5 ms·
> Clarke's first law: > When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; when he states that somethi
by kbutler 16y ago
> Clarke's first law:
> When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; when he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong.
Clarke's first law is an unnecessarily complicated version of:
It's probably possible.
kb
- endtime 16y agoYou're overgeneralizing a bit. What it actually reduces to is "if a distinguished but elderly scientist expresses an opinion about something, it's probably possible". The reason this is meaningful is that distinguished scientists tend not to express opinions on ridiculous crackpot ideas.