Carver Mead

Moore's law vision limit belief

"Moore's Law is really a thing about human activity, it's about vision, it's about what you're allowed to believe. Because people are really limited by their beliefs, they limit themselves by what they allow themselves to believe about what is possible."

— Carver Mead

ingredient success passion

"If you have to choose one critical ingredient of success, it's passion."

— Carver Mead

complicated idea simple hard

"It's easy to have a complicated idea. It's very hard to have a simple idea."

— Carver Mead

unification simplification knowledge understand deeply connectio

“It is this unification and simplification of knowledge that gives us hope for the future of our culture. To the extent that we encourage future generations to understand deeply, to see previously unseen connections, and to follow their conviction that such endeavors are noble undertakings of the human spirit, we will have contributed to a brighter future.”

— Carver Mead

quantum world waves particles matter incoherent

"The quantum world is a world of waves, not particles. So we have to think of electron waves and proton waves and so on. Matter is 'incoherent' when all its waves have a different wavelength, implying a different momentum. On the other hand, if you take a pure quantum system – the electrons in a superconducting magnet, or the atoms in a laser – they are all in phase with one another, and they demonstrate the wave nature of matter on a large scale. Then you can see quite visibly what matter is down at its heart."

— Carver Mead

mystery misconception nature interesting big ego

"What we're living with today is a bunch of mysteries and misconceptions that came about partly because people couldn't imagine nature being as interesting as it really is, and partly because a bunch of big egos got in the way and wouldn't let the revolution proceed."

—Carver Mead