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You know that Newton didn't "discover gravity," right? He discovered how it explained planetary motion. And it's not fair to start the clock before we got the

You know that Newton didn't "discover gravity," right? He discovered how it explained planetary motion. And it's not fair to start the clock before we got the heliocentric theory (although Aristarchus of Samos gets an honorable mention).

wolverine876 5y ago
As I said, I'm simplifying a great deal. I imagine people before Newton noticed that if you don't hold things up, they fall.
- david927 5y ago
  > Our ancestors 200,000 years ago when our first ancestors had the brains to figure it out. Newton had to invent calculus to make the proof. You're not simplifying anything; you just got confused. And that's ok, honestly. There is literally not a person on this planet, now or ever, who didn't have holes in their knowledge or had something confused. It happens.
  - hutzlibu 5y ago
    Come on, you know what he meant. Newton was the first to discover the laws of gravity, even though we still do not understand how gravity works and even though primitive animals can "discover" gravity.
    - david927 5y ago
      What he said: not so fast if you start it 200,000 years ago when our first ancestors had the brains to figure it out. What I said: what Newton formulated was not “things fall down”. And you’re taking the time to correct.. me?
      - Talanes 5y ago
        The tone implies that you think the first statement is wrong in some way, but it's still not clear why. Their comment was bring it back around to the original topic of the thread: the entire scope of homo sapiens sapiens existence and how long it took us to figure things out in relation to that. You're trying to limit the scope to just the time period where the rest of the necessary knowledge had been discovered, while everyone else is counting the discovery of that background knowledge as part of the process.
- Igelau 5y ago
  Babies like to play that game where they'll drop a spoon or something from their highchair as many times as you'll keep handing it to them. I like to call this "gravity testing".
  - Digit-Al 5y ago
    Most parents like to call it "patience testing" :-)
Telemakhos 5y ago
The Orphics had a heliocentric model of the universe before Aristarchus; in fact, the Derveni Papyrus, one of the oldest witnesses to Orphic thought, is actually a commentary on Orphic literature that interprets it all as physical allegory. Only Dionysus knows where the Orphics got that stuff, along with what we now call astrology: from the Phoenicians perhaps? Someone synthesizing Babylonian and Egyptian observations?

wolverine876 5y ago

As I said, I'm simplifying a great deal. I imagine people before Newton noticed that if you don't hold things up, they fall.

david927 5y ago
> Our ancestors 200,000 years ago when our first ancestors had the brains to figure it out. Newton had to invent calculus to make the proof. You're not simplifying anything; you just got confused. And that's ok, honestly. There is literally not a person on this planet, now or ever, who didn't have holes in their knowledge or had something confused. It happens.
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  Come on, you know what he meant. Newton was the first to discover the laws of gravity, even though we still do not understand how gravity works and even though primitive animals can "discover" gravity.
  - david927 5y ago
    What he said: not so fast if you start it 200,000 years ago when our first ancestors had the brains to figure it out. What I said: what Newton formulated was not “things fall down”. And you’re taking the time to correct.. me?
    - Talanes 5y ago
      The tone implies that you think the first statement is wrong in some way, but it's still not clear why. Their comment was bring it back around to the original topic of the thread: the entire scope of homo sapiens sapiens existence and how long it took us to figure things out in relation to that. You're trying to limit the scope to just the time period where the rest of the necessary knowledge had been discovered, while everyone else is counting the discovery of that background knowledge as part of the process.
Igelau 5y ago
Babies like to play that game where they'll drop a spoon or something from their highchair as many times as you'll keep handing it to them. I like to call this "gravity testing".
- Digit-Al 5y ago
  Most parents like to call it "patience testing" :-)

Telemakhos 5y ago

The Orphics had a heliocentric model of the universe before Aristarchus; in fact, the Derveni Papyrus, one of the oldest witnesses to Orphic thought, is actually a commentary on Orphic literature that interprets it all as physical allegory. Only Dionysus knows where the Orphics got that stuff, along with what we now call astrology: from the Phoenicians perhaps? Someone synthesizing Babylonian and Egyptian observations?