If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research

Albert Einstein
www.wikipedia.org

I read on the Internet that Albert Einstein said :  "If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research" but I usually remain skeptical when I'm told that Einstein said something, because whenever someone wants to make some brainless weak-minded phrase sound profound, he just attributes it to Einstein so that in the worst case it would be considered funny.

But I agree that whoever said the above quote has got a sens of humor. Maybe it was just a lazy researcher trying to guarantee himself a lifetime of employment by justifying the budget spent on him watching youtube and drinking coffee. And as they say: "As long as my boss pretends that I make a lot of money, I pretend to work hard".

I didn't fail the test, I just found a hundred ways to do it wrong

Benjamin Franklin
(www.wikipedia.org)

To be nice, this is what we can call an optimistic quotation from Benjamin Franklin: "I didn't fail the test, I just found a hundred ways to do it wrong". Basically what this man is doing here is raising his failures to the status of achievements! But frankly Franklin, unless your hundred ways to do wrong have made you eventually succeed I don't see anything exiting about the sole fact of diversifying failure ways. 

In reality this quotation lies on the consolation category, not to say the losers category, where we can find examples like "Failure is only postponed success" useful when you haven't succeeded decades ago and "participation is more important than winning" good after being eliminated from the group stage of a football competition.

In this world there are two kinds of people

Tuco (Eli Wallach), coming by the window

There are quite a bunch of quotes and sayings starting with "In this world there are two kinds of people" since one can divide people in whatever two categories he wants. One of the most famous is this one said by Blondie (Clint Eastwood)  in The good, the bad and the ugly : "you see, there are two kinds of people in this world, my friend. Those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig". It was like a response near the end of the movie to Tuco (Eli Wallach) quotes categorizing people in two categories like "There are two kinds of people in the world, my friend. Those who have a rope around their neck and those who have the job of doing the cutting" meaning that he is the one deserving the money for risking his life and "There are two kinds of spurs, my friend. Those that come in by the door and those that come in by the window" said when Tuco surprised Blondie by coming by the window instead of the door like his dead teammates.

A different kind of example which is famous among programmers is "There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't" taking advantage of the fact that 10 in base two system is the number two. With this technique one can go ahead and divide people using the digital representation 10  and meaning any number greater or equal to two. But someone has come up with this genius quotation to put an end to the series :"There are 10 types of people in the world; those who know quaternary, those who mistake it for binary, those who mistake it for ternary, and those who are sick of these jokes".

See you in the next saying.

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works. Practice is when everything works but no one knows why. In our lab, theory and practice are combined: nothing works and no one knows why

The third one: "Theory is when you know everything but nothing works. Practice is when everything works but no one knows why. In our lab, theory and practice are combined: nothing works and no one knows why" is an example of logical reasoning that I highly recommend to anyone who wants to succeed in failing at whatever work or research he is trying to accomplish.

This saying starts by giving the definition of theory and practice from the point of view of someone who wants to prove himself right at all costs. Well it's rather a redefinition of these two terms so that each one becomes contradictory with the other, let's take look at it: if in your lab you have theory as defined above then there is at least one person who knows something since "you know everything" and thus you can't be using practice as defined above at the same time because in your practice "no one knows why". But since the person who has produced this genius saying works for an extraordinary lab he managed with his team to combine their theory and their practice so that they get the worst of each one: "nothing works and no one knows why".

Don't give me a fish and don't teach me how to fish. Just give me a break

And here we go with our second proverb : "Don't give me a fish and don't teach me how to fish. Just give me a break" probably an invention of one of my friends .

Like the proverb of yesterday this one has undergone a complete transformation too. The original proverb is well known under different versions and different wordings like "Sell a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man how to fish, you ruin a wonderful business opportunity" said to be of Karl Marx or this one "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" said to be a Chinese proverb. Anyway, the overall meaning is that teaching someone how to earn a living is better for him than just satisfying one of his punctual needs, as by teaching him how to fish or how to grow potatoes you give him a financial independence from you. However, by doing him this lifetime favor he will owe you for the rest of his life, probably will not be able to return the favor back and thus will live in a sort of slavery toward you. Thats why our proverb says in other words: I owe you no fish, I owe you nothing, I am free, so get lost.

See you tomorrow for the next one.

Money does not buy happiness, especially when it is in small quantities

If you have no money to buy a dollar picture
draw one

Let's begin this series of proverbs with one that I like in particular: "Money does not buy happiness, especially when it is in small quantities". The reason I like it is simply that I helped making it !

As you may have noticed, the first part of the proverb is pretty well known with several versions like "Money does not make happiness" or "Money does not bring happiness" that express in fact the idea that one cannot be happy only with money. But since the word "only" has been omitted, I took advantage of that and added this awesome second part that completely changes the meaning by putting emphasis on the amount of money one is willing to put on the table to have happiness in return. Well, happiness is still not guaranteed with a lot of money, but with practically no money I can assure you that achieving happiness will not be a piece of cake.

See you tomorrow for the next Proverb.