On 7/19/11 5:24 AM, Ronnie Brown wrote:
In this context, I would like to give a quotation from the the Autobiography of Thomas Young (1773-1829), referred to in the book `The last man who knew everything', Andrew Robinson, Pearson Education Inc, 2006, p.224.
"It is indeed so impossible to forsee the capabilities of improvement in any science, that it is idle to form any general opinion of what would be the comparative advantage of the employment of time in any one investigation rather than another, for almost all the authors of important discoveries and even of inventions, are led as much by accident as by system to their success."
There was once a marvelous satire purporting to be Isaac Newton's grant application. jim [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]