[Ichneumon]

"It looks like mud, but it can't be mud," I love this kind of thinking. When they went to the volcanic vents on the Ocean floor they said "no life could survive there", but it teams with life. When they went 7 miles to the ocean bottom they said "no life could survive there", but as soon as they turned on the lights, a fish swam away.

Clarke's Laws:

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."

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."

-- Arthur C. Clarke

[Phsstpok]

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. --Clarke's law

Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology. --Murphy's reformulation of Clarke's law (I heard it was Niven who came up with this version)

Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from a rigged demonstration. --programmer's restatement of Murphy's reformulation of Clarke

taken from Rick Cook's Wizardry books - quotes available at http://neil.franklin.ch/Jokes_and_Fun/Wizardry_Compiled_Quotes.html