Barney Oliver Quotes

Barney Oliver — Scientist born on March 31, 1909, died on November 23, 1995

Bernard M. Oliver, also known as Barney Oliver, was a scientist who made contributions in many fields, including radar, television, and computers. He was the founder and director of Hewlett Packard laboratories until his retirement in 1981. He is also a recognized pioneer in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Oliver was president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 1965. In 1986, Oliver was a National Medal of Science recipient for Engineering Science and on February 11, 2004 it was announced that Oliver had been inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame... (wikipedia)

Present annual world energy consumption is about equal to the annihilation energy of 4 tons of matter.

Above all, I would not expect a wise race, at great expense, to set loose an army of self-replicating robots.

If interstellar travel is as time- or energy- demanding as the above figures indicate, it is far from obvious what the motive for colonization might be.

The sun and its retinue of planets drift as a group through the vast gulfs of space that separate the stars.

Years of science fiction have produced a mindset that it is human destiny to expand from Earth, to the Moon, to Mars, to the stars.