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Carl Sagan: If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

pkrumins · 322.9K views · 2010-01-21 · 0:23

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Overview

A very short clip of Carl Sagan saying that to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe. It illustrates how everything depends on a chain of prior things.

On Hacker News

HN commenters use the quote as shorthand in arguments about abstractions, standing on others' work and the limits of building from scratch.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2017–2025

Topics

Scientific method & science communicationSoftware architecture & design
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What people said

ant6n · 2025-08 · Joke / meme

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent... the universe" Carl Sagan [VIDEO]

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bch · 2020-05 · Reference

> ...manual process, true Before I get to my real comment, I guess a fair criticism of it would be “Well, where in the [development process] hierarchy do you actually want to live?”, which I guess is a longer discussion, but as a developer, you can’t become battle-hardened without going to battle. So we can nod to Carl Sagan[0] and say “I made this from scratch”, and know there’s value in that. At least occasionally running your REPLs by hand and taking the actual trip, instead of just wanting the destination. It may not be tenable as a full-time production development strategy, but that doesn’t mean it’s worthless. [0] [VIDEO]

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Fricken · 2018-01 · Reference

How does he deserves every cent of 1.4 billion dollars? He didn't do $1.4 billion worth of labour. His drivers, carmakers, road builders, telecom providers, smartphone makers and software engineers did $1.4 billion worth of labour. Kalanick found himself in a position where he could extract $1.4 billion worth of rent. He's just one fucking guy. It took a solid chunk of western civilization to make Uber possible. It was literally millions of years in the making. If you wish to make an apple pie from search, you must first invent the universe. [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by pkrumins, played through YouTube.

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