Electrical Engineers

"The biggest challenge [for solar power] is escaping from the economic effects of vendor lock-in where large investments in nuclear and traditional energy sources keep us 'locked-in' to feeding monsters that will bring us down an economic black hole. It's rather like the play The Little Shop of Horrors where a man-eating plant is initially fed small amounts, but then its voracious appetite sends it into a downward spiral swallowing up anyone that gets in its way."

"The fact that there simply is 5,000 times more sun power than our consumption needs makes me very optimistic. It's a fantastic resource. We have the ingenuity to send man to the moon, so we definitively have the ingenuity to tap the sun's resources."

"Efficiency is not the issue when you go solar. There is so much solar that all you have to do is invest in the non-recurring cost of more dishes to drive a solar-hydrogen economy at whatever efficiency it happens to sit at."

"One can justify solar-hydrogen simply on grounds of economic resource viability without any green agenda."

"My starting point is as an academic who always thought nuclear was the answer, but who then looked at the figures and came to an inescapable conclusion that solar-hydrogen is the long-term future. I did not come at this as a green evangelist. I am a reluctant convert."

"My advice to prospective PhD students is to follow your passion and pick a topic that interests you — don't do a PhD topic that you hate, but you think will be lucrative. Because the big picture is that it is the fundamentals learned and problem solving skills gained from your PhD that will open the real career doors. Topics come in and out of fashion — it is the investment in yourself and the person you become through your PhD experience that really matters in the end. Of course, if you happen to love a topic that turns out lucrative then great — but this is hard to predict."

"Business is a good game—lots of competition and a minimum of rules. You keep score with money."

"The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It's as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer."

"We must not contradict, but instruct him that contradicts us; for a madman is not cured by another running mad also."

"Success is more a function of consistent common sense than it is of genius."

"I am overwhelmed by an irresistible temptation to do my climb by moonlight and unroped. This is contrary to all my rock climbing teaching & does not mean poor training, but only a strong-headedness."

"If you take a bale of hay and tie it to the tail of a mule and then strike a match and set the bale of hay on fire, and if you then compare the energy expended shortly thereafter by the mule with the energy expended by yourself in the striking of the match, you will understand the concept of amplification."

"I had one experience which gave me some slant on the way large organizations run. I was not allowed to take spherical trigonometry because I'd sprained my ankle. Because I'd sprained my ankle I had an incomplete in gym, phys ed. And the rule was that if you had an incomplete in anything, you were not allowed to take an overload. I argued with some clerical person in the administration office, and was stopped there. It's an experience which I've remembered since, and advised people not to be stopped at the first point."

"Nature has color-coded groups of individuals so that statistically reliable predictions of their adaptability to intellectual rewarding and effective lives can easily be made and profitably used by the pragmatic man-in-the street."

"My research leads me inescapably to the opinion that the major cause of the American Negro's intellectual and social deficits is hereditary and racial genetic in origin and thus not remediable to a major degree by practical improvements in environment."

"My greatest concern was what to call it. I thought of calling it 'information,' but the word was overly used, so I decided to call it 'uncertainty.' When I discussed it with John von Neumann, he had a better idea. Von Neumann told me, 'You should call it entropy, for two reasons. In the first place your uncertainty function has been used in statistical mechanics under that name, so it already has a name. In the second place, and more important, no one really knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage.'"

"A few first rate research papers are preferable to a large number that are poorly conceived or half-finished. The latter are no credit to their writers and a waste of time to their readers."

"Well, I got interested in it when Shannon's and Wiener's work appeared. The curious thing is that, during several years, between '41 and '45, Claude Shannon and I lived in the same house at 51 West 11th Street. It was a small brownstone belonging to an old Italian who rented studios. Shannon was in one and I in another."

"Although perhaps of no practical importance, the question is of theoretical interest, and it is hoped that a satisfactory solution of this problem will act as a wedge in attacking other problems of a similar nature and of greater significance."

"Omni: Do you find it depressing that chess computers are getting so strong? Shannon: I am not depressed by it. I am rooting for the machines! I have always been on the machines' side. Ha-ha! Betty Shannon: Some people get livid when he says that. Shannon: I am not depressed by machines getting better. Whether people will be replaced by machines that have gotten smarter in all things, I can't say. Within a century or so, machines will be doing almost everything better than we can. They already do factory work better than we can, but the highly intellectual stuff is going to come later. It gets harder and harder as you get higher and higher in this game. Omni: Do you agree with Norbert Wiener's denial of any basic distinction between life and nonlife, man and machine? Shannon: That's a heavily loaded question there! I'm an atheist to begin with. I believe in evolutionary theory and that we are basically machines but of a very complex type, far more so than any machine that man has made yet. So that's both a yes and a no. Mechanical doesn't just mean that metal and gears are involved, of course. We are the extreme case: a natural mechanical device. I see no God involved. Omni: Will robots be complex enough to be friends of people? Shannon: I think so. I myself could very easily imagine that happening. I see no limit to the capabilities of machines. As microchips get smaller and faster, I can see them getting better than we are. I can visualize a time in the future when we will be to robots as dogs are to humans. Omni: Can you imagine a robot president of the United States? Shannon: Could be, but I think by then you wouldn't speak of the United States anymore. The world will have a totally different organization. Omni: Is it a big leap from the pedestrian routines of today's chess computers to machines that could grapple, seemingly in a creative, intuitive fashion, with the problems of higher mathematics? Shannon: I see computers proving theorems that have been sitting around that nobody's proved. I don't yet see them creating theories, that is, discovering a new branch of mathematics, as many great mathematicians have in the past. That's a broader, wider thing—more like writing a play—and will be a lot longer in coming. Omni: Is your famous proof that a reliable circuit can be built from unreliable components relevant to the brain's operations? Shannon: The brain can suffer all kinds of damage and yet can still handle things pretty well. It must use some redundancy to take care of faulty operations, such as the death of certain neurons. The modern desk computer generally has no redundancy, so if one part gets into trouble, that will show up in later operations. That we manage to live in spite of all kinds of internal troubles suggests that the brain's design involves a great deal of redundancy or parallelism of multiple units. Omni: Your paper shows that if the relays closed only sixty percent of the time when triggered, you could have highly effective circuitry. Could the brain be using such an approach? Shannon: That the brain has ten billion neurons probably means it was cheaper for biology to make more components than to work out sophisticated circuits. Yet I am totally astounded at how clever and sophisticated some of the things we see in human or animal bodies are. Such long-term, sophisticated changes could be what happened in the brain, but an easier way would be to use paralleling and multiplication to reduce errors of individual neuron operation. And when it all gets going, we have these clever people like Einstein. ... Omni: Has your ambition waned at all? Shannon: I was never motivated by the notion of winning prizes or the desire for financial gain. My motivation in science has always been curiosity about something: How is it put together? What laws or rules govern this situation? Are there any theorems one can prove about what one can or can’t do? After I had found answers, it was always painful to publish, which is where you get the acclaim. Many things I have done and never written up at all. Too lazy, I guess. I have got a file upstairs of unfinished papers! Ha-ha-ha! But that’s true of most of the good scientists I know. Just knowing for ourselves is probably our main motivation."

"This duality can be pursued further and is related to a duality between past and future and the notions of control and knowledge. Thus we may have knowledge of the past but cannot control it; we may control the future but have no knowledge of it."

"It's hard to lose weight when you're dining on the company's money."

"I'm opposed to any sport that reduces the coefficient of friction between me and the ground."

"We hadn't invented 'Not Invented Here', yet."

"I'm suspicious of any mode of transportation that requires a running start."

"Jiang: No. There's no such implication whatsoever. There's still compliance with Hong Kong's Basic Law, compliance with the election laws..."

"The elderly Deng was confident that no jeopardy existed for his strategy, and he stepped down from his burdensome offices in November 1989 while retaining the unofficial power of general political oversight. His protégé Jiang Zemin became leader. The process of economic reform slowed for a while. But Deng’s tour of southern provinces in 1992 revived it, and China’s transformation quickened again. Private companies sprang up in all cities and many villages. The most dynamic zones lay along the Pacific coast. Investment poured in from abroad. Multinational companies long excluded from Chinese industry and commerce set up in Beijing, Shanghai and Guanzhou. Gross domestic product rose exponentially as private enterprise from home and abroad injected the most up-to-date technology into an industrial sector which offered a cheap, educated, co-operative and disciplined labour force. By 2003 China share of the world’s gross production had risen to 12 per cent."

"After my speech, the President detached himself from the group of appalling old waxworks who accompanied him and took his place at the lectern. He then gave a kind of "propaganda" speech which was loudly cheered by the bussed-in party faithful at the suitable moment in the text."

"Malaysians still remember the inspiring words of President Jiang Zemin, when he participated in the Informal ASEAN + 3 Summit at the end of 1997. Indeed, the desired East Asian community could be created based on the principles he set forth. President Jiang noted: " It has become the shared understanding of East Asian countries to maintain regional peace and stability, develop the economy, science and technology, expand mutually beneficial cooperation, and promote common prosperity. East Asian countries are committed to the development of their relations on the basis of mutual respect, treating one another as equals and non- interference in one another`s internal affairs and properly addressing some existing differences through friendly consultations. With political stability, East Asian countries enjoy good relations among themselves. This has provided an important prerequisite for the sustained economic growth of East Asian countries and the development of their economic cooperation. " It should be noted that President Jiang never mention any military alliance or cooperation against anyone, in the region or outside. The Best Way Forward."

"Jiang: Perhaps I've offended you today!"

"Security: Ok, ok, ok. Everyone please leave."

"Jiang: I'm angry! Let me say this, what you're doing is inappropriate."

"Security: Ok, ok..."

"Reporters: But, that is..."

"Jiang: You people! Naive!"

"Reporters: Well no, but..."

"Jiang: Do you understand? You people. Don't even think about trying to stir the pot by creating a big scandal, saying that I'd already made the imperial decree and criticising me."

"Reporters: But..."

"Jiang: Eh? To serve another term, you must follow the law of Hong Kong, correct? You should follow Hong Kong's... Of course, our power to make the decision is also very important. Hong Kong SAR, Special Administrative Region, belongs to the Central Government of the People's Republic of China. When the time comes, we will will tell you!"

"Jiang: ... Correct?"

"Reporters [interjecting]: But what about re-election..."

"Jiang: I was really thinking just now, that every time I meet you people and we talk — in China we have this saying "quietly make a fortune" — it would be better if I just didn't say anything! But I think that when I saw you people being so enthusiastic just now, it wouldn't have been right for me to not have said anything. As a result, you just had to insist... in the public arena, if your reporting ever contains inaccuracies, you will be held responsible. I never said I am appointing by decree, never said anything of the sort. But you asked... You just had to feel compelled to ask me whether I supported Mr. Tung. How can we not support him? He's the current Chief Executive. How can we not support the Chief Executive..."

"Jiang: Just now I... The most important point..."

"Reporters: But can you say why you support Tung Chee-hwa?"

"Jiang: I'm sorry to say this, but today I'm speaking to you as an elder. I am not a journalist, but I've seen too much. I need to give you people some real-life experience."

"Jiang: Understand yet?"

"Cheung: President Jiang, do you think..."

"Jiang: I'm worried for you all, truly. You people today, I would have expected... Everywhere you go... You guys are good at one thing. Running all over the world, you run faster than those Western journalists. Nonetheless, you ask questions here and there, and they're all too simple, sometimes naïve. Understand yet?"

"Jiang: I think you people... I feel that you mass-media people still have a lot to learn. You people are so familiar with Western values, but at the end of the day, you are still too young. Do you understand what I mean? Let me say this: I've been through hundreds of battles. I've seen it all! Which country in the West have I not been to? You media people should know America's Mike Wallace. He's so far ahead of you people I can't even see him! Hey, I talked and laughed with him! That's why when I talk about the media... you still need to raise your level of knowledge! You know what I mean? Got it?"

"Cheung: President Jiang..."