5 ms·

A good friend of mine recently commented that I always brought up role models that he had no idea who were, and I quoted as known and famous. The people in ques

by mixmax 16y ago

A good friend of mine recently commented that I always brought up role models that he had no idea who were, and I quoted as known and famous. The people in question were names such as Niels Bohr, Steve Jobs, Larry and Sergey, Richard Dawkins and Einstein. My first thought was to dismiss him as not very knowledgeable, but then I thought to ask him who he thought were good famous role models. He rambled off a number of names that I'd never heard before, primarily from motoring and sports. A quick google search showed me that these people were just as known as my role models. It's not so much about being dumb, it's more about simply having different interests and perspectives on life. This is a good thing.

megablast 16y ago
I would be a bit worried by anyone who has not heard of Einstein. But you make a great point, and I think the article missed it. It is not that we know more, we know more about our particular areas of expertise, just as others know more about their areas of expertise. My Dad knows a lot more about airplanes than I do, because he worked on them for a number of years.
- mkramlich 16y ago
  > I would be a bit worried by anyone who has not heard of Einstein. It's all relative.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- aptimpropriety 16y ago
  Does Einstein really hold an important relevance to 'everyman USA'? To nearly every citizen - and, I would argue, even with those a basic (HS) level of physics - he's not so different than Heisenberg, Bohr, Bethe, Shrodinger, etc. Sure, they made great advances for the world of physics, but how relevant is that to an individual who does not interact with that theory at all? More specifically, relevant enough to cause worry? Now, I note that you could argue the Manhattan product is a reason for Einstein's relevance, but was he really significantly more relevant in that than any other of the scientists? People know politicians because they affect taxes, healthcare, laws, etc. They know sports stars because it's a subject they enjoy following - featuring impressive feats of human ability. And they probably know a few individuals closer to their field of work. Is Einstein really an example of something that 'everyman' should know about, or could your argument partially be a confirmation of the article's argument?
  - edanm 16y ago
    It's not about whether Einstein should be known or not. The point is that he is an icon, one that the vast majority of people do know about. Not knowing about Einstein means you're really uninformed.
    - JoeAltmaier 16y ago
      No, Really Uninformed is a whole nother level of ignorance. When pictures of Jupiter from Pioneer 10 were on the front page <\dated myself>, a graduate student in my Engineering school asked me "Jupiter is a planet, right"? Astonished, I answered politely "Yes, its the 5th planet". Then, and this is the good part, she asked "So, is Earth a planet?"
      - daten 16y ago
        Knowing that Jupiter is the 5th planet from the sun is practical knowledge for how many people? edit: (HN wont let me reply again) I understood your point. I think in the context of the article the only irony is you think the technical fact that astronomers label Earth as a "planet" is necessary knowledge for every field of engineering or anyone with an advanced education. Yes, I learned about the solar system in elementary school too but I wouldn't judge someone who didn't. It's not much more useful than trivia to most people. Discussion around another recent article on HN comparing C programming to a carpenter using a hammer demonstrated that even people with computer science degrees and years of experience writing software might no nothing about HTML or SQL.
        JoeAltmaier 16y ago
        Way to totally miss my point. I guess I wasn't being obvious enough. This highly educated Engineering graduate student didn't know that they lived on a planet. Its ironic.
        RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
        Don't take this the wrong way, but ... > This highly educated Engineering graduate student > didn't know that they lived on a planet. Its ironic. And assuming you're reasonably well educated, and reasonably well informed, and reasonably intelligent, you didn't know, or care, that "its" as you've used it should've had an apostrophe. When you write "Its ironic" the "Its" is an abbreviation of "It is". There are things that just don't matter in people's lives. For many, increasingly, traditionally "correct" usage of the apostrophe is one of them. For others, it is irrelevant that the word "planet" has a technical definition, that Jupiter and the Earth are examples, and Pluto no longer is. Most people don't know that a sizeable proportion of the mass in wood comes from the air, or that the Earth goes round the Sun (in the simplest model of the Solar System) or that Google is not a web browser. These are things removed from people's concerns, irrelevant to them. Before a few years ago I didn't know that Bach pre-dated Beethoven, even though I listened to their music all the time. Why should I care? No doubt I'd be laughed at by the self-declared "cultural" people, and then I'll ask them to quote the second law of thermodynamics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures

by mixmax 16y ago

megablast 16y ago

I would be a bit worried by anyone who has not heard of Einstein. But you make a great point, and I think the article missed it. It is not that we know more, we know more about our particular areas of expertise, just as others know more about their areas of expertise. My Dad knows a lot more about airplanes than I do, because he worked on them for a number of years.

mkramlich 16y ago
> I would be a bit worried by anyone who has not heard of Einstein. It's all relative.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
aptimpropriety 16y ago
Does Einstein really hold an important relevance to 'everyman USA'? To nearly every citizen - and, I would argue, even with those a basic (HS) level of physics - he's not so different than Heisenberg, Bohr, Bethe, Shrodinger, etc. Sure, they made great advances for the world of physics, but how relevant is that to an individual who does not interact with that theory at all? More specifically, relevant enough to cause worry? Now, I note that you could argue the Manhattan product is a reason for Einstein's relevance, but was he really significantly more relevant in that than any other of the scientists? People know politicians because they affect taxes, healthcare, laws, etc. They know sports stars because it's a subject they enjoy following - featuring impressive feats of human ability. And they probably know a few individuals closer to their field of work. Is Einstein really an example of something that 'everyman' should know about, or could your argument partially be a confirmation of the article's argument?
- edanm 16y ago
  It's not about whether Einstein should be known or not. The point is that he is an icon, one that the vast majority of people do know about. Not knowing about Einstein means you're really uninformed.
  - JoeAltmaier 16y ago
    No, Really Uninformed is a whole nother level of ignorance. When pictures of Jupiter from Pioneer 10 were on the front page <\dated myself>, a graduate student in my Engineering school asked me "Jupiter is a planet, right"? Astonished, I answered politely "Yes, its the 5th planet". Then, and this is the good part, she asked "So, is Earth a planet?"
    - daten 16y ago
      Knowing that Jupiter is the 5th planet from the sun is practical knowledge for how many people? edit: (HN wont let me reply again) I understood your point. I think in the context of the article the only irony is you think the technical fact that astronomers label Earth as a "planet" is necessary knowledge for every field of engineering or anyone with an advanced education. Yes, I learned about the solar system in elementary school too but I wouldn't judge someone who didn't. It's not much more useful than trivia to most people. Discussion around another recent article on HN comparing C programming to a carpenter using a hammer demonstrated that even people with computer science degrees and years of experience writing software might no nothing about HTML or SQL.
      - JoeAltmaier 16y ago
        Way to totally miss my point. I guess I wasn't being obvious enough. This highly educated Engineering graduate student didn't know that they lived on a planet. Its ironic.
        RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
        Don't take this the wrong way, but ... > This highly educated Engineering graduate student > didn't know that they lived on a planet. Its ironic. And assuming you're reasonably well educated, and reasonably well informed, and reasonably intelligent, you didn't know, or care, that "its" as you've used it should've had an apostrophe. When you write "Its ironic" the "Its" is an abbreviation of "It is". There are things that just don't matter in people's lives. For many, increasingly, traditionally "correct" usage of the apostrophe is one of them. For others, it is irrelevant that the word "planet" has a technical definition, that Jupiter and the Earth are examples, and Pluto no longer is. Most people don't know that a sizeable proportion of the mass in wood comes from the air, or that the Earth goes round the Sun (in the simplest model of the Solar System) or that Google is not a web browser. These are things removed from people's concerns, irrelevant to them. Before a few years ago I didn't know that Bach pre-dated Beethoven, even though I listened to their music all the time. Why should I care? No doubt I'd be laughed at by the self-declared "cultural" people, and then I'll ask them to quote the second law of thermodynamics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures