Complex Structures Quotes

I think it's funny. There was a time when men were afraid that somebody would reveal some secret of theirs that was unknown to their fellows. Nowadays, they're afraid that somebody will name what everybody knows. Have you practical people ever thought that that's all it would take to blast your whole, big, complex structure, with all your laws and guns - just somebody naming the exact nature of what you're doing?

Men are at every stage of evolution, from the most barbarous to the most developed; men are found of lofty intelligence, but also of the most unevolved mentality; in one place there is a highly developed and complex civilisation, in another a crude and simple polity.

This argument [that life is too improbable to have arisen by chance] comes up repeatedly: its latest manifestation is Hoyle's discussion of the likelihood of a wind blowing through a junkyard assembling a Boeing 707 [sic]. What is wrong with it? Essentially, it is that no biologist imagines that complex structures arise in a single step.

The social sciences, like much of biology but unlike most fields of the physical sciences, have to deal with structures of essential complexity, i.e. with structures whose characteristic properties can be exhibited only by models made up of relatively large numbers of variables.

You can say I'm not the easiest architect in the world, because I'm always trying to push the limits.

Unlike a pressed or blown-glass part, which traditionally has smooth internal surface features, a printed part can have complex surface features on the inside as well as the outside.

I'm not much of a builder in 'Minecraft,' so I don't really understand how much work goes into these big projects. Seeing the flyby videos blows me away, and I have no idea how people do it.

The physicist is like someone who's watching people playing chess and, after watching a few games, he may have worked out what the moves in the game are. But understanding the rules is just a trivial preliminary on the long route from being a novice to being a grand master. So even if we understand all the laws of physics, then exploring their consequences in the everyday world where complex structures can exist is a far more daunting task, and that's an inexhaustible one I'm sure.

Without a computer, every point on a structure has to be calculated with reference to everything else. But by using a PC, I can create complex curves that don't have radii or centers.