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> Why do so many smart people fail to discover anything new? We live in a world were so much has been discovered already by the smart people before us. There

> Why do so many smart people fail to discover anything new? We live in a world were so much has been discovered already by the smart people before us. There isn't anymore low hanging fruit today, discovering novel things likely involves spending your early adulthood learning all the things our smart ancestors discovered as a primer to being able to understand what's left to discover. Most of us will need to be happy with merely understanding what has already been discovered. And realize that, for every Newton or Euler of the word, there were billions of people that history forgot.

egfx 5y ago
>There isn't anymore low hanging fruit today, discovering novel things likely involves spending your early adulthood learning all the things our smart ancestors discovered as a primer to being able to understand what's left to discover. Just the opposite. Discovery happens when your confined and forced to discover (be creative) to survive and evolve. If your learning from everyone before your not discovering anything, your just repeating history.
- mywittyname 5y ago
  What I'm getting at is, if you want to expand humanities understanding of physics, you first need to spend six or so years learning everything that humanity already knows about physics. After that, you can spend a few years doing research or designing experiments -- usually alongside someone whose dedicated their life to the field -- which will then, hopefully, culminate in your tiny little contribution to the knowledge of humanity. But, even just 150 years ago, you could have made multiple ground-breaking contributions to the world of science, or even developed entire fields of study.
  - pathsjs 5y ago
    Good luck learning everything that humanity knows about physics in six years! :-) Luckily, you don't really need to do that before starting research

egfx 5y ago

>There isn't anymore low hanging fruit today, discovering novel things likely involves spending your early adulthood learning all the things our smart ancestors discovered as a primer to being able to understand what's left to discover. Just the opposite. Discovery happens when your confined and forced to discover (be creative) to survive and evolve. If your learning from everyone before your not discovering anything, your just repeating history.

mywittyname 5y ago
What I'm getting at is, if you want to expand humanities understanding of physics, you first need to spend six or so years learning everything that humanity already knows about physics. After that, you can spend a few years doing research or designing experiments -- usually alongside someone whose dedicated their life to the field -- which will then, hopefully, culminate in your tiny little contribution to the knowledge of humanity. But, even just 150 years ago, you could have made multiple ground-breaking contributions to the world of science, or even developed entire fields of study.
- pathsjs 5y ago
  Good luck learning everything that humanity knows about physics in six years! :-) Luckily, you don't really need to do that before starting research