[Vision2020] A short reading list on American

[Kenneth Marcy]

On Thursday 09 October 2008 18:11:06 Tom Hansen wrote:
> Wasn't it Carl Sagan that said something like (I'm paraphrasing) . . .
>
> "If it is possible, it has happened.  If it is impossible, it will happen."

I can't imagine Carl Sagan saying either of those sentences individually, nor 
both of them together.

My imagination suggests to me you may be stretching to reach Arthur C. 
Clarke's First Law:

   1. 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.

The other two are:

   2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a 
little way past them into the impossible.

   3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.


A source in addition to my memory:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufficiently_advanced_technology 


Ken