Engineering & Science Notable Quote Archive #7

Notable Tech Quotes - RF CafeThe number of statements uttered verbally and/or in print is uncountable. Some are more noteworthy than others either because of sheer brilliance, good humor, or utter inanity. We all hope our own remembered words, if any, fall into one of the first two categories rather than the third. I do a lot of reading and find many notable quotes to use that fit the theme of RF Cafe; they fall into all three categories. I always try to verify quotes from original sources or at least from printed books like The Experts Speak, of which I own a hard copy. Enjoy.

Notable Tech Quote Archive

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  • "Thinking like a customer is not too bad a way to design products." - Bob Pease, National Semi, Pease Porridge

    11/15/2018

  • "It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer." - Albert Einstein
  • "A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems" - Paul Erdos
  • "I call a manufacturer and say, 'Hey, can you run this at minus 60 degrees?' and I just hear a click." - Carlton Walker, construction manager for the Amundsen-Scott project at the South Pole
  • "We generally have 3 years to plan, 6 to produce and 10 to support. In consumer electronics, it's 18 months to plan, 18 months to produce and 18 days to support." - Mike Kane, automotive technology director, Chrysler Group
  • "It's like the beaver told the rabbit as they stared at the Hoover Dam: 'I didn't build it myself, but it's based on an idea of mine.'" - Nobel laureate in physics, Charles Townes
  • "These people have nothing. I have a violin. And I should play for them. They should have something." - Samuel Thompson, Charleston, SC, a visiting professional violinist holed up in the New Orleans Super Dome.
  • "If a business [plan] calls for all U.S.-based workers, it will not get funded." - Loring Wirbel, writing on VC financing
  • "When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why Relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe He will have an answer for the first." - Werner Heisenberg
  • "The very term VCs sounded sinister. The only other VCs I'd ever known were the Viet Cong." - Jerry D. Neal, writing in "Fire in the Belly" about RFMD's early days.
  • "For them, rocketry has everything a guy could want in a hobby: smoke, fire, and the occasional out-of-control rocket spiraling toward a panicking crowd." - Tom Clynes, writing about Extreme Model Rocketry
  • "Isn't it weird how scientists can imagine all the matter in the universe exploding out of a dot smaller than the head of a pin, but they can't come up with a more evocative name for it than 'The Big Bang'?" - Calvin, of Calvin & Hobbes fame
  • "I look forward to the invention of faster-than-light travel. What I'm not looking forward to is the long wait in the dark once I arrive at my destination." - Marc Beland
  • "Not being born rich is a mistake from which one can never recover." - Mike Press
  • "A shortage of gold at $30 per ounce also exists, but far less of one exists at $500 per ounce." - Bill Schweber, EDN, writing on the "supposed" engineer shortage.
  • "Wise men don't need advice. Fools don't take it." - Benjamin Franklin
  • "I once cheated on a metaphysics exam. I looked deep into the soul of the student beside me." - Woody Allen
  • "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is." - Anon

    6/6/2019

  • "Mr. Tesla may accomplish great things, but he certainly never will do this." - Jacob Poeschl, engineering professor, remarking on Nikola's claim that he would build a motor that did not use a commutator (he did).
  • "Electrical engineering isn't the same ticket to a comfortable, middle-class life it once was." - Paul Wallich

    4/1/2021

  • "Throw it up in the air. If it comes down, it's too heavy." - Aircraft design genius Burt Rutan's criterion for determining acceptable weight of airborne components.
  • "I'm not going to my high school reunion. If I want to see my former classmates, I'll order a pizza delivery." - Anon
  • "Personally, I liked the University. They gave us money and facilities, we didn't have to produce anything. You've never been out of college, you don't know what it's like out there. I've worked in the private sector. They expect results." - Dan Aykroyd, in Ghostbusters
  • "The man is exhausted...A small man can be just as exhausted as a great man." - said of Willy Lowman in Death of a Salesman