“The most basic inherent constraint is that neither time nor wisdom are free goods available in unlimited quantity. This means that in social processes, as in economic processes, it is not only impossible to attain perfection but irrational to seek perfection- or even to seek the best possible result in each separate instance.” MeanSocialProcessResultsImpossibleEconomicPerfectionAvailableInstanceGoodsQuantityInherentIrrationalUnlimitedConstraints Author:Thomas Sowell
“The equations at which we arrive must be such that a person of any nation, by substituting the numerical values of the quantities as measured by his own national units, would obtain a true result.” PersonsValuesNationsResultsQuantityUnitsEquations Book:The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell: Source: The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell:
“What you concentrate on largely determines the quality and quantity of the results that you get and the success that you enjoy.” EnjoyResultsQualityDetermineQuantity Author:Brian Tracy
“The page of my notebook was filled with many messy integrals, but all of a sudden I saw emerge a formula for counting. I had begun to calculate a quantity on the assumption that the result was a real number, but found instead that, in certain units, all the possible answers would be integers. This meant that areas and volumes cannot take any value, but come in multiples of fixed units.” RealWould BeCertainValuesFoundAnswersResultsNumbersSawsPagesAreasMathematicsFilledFixedAssumptionFormulasQuantityVolumeUnitsCountingMessyNotebookIntegers Book:Three Roads To Quantum Gravity Source: Three Roads To Quantum Gravity
“The people of Tlön are taught that the act of counting modifies the amount counted, turning indefinites into definites. The fact that several persons counting the same quantity come to the same result is for the psychologists of Tlön an example of the association of ideas or of memorization.” PeoplePersonsIdeasFactsResultsExampleTaughtAmountMathematicsAssociationQuantityCountingPsychologistMemorization Author:Jorge Luis Borges
“The laws of thermodynamics, as empirically determined, express the approximate and probable behavior of systems of a great number of particles, or, more precisely, they express the laws of mechanics for such systems as they appear to beings who have not the fineness of perception to enable them to appreciate quantities of the order of magnitude of those which relate to single particles, and who cannot repeat their experiments often enough to obtain any but the most probable results.” EnoughLawOrderResultsNumbersBehaviorPerceptionAppreciateDeterminedExperimentsRelateRepeatsQuantityMechanicParticlesMagnitudeThermodynamics Author:J. Willard Gibbs
“I'm one of the most durable and fervent advocates of space exploration, but my take is that we could do it robotically at far less cost and far greater quantity and quality of results.” SpaceResultsQualityGreaterCostExplorationQuantitySpace ExplorationSpace TravelFerventQuantity And Quality Author:James Van Allen
“We cannot forbear suggesting one practical result which it appears to us must be greatly facilitated by the independent manner in which the engine orders and combines its operations: we allude to the attainment of those combinations into which imaginary quantities enter.” OrderResultsIndependentPracticalsCombinationOperationsEnginesQuantityImaginaryAttainmentSuggesting Author:Ada Lovelace
“The Government are extremely fond of amassing great quantities of statistics. These are raised to the nth degree, the cube roots are extracted, and the results are arranged into elaborate and impressive displays. What must be kept in mind, however, is that in every case, the figures are first put down by a village watchman, and he puts down anything he damn well pleases!” MindFirstsWellsGovernmentResultsCasesFiguresPleaseDegreesRootsRaisedDamnStatisticsVillageDisplayQuantityImpressiveCubes Author:Josiah Stamp