4 ms·

Never heard of any of them until now, looks phenomenonal work that I don't even understand lol. I just had a morbid though related to this. It's interesting how

by frontman1988 4y ago

Never heard of any of them until now, looks phenomenonal work that I don't even understand lol. I just had a morbid though related to this. It's interesting how even the best of the scientists of our times will just be forgotten names in the long term history. Even among the greatest scientists only a few names like Einstein, Tesla or Newton remain in public memory, rest are never even known. If you want history to remember you, being even the best scientist in the world isn't enough. Shows how inconsequential the average man is in the big picture.

sixQuarks 4y ago
If you want to be remembered in history, it’s much easier to be a mediocre sports athlete than to be the best scientist who actually helps humanity. We are a ridiculously stupid species
- Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
  >We are a ridiculously stupid species Can you explain what you mean by this?
  - zethus 4y ago
    Not the OP of the comment, but seemingly a common point of view that the most noble (and in some cases only valid?) pursuit of the human species is science/technology. I do find it interesting of the comparison between "mediocre sports athlete" and "best scientist" from the lens of aid to humanity. One could make an equally valid argument that a mediocre sports athlete brings more immediate utility to people in terms of entertainment, inspired hope, economic spend. In short, value is relative. Being a mediocre professional athlete is still a tremendous achievement. If your goal is to be remembered, you must appeal to the masses. Doesn't mean our species is stupid, it just means we are social.
    - sixQuarks 4y ago
      No, the point of my comment was that most humans appreciate and remember the guy who doesn’t give two shits about them, would rather spend their money on bling and mansions, while the scientist who actually helps humanity tremendously is not even noticed.
      - toombowoombo 4y ago
        Do all scientists create with the goal of helping humanity tho? I get the impression that knowledge for the sake of knowledge can be common too and that the practical applications can be a convenient, but unintended side-effect.
- seydor 4y ago
  Not true really; name an athlete from the 1400s.
  - leoc 4y ago
    I can name a pro athlete from the 1100s and 1200s, at least: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Marshal,_1st_Earl_of_Pembroke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Marshal,_1st_Earl_of_P... ! Not disputing your point though.
- sonofaragorn 4y ago
  it's even easier to do somethign atrocious like being a serial killer
- bumby 4y ago
  Or maybe what's stupid is to set a goal to be remembered in history in the first place :)
  - Arrath 4y ago
    Agreed. I'm not too concerned with being remembered by history or not, I am content in having chosen to do good with my time here.
- asdff 4y ago
  Who you are remembered by is the context. A lot of people like keeping up with sports so thats why they know this trivia. OTOH scientists in field X will know of all the seminal work in their field. You can make a big impact in the field and be totally unknown outside of it, most scientists probably prefer it that way.
Whatboard 4y ago
Relatability. Pretty difficult to be memorialized if the average person cannot understand or identify with your work. Perhaps we can either be more forgiving of the burdens and limitations the average person carries, so far removed from quantum effects and scientific prizes.
xwolfi 4y ago
Aspect is semi famous in France, does a lot of conferences on his early work introducing quirky experiments showing unintuitive behaviours of quantum physics (present interactions can influence past "path" (there is no actual path until final collapse but the choice could only have been made before the observation... however the observation was random so how did the particule "know") taken by a wave-particule, I wished there were more english translation of his conferences cause it's mind bending)
- kgwgk 4y ago
  For those interested in following a Quantum Optics course of his: https://www.coursera.org/instructor/~6471336 https://www.coursera.org/instructor/~6471336
kronix 4y ago
Well you're remembered for having an immense impact for generations to come, not necessarily winning an award. Einstein is remembered for transforming physics, not winning the Nobel. Just like MLK is remembered for the civil rights movement not winning the Nobel peace prize.
- pyuser583 4y ago
  Some folks are remembered just for the Nobel. Elias Canetti comes to mind - his only meaningful work was non-fiction, and therefore didn’t qualify. Winston Churchill is the similar … remembered as a political leader, but won the Nobel in Literature, not Peace. Einsteins Nobel was for Brownian motion, which isn’t what pops to mind when you think “Einstein.”
  - kgwgk 4y ago
    > Einsteins Nobel was for Brownian motion "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect"
bumby 4y ago
Oliver Burkeman created a term called "Cosmic Insignificance Therapy" that is related to this realization. "…it comes as a relief to be reminded of your insignificance: it’s the feeling of realizing that you’d been holding yourself, all this time, to standards you couldn’t reasonably be expected to meet. And this realization isn’t merely calming but liberating, because once you’re no longer burdened by such an unrealistic definition of a “life well spent,” you’re freed to consider the possibility that a far wider variety of things might qualify as meaningful ways to use your finite time. You’re freed, too, to consider the possibility that many of the things you’re already doing with it are more meaningful than you’d supposed—and that until now, you’d subconsciously been devaluing them, on the grounds that they weren’t “significant” enough. (Burkeman 2021, p 212)"
- e12e 4y ago
  Interesting take, and somewhat at odds with Douglas Adams in Hitchhiker's Guide: > The Total Perspective Vortex derives its picture of the whole Universe on the principle of extrapolated matter analyses. > To explain — since every piece of matter in the Universe is in some way affected by every other piece of matter in the Universe, it is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation — every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition and their economic and social history from, say, one small piece of fairy cake. > The man who invented the Total Perspective Vortex did so basically in order to annoy his wife. > Trin Tragula — for that was his name — was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher or, as his wife would have it, an idiot. > And she would nag him incessantly about the utterly inordinate amount of time he spent staring out into space, or mulling over the mechanics of safety pins, or doing spectrographic analyses of pieces of fairy cake. > “Have some sense of proportion!” she would say, sometimes as often as thirty-eight times in a single day. > And so he built the Total Perspective Vortex — just to show her. > And into one end he plugged the whole of reality as extrapolated from a piece of fairy cake, and into the other end he plugged his wife: so that when he turned it on she saw in one instant the whole infinity of creation and herself in relation to it. > To Trin Tragula’s horror, the shock completely annihilated her brain; but to his satisfaction he realized that he had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion. - Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Bhilai 4y ago
This is what I think about a lot since I have read the book Sapiens. Homo Sapiens have been around for 300,000 years and as of today we remember only a handful of names and only from very recent past. Who knows how long our species will exist but one thing is for sure, no one will be remember most of us normies.

sixQuarks 4y ago

If you want to be remembered in history, it’s much easier to be a mediocre sports athlete than to be the best scientist who actually helps humanity. We are a ridiculously stupid species

Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
>We are a ridiculously stupid species Can you explain what you mean by this?
- zethus 4y ago
  Not the OP of the comment, but seemingly a common point of view that the most noble (and in some cases only valid?) pursuit of the human species is science/technology. I do find it interesting of the comparison between "mediocre sports athlete" and "best scientist" from the lens of aid to humanity. One could make an equally valid argument that a mediocre sports athlete brings more immediate utility to people in terms of entertainment, inspired hope, economic spend. In short, value is relative. Being a mediocre professional athlete is still a tremendous achievement. If your goal is to be remembered, you must appeal to the masses. Doesn't mean our species is stupid, it just means we are social.
  - sixQuarks 4y ago
    No, the point of my comment was that most humans appreciate and remember the guy who doesn’t give two shits about them, would rather spend their money on bling and mansions, while the scientist who actually helps humanity tremendously is not even noticed.
    - toombowoombo 4y ago
      Do all scientists create with the goal of helping humanity tho? I get the impression that knowledge for the sake of knowledge can be common too and that the practical applications can be a convenient, but unintended side-effect.
seydor 4y ago
Not true really; name an athlete from the 1400s.
- leoc 4y ago
  I can name a pro athlete from the 1100s and 1200s, at least: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Marshal,_1st_Earl_of_Pembroke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Marshal,_1st_Earl_of_P... ! Not disputing your point though.
sonofaragorn 4y ago
it's even easier to do somethign atrocious like being a serial killer
bumby 4y ago
Or maybe what's stupid is to set a goal to be remembered in history in the first place :)
- Arrath 4y ago
  Agreed. I'm not too concerned with being remembered by history or not, I am content in having chosen to do good with my time here.
asdff 4y ago
Who you are remembered by is the context. A lot of people like keeping up with sports so thats why they know this trivia. OTOH scientists in field X will know of all the seminal work in their field. You can make a big impact in the field and be totally unknown outside of it, most scientists probably prefer it that way.

Whatboard 4y ago

Relatability. Pretty difficult to be memorialized if the average person cannot understand or identify with your work. Perhaps we can either be more forgiving of the burdens and limitations the average person carries, so far removed from quantum effects and scientific prizes.

xwolfi 4y ago

Aspect is semi famous in France, does a lot of conferences on his early work introducing quirky experiments showing unintuitive behaviours of quantum physics (present interactions can influence past "path" (there is no actual path until final collapse but the choice could only have been made before the observation... however the observation was random so how did the particule "know") taken by a wave-particule, I wished there were more english translation of his conferences cause it's mind bending)

kgwgk 4y ago
For those interested in following a Quantum Optics course of his: https://www.coursera.org/instructor/~6471336 https://www.coursera.org/instructor/~6471336

kronix 4y ago

Well you're remembered for having an immense impact for generations to come, not necessarily winning an award. Einstein is remembered for transforming physics, not winning the Nobel. Just like MLK is remembered for the civil rights movement not winning the Nobel peace prize.

pyuser583 4y ago
Some folks are remembered just for the Nobel. Elias Canetti comes to mind - his only meaningful work was non-fiction, and therefore didn’t qualify. Winston Churchill is the similar … remembered as a political leader, but won the Nobel in Literature, not Peace. Einsteins Nobel was for Brownian motion, which isn’t what pops to mind when you think “Einstein.”
- kgwgk 4y ago
  > Einsteins Nobel was for Brownian motion "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect"

bumby 4y ago

Oliver Burkeman created a term called "Cosmic Insignificance Therapy" that is related to this realization. "…it comes as a relief to be reminded of your insignificance: it’s the feeling of realizing that you’d been holding yourself, all this time, to standards you couldn’t reasonably be expected to meet. And this realization isn’t merely calming but liberating, because once you’re no longer burdened by such an unrealistic definition of a “life well spent,” you’re freed to consider the possibility that a far wider variety of things might qualify as meaningful ways to use your finite time. You’re freed, too, to consider the possibility that many of the things you’re already doing with it are more meaningful than you’d supposed—and that until now, you’d subconsciously been devaluing them, on the grounds that they weren’t “significant” enough. (Burkeman 2021, p 212)"

e12e 4y ago
Interesting take, and somewhat at odds with Douglas Adams in Hitchhiker's Guide: > The Total Perspective Vortex derives its picture of the whole Universe on the principle of extrapolated matter analyses. > To explain — since every piece of matter in the Universe is in some way affected by every other piece of matter in the Universe, it is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation — every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition and their economic and social history from, say, one small piece of fairy cake. > The man who invented the Total Perspective Vortex did so basically in order to annoy his wife. > Trin Tragula — for that was his name — was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher or, as his wife would have it, an idiot. > And she would nag him incessantly about the utterly inordinate amount of time he spent staring out into space, or mulling over the mechanics of safety pins, or doing spectrographic analyses of pieces of fairy cake. > “Have some sense of proportion!” she would say, sometimes as often as thirty-eight times in a single day. > And so he built the Total Perspective Vortex — just to show her. > And into one end he plugged the whole of reality as extrapolated from a piece of fairy cake, and into the other end he plugged his wife: so that when he turned it on she saw in one instant the whole infinity of creation and herself in relation to it. > To Trin Tragula’s horror, the shock completely annihilated her brain; but to his satisfaction he realized that he had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion. - Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Bhilai 4y ago

This is what I think about a lot since I have read the book Sapiens. Homo Sapiens have been around for 300,000 years and as of today we remember only a handful of names and only from very recent past. Who knows how long our species will exist but one thing is for sure, no one will be remember most of us normies.