Quotes

I.Q.

Kurt Godel: I would rather be an optimist and a fool than a pessimist and right.

Louis Bamberger: "New Jersey: Leader in Intergalactic Rocket Exploration." How's that sound for a license plate?
Ed Walters: Long?

Catherine Boyd: [expressing her disbelief in Ed's scientific credentials] He is a mechanic!
Albert Einstein: I was a clerk in a patent office. Faraday was a carpenter. Isaac Newton was an insurance salesman.

Ed Walters: You see, you have a Lucas type four generator on a 12-volt system, and you know the British. They'd rather spend time gluing wood on a dashboard than getting the electrical system right.
James Moreland: Fascinating, but what is wrong with the car?
Ed Walters: [while looking at Catherine Boyd] Well, my guess is your stroke is too short and you're getting premature ignition. Does it ever feel that way?

Nathan Liebknecht: Ahh, he threw the racket up to get the birdie. He threw Godel's cane up there to get the racket.
Kurt Godel: I threw Podolsky's golf club up there to get even with him!

[showing Ed Walters a four-in-one pen]
Louis Bamberger: Look at that - red, green, black! It's like having four pens in one! What an exciting time to be alive!

[explaining to Ed how he should tell Catherine that he's not a physicist]
Bob Rosetti: It's not that hard. You just call her up and say, "Hello, I'm a lying grease monkey."

Bob Rosetti: This has gotta be the dumbest thing anybody ever did to impress a dame.

[Albert turns the rudder of the sailboat causing Catherine to fall into Ed's lap]
Catherine Boyd: Uncle Albert!
Albert Einstein: I'm steering ze boat...

James Moreland: [referring to Ed] I was wrong about him. He is not an idiot-savant at all. He is the real thing. He is an idiot-idiot!

Albert Einstein: If you had had a nickel for every nickel that he has, you would have a lot of nickels.

James Moreland: [referring to Ed] I mean, it's not as if he has never shown signs of *normal* intelligence.
Catherine Boyd: Think of that! Nuclear fusion.
James Moreland: I suppose these things happen. Idiot-savant, you know. A mental patient plays perfect chess. A nine year old from Alabama suddenly starts speaking in iambic pentameter...

James Moreland: Now, the mouse has learned that the red lever will give him an electrical stimulus in the brain that's something akin to sexual climax; and the blue lever will dispense him food. Now, this one here hasn't eaten for three days...
James Moreland: [the mouse goes to the red lever, triggering the light] Now, why would he do that?
[Albert Einstein, dumbfounded, doesn't say anything but looks at James with a look that doesn't really need an explanation]

Ed Walters: ...nuclear configuration, is given given by the expectation value of the nuclear Hamiltonian of the state of n neutrons and n protons. Reaction will occur if the energy of the fused state is lower than the energy of the two separate nuclei.
Ed Walters: Go on. Go on.
Ed Walters: Our task is to see if the dynamics dictated by the interaction Hamiltonian generates a sufficiently rapid reaction to make cold fusion powered engines feasible.

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