibited a model of his engine before the Royal Society, and the experiments he made with it succeeded to their satisfaction. It consisted of a furnace and boiler B: from the latter, two pipes, provided with cocks C, proceeded to two steam vessels S, which had branch pipes from a descending main D, and also to a rising main pipe A: each pair of branch pipes had check] valves a, b to prevent the descent of the water raised by the condensation or by the force of steam. Only one vessel, S, is shown, the other being immediately behind it. One of the steam vessels being filled with steam, condensation was produced by projecting cold water, from a small cistern E, against the vessel; and into the partial vacuum made by that means, the water, by the pressure of the atmosphere, was forced up the descending main D, from a depth of about twenty feet; and on the steam being let into the vessels again, the valve b closed, and prevented the descent of the water, while the steam having acquired force in the boiler, its pressure caused the water to raise the valve a, and ascend to a height proportional to the excess of the elastic force of the steam above the pressure of the air."
"The following is a description of the engine, as far as it was improved by Newcomen. B represents the boiler with its furnace for producing steam, and at a small height above the boiler is a steam cylinder, C, of metal, bored to a regular diameter, and closed at the bottom; the top remaining open. A communication is formed, between the boiler and the bottom of the cylinder, by means of a short steam pipe S. The lower aperture of this pipe is shut by the plate p, which is ground flat, so as to apply very accurately to the whole circumference of the orifice. This plate is called the regulator or steam cock, and it turns horizontally on an axis a, which passes through the top of the boiler, and is fitted steam-tight; and has a handle.. to open and shut it.frameless|right|upright=2.0|Newcomen Engine, Fig. 4 Thomas Tredgold's "The Steam Engine... Invention & Progressive Improvement" A piston P is fitted to the cylinder, and rendered air-tight by a packing round its edge of soft rope, well filled with tallow, to reduce the friction, and its upper surface is kept covered with water to render it steam-tight. The piston is connected to a rod PA, which is suspended by a chain from the upper extremity D of the arched head of the lever, or working beam, which turns on the gudgeon G. This beam has a similar arched head EF, at its other end, for the pump rod H, which receives the water from the mine. The end of the beam to which the pump rod is attached, is made to exceed the weight and friction of the piston in the steam cylinder; and when the water is drawn from such a depth, that the pump piston is too heavy for this purpose, counterpoise weights must be added at I, till the piston will rise in the steam cylinder at the proper speed. At some height above the top of the cylinder is a cistern L, called the injection cistern, supplied with water from the forcing pump [through pipe] R. From this [cistern] descends the injection pipe M, which enters the cylinder through its bottom, and terminates in one or more small holes at N. This pipe has at O a cock, called the injection cock, fitted with a handle. At the opposite side of the cylinder, a little above its bottom, there is a lateral pipe, turning upwards at the extremity, and provided with a valve at V, called the snifting valve, which has a little dish round it to hold water for keeping it air-tight. There proceeds also from the bottom of the cylinder a pipe Q, of which the lower end is turned upwards, and is covered with a valve v; this part is immersed in a cistern of water called the hot well, and the pipe itself is called the eduction pipe. To regulate the strength of the steam in the boiler it is furnished with a safety valve [ sV ]...but not loaded with more than one or two pounds on the square inch. The mode of operation... Let the piston be pulled down to the bottom of the steam cylinder, and shut the regulator or steam valve p. ...Apply the fire to the boiler till the steam escapes from the safety valve, and then on opening the steam regulator, the piston will rise by the joint effect of the strength of the steam, and action of the excess of weight on the other end of the beam. When it arrives at the top of the cylinder, close the regulator p, and by turning the injection cock O, admit a jet of cold water, which condenses the steam in the cylinder, forming a partial vacuum, and the piston descends by the pressure of the atmosphere, raising water by the pump rod H from the mine. The air which the steam and the injection water contain is impelled out of the snifting valve V, by the force of descent, and the injection water flows out at the eduction pipe Q; and by repetition of the operations, of alternately admitting steam and injecting water, the work of raising water is effected."
"Thomas Tredgold... began to practice as a civil engineer on his own account in 1823, but much of his time was devoted to the preparation of his engineering text-books, which gained a wide reputation. They included Elementary Principles of Carpentry (1820), almost the first book of its kind in English; Practical Treatise on the Strength of Cast Iron and other Metals (1824) ; Principles of Warm- ing and Ventilating Public Buildings (1824); Practical Treatise on Railroads and Carriages (1825); and The Steam Engine (1827)."
"The wonderful progress of the present century is, in very great degree, due to the invention and improvement of the steam-engine."
"Great inventions are never, and great discoveries are seldom, the work of any one mind. Every great invention is really an aggregation of minor inventions, or the final step of a progression. It is not usually a creation, but a growth, as truly so as is the growth of the trees in the forest."
"The first machine of Papin was very similar to the gunpowder-engine... of Huyghens. In place of gunpowder, a small quantity of water is placed at the bottom of the cylinder, A; a fire is built beneath it, "the bottom being made of very thin metal," and the steam formed soon raises the piston, B, to the top where a latch, E, engaging a notch in latch engaging the piston rod, H, holds it up until it is desired that it shall drop. The fire being removed, the steam condenses, and a vacuum is formed below the piston, and the latch, E, being disengaged, the piston is driven down by the superincumbent atmosphere and raises the weight which has been, meantime, attached to a rope... passing from the piston rod over pulleys... The machine had a cylinder two and a half inches in diameter, and raised 60 pounds once a minute; and Papin calculated that a machine of a little more than two feet diameter of cylinder and of four feet stroke would raise 8,000 pounds four feet per minute—i.e., that it would yield about one horse-power."
"My first essay at making a steam engine was when I was fifteen. I then made a real working; steam-engine, 1 3/4 diameter cylinder, and 8 in. stroke, which not only could act, but really did some useful work; for I made it grind the oil colours which my father required for his painting. Steam engine models, now so common, were exceedingly scarce in those days, and very difficult to be had; and as the demand for them arose, I found it both delightful and profitable to make them; as well as sectional models of steam engines, which I introduced for the purpose of exhibiting the movements of all the parts, both exterior and interior. With the results of the sale of such models I was enabled to pay the price of tickets of admission to the lectures on natural philosophy and chemistry delivered in the University of Edinburgh. About the same time (1826) I was so happy as to be employed by Professor Leslie in making models and portions of apparatus required by him for his lectures and philosophical investigations, and I had also the inestimable good fortune to secure his friendship. His admirably clear manner of communicating a knowledge of the fundamental principles of mechanical science rendered my intercourse with him of the utmost importance to myself. A hearty, cheerful, earnest desire to toil in his service, caused him to take pleasure in instructing me by occasional explanations of what might otherwise have remained obscure."
"The characteristic feature of our modern mechanical improvements, is the introduction of self-acting tool machinery. What every mechanical workman has now to do, and what every boy can do, is not to work himself, but to superintend the beautiful labor of the machine. The whole class of workmen that depend exclusively on their skill is now done away with. Formerly I employed four boys to every mechanic. Thanks to these new mechanical combinations, I have reduced the number of grown-up men from 1.500 to 750. The result was a considerable increase in my profits."
"Our history begins before we are born. We represent the hereditary influences of our race, and our ancestors virtually live in us. The sentiment of ancestry seems to be inherent in human nature, especially in the more civilised races. At all events, we cannot help having a due regard for the history of our forefathers. Our curiosity is stimulated by their immediate or indirect influence upon ourselves. It may be a generous enthusiasm, or, as some might say, a harmless vanity, to take pride in the honour of their name. The gifts of nature, however, are more valuable than those of fortune; and no line of ancestry, however honourable, can absolve us from the duty of diligent application and perseverance, or from the practice of the virtues of self-control and self-help."
"Everything connected with war and warlike exploits is interesting to a boy."
"We may fill our purses, but we pay a heavy price for it in the loss of picturesqueness and beauty."
"Time passed by. I had furnished steam hammers to the principal foundries in England. I had sent them abroad, even to Russia. At length it became known to the Lords of the Admiralty that a new power in forging had been introduced."
"In all well-conducted concerns the law of "selection of the fittest" sooner or later comes into happy action, when a loyal and attached set of men work together harmoniously for their own advantage as well as for that of their employers."
"The arrangement we greatly preferred was to employ intelligent, well-conducted young lads, the sons of labourers or mechanics, and advance them by degrees according to their merits."
"Among the many things that I showed Sir John while at Hammerfield, was a piece of white calico on which I had got printed one million spots. This was for the purpose of exhibiting one million in visible form. In astronomical subjects a million is a sort of unit, and it occurred to me to show what a million really is. Sir John was delighted and astonished at the sight. He went carefully over the outstretched piece with his rule, measured its length and breadth, and verified its correctness."
"So long ago as 1856 James Nasmyth told the British Association for the Advancement of Science that the thunderbolt's course was not zigzagged, as artists for centuries had represented, but sinuous like a river."
"The success of the trade unions stimulated technical change, by giving employers and incentive to introduce labour-saving machinery. James Nasmyth told the Royal Commission on Trade Unions of 1867 how the engineering dispute of 1852 had led him to introduce self-acting machine tools, thereby halving his adult labour force and increasing his profits."
"I never give orders. I sell my ideas to my associates if I can. I accept their judgment if they convince me, as they frequently do, that I am wrong. I prefer to appeal to the intelligence of a man rather than attempt to exercise authority over him."
"Get the facts. Recognize the equities of all concerned. Realize the necessity of doing a better job every day. Keep an open mind and work hard. The last is most important at all. There is no short cut."
"Take my assets — but leave me my organization and in five years I'll have it all back."
"Having been connected with industry during my entire life, it seems eminently proper that I should turn back, in part, the proceeds of that activity with the hope of promoting a broader as well as a better understanding of the economic principles and national policies which have characterized American enterprise down through the years."
"It looks as if the war in Europe is rapidly moving towards a conclusion. Probably I am wrong about that but I can't see how it can be otherwise. It seems clear that the Allies are outclassed on mechanical equipment, and it is foolish to talk about modernizing their Armies in times like these, they ought to have thought of that five years ago. There is no excuse for them not thinking of that except for the unintelligent, in fact, stupid, narrow-minded and selfish leadership which the democracies of the world are cursed with."
"There has to be this pioneer, the individual who has the courage, the ambition to overcome the obstacles that always develop when one tries to do something worthwhile, especially when it is new and different."
"Some have an idea that the reason we in this country discard things so readily is because we have so much. The facts are exactly opposite-the reason we have so much is simply because we discard things so readily. We replace the old in return for something that will serve us better."
"Only in more production and in new production can the American standard of living be increased and the economy be sound."
"Bedside manners are no substitute for the right diagnosis."
"The greatest real thrill that life offers is to create, to construct, to develop something useful. Too often we fail to recognize and pay tribute to the creative spirit. It is that spirit that creates our jobs. There has to be this pioneer, the individual who has the courage, the ambition to overcome the obstacles that always develop when one tries to do something worthwhile, especially when it is new and different."
"Gentlemen, I take it we are all in complete agreement on the decision here. Then, I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until the next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement, and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about."
"In the spring of 1920, found itself, as it appeared at the moment, in a good position. On account of the limitation of automotive production during the war there was a great shortage of cars. Every car that could be produced was produced and could be sold at almost any price. So far as any one could see, there was no reason why that prosperity should not continue for a time at least. I liken our position then to a big ship in the ocean. We were sailing along at full speed, the sun was shining, and there was no cloud in the sky that would indicate an approaching storm. Many of you have, of course, crossed the ocean and you can visualize just that sort of a picture yet what happened? In September of that year, almost over night, values commenced to fall. The liquidation from the inflated prices resulting from the war had set in. Practically all schedules or a large part of them were cancelled. Inventory commenced to roll in, and, before it was realized what was happening, this great ship of ours was in the midst of a terrific storm. As a matter of fact, before control could be obtained General Motors found itself in a position of having to go to its bankers for loans aggregating $80,000,000 and although, as we look at things from today's standpoint, that isn't such a very large amount of money, yet when you must have $80,000,000 and haven't got it, it becomes an enormous sum of money, and if we had not had the confidence and support of the strongest banking interests our ship could never have weathered the storm."
"The industry has not grown much during the past three or four years. It is practically stabilized at the present [1927]. What has taken place is a shift from one manufacturer to another."
"You of course appreciate that this industry of ours the is today the greatest in the world. Three or four years ago it passed, in volume, steel and steel products, the next largest industry. This means, expressed otherwise, that upon its prosperity depends the prosperity of many millions of our citizens and the degree to which it has become stabilized in turn has a tremendous influence on the stabilization of industry as a whole, and therefore on the prosperity and happiness of still many more of our citizens. Directly and indirectly, this industry distributes hundreds of millions of dollars annually to those who are connected with it, in one way or another, as workers. It also distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in the aggregate to those who have invested in its securities. The purchasing power of this total aggregation, as you must appreciate, is tremendous."
"What has taken place is a shift of business from one manufacturer to another, and the announcements in the press as well as the general publicity of those manufacturers who have succeeded in increasing their business give, I think, the impression that this is true of the whole industry. If we could assume, for the sake of argument, that we will reach the point at which twenty-five million cars and trucks will be registered in the United States an assumption that from what we have accomplished so far is certainly perfectly reasonable then I think we could safely say that the replacement demand, plus the export demand which will increase for many years yet, plus the normal growth, would amount to something like four to four and one half million vehicles a year and would require the manufacture of a number of cars equal to or greater than has yet been produced in any year in the history of the industry..."
"Let me deal here with what General Motors includes and with the responsibility that rests on its management."
"Let me tell you about what we call our field trips. It may surprise you to know, that I have personally visited, with many of my associates, practically every city in the United States, from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Canada to Mexico. If any of you has done this, you realize what big a country it is. It has taken me weeks and weeks of the hardest kind of work and continual travel to accomplish this. I which that my duties were such that I could do more of it; and I am trying to arrange my affairs so that I can. On these trips I visit from five to ten dealers a day. I meet them in their own places of business, talk with them across their own desks and solicit from them suggestions and criticisms as to their relations with the Corporation; the character of the product; the Corporation's policies; the trend of consumer demand; their viewpoint as to the future, and many other things that such contact makes possible. I solicit criticism of anything and everything."
"We must move toward a soundly based and widely distributed economic well-being. This is the 'theory of plenty' as distinguished from the 'theory of scarcity' which has dominated our recent economic thinking and politics. Our yardstick, according to my thinking, I consists of the most effective balance between the following: First, the reduction in the real costs and selling! prices of goods and services; second, a more economic balance of national income through policies affecting wages, hours, prices and profits."
"Industry must further expand its horizon of thinking and action Industry must further expand its horizon of thinking and action. It must assume the role of an enlightened industrial statesmanship. To the extent that it accepts such broadened responsibilities, to that degree does it assure the maintenance of private enterprise, and with it the exercise of free initiative as the most efficient creator of wealth."
"First let us ask whether our wealth-creating agencies, particular that of industry, are to be based upon private enterprise of policy management. I can not see how any intelligent observer can have any possible faith in the capacity of political management to provide either stability or progress if it should set out to operate the agencies of wealth creation, particularly industry. It is my firm conviction that any form of 'Government Regulation of Business' is bound to result in an ever-increasing interference with the broad exercise of initiative - the very foundation of the American system. That is the natural evolution of bureaucracy. If that be so, might not the ultimate logical result be the necessity for the socialization of industry through the break down of the profit system induced by the accumulative effect of the ever-increasing political management. We do not need to go far afield to see definite evidences of that possibility"
"I have already remarked that the 'theory of scarcity has been a dominating influence in many of our economic policies. In the case of taxation, however, there is involved the 'theory of plenty' and there must now be involved the 'theory of plenty more.' Every dollar of the billions that are being indiscriminately spent without accountability is a mortgage on the income, the savings, as well as the security of the people. There must be brought home to the consciousness of all that the more the government takes, the less each one has no one can possibly escape."
"A recovery after a depression is as inevitable as that day follows night. It can not be permanently suppressed. Its vitality is so powerful that it will break down the barriers set up by the most arbitrary dictator. Hence there is developing a new confidence and a new faith in those principles which have formed the the foundation of economic evolution and industrial progress during the last several decades — principles which we have been proud to call "American principles," and for which we have been reared with a wholesome respect. There are still lacking the assurances of a broad and definitely defined opportunity and the elimination of certain unsound economic policies, thus limiting the application of these vital principles we have always known and retarding their ability to accelerate our economic recovery."
"Some see danger in bigness. They fear the concentration of economic power that it brings with it. That is in a degree true. It simply means, however, that industrial management must expand its horizons of responsibility. It must recognize that it can no longer confine its activities to the mere production of goods and services. It must consider the impact of its operation on the economy as a whole in relation to the social and economic welfare of the entire community. For years I have preached this philosophy. Those charged with great industrial responsibility must become industrial statesmen."
"Industry's responsibilities broaden. Its leaders must develop an enlightened and militant statesmanship, for progress in the solution of these problems is vital. If this responsibility is not assumed and discharged from within industry, it is bound to be superimposed from without."
"There was excitement for us all in the fact that I had a job in the mechanical field, so that my education would count.... Well, I am bound to admit the first sight of my opportunity was disappointing... Not far from a city dump on a weed-grown, marshy plain was an old weather-worn building, like an overgrown barn. In its indefinite yard there was a small mound of coal and a great mound of reddish-gray cinders and ashes; also a disorderly accumulation of discarded machinery ... Once the factory had been painted brown. Only one word describes it: "dirty." Smoke from the dump carried an acric odor. Eventually across the wall nearest the railroad track there was lettered in black this legend: HYATT ROLLER BEARING COMPANY"
"Technological progress — and it is a pity more do not appreciate it — is the one sound approach to increased employment and higher wages. There is no other way. Irrespective of what is being said to the contrary, new industries can be created, present industries can be expanded, unemployment can be eliminated in a practical way"
"Roll a ball under your hand on a table and roll a pencil in the same manner. What you feel are "point" and "line" bearings. But to understand what mechanics mean by a surface "bearing," grasp a pencil in your hand and use your other hand to make it turn as a piece of shafting. Now, the lower half of the shaft is supported everywhere by contact with your hand — the upper half is not supported, merely covered. The advantages of ball and roller bearings were obvious many years ago to mechanical people... Solid steel rollers, being inflexible, were not satisfactory at that stage, but a Hyatt flexible roller bearing was different. We had something. Our spirally wound tube roller had a springlike quality, yielded to irregularities caused by poor manufacture, thus making automatic adjustments between housing and bearing."
"It is astonishing what you can do when you have a lot of energy, ambition and plenty of ignorance."
"Naturally. I like to see General Motors stock register a good price on the market, but that is just a matter of pride... What has counted with me is the true value of the property as a business return on investment."
"Manifestly, in any organization men should move from the bottom up to the top. That develops loyalty, ambition and talent, because there is a chance for promotion. Never inject a man into the top if it can be avoided. In a big organization to have to do that, I think, is a reflection on management. Of course there are always exceptional cases. As the years have passed, developing, as they naturally have, emergencies at times, I have been gratified to find that we have, with very few exceptions, been able to find right within ourselves some individual capable of assuming a greater responsibility, and he has always been given the opportunity."
"Many associate the word scientific with physics. But it means much more than that. Scientific management means a constant search for the facts, the true actualities, and their intelligent, unprejudiced analysis. Thus, and in no other way, policies and their administration are determined. I keep saying to the General Motors organization that we are prepared to spend any proper amount of money to get the facts. Only by increased knowledge can we progress, perhaps I had better say survive. That is really research, but few realize research can and should be just as effectively used in all functional branches of industry as in physics"
"But as president of General Motors, I realized our thinking affected the lives of hundreds of thousands directly and influenced the economic welfare of many important communities, in some of which we were almost the sole provider. In some way, visible or invisible, as we expanded, the economic welfare of millions was becoming linked with the welfare of General Motors. Previously, when industry was smaller, the absorbing problems of industrial management were largely limited to the fields of engineering, production and distribution. Out of its endeavors in these fields had come a continuous stream of new products, providing new comforts and making possible better ways of living. General Motors was becoming large through a process of evolution, but only because it was rendering a service to community. As its volume of business expanded it became able to do more for workers, stockholders and customers."
"Growth and progress are related, for there is no resting place for an enterprise in a competitive economy."
"I had trouble at first, in the early 1900s, in selling Mr. Leland our roller bearings. He then taught me the need for greater accuracy in our products to meet the exacting standards of interchangeable parts. Mr. Leland came to the industry with a mature experience in general engineering and in gasoline engines, which he had long made for boats. One of his specialties was precision metalwork, which went back to his experience in toolmaking for a federal arsenal during the Civil War, and which he afterward developed in the Brown and Sharpe Company, machine-tool makers of Providence, Rhode Island. It has been called to my attention It has been called to my attention that Eli Whitney, long before, had started the development of interchangeable parts, a fact which suggests a line of descent from Whitney to Leland to the automobile industry."
"My father was in the wholesale tea, coffee, and cigar business, with a firm called Bennett-Sloan and Company. In 1885 he moved the business to New York City, on West Broadway, and from the age of ten I grew up in Brooklyn. I am told I still have the accent. My father's father was a schoolteacher. My mother's father was a Methodist minister. My parents had five children, of whom I am the oldest. There is my sister, Mrs. Katharine Sloan Pratt, now a widow. There are my three brothers — Clifford, who was in the advertising business; Harold, a college professor; and Raymond, the youngest, who is a professor, writer, and expert on hospital administration. I think we have all had in common a capability for being dedicated to our respective interests."
"Starting in 1918 at General Motors I found to my surprise] that if I followed the prevailing practice of intercorporate relations I would no longer be able to determine the rate of return on investment for these accessory divisions individually or as a group. This would necessarily mean that I would lose some degree of managerial control over my area of operations. At that time, material within General Motors was passing from one operating division to another at cost, or at cost plus some predetermined percentage. My divisions in the United Motors Corporation had sold both to outside customers and to their allied divisions at the market price. I knew that I operated a profit-making group, and I wished to continue to be able to demonstrate this performance to the general management, rather than to have my operating results on interdivisional business swallowed up in the extra bookkeeping profits of some other division. It was a case of keeping the information clear."
"It was not, however, a matter of interest to me only with respect to my divisions, since as a member of the Executive Committee, I was a kind of general executive and so had begun to think from the corporate viewpoint. The important thing was that no one knew how much was being contributed — plus or minus — by each division to the common good of the corporation. And since, therefore, no one knew, or could prove, where the efficiencies and inefficiencies lay, there was no objective basis for the allocation of new investment. This was one of the difficulties with the expansion program of that time. It was natural for the divisions to compete for investment funds, but it was irrational for the general officers of the corporation not to know where to place the money to best advantage. In the absence of objectivity it was not surprising that there was a lack of real agreement among the general officers. Furthermore, some of them had no broad outlook, and used their membership on the Executive Committee mainly to advance the interests of their respective divisions."
"I had taken up the question of interdivisional relations with Mr. Durant [president of GM at the time] before I entered General Motors and my views on it were well enough known for me to be appointed chairman of a committee "to formulate rules and regulations pertaining to interdivisional business" on December 31, 1918. I completed the report by the following summer and presented it to the Executive Committee on December 6, 1919. I select here a few of its first principles which, though they are an accepted part of management doctrine today, were not so well known then. I think they are still worth attention."
"Competition is the final price determinant and competitive prices may result in profits which force you to accept a rate of return less than you hoped for, or for that matter to accept temporary losses. And, in times of inflation, the rate-of-return concept comes up against the problem of assets undervalued in terms of replacement. Nevertheless, no other financial principle with which I am acquainted serves better than rate of return as an objective aid to business judgment. This principle had governed the thinking of the Finance Committee of General Motors since 1917."
"By The middle of The 1920s General Motors had accomplished some things, but apart from survival and reorganization, they were more in the realm of the mind than of reality. We knew, as I have related, the strategy with which we proposed to approach the car business, how we proposed to manage the enterprise financially, and the relationships we wanted to establish among persons in different roles. But by the end of 1924 little of this was reflected in Our activities in the automobile market. That our volume of business had increased after the slump of 1921 — and especially in 1923 — could be attributed less to our own wits than to the improvement in the general economy and the rising demand for automobiles. While internally we had made much progress, externally we had marked time. But the time had come to act."
"The transformation of the automobile market was essentially complete in 1929. If Mr. Ford, in that pivotal year in the modern economy, still held stubbornly to his old concept in his new Model A, he was counterbalanced by Mr. Chrysler, who had come up from nowhere with tremendous vitality and with a market policy similar to General Motors'. The fact that Mr. Ford built nearly two million of the five million U.S.-produced cars and trucks sold that year was only incidental from the long-term point of view. it was a splurge, not the sign of a trend."
"Competition is the final price determinant and competitive prices may result in profits which force you to accept a rate of return less than you hoped for, or for that matter to accept temporary losses."
"I then went on to suggest that we make a serious effort to gauge the demand over the next five to ten years, and make plans to meet that demand. In building new facilities, I suggested that we "use corporation funds for such new plants needed for armament if that gives us better control over same from the long term position in relation to the master plan." Accelerated depreciation made the use of corporate funds all the more feasible, and relieved the government of the necessity of providing capital for the plants."
"I am sure we all realize that this struggle that is going on though the World is really nothing more or less than a conflict between two opposing technocracies manifesting itself to the capitalization of economic resources and products and all that sort of thing."
"In the 1920... the closed body rose to dominance, the Model T came to an end, and the upgrading of cars began. The events of the past few years of car market, I believe, have validated the General Motors product policy that we formulated in 1921. John Gordon, president of General Motors, recently observed that our slogan of “a car for every purse and purpose” is as appropriate as ever; indeed, we have never offered our customers greater variety and choice than we do today. In the 1963 model year the industry offers 429 models of domestically produced cars, compared with 272 in 1955; General Motor alone had 138 models in 1963, compared with 85 in 1955."
"I hold that if companies are attacked simply because they are big then an attack on efficiency must be a corollary of that attack. If we penalize efficiency, how can we as a nation compete in the economy of the world at large?"
"The business of business is business."
"Before World War II management was the concern of a tiny band of “true believers,” mostly consultants and professors. Very few practicing managers paid any attention, though Alfred P. Sloan at General Motors, at Sears, Roebuck, and Chester Barnard at the American Telephone Company—to mention some prominent Americans—were significant exceptions. But even Barnard’s colleagues at the Telephone Company showed no interest in what they considered his hobby. Few managers at that time would have even realized that they practiced management; and concern with management as a field of study, as a discipline, and as a social function was practically nonexistent."
"Around 1930, Sloan considered the problem of ride quality as one of the most pressing and most complex in , and the problem was getting worse as car speeds increased. The early solid rubber tyres had been replaced by vented thick rubber, and then by inflated tyres. In the 1920s, tyres became even softer, which introduced increased problems of handling stability and axle vibrations. On a trip to Europe, Sloan met French engineer who had patented a successful independent suspension, and had him visit the US to make contact with GM engineers. Also, by 1933 already had an independent front suspension, which was on cars imported to the USA. , who had previously worked for Rolls-Royce, was employed by GM, and worked on the introduction of independent suspensions there. In Sloan's autobiography, a letter from Olley describes an early ride meter, which was simply an open-topped container of water, which was weighed after a measured mile at various speeds. Rolls-Royce had been looking carefully at ride dynamics, including measuring body inertia, trying to get a sound scientific understanding of the problem, and Olley introduced this approach at GM."
"Mr. Sloan, are made to run, not just to sell."
"The teams at times could go but a short distance every day. In bad weather at night there would be as many as 150 horses at one of the small frame inns which were not more than five or eight miles apart. Each driver had to care for his eight horses, feed, clean, card, harness and unharness. For all this work my father received the wages of $15 per month."
"There always was and there always will be conflict between Good and Good Enough, and in opening up a new business or a new department one can count upon meeting resistance to a high standard of workmanship. It is easy to get cooperation for mediocre work, but one must sweat blood for a chance to produce a superior product."
"At first we were of necessity slow in putting out those motors, but after we had gotten under way we delivered them so rapidly that Mr. Olds said we must have a motor incubator at our place."
"Our car was an Oldsmobile, delivered to our home by Mr. Olds himself. I recall how our family went out to the street curb to look at it. Mr. Olds worked quite a while cranking it, muttering something about each car having an individuality of its own. But after we began to make motors for him, father took the individuality out of them. After our own little Oldsmobile was properly equipped, it acted in quite an exemplary fashion."
"If they had made that longer six-cylinder strong enough and had supported it well enough, they would have obtained the smoother action they talks about in their advertisements. But they could not do that, and those early sixes had a very undesirable period vibration at certain speeds. That vibration more than offset the gain that they would have realized, if they had treated the crankshaft properly."
"On the train I was going over the problem of Sixes versus Fours and the disturbing periodic vibrations with which the 'six-cylinder manufacturers were contending. I realized the emphasis our competitors were placing on the fact that six smaller cylinders, producing the same maximum power as four larger ones, would result in smaller individual impulses, and consequent smoother action."
"Henry Leland had a profound influence not only on GM, but also on many later automakers. His nickname became “the Grand Old Man of Detroit.”"
"After getting to know the young Daytonians () Henry Leland told them about a friend of his who had stopped to help a woman whose car had stalled. As he cranked the starter, it kicked back and broke his jaw. The man later died from an infection as a result of that accident. This led Leland to ask Kettering and Deeds if they could use electricity to start a car. Of course, they accepted the challenge. A self-starter would not only prevent such accidents but would also open up the car market to women who were unable to crank a car. They returned to the Barn to try and make the first self-starter for automobiles..."
"Henry M. Leland was the guiding genius of the Cadillac Motor Car Company. He was the company’s founder and became the Division's first general manager when it was purchased by Billy Durant and in 1909. Religiously devoted to accuracy of machining and quality construction, Leland recognized that in true interchangeability of parts lays the key to a great future automobile industry."
"Without titles and tier of officials how could one build an organization? When Flanders resigned as production manager taking with him his assistant Walborn, to work for a newly formed company, Henry Ford called Ed Martin and me to his office. "Ed and Charlie," he said, "Flanders and Walborn are leaving, and I want you to take their places. You Ed, will be plant superintendent and you Charlie, will be assistant superintendent. Just go out there and run the plant. I know you can do it. But there's one thing I want to add: work together as one. I don't ever want to hear that you can't work together. And don't worry about titles.""
"It isn't the incompetent who destroy an organization. The incompetent never get into a position to destroy it. It is those who have achieved something and want to rest upon their achievements who are forever clogging things up."
"Early one morning in the winter of 1906-7, Henry Ford dropped in at the pattern department of the Piquette Avenue plant to see me. 'Come with me, Charlie,' he said, 'I want to show you something.'"
"It took only a few days to block off the little room on the third floor back of the Piquette Avenue plant and to set up a few simple power tools and Joe Galamb's two blackboards. The blackboards were a good idea. They gave a king-sized drawing which, when all initial refinements had been made, could be photographed for two purposes: as a protection against patent suits attempting to prove prior claim to originality and as a substitute for blueprints. A little more than a year later Model T, the product of that cluttered little room, was announced to the world. But another half year passed before the first Model T was ready for what had already become a clamorous market..."
"The summer before, Mr. Ford told me to block off the experimental room for Joe Galamb, a momentous event occurred which would affect the entire automotive industry. The first heat of vanadium steel in the country was poured at the United Steel Company's plant in Canton, Ohio."
"Actually it took four years and more to develop Model T. Previous models were the guinea pigs, one might say, for experimentation and development of a car which would realize Henry Ford's dream of a car which anyone could afford to buy, which anyone could drive anywhere, and which almost anyone could keep in repair. Many of the world's greatest mechanical discoveries were accidents in the course of other experimentation. Not so Model T, which ushered in the motor transport age and set off a chain reaction of machine production now known as automation. All our experimentation at Ford in the early days was toward a fixed and, then wildly fantastic goal."
"By March, 1908, we were ready to announce Model T, but not to produce it, On October 1 of that year the first car was introduced to the public. From Joe Galamb's little room on the third floor had come a revolutionary vehicle. In the next eighteen years, out of Piquette Avenue, Highland Park, River Rouge, and from assembly plants all over the United States came 15,000,000 more."
"By August, 1913, all links in the chain of moving assembly lines were complete except the last and most spectacular one - the one we had first experimented with one Sunday morning just five years before. Again a towrope was hitched to a chassis, this time pulled by a capstan. Each part was attached to the moving chassis in order, from axles at the beginning to bodies at the end of the line. Some parts took longer to attach than others; so, to keep an even pull on the towrope, there must be differently spaced intervals between delivery of the parts along the line. This called for patient timing and rearrangement until the flow of parts and the speed and intervals along the assembly line meshed into a perfectly synchronized operation throughout all stages of production. Before the end of the year a power-driven assembly line was in operation, and New Year's saw three more installed. Ford mass production and a new era in industrial history had begun."
"Ed Martin, who was plant superintendent, and I practically lived at the Rouge."
"As Ford reduced prices on cars, there was inevitable pressure from Sorensen down to weed out men, to keep the vast plant moving at its maximum pace. The entire 70,000 felt the strain. The pace was never too fast for accomplishment, but it was fast enough to make the job relentless, harassing, and to many hateful. Yet despite its sinister aspect, which organized labor and more enlightened management would in time cure, the Rouge stood out as a pioneering accomplishment in industry which affected both automotive and other manufacturing processes."
"CHARLES E. SORENSEN was production boss of the Ford Motor Company until 1945. He is something of a legendary figure today, but hardly more so than when he directed the world's biggest mass production operation."
"Charles E. Sorensen was hired by Henry Ford in 1905 as a pattern maker, a highly skilled craft of cutting exacting wood patterns from blueprints and creating a three-dimensional representation for foundry castings. "Cast-Iron Charlie," so nicknamed by Henry Ford for his foundry expertise, was master of the River Rouge empire. Fearless and ruthless, he personally was as tough as "Cast-Iron" and not hesitant to display the fact. Though respectful of the Ford family, his loyalty was to Henry, as Edsel had known only too well."
"In all the years I knew Sorensen, he was never a politician in the plant. He was a cold aloof man, and never had any social relations with anyone in the company - myself included."
"A production genius and loyal servant of Henry Ford for thirty-nine years, Charles E. Sorensen is probably the best known of Ford's many lieutenants. His crowning achievement was design of the production layout of the mammoth plant at Ypsilanti, Michigan, where giant B-24 bombers were produced during World War II at the phenomenal rate of one every hour."
"The head of the Rouge plant, Charles E. Sorensen, was the most notorious of these tyrants, and he encouraged (or often forced) his foremen to follow his example. According to the company's historians, "As Ford reduced prices on cars, there was inevitable pressure from Sorensen down to weed out men, to keep the vast plant moving at its maximum pace. The entire [plant] felt the strain." Such dictatorial methods of control at every level of the plant's operations made the day-to-day experience of working there “relentless, harassing, and to many hateful.”"
"Charles E. Sorensen was said to be second in command to Henry Ford at Ford Motor Company. He was in charge of the company's car production. He was instrumental in developing the production process for the World War II B-24 bomber plane at the Willow Run Plant. His contribution increased the production of the B-24s from one a day to one an hour."
"... essentially, NASA was quite colorblind. If you could do the job, that was what mattered."
"I must add that Albertine greatly admired at home a large bronze of Barbedienne."
"Do you want me to tell you how this is going? The guy suffocates, he sinks, he drowns, only his eyes are out of the water and what does he see? A bronze from Barbedienne."
"Because beyond hell, it is in any salon, with bronze of Barbedienne or not, that the suffering is: as soon as other people see clearly in the game of the human being."
"dear Bernard, with his two bronzes of Barbedienne and his wedding crown in orange blossom that stands on the mantelpiece..."
"Buildings are important expressions of our feelings and intentions and provide a common space where we are at home and comfortable, and yet speak of our future. This is especially so with churches, which are extensions of our homes. The sacramental principle is at the heart of Catholicism, and no less so in its buildings."
"My Nigeria is giant of Africa by Nigeria is the first to produce female human mechanic in Africa."
"My Nigeria is where you can find a lot of women doing male-dominated professions. My Nigeria women are strong women."
"The constraints, the obstacles, the challenges they could have driven me back they became my opportunities. The future looks bright."
"Our clients keeps coming back because they prefer us because we are determined to be better than a lot of mechanics who take their jobs and salaries for granted."
"The main factors that have paved the way for (United Arab Emirate's) progress (in space achievements) in such a short period of time is how the country's resources are being used to develop the people's skills and abilities. The drive that this country's leaders have planted in their people has pushed them to dream big and work hard in every sector, including space. An example of that is that the UAE's Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre, which was established in 2006. Since then, there have been a variety of space programs."
"Startup investment is more than a transfer of funds."
"When it comes to innovation-based businesses there is a limited number of investors who have the skills to evaluate all the components of these companies and even fewer who work with such businesses in emerging markets."
"Investment is more than just a transfer of funds."
"The lack of gender equity has been a systemic issue in the financial markets throughout its existence, so women-led businesses have been overlooked by capital allocators for far too long."
"Keep stretching beyond the comfort zone."
"I wish I had been told to worry less, that what I needed more than anything else was a curious mind."
"If I hadn’t pursued excellence, none of this would have happened"
"When you don’t have anyone in high places to speak your name or open doors for you, your best bet is to take a chance on excellence, God, and a bit of luck"
"He would spend time looking up scholarships and master’s programmes abroad. I had never thought of leaving the country, let alone furthering my studies"
"I didn’t think I stood a chance, but I applied anyway, and to my surprise, I was one of only two Kenyans selected in 2015"
"I was intrigued, but I was also terrified. Could I go from an undergraduate degree in Kenya to pursuing a PhD in engineering at one of the world's top universities? I barely had any research experience"
"His words stuck with me: 'It will be a steep learning curve, but you'll manage.' That was all the encouragement I needed to take the leap,"
"Make everything get-at-able"
"Perfect communication established between England and America; God grant it will be a lasting source of benefit to our country."
"Plastic waste is everywhere and it’s not going anywhere. The question is what we do with it. What you see as waste, I see as the foundation for something greater."
"I was tired of being on the sidelines."
"What if we could turn this plastic waste into something useful?"
"It is absurd that we still have this problem of providing decent shelter – a basic human need,plastic is a material that is misused and misunderstood. the potential is enormous, but its after life can be disastrous."
"I feel so proud knowing I am building something useful out of waste."
"Plastic waste is not just a Kenya problem, but it's a worldwide problem."
"We decided what more can we do instead of just sitting in the sidelines and complaining. Essentially, companies have to pay to dispose the waste, so we solved their problem."
"For me, I was just tired of being on the sidelines of seeing plastic. I really jumped in, off a cliff without a parachute. I was building it as I was falling down but isn't that how great things are done? So act for nature."
"Come abitante temporanea di un avamposto umano nello spazio, condividerò la prospettiva orbitale e condurrò virtualmente nello spazio tutti quelli che vorranno prendere parte a questo viaggio. translation: As a temporary inhabitant of a human outpost in space, I will share the orbital perspective and virtually lead into space all those who want to take part in this journey."
"Decidere di fare l'astronauta non è come decidere di fare l'avvocato o l'architetto. Si devono verificare una serie di condizioni e ci vuole anche una buona dose di fortuna. translation: Deciding to be an astronaut is not like deciding to be a lawyer or an architect. A series of conditions must be met and a good dose of luck is also needed."
"La Stazione spaziale è un esempio davvero luminoso di come le differenze internazionali passino assolutamente in secondo piano quando si ha un obiettivo grande, una passione comune. translation: The is a truly shining example of how international differences are completely secondary when you have a big goal, a common passion."
"... I believe that space exploration is part of building the future ..."
"I would like to show you one of my favourite meals up here, which is a chicken with s, , and s. And I would like to try and put the ingredients together for you. See how it works in space."
"I take pleasure in getting African-American students interested in this work, not only in aerospace and mechanical engineering but in any goal that might seem out of reach because they are a minority."
"It’s important to have people that you know are interested in you and your career, a parent, mentor or sponsor. Not all of them, but some of them should look like you. You can’t underestimate that."
"I’m thrilled to be living at a time where multidisciplinary work is rewarded. For instance, grant sponsors now include multiple disciplines and diversity as part of their funding requirements."
"I do believe that I possess the emotional intelligence to lead through those challenges with grace, respect, integrity, and with an inclusive spirit. My leadership will not only be data-driven but also holistically person-centered."
"STEM for me was being a doctor. I didn’t even know what an engineer was!"
"As a kid, I wasn’t exposed to the fields of engineering, but I knew I always loved learning and math was always my favorite class. My own research on college degrees when I was a senior in high school led me to find the careers of ‘engineer."
"Tech is in their face, so they don’t have to try hard to know about the industry; it’s right there in the palm of their hands. They see it every day. They use these apps daily,"
"If we want to continue to attract talent to this industry and remain globally competitive, we have to put in the effort to show students our industry and what we do. If not, they will all gladly head to Silicon Valley."
"I didn’t know what engineering was until my senior year in high school,” said Anderson. “I thought an engineer was a train driver, and nobody told me differently."
"It was all about people who like a challenge; people who are lifelong learners,” said Anderson. “And as I kept reading, I kept hearing myself in this description. People had always said, you’re smart, you should be a doctor or a lawyer. But nobody ever said engineer."
"ExxonMobil was challenging, and I absolutely loved it,” said Anderson. “I loved the boots, the hard hats, getting my hands dirty. I was able to go out into the field, see all the equipment. I was in awe. I fell in love with it."
"Self-doubt is real, and sometimes, we can be our own biggest critics,” said Anderson. “We have to understand that we are excellent. We are great. And at the end of the day, for any woman coming to this industry—if you’re even thinking about it—there’s something in you. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it."
"There’s a big challenge ahead to balance the gender numbers in the engineering professions. Research indicates that girls are usually around middle school age when they become turned off to math and science."
"I’m finding the culture here to be very open to collaboration and working across disciplines—there’s a real generosity in sharing information."
"Whenever anything broke in our house, before we threw it out, my dad would say, ‘Let’s take it apart just to look inside.’ Because it was already broken, we could break it even more. That was a lot of fun."
"If you think about what caused the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to be created, think back to 9/11 and the fact that there was information out there in the community that wasn’t being integrated properly. That was the impetus for the creation."
"So we recognized 20 years since 9/11 back in September. Now we’re talking about 17 years of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in just a few days."
"What’s changed is the amount of integration that we’ve seen, that we’ve been able to continue to push on agencies to work together and really to leverage the – not only the strength of each agency, but also the authorities of each agency, to be able to do more for our customers, to be able to provide that intelligence insight. I’ve seen that grow over the years."
"And I know we’ll talk more about that one going forward, but really coming from a place where the ODNI wasn’t – didn’t exist, to a place now, 17 years in, where our place in the community in terms of being able to help with that integration and help standardize some of the things that are happening with the community, whether on the personnel side"
"We did a couple things. One, we tried to frame what disinformation is, because I think there’s still a lack of awareness of the fact that there’s a lot of information out there that is not true and that is basically also trying to shape the way people think about various things based on what the information is"
"Read, read, read, and learn, learn, learn."
"My greatest challenge is climbing the ladder of success, and pulling others behind me," she said. "If you see a turtle sitting on top of a fence post, you know he had help getting there"
"This downward spiral is especially severe for girls of color, girls with disabilities, girls living in poverty and girls who are learning English as a new language, The United States cannot afford to lose more than half of its talent and the fresh perspective that women and minorities can bring to these critical fields. We must work together across the boundaries of skin color and gender."
"Communication is paramount to your success, You need to articulate how your great idea is impactful, whether to your community, society or economy. Having strong technical skills is critical, but you must also be able to work with others and communicate effectively to bring those ideas to life."
"When The Mechanical Design Process was first introduced in 1992, I insisted that it be priced at less than $50. I felt this was a fair price for a university text on the topic. McGraw-Hill, the publisher, agreed and released it at $49. Over the years, McGraw-Hill steadily raised the price over my protests."
"I always knew that it was possible to buy back rights. When I decided to request the rights back, I did a lot of online reading to be sure I understood the ins and outs."
"The first thing to do is to self-educate. Second, consider hiring a lawyer. I did, but things went so smoothly that I didn’t need one. Third, ask for your rights back. I had expected [McGraw-Hill] to ask for many thousands for the rights based on my calculations of their profits for the next five years."
"One point I considered was how much I make from each sale. Even though I drastically cut the list price, I actually make more per book than I did when the book was sold through the publisher. I did a lot of research into which self-publishing house to use to find one where the royalty model fit my sales model."
"With my book, most sales are through university book stores with some coming through online sales. I found a self-publisher who would give me the most for these outlets (Ingram Spark). I do not expect any sales through brick and mortar book stores."
"If you look at issues of education, technology is key. In rural schools, where qualified teachers are not available, can't we use online platforms to teach and bring education where there is no capacity. Can't we connect people to rural schools?"
"And technology is central in achieving gender equality. How does technology reinforce some of the biases that we observe? For example, I was reading about a big US company that had a résumé sorting algorithm that was discriminating against women."
"There are advantages and disadvantages of technology. But the advantage of technology is that it is much easier to fix the technology than to fix the human."
"Our mandate is to ensure sustainable exploitation of our petroleum resources, among other extractives that we have as a country, as well as to ensure we are improving on our access to clean energy while ensuring that it is affordable and reliable."
"20 years ago, our electrification rate was at 10%. Electricity is a key driver for creating a positive business environment. Many strides have been taken, and thanks to the efforts of His Excellency the President and the rest of the government, just in the last 20 years we’ve jumped from 10% to 57%."
"Our petroleum industry is being developed in a sustainable manner when it comes to environmental and social governance, and this includes the issues around land acquisition. We go through comprehensive resettlement action planning, where all compensations are approved by the chief government valuer, and then we proceed to pay the project affected persons."
"Today, our transmission networks are constrained. Our system is struggling in many areas. We continue to experience energy losses, although they are on a decline compared to 20 years ago, so we’ll be looking to invest more in our transmission network. Additionally, the new Electricity (Amendment) Act of 2022 removed the single-buyer mode, where our national utility company, Uganda Electricity Transmission, was the sole buyer for all power generated in the country."
"If having access to instruments impacts other students as it did me, kids would have more opportunities to engage with a broader group of people and to gain greater understanding of the world."
"Reach out to teachers and school counselors who can connect you to science and engineering camps."
"I spent my formative years on the Choctaw Indian reservation in Philadelphia, Mississpi, and in Missoula, Montana, where I loved playing outdoors, watching farm animals, and observing everything around me. I believe living in these settings motivated me to explore and respect nature."
"Interviewer: The Shroud, the large linen sheet bearing marks consistent with the torture and crucifixion of Christ, now preserved in Turin Cathedral, is the subject of heated controversy regarding its dating. You coordinated a study that sets the date between 33 AD and 250 AD. What methods did you use? Are there any new elements? Professor Fanti: First of all, it should be remembered that the Shroud of Turin (ST) was dated using the carbon-14 method in 1988, resulting in an age of 1325 AD with an uncertainty of ±65 years at a 95% confidence level. However, recent studies, including those conducted by the team of Prof. Marco Riani, professor of statistics at the University of Parma, have shown how unreliable these data are. In fact, in 1988, a probable contamination of the linen was not considered, which distorted the results, in addition to other procedural errors."
"This image can only be the result of the Resurrection. To obtain an image of this type, it is necessary to have an extremely intense source of energy, comparable to the “flash” of the Resurrection. A clue to this comes from the results of the 1988 radiocarbon test. While previous mechanical and chemical tests had dated the linen to the first century AD (when Jesus of Nazareth actually lived and died in Palestine), this test, on the other hand, places the dating in the Middle Ages."
"Thirty-six hours after the deposition, there was a bright explosion in the tomb that imprinted the image of Jesus on the sheet. Perhaps similar to the source that feeds the Holy Fire of Jerusalem: a flame that does not burn."
"The relevant topics are varied, but in particular, a professor of Mechanical and Thermal Measurements offers his expertise in the field of measurement science applied to physical systems, especially in the mechanical and thermal fields. Consequently, mechanical measurements on the Shroud are particularly suited to a university professor specialising in this subject, not to mention the thermal measurements that have been very important both for studying the effects of the Chambéry fire of 1532, which severely damaged Christianity's most important relic, and for studying the thermal effects linked to the probable explosion of energy that produced the double body image. [...]"