Abdul Matin’s Reviews > The Maniac > Status Update

“Our earthly existence, since it in itself has a very doubtful meaning, can only be a means towards a goal of another existence. The idea that everything in the world has a meaning is, after all, precisely analogous to the principle that everything has a cause, on which the whole of science rests.
— Kurt Gödel, letter to his mother”

“THERE MUST BE SOMETHING ABOUT THIS CODE THAT YOU HAVEN’T EXPLAINED YET”

“According to Oppenheimer, during a briefing at the RAND Corporation Teller gave such an impressive account of the power that the hydrogen bomb would offer the United States that the Secretary of the Air Force, Thomas K. Finletter, jumped to his feet and shouted, “Give us this weapon and we will rule the world!

“…but it was actually von Neumann who convinced them that they shouldn’t detonate the devices at ground level, but higher up in the atmosphere, since that way the blast wave would cause incomparably larger damage. He even calculated the optimal height himself—six hundred meters,…”

… in some sense, paranoia is logic run amok.

Enjoying every bit and byte.