There’s a Sean Carrol video somewhere talking about how the average graduate student in physics understands Relativity far better than Einstein did, and it’s because lots of people with lots of different specialties and insights have thought really long and hard about it and come up with deeper, more elegant ways to describe it.
I AM BETTER
Submitted 9 hours ago by Stamets@lemmy.dbzer0.com to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/pictrs/image/3ee02322-4b5e-4488-ab46-3cf4c9a53619.webp
Comments
nymnympseudonym@piefed.social 5 hours ago
Klear@quokk.au 9 hours ago
There is a wonderful book by Johannes Kepler about snowflakes. It’s a great read, because he’s one of the all-time greats and his thinking is fascinating and insightful and wrong at just about every turn, but he’s doing his best even though knowing what he know he never stood a chance. I mean, the guy didn’t know that water and ice are the same thing.
Highly recommended.
ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
He didn’t know about molecules so… There was no language for him to differentiate between matter and states of matter.
eRac@lemmings.world 8 hours ago
I mean, the guy didn’t know that water and ice are the same thing.
The summaries I find reference him theorizing that water may be spherical, leading to the hexagon pattern. He also related the feathery ends to steam hitting a cold window.
It seems to me that he knew that steam, water, and ice were the same thing.
Klear@quokk.au 8 hours ago
Well, you’d be wrong. He thought they were different substances, one turning into another.
I really recommend finding the book and reading it. It’s short and fairly easy to read. IIRC it was written as a Christmas present for someone, not as a super serious scientific treatise.
happybadger@hexbear.net 8 hours ago
I mean, the guy didn’t know that water and ice are the same thing.
What was his logic here? I still believe that but I’m curious to hear a scientific reason why.
TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works 9 hours ago
What was it Isaac Newton said about standing on the shoulders of giants?
Lumidaub@feddit.org 9 hours ago
He was quoting (allegedly) Bernard of Chartres, thereby standing on his shoulders, interestingly.
DagwoodIII@piefed.social 6 hours ago
He was slashing one of his colleagues, Robert Hooke, who was shorter than Isaac.
KTJ_microbes@mander.xyz 9 hours ago
Lol it doesn’t matter what did he know he knew less physics lol
nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 hours ago
Who cares what some loser who didnt know about black-body radiation says. /s
ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
That’s crazy, I am also better at handling radioactive material than Marie Curie. It’s because she’s dead and I’m not.
frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 hours ago
It’s complicated. I know that Newton’s model of light as a particle was wrong. If I had a time traveling Newton in front of me, could I explain all the experiments in between him and Einstein about light that get us knocking on the door of Quantum Physics? More importantly, could I show it well enough to satisfy the level of evidence he would need (even ignoring his giant ego)?
Probably not. Maybe if I had months to prepare.
wischi@programming.dev 6 hours ago
Newton believed in god, so there obviously were things he accepted with practically no evidence whatsoever 🙊
AntiOutsideAktion@hexbear.net 8 hours ago
Oh yeah? Derive one of those equations Richard-D-Wolff
whimsy@lemmy.zip 8 hours ago
Yeah, meme stuff aside, I think this is a rather disingenuous take. It’s easy to think that we know more just because we got aware of dependent concepts.
Still a funny meme, though. And kinda thought provoking, too!
ThermonuclearEgg@hexbear.net 7 hours ago
The first principles:
godlessworm@hexbear.net 6 hours ago
these dudes didn’t even have the internet. what could they possibly know? i would never ask an old guy who hasnt ever googled anything a question.
happybadger@hexbear.net 8 hours ago
I wish I had been born into the era of science where I’m smart enough to discover things. I can’t code. I can’t do calculus. I would have thrived in the 19th century where I could invent washing my hands and be considered a world-class doctor.
Maturin@hexbear.net 7 hours ago
Actually, the doctor who invented washing hands was ridiculed and ostracized.
happybadger@hexbear.net 6 hours ago
Yeah but it looks cool as hell when I do it.
jwiggler@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
relevant
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 4 hours ago
I know the feeling. Alan Turing is such a linux noob compared to me.