Nathan Myhrvold Thinking Quotations

Words can hurt you. In the larger world, it frames how people think about you, and it can hurt you in lots of little, subtle ways.

We collectively have a special place in our heart for the manned space flight program - Apollo nostalgia is one element, but that is only part of it. American culture worships explorers - look at the fame of Lewis and Clark, for example. The American people want to think of themselves as supporting exploration.

One of the things that I love to do is travel around the world and look at archaeological sites. Because archaeology gives us an opportunity to study past civilizations, and see where they succeeded and where they failed. Use science to, you know, work backwards and say, 'Well, really, what were they thinking?'

Chefs think about what it's like to make food. Being a scientist in the kitchen is about asking why something works, and how it works.

When we first did 'Modernist Cuisine,' I think most people in cookbook publishing would have said, 'This is insane.'

It's impossible that we're alone in the universe. Every time we think we're more special than others, we're proven wrong.

Computing has gone from something tiny and specialized to something that affects every walk of life. It doesn't make sense anymore to think of it as just one discipline. I expect to see separate departments of user interface, for example, to start emerging at universities.

I think that there is a role for food to be art; and when food is art, it can have drama, it can have spectacle, it can be theatrical. It can be this amazing experience.