Science

I made the analogy of earthquake faults- when they get aligned, they either all move, or they don't move- we also have this diversity of micro fault-lines that fail, and I think that's a huge problem.

Hedge Fund Manager & Author of "The Black Swan" Risk Management

The 'black swan' doesn't appear very often in coin-toss land but in agent based complex systems land, it appears quite a lot.

Physics professor studying complex systems, crowd behavior, and social networks.

This is not just about the elephant- it's about there being different types of elephants. Looking at the market in simplistic distribution perspectives misses the true effect, threat and risk of large movements and upcoming changes.

Physics professor studying complex systems, crowd behavior, and social networks.

It's absolutely true that a lot of the time the market is indistinguishable from a coin toss- and we all know that… However, when the system is under some stress, when the market is undergoing changes, the coin toss model just doesn't work.

Physics professor studying complex systems, crowd behavior, and social networks.

In science, one never shows causality. Causality is something philosophers are concerned with, not scientists. I cannot stress this in strong enough words- we have not shown a causal link between the public's mood state as we measured it from twitter data feeds, and the market.

Unknown.

You can't get addicted to drugs unless you're exposed to them. You have to be exposed in situation where you can determine the dose. If you take the drug long enough and in a high-enough dose… most drugs which are addictive, will give you withdrawal symptom… making you feel rotten, and giving you another reason to take more.

Pioneer of addiction medicine and alcohol dependence research; founded modern addiction psychiatry

What's special about it as a science subject is that it is so awkward, it doesn't lend itself to easy solutions. It's a multi-factorial problem, very different to- for example- the question of what causes influenza?

Pioneer of addiction medicine and alcohol dependence research; founded modern addiction psychiatry

Once you land, it's total excitement, 'I'm on the Moon!' – you're bubbling with enthusiasm like a little kid on holiday.

Astronaut on Apollo 16 Moon Landing Mission

From 20,000 miles away however, you couldn't see any civilisation- just the land mass and those three colours… the brown of the land, the white of the clouds and the ice, and the crystal blue of the ocean. Earth was just suspended in the blackness of space and it was an incredibly beautiful sight.

Astronaut on Apollo 16 Moon Landing Mission

All the market research we have done shows that consumers use diamonds to mark special moments in their lives because they are timeless, have been in the ground 3 billion years and are unique.

What makes HIV so challenging is its ability to integrate into the host genome and establish latency. This is why we haven't been able to cure it yet - the virus literally becomes part of us.

Co-discoverer of HIV as the cause of AIDS

One of the themes which is perhaps more important in the intellectual rather than practical world was the excessive love affair that people in the financial world had with the efficient markets hypothesis. If you take that literally, there can't be bubbles. Who can believe that now?

Prominent Economist & Former Vice Chair of Federal Reserve Board

Water is the essence of life. On Earth it's used to grow plants and within industrial processes but in space it takes on a whole new form. We can use water as a radiation shield. One cubic metre of water gives the same protection as Earth's atmosphere and magnetosphere. Water is a molecule made of hydrogen and oxygen- and that happens to be rocket fuel.

Although, today, the universe appears more bio-friendly than it ever was. That doesn't mean it is inhabited. We still have to prove that.

Pioneering astronomer & SETI Institute director searching for extraterrestrial intelligence

Trying to figure out how we fit into the cosmos is old, it's a basic human question.

Pioneering astronomer & SETI Institute director searching for extraterrestrial intelligence

What makes SETI different today is that instead of the verb "to believe" we're trying to use the verb "to explore". We want to see what's actually out there instead of just believing what someone tells us is out there.

Pioneering astronomer & SETI Institute director searching for extraterrestrial intelligence