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the price of war has gone up dramatically. The Nobel Peace Prize to end all peace prizes should have been given to Robert Oppenheimer and his fellow architects of the atomic bomb.
Sapiens
Yuval Noah Harari
History teaches us that what seems to be just around the corner may never materialise due to unforeseen barriers, and that other unimagined scenarios will in fact come to pass. When the nuclear age erupted in the 1940s, many forecasts were made about the future nuclear world of the year 2000. When sputnik and Apollo 11 fired the imagination of the world, everyone began predicting that by the end of the century, people would be living in space colonies on Mars and Pluto. Few of these forecasts came true. On the other hand, nobody foresaw the Internet.
Sapiens
Yuval Noah Harari
“Your Imperial Majesty, you mentioned just now the defect in the Eastern mind when it comes to scientific thinking. This is because you have not realized that even the complicated objects of the universe are made from the simplest elements. I only need three.” Qin Shi Huang waved his hand and three soldiers came forward. They were all very young. Like other Qin soldiers, they moved like order-obeying machines. “I don’t know your names,” Von Neumann said, tapping the shoulders of two of the soldiers. “The two of you will be responsible for signal input, so I’ll call you ‘Input 1’ and ‘Input 2.’” He pointed to the last soldier. “You will be responsible for signal output, so I’ll call you ‘Output.’” He shoved the soldiers to where he wanted them to stand. “Form a triangle. Like this. Output is the apex. Input 1 and Input 2 form the base.” “You could have just told them to stand in the Wedge Attack Formation,” Qin Shi Huang said, glancing at Von Neumann contemptuously. Newton took out six small flags: three white, three black. Von Neumann handed them out to the three soldiers so that each held a black flag and a white flag. “White represents 0; black represents 1. Good. Now, listen to me. Output, you turn around and look at Input 1 and Input 2. If they both raise black flags, you raise a black flag as well. Under all other circumstances, you raise the white flag.” “I think you should use some other color,” Qin Shi Huang said. “White means surrender.” The excited Von Neumann ignored him. He shouted orders at the three soldiers. “Begin operation! Input 1 and Input 2, you can raise whichever flag you want. Good. Raise! Good. Raise again! Raise!” Input 1 and Input 2 raised their flags three times. The first time they were black-black, the second time white-black, and the third time black-white. Output reacted correctly each time, raising the black flag once and the white one twice. “Very good. Your Imperial Majesty, your soldiers are very smart.” “Even an idiot would be capable of that. Tell me, what are they really doing?” Qin Shi Huang looked baffled. “The three soldiers form a computing component. It’s a type of gate, an AND gate.”
The Three-Body Problem
Cixin Liu and Ken Liu
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