“I mean, if you've ever been a governor of a state, you understand the vast potential of broadband technology, you understand how hard it is to make sure that physics, for example, is taught in every classroom in the state. It's difficult to do. It's, like, cost-prohibitive.” IfsMeanHardStatesDifficultTechnologyExampleTaughtCostPhysicsClassroomGovernorsBroadband Author:George W. Bush
“In the end, this is a difficult story to sum up. The making of the atomic bomb is one of history's most amazing examples of teamwork and genius and poise under pressure. But it's also the story of how humans created a weapon capable of wiping our species off the planet. It's a story with no end in sight. And, like it or not, you're in it.” HumansEndsStoriesDifficultExamplePlanetsGeniusWeaponsCapableSightPressureSpeciesBombsTeamworkMost AmazingAtomic BombUnder PressurePoise Author:Steve Sheinkin
“When scientists need to explain difficult points of theory, illustration by hypothetical example - rather than by total abstraction - works well (perhaps indispensably) as a rhetorical device. Such cases do not function as speculations in the pejorative sense - as silly stories that provide insight into complex mechanisms - but rather as idealized illustrations to exemplify a difficult point of theory. (Other fields, like philosophy and the law, use such conjectural cases as a standard device.” NeedsWellsPhilosophyStoriesUseLawDifficultCasesExampleFieldsTheoryStandardsScientistFunctionComplexesInsightSillyDevicesMechanismAbstractionSpeculationIllustrationRhetoricalHypothetical Book:Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms Source: Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms
“I am obliged to interpolate some remarks on a very difficult subject: proof and its importance in mathematics. All physicists, and a good many quite respectable mathematicians, are contemptuous about proof. I have heard Professor Eddington, for example, maintain that proof, as pure mathematicians understand it, is really quite uninteresting and unimportant, and that no one who is really certain that he has found something good should waste his time looking for proof.” ShouldCertainFoundDifficultHeardSubjectsExamplePureWasteImportanceMathematicsProofGood ManProfessorsMathematicianPhysicistObligedRemarksRespectableUnimportantContemptuousDifficult Subjects Author:G. H. Hardy
“Bird taxonomy is a difficult field because of the severe anatomical constraints imposed by flight. There are only so many ways to design a bird capable, say, of catching insects in mid-air, with the result that birds of similar habitats tend to have very similar anatomies, whatever their ancestry. For example, American vultures look and behave much like Old World vultures, but biologists have come to realize that the former are related to storks, the latter to hawks, and that their resemblances result from their common lifestyle.” WorldWayLooksDifficultRealizingResultsCommonAirExampleDesignFieldsEvolutionCapableBirdLifestyleFlightFormerBehaveRelatedLatterSevereInsectsCatchingConstraintsAncestryAnatomyResemblanceHawksBiologistHabitatOld WorldVultureTaxonomyStorks Author:Jared Diamond
“I spent more than ten years working on the Neues Museum. It was a wonderful experience, an example of real collaboration between architects, conservationists, curators, client, politicians, the media, and the public. Discussions, even when difficult, were always about ideas. Ideas matter to Germans. They're a reflective people. That's attractive.” PeopleYearsIdeasRealMatterDifficultWonderfulMediaExamplePoliticianTenDiscussionAttractiveMuseumsCollaborationArchitectClientsWonderful ExperienceCurator Author:David Chipperfield
“Most cooks would not, for example, prepare an important, elaborate, and difficult dish on the back-burner. Neither should we relegate the cultivation and preparation of happiness for a position where it is both hard to reach and difficult to infuse with new ingredients.” ShouldImportantHardDifficultExamplePositionPreparationCooksIngredientsDishesCultivationBack Burner Author:Gina Barreca
“My dad was a preacher. My relationship, for example, with my father -- very difficult, and very painful, and it took me 50 years to wipe the face of my father off the face of God.” YearsFacesFatherDifficultExampleDadMy DadPainfulPreacherWipe Author:William P. Young
“Examples ... which might be multiplied ad libitum, show how difficult it often is for an experimenter to interpret his results without the aid of mathematics.” ShowsMightDifficultResultsExampleMathematicsAidsAdsOften Is Author:John William Strutt
“Human relations tend to be more difficult when you're dealing with someone who weighs 30 kilograms more than you do. That's when you worry about whether a well-meaning gesture could produce complications. We have no problems with countries like Madagascar or Bolivia, for example. But Germany is our neighbor and we have a shared past. Besides, Germany is powerful and ambitious and more than four times as large as we are. It makes complete sense that we would act cautiously. It's simply Realpolitik.” HumansWellsCountryProblemPastDifficultPowerfulWorryFourExampleProduceRelationNeighborGermanyGesturesAmbitiousNo ProblemHuman RelationsComplicationBoliviaRealpolitikMadagascar Author:Vaclav Klaus