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Ulam picked a strange place to stop zooming out. After all, E=mc^2 will be forgotten, too. Even now it is "forgotten" in the sense of not being understood by mo
by javajosh 4y ago
Ulam picked a strange place to stop zooming out. After all, E=mc^2 will be forgotten, too. Even now it is "forgotten" in the sense of not being understood by most of humanity. There is no static human achievement (scientific, artistic, or political) that survives into Deep Time. Consider that our most durable artifacts are the religious ones - some humans truly believe them to be otherworldly and precious beyond measure. Yet even those artifacts eventually get lost in the couch cushions and forgotten. Science text books will fair worse, in the long run.
- jart 4y agoYou talk about E=mc^2 like it was some kind of Mayan idol waiting for Indian Jones to uncover. In a way I guess that's true. But Einstein wasn't the one who placed it there, so if the knowledge is forgotten then that just means someone else will eventually get the thrill of discovery.
- bombcar 4y agoIt’s less that it gets forgotten and more that it’s not really useful to the vast majority of people. Most people who “know” E=mc² have zero use for it. But something like geometry has practical applications that continue even if people don’t know it by that name (most builders know the 3-4-5 triangle right angle trick, for example).