Talk:Standing on the shoulders of giants
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Cannot be traced to this source. This is the whole point of Robert Merton's book, cited below, that the attribution to Lucan is a pure fabriction by Bartlett's book of quotations. Didacus Stella (Diego de Estella) was a Franciscan monk who wrote a book about the gospel of Luke (not Lucan) a few decades before Burton wrote his Anatomy.- John Rodgers Oct 3, 2005]
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[edit] Newton's use of the phrase
"Newton was perhaps making a more personal point than the mere expression of modesty seeing that Hooke was a man of remarkably short stature." What personal point? Sounds like original research to me. Superm401 | Talk 09:06, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
"What Des-Cartes did was a good step. You have added much several ways, and especially in taking the colours of thin plates into philosophical consideration. If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."
This statement of Newton's, in a letter on the 5th of February 1675 to Hooke, has relatively recently begun to be construed to be, or is even reported as "certainly" having been somehow an insult to the small stature of Hooke, either physically, intellectually, or both, but I cannot see that there is anything either certain, obvious, or even the least bit valid to such an interpretation.
A statement by William C. Waterhouse, Professor of Mathematics, at Penn State University presented at http://www.science-jokes.refleksje.pl/9_3.html indicates that the idea that this was somehow intended as a personal insult seems to have originated with Frank Manuel, in his book A Portrait of Isaac Newton (1968), and that he has "never seen any reason to believe it."
I have found that there is even an irresponsibly warped and presumptive interpretation of Newton's "Shoulder of Giants" statement in An Underground Education (1997) by Richard Zacks which declares: You might translate Newton's sentiments: "While I admit to building on the work of my scientific predecessors, I certainly didn't learn anything from a dwarf like you."
Personally, from what is indicated by the statement, I wouldn't translate Newton's sentiments into anything of the sort, and would consider this and other such interpretations as some people have made upon it to be an insult to normal human intelligence, if it were not plainly an indication of an appalling deficiency in their own. ~ Achilles † 19:17, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Lucan or no Lucan
what about Lucan now? We cannot say "it can be traced to Lucan, except... it can't". Can it or can't it? I have to admit there is nothing of the sort in Pharsalia 2.10, Edward Ridley (1896) has:
- Matter unformed to his subduing hand,
- And realms unbalanced, fix by stern decree
and the original [1]:
- Se quoque lege tenens, et saecula iussa ferentem
- Fatorum immoto divisit limite mundum:
nothing about pygmies or shoulders indeed. Searching the entire text of the translation for "shoulder", "giant", "titan" or "pygmy" yields no result either. I will remove Lucan for now, but it will be interesting to see how the attribution came about. dab (ᛏ) 14:19, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] The Book
Note that there is a book titled "On the Shoulders of Giants" compiled by Steven Hawking. It has original works of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and Einstein.
There is nothing in this article about the book nor an article for the book.Gagueci 22:12, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Abelson's roommate
What if someone calls Abelson or confirms this in person; how do you cite that? --Alan Au 06:05, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
- You don't - it's not a reliable source. Thanks/wangi 08:58, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
- I've also got no idea what you're on about, but hey... /wangi 09:00, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
