In Pursuit of the Unknown Quotes

“IQ is a statistical method for quantifying specific kinds of problem-solving ability, mathematically convenient but not necessarily corresponding to a real attribute of the human brain, and not necessarily representing whatever it is that we mean by ‘intelligence’.”
― Ian Stewart, In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World

“Why resort to welfare cuts when you could aim more accurately at what you claim to be the real problem: intelligence itself? Why not improve education? Indeed, why aim your policy at increasing intelligence at all? There are many other desirable human traits. Why not reduce gullibility, aggressiveness, or greed?”
― Ian Stewart, Seventeen Equations that Changed the World

“The urban myth that carrots are good for your eyesight originated in wartime disinformation, intended to stop the Nazis wondering why the British were getting so good at spotting raiding bombers.”
― Ian Stewart, In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World

“The Black–Scholes equation changed the world by creating a booming quadrillion-dollar industry; its generalisations, used unintelligently by a small coterie of bankers, changed the world again by contributing to a multitrillion-dollar financial crash whose ever more malign effects, now extending to entire national economics, are still being felt worldwide.”
― Ian Stewart, In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World

“Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is [exists]. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. . . There is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. And so our proposition is of infinite force, when there is the finite to stake in a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the infinite to gain.”
― Ian Stewart, In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World