When an elderly expert says something is impossible, doubt him; the limits of the possible are found by venturing past them; sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
The first law appeared in the 1962 edition of Profiles of the Future; the third was added in the 1973 revision, when Clarke formalised the trio. The first is the most useful, being a warning about expert conservatism.
In practice
- Clarke's third law, added in the 1973 revision of Profiles of the Future: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
- A senior architect explains why a distributed ledger cannot work at that throughput, and is right about the current design and wrong about the limit.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Technology & Software
- Essay
- The programmers' folklore, and technology's place in society