Little Thinkers Quote of the Day (10 of 16): Albert Einstein

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Quote of the Day/Week- Stephen Hawking

Yes, we were gone for a while, but we assure it was not to a former republic of the Soviet Union, though we did travel to Azerbaijan in 2008.

Today, we turn our attention to American astronomer Stephen Hawking to conclude our month of quotes from famous scientists. Hawking, who turned 70 on Jan. 8, was the subject of the acclaimed Errol Morris documentary "A Brief History of Time" (1991).

Here is the quote from Hawking:

"It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival."

And, for those of you in Nassau, The Bahamas, hope you are enjoying your Cuban cigars which are illegal here in America.

Quote of the Day/Week- Anton Leeuwenhoek

Though his name is just slightly less difficult to spell than that of acclaimed Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul ("Blissfully Your's), we are quoting the great Dutch biologist Anton Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) today as part of our month-long series of quotes from scientists and artists. Previously, on this blog, we quoted Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin for this series.

Here is the quote from Leeuwenhoek (yes, we got it right; it takes a few tries though!):

"A man has always to be busy with his thoughts if anything is to be accomplished."

Quote of the Day/Week- Charles Darwin

Today, Google used the image of Danish bishop and scientist Nicolas Steno (1638-1686) on his 374th birthday as their 'google doodle." Steno was instrumental for many things, including discovering human salivary ducts, and there is a Steno Museum in Arhus, Denmark, which is dedicated to displaying findings in the arenas of science and medicine. But, alas, for our purposes, Steno really didn't leave behind a meaningful quip.

The same can not be said for English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-1882) whose findings on the Galapagos Islands off Ecuador are taught in classroom and disputed in places of worship around the globe; hence 'the Darwin fish' that is displayed here.

With that, here is our quote from Darwin, who made these comments long before the 'evolution of video games,' including Donkey Kong and Angry Birds:

"A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the whole of life."

SIDEBAR: We love this tweet from Onion Politics, a subdivision of the satirical faux news publication "The Onion:" "Fiercely independent New Hampshire voters pick guy everybody thought would win." For those of you in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, that person is Mitt Romney.

Quote of the Day/Week- Albert Einstein

This month, we are quoting famous scientists and artists. We begin with the German-born American Albert Einstein (1879-1955) who was known for his theory of relativity: e=mc2; we have no doubt that if he were alive today, he'd been an Angry Birds video game addict.

I saw an Albert Einstein, just like the one pictured here, for a mere five dollars as it was being sold by a Washington D.C. vendor, but I opted to get another tie instead though a part of regrets passing it up.

Einstein, who was Jewish and first came to the United States in 1921, formally left Germany as Adolf Hitler was emerging as a powerful, dangerous political force in 1933. He took up an academic position at Princeton University in Princeton, NJ, where he remained until his death.

I first heard this quote at a Unitarian Universalists service several weeks ago; it is regarding miracles:

"There are two ways to live: as if nothing is a miracle or as if everything is a miracle."

Things We Learned from the BBC Today- Big Spider Web Found in Madagascar

Alas, we couldn't find the impressive image of the some 50-foot long spider's web found by scientists on a riverbed in the southest African nation of Madagascar, but we did find this image which we can also use as an homage to Stan Lee (the creator of the comic book character "Spiderman").


The web was found by a team of scientists, according to the BBC, which included Ingi Agnarsson who told the media outlet the following after seeing the spectacle of nature for himself:

"Some of the webs qualify, to be to the best of our knowledge, as the largest spider webs ever documented."

The scientists have also indicated that the web is the product of a Darwin's bark spider, which is a recently discovered spider species.

The largest spider web found in the United States was in Texas in 2007. I imagine it did nothing to help cure anyone's arachnophobia.