Clarke's Laws
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[edit] Definition
Noted science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke stated the following three laws in the 1962/1973 book Profiles of the Future as a prediction of future scientific progress.
[edit] 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 very probably wrong.
Clarke defined the adjective "elderly" in this context as : "In physics, mathematics and astronautics it means over thirty; in other disciplines, senile decay is sometimes postponed to the forties. There are of course, glorious exceptions; but as every researcher just out of college knows, scientists of over fifty are good for nothing but board meetings, and should at all costs be kept out of the laboratory."
[edit] Clarke's Second Law
- The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
[edit] Clarke's Third Law
- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Gregory Benford has proposed a well-known corollary to Clarke's Third law:
- Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
