In politics, religion and other areas of culture, people disagree on the worth of competing ideas. There is no equivalent to the scientific method that can determine in a robust way which ideas match the real world, and which ones can be ruled out. So conflicting ideologies persist indefinitely.

— Nathan Myhrvold

I've been on a team that won the world championship of barbecue. But barbecue's interesting, because it's one of these cult foods like chili, or bouillabaisse. Various parts of the world will have a cult food that people get enormously attached to - there are tremendous traditions; there's secrecy.

— Nathan Myhrvold

Most visions of extraterrestrial life are actually steeped in human hubris. The fictional extraterrestrials of 'Star Trek' or a hundred other space operas are less alien than many of my neighbors. And funny, the ones running the place are mostly Waspish men.

— Nathan Myhrvold

One of the things that I love to do is travel around the world and look at archaeological sites. Because archaeology gives us an opportunity to study past civilizations, and see where they succeeded and where they failed. Use science to, you know, work backwards and say, 'Well, really, what were they thinking?'

— Nathan Myhrvold

Our reactor actually burns nuclear waste as fuel. So not only is it safe and powerful, it solves an important issue: It actually reduces nuclear waste instead of creating. It's the reactor of your dreams.

— Nathan Myhrvold

Raw lobster tail, freeze-dried, is amazing.

— Nathan Myhrvold

Regardless of how it's done, transaction costs will continue to plummet as computers get more powerful. Low transaction costs are a wonderful thing if you're in the transaction business. They're wonderful for consumers too, making it cheaper and easier to buy things and creating new things to buy.

— Nathan Myhrvold

Software-industry battles are fought by highly paid and out-of-shape nerds furiously pounding computer keyboards while they guzzle diet Coke. The stakes aren't very dramatic. Life? Liberty? The pursuit of happiness? Nope, it's about stock options.

— Nathan Myhrvold

The depressing thing about battery technology is that it gets better, but it gets better slowly. There are a bunch of problems in materials science and chemistry that come in trying to make existing batteries better.

— Nathan Myhrvold

The physics of water are central to cooking, because food is mostly water. All steak that you cook is actually boiled on the inside.

— Nathan Myhrvold