“I asked a professor of nanotechnology what they use to measure the unthinkable small distances of nanospace? He said it was the nanometre. This didn't help me very much. A nanometre is a billionth of a metre. I understood the idea but couldn't visualise what it meant. I said, "What is it roughly?" He thought for a moment and said, "A nanometre is roughly the distance that a man's beard grows in one second". I had never thought about what beards do in a second but they must do something. It takes them all day to grow about a milllimetre. They don't leap out of your face at eight o'clock in the morning. Beards are slow, languid things and our language reflects this. We do not say "as quick as a beard" or "as fast as a bristle". We now have a way of grasping of how slow they are - about a nanometre a second.”
― Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative
― Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative
“Time is what stops history happening at once; time is the speed at which the past disappears.”
― Cloud Atlas
― Cloud Atlas
“The better organized the state, the duller its humanity.”
― Cloud Atlas
― Cloud Atlas
“Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.”
― Infinite Jest
― Infinite Jest
“Power, time, gravity, love. The forces that really kick ass are all invisible.”
― Cloud Atlas
― Cloud Atlas
Beta Book Club (And Select Others)
— 9 members
— last activity May 29, 2014 09:27PM
A place to discuss the summer books.
Jack’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Jack’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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