Normally we downweight follow-ups but this is too good. Even the parentheticals are good ("the only thing ever recorded spoken by him [in Parliament] is a request to close the window)".
I wonder where that comes from (is it apocryphal?) as prior to Hansard - which itself is not always verbatim and is the body that records the daily goings-on in the Houses of Parliament - there was very little documented on what was actually said in Parliament - let alone who said it.
> I don’t know what I may seem to the world, but as to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered around me.
There have been a great many minds that have tortured themselves over pondering the things we don't even blink an eye at today.
We admire and idolize those who found the pretty pebbles that light up the shore today, and yet I'm sure many of them would have eagerly traded places just to see what continued to take shape.
It's sad, though also a reminder of just how much is easily taken for granted.
To me it sounds more like standing in wonder at how vastly much more he could never have lived long enough to understand. It doesn't strike me as sad, but humble, and appropriately so.
This is not sad at all. The sense of childlike wonder and intellectual humility were essential to the great minds of history. If you feel like you’re getting a handle on things remember this quote and who said it. It is as true today as it was then and we could all benefit by remembering it.
Another fascinating thing about the Newton story is its parallels to Archimedes and the "eureka" moment. Both stories involve the most famous physicist of the day being asked to protect the integrity of royal gold. (Archimedes was asked by the king of Syracuse to detect whether a goldsmith had been adding baser metals to an offertory gold crown.) And both involve famous scientists bending the rules of evidence and procedure to catch a thief – in Archimedes' case, the modern consensus is that simple water displacement would not be sufficient to distinguish pure gold from a gold/silver alloy.
Wikipedia has a good paragraph on this. It describes a very cool alternative method that has higher accuracy, and according to Galileo it's probable that Archimedes used this method:
> The story of the golden crown does not appear anywhere in Archimedes' known works. The practicality of the method described has been called into question due to the extreme accuracy that would be required to measure water displacement. Archimedes may have instead sought a solution that applied the hydrostatics principle known as Archimedes' principle, found in his treatise On Floating Bodies: a body immersed in a fluid experiences a buoyant force equal to the weight of the fluid it displaces.[34] Using this principle, it would have been possible to compare the density of the crown to that of pure gold by balancing it on a scale with a pure gold reference sample of the same weight, then immersing the apparatus in water. The difference in density between the two samples would cause the scale to tip accordingly.[12] Galileo Galilei, who invented a hydrostatic balance in 1586 inspired by Archimedes' work, considered it "probable that this method is the same that Archimedes followed, since, besides being very accurate, it is based on demonstrations found by Archimedes himself."
I'm having trouble picturing what's going on here. I'm not sure what the apparatus is. The best I can figure, it's two containers of water with the reference gold in one and the crown in the other. However, this wouldn't be any different than just weighing the two pieces of gold (which are already known to be the same mass). I tried searching for "hydrostatic balance," but nothing relevant to this came up. Since you seem to understand this, would you mind explaining (or pointing to an explanation of) Archimedes's probable solution?
Wait what? Are you saying that the story (Archimedes invents theory of density, proves the crown is fake) is really Archimedes invents density, but then proves the fakery by ... finding the spare gold in the guys kitchen or something?
I'm flabbergasted. I can of course believe it's true. I just never thought to question it.
I figured it was Archimedes invents theory of density, then he or someone else invents anecdote to show its use, anecdote actually wouldn't work though but theory of density still good so people use it.
You simply should use a vessel which gets narrower to the top.
If you put the crown, the water level rises.
The smaller the cross section of the vessel the more the height has to increase to amount the volume.
I assume he used a mechanical balance to measure the equal weight of gold. Couldn’t he then just submerge the balance?
If the method from the story doesn’t work, is it possible that it was just a plausible-sounding cover for the actual method that they wouldn’t have wanted to disclose?
While appreciating his genius let's also remember that even Newton himself couldn't resist FOMO and lost substantial money when a bubble burst [1]. Goes to show he was a human after all.
ANDROMACHE. Doesn't it ever tire you to see and prophesy only disasters?
CASSANDRA. I see nothing. I prophesy nothing. All I ever do is to take account of two great stupidities: the stupidities of men, and the wild stupidity of the elements.
This story is about his anti counterfeiting exploits though, which usually requires skills not necessarily related to intellect. he was dutiful and unforgiving which is why he had some level of success in it. Same reasoning applies to his investments tanking, it's a different skillet and far more unpredictable.
Newton's obsession with counterfeiters never made sense to me until I read Neal Stephenson Baroque Cycle. He makes a good case for tying it with Newton's prior alemetical pursuits.
I have a dim notion that Sir Isaac also had quite the feud with Leibniz, is that also a wildly entertaining story like this one? And if so what’s the best telling?
As an American English-speaker I think my ostensible tribal obligation is to call it a tie at worst and take Sir Isaac’s part by default, but Wikipedia seems to be going out of its way to avoid concluding that Leibniz got there first: I’m curious if Germans have a different view than us in the Empire or it’s former colonies.
It seems a tough case to make that Newton wasn’t the more influential thinker overall, but on Calc I-IV? Lot of claims about stuff that he “decided not to publish”.
I'm pretty sure I used to own a book called The Newton-Leibniz Correspondence, being a collection of letters. But my search-foo has failed to turn it up.
> Newton saw what was happening ... and somehow intimidated and pushed Neale aside in a bloodless coup, and took over the Great Recoinage himself.
Or more charitably, Neale didn't fight too hard for his prerogatives when he saw that one of the most competent men in the history of western civilization was trying to solve his biggest problem.
> when he saw that one of the most competent men in the history of western civilization
The thing, this is only decidable in hindsight. Many a confident person has declared themselves to be "the most competent" and proven to be... not that.
(competence & confidence are perhaps entirely uncorrelated)
Readit News
The Greatest Counterfeiter (2021) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37490644 - Sept 2023 (26 comments) - (via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37499206)
Normally we downweight follow-ups but this is too good. Even the parentheticals are good ("the only thing ever recorded spoken by him [in Parliament] is a request to close the window)".
It's a nice anecdote if nothing else.
What a great quote
There have been a great many minds that have tortured themselves over pondering the things we don't even blink an eye at today.
We admire and idolize those who found the pretty pebbles that light up the shore today, and yet I'm sure many of them would have eagerly traded places just to see what continued to take shape.
It's sad, though also a reminder of just how much is easily taken for granted.
> The story of the golden crown does not appear anywhere in Archimedes' known works. The practicality of the method described has been called into question due to the extreme accuracy that would be required to measure water displacement. Archimedes may have instead sought a solution that applied the hydrostatics principle known as Archimedes' principle, found in his treatise On Floating Bodies: a body immersed in a fluid experiences a buoyant force equal to the weight of the fluid it displaces.[34] Using this principle, it would have been possible to compare the density of the crown to that of pure gold by balancing it on a scale with a pure gold reference sample of the same weight, then immersing the apparatus in water. The difference in density between the two samples would cause the scale to tip accordingly.[12] Galileo Galilei, who invented a hydrostatic balance in 1586 inspired by Archimedes' work, considered it "probable that this method is the same that Archimedes followed, since, besides being very accurate, it is based on demonstrations found by Archimedes himself."
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes#Archimedes'_princip...
I'm having trouble picturing what's going on here. I'm not sure what the apparatus is. The best I can figure, it's two containers of water with the reference gold in one and the crown in the other. However, this wouldn't be any different than just weighing the two pieces of gold (which are already known to be the same mass). I tried searching for "hydrostatic balance," but nothing relevant to this came up. Since you seem to understand this, would you mind explaining (or pointing to an explanation of) Archimedes's probable solution?
I'm flabbergasted. I can of course believe it's true. I just never thought to question it.
Deleted Comment
If the method from the story doesn’t work, is it possible that it was just a plausible-sounding cover for the actual method that they wouldn’t have wanted to disclose?
Deleted Comment
[1] https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/73/7/30/800801/Isa...
Truly a great quote and still so valid today.
CASSANDRA. I see nothing. I prophesy nothing. All I ever do is to take account of two great stupidities: the stupidities of men, and the wild stupidity of the elements.
— Jean Giraudoux, French (1882-1944)
(attributed to him, anyway)
But it just kept growing and growing. He eventually bought back in, and that was right at the peak before the crash, so he lost a lot.
Newton was dutiful, honest and smart.
I'd say, "disparaging against the Germans" or "repulsed by confederations" ('Alemanni' ∩ 'emetic').
If somebody is proficient in Arabic, maybe 'emetic' (after article "Al-") makes sense also outside IE...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leibniz%E2%80%93Clarke_corresp...
As an American English-speaker I think my ostensible tribal obligation is to call it a tie at worst and take Sir Isaac’s part by default, but Wikipedia seems to be going out of its way to avoid concluding that Leibniz got there first: I’m curious if Germans have a different view than us in the Empire or it’s former colonies.
It seems a tough case to make that Newton wasn’t the more influential thinker overall, but on Calc I-IV? Lot of claims about stuff that he “decided not to publish”.
Not quite the same thing, but has quite a few references to Newton contained within the pages. Perhaps enough to mix it up in your memory.
Dead Comment
Or more charitably, Neale didn't fight too hard for his prerogatives when he saw that one of the most competent men in the history of western civilization was trying to solve his biggest problem.
The thing, this is only decidable in hindsight. Many a confident person has declared themselves to be "the most competent" and proven to be... not that.
(competence & confidence are perhaps entirely uncorrelated)