鈥淧hysics professors have a harder time believing in God since their job is to study creation. Mathematicians can be more relaxed.鈥�
Michael Atiyah, former head of the UK鈥檚 Royal Society, at a meeting of top mathematicians in Rome, Italy, aimed at putting maths back on its pedestal with architecture, music and aesthetics (The Observer, London, March 18)
鈥淭hey should work like a Kalashnikov. Reliable in anybody鈥檚 hands.鈥�
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Russian businessman Anfis Saibakov, who formed a company called Ekomotor to make and market petrol-powered footwear, expressing his disappointment that the boots are not safe (The New York Times, 17 March)
鈥淚t鈥檚 not the American way. And it鈥檚 not constitutional.鈥�
James Hansen, climate scientist and director of NASA鈥檚 Goddard Institute for Space Studies, telling the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform about the White House鈥檚 repeated attempts to control what government scientists say publicly about climate change (AP, 19 March)
鈥淲hen you have a decaying body on a plane for more than five hours there are significant health and safety risks.鈥�
Paul Trinder complaining that staff on a flight from Delhi to London sat the body of a woman in a first-class seat near his after she died en route (The Sunday Times, London, 18 March)
鈥淣obody sees fit to reveal the agreement鈥檚 dirty little secret: it will do next to no good and at very high cost.鈥�
Bj酶rn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, arguing that the European Union鈥檚 pledge to cut CO2 emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 will only delay global warming by two years and yet cost $90 billion annually (The Guardian, London, 19 March)