Theirs Quotes (3 quotes)
For me, the first challenge for computing science is to discover how to maintain order in a finite, but very large, discrete universe that is intricately intertwined. And a second, but not less important challenge is how to mould what you have achieved in solving the first problem, into a teachable discipline: it does not suffice to hone your own intellect (that will join you in your grave), you must teach others how to hone theirs. The more you concentrate on these two challenges, the clearer you will see that they are only two sides of the same coin: teaching yourself is discovering what is teachable.
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Let the future tell the truth and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs, the future, for which I really worked, is mine.
From an interview published in a Serbian electrical engineering magazine by Dragislav L. Petković, 'A Visit to Nikola Tesla', Politika (Apr 1927). This quote needs context. In Margaret Cheney, Robert Uth and Jim Glenn, Tesla, Master of Lightning (1999), 73, it is explained that Tesla’s remark followed expressing concern about having to contest his patents being used by others. (These included a Tesla radio patent ignored by Marconi.) The second sentence is often seen as a quote by itself, even more lacking in context, “The present is theirs, the future, for which I really worked, is mine.”
Scientists are entitled to be proud of their accomplishments, and what accomplishments can they call ‘theirs’ except the things they have done or thought of first? People who criticize scientists for wanting to enjoy the satisfaction of intellectual ownership are confusing possessiveness with pride of possession. Meanness, secretiveness and, sharp practice are as much despised by scientists as by other decent people in the world of ordinary everyday affairs; nor, in my experience, is generosity less common among them, or less highly esteemed.
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In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
