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Newton is so strongly the posterboy for how you can be brilliant in one area, and still so wrong in so many others. He spent about equal time looking at physics, alchemy and some bullshit da-vinchi code search for secrets in biblical numerology. Can you just imagine how much further he could have pushed physics and mathmatics if he hadn’t spent 2/3rds of his time chasing red herrings.

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oplkill@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Imagine how further could you push physic and math if you hadn’t spend all your time chasing memes

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- TheFogan@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  I mean the obvious thing is, I know I’m not capable of being that great, I do actually note how much better I could be at my expertise if I spent a bit more time studying it and less on meme’s… however it’s pretty clear I’m not anywhere near the running of pushing humanities understanding forward.
  
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  - oplkill@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Even art can push humanity forward. There is no excuses for anybody for being lazy
    
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  - realitista@lemmus.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    I think that if I really double down on my time spent studying memes I can make some real breakthroughs.
    
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humorlessrepost@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Same with Pythagoras.

He banned beans because he thought they contained souls, demanded his followers endure years of silence, and claimed to remember his past lives (including being a Trojan hero and a fish). His secretive brotherhood treated numbers like divine beings, and he supposedly lost his mind over the music of the spheres — the idea that the planets hum cosmic harmonies. In short: a math genius, yes, but also one philosophical fever dream away from starting a numerology space religion.

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- DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Pythagoras is generally considered to be pseudo-mythological these days. Take any claims about his direct actions with a large grain of salt, there’s little telling what he did and said compared to what his cult made up after he died.
  
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- _stranger_@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  We could be living in the ruins of a greek-built Mons Olympus theme park on Mars itself, but no, BECAUSE beans smelled weird.
  
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Admetus@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Newton was evidently searching for meaning in the universe and God, and I don’t think it was a bullshit code search. The scientific establishment back then was extricably connected to Christianity, and esoterically with alchemy. It wasn’t the scientific establishment post-Victorian as we know it now.

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nialv7@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
He also lost untold money in the stock market.

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