4 ms·

Newton has been an inspiration. There was a famous quote by him that always stuck by me: "If others would think as hard as I did, then they would get similar re

by akg 15y ago

Newton has been an inspiration. There was a famous quote by him that always stuck by me: "If others would think as hard as I did, then they would get similar results."

gruseom 15y ago
I highly doubt Newton said that. That's a modern, post-romantic way of thinking. Moreover, it would have been hugely impolite in the 17th century.
- _delirium 15y ago
  As far as I can tell, ~100% of the (many) references to that quote can be traced to Richard Hamming's 1986 lecture, "You And Your Research" (http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html), which includes that quote and attributes it to Newton (but without a specific citation). I'd be curious where Hamming got it from, since I'm not able to find either that exact quote or anything similar quoted by anybody pre-1986 (even as an apocryphal/uncited quote), at least from some brief Google Books and Lexis-Nexis digging.
  - gruseom 15y ago
    Good digging. Hamming doesn't seem the kind of guy who would just make that up. Perhaps it's a paraphrase of something Newton did say.
- ajax77 15y ago
  You highly doubt a revolutionary figure said a radical thing because it would have been considered impolite/revolutionary/radical? Newton was in a world of his own; he, along with a few select others (Lock, Descartes and others), are in large part responsible for the Enlightenment. The very Enlightenment this statement characterizes so well. Even if he didn't say it (I cannot find the source, but I have read this quote a number of times in various papers), it is very much the kind of statement he would make.
  - keithpeter 15y ago
    Newton was a strange mix of the modern and the ancient. Remember that he devoted most of his working life to compiling a chronology of the old Testament and to summarising various alchemical works. See Westfall's biography Never at Rest.
  - gruseom 15y ago
    No, it isn't, for the same reason Newton didn't wear his hair like Elvis. No one invents his own culture. This has nothing to do with how radical Newton's ideas were or how great a genius he was. It has to do with what cultural forms existed at the time. You have to get to figures like Byron before this kind of statement makes sense (and my bet is that this one comes from later even than that). However, I'm no scholar of the 17th century. Prove me wrong. If Newton said something that sensational, it won't be hard to track down. I didn't search for it like I usually do before making these claims, so your job should be easy.
    - ajax77 15y ago
      Hard work as a means to success is hardly a post-romantic invention. Newton was very much a student of Aristotle, the teachings of whom we can see very much aligned with the statement in question. In that light, would you also doubt these verified Newtonian quotes that suggest similar thinking? "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants." "Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things." "If I am anything, which I highly doubt, I have made myself so by hard work."
      - gruseom 15y ago
        The first quote is proverbial, and Newton certainly said it, but the phrase dates from the 12th century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_giants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_gi...) and is not part of Enlightenment tradition. Quite the opposite, in fact: it comes from the medieval tradition of abasing yourself before the ancients. So no, it doesn't resemble the disputed quote at all. The second is not familiar to me, but it is 17th century language and does sound like something Newton would say. But it's irrelevant here. He's talking about nature, not himself. The third is much closer to the disputed quote. But I don't believe Newton said this either. You know who said things like that? Horatio Alger. So let's see a textual source in Newton's works before accepting it as evidence. Here's a helpful trick. When you Google a quote and the first page consists entirely of junk like this: http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&source=hp&q=%22If+I+am+anything%2C+which+I+highly+doubt%22 http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&source=h... ... that's a sign that the quote is bogus.

by akg 15y ago

Newton has been an inspiration. There was a famous quote by him that always stuck by me: "If others would think as hard as I did, then they would get similar results."

gruseom 15y ago

I highly doubt Newton said that. That's a modern, post-romantic way of thinking. Moreover, it would have been hugely impolite in the 17th century.

_delirium 15y ago
As far as I can tell, ~100% of the (many) references to that quote can be traced to Richard Hamming's 1986 lecture, "You And Your Research" (http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html), which includes that quote and attributes it to Newton (but without a specific citation). I'd be curious where Hamming got it from, since I'm not able to find either that exact quote or anything similar quoted by anybody pre-1986 (even as an apocryphal/uncited quote), at least from some brief Google Books and Lexis-Nexis digging.
- gruseom 15y ago
  Good digging. Hamming doesn't seem the kind of guy who would just make that up. Perhaps it's a paraphrase of something Newton did say.
ajax77 15y ago
You highly doubt a revolutionary figure said a radical thing because it would have been considered impolite/revolutionary/radical? Newton was in a world of his own; he, along with a few select others (Lock, Descartes and others), are in large part responsible for the Enlightenment. The very Enlightenment this statement characterizes so well. Even if he didn't say it (I cannot find the source, but I have read this quote a number of times in various papers), it is very much the kind of statement he would make.
- keithpeter 15y ago
  Newton was a strange mix of the modern and the ancient. Remember that he devoted most of his working life to compiling a chronology of the old Testament and to summarising various alchemical works. See Westfall's biography Never at Rest.
- gruseom 15y ago
  No, it isn't, for the same reason Newton didn't wear his hair like Elvis. No one invents his own culture. This has nothing to do with how radical Newton's ideas were or how great a genius he was. It has to do with what cultural forms existed at the time. You have to get to figures like Byron before this kind of statement makes sense (and my bet is that this one comes from later even than that). However, I'm no scholar of the 17th century. Prove me wrong. If Newton said something that sensational, it won't be hard to track down. I didn't search for it like I usually do before making these claims, so your job should be easy.
  - ajax77 15y ago
    Hard work as a means to success is hardly a post-romantic invention. Newton was very much a student of Aristotle, the teachings of whom we can see very much aligned with the statement in question. In that light, would you also doubt these verified Newtonian quotes that suggest similar thinking? "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants." "Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things." "If I am anything, which I highly doubt, I have made myself so by hard work."
    - gruseom 15y ago
      The first quote is proverbial, and Newton certainly said it, but the phrase dates from the 12th century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_giants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_gi...) and is not part of Enlightenment tradition. Quite the opposite, in fact: it comes from the medieval tradition of abasing yourself before the ancients. So no, it doesn't resemble the disputed quote at all. The second is not familiar to me, but it is 17th century language and does sound like something Newton would say. But it's irrelevant here. He's talking about nature, not himself. The third is much closer to the disputed quote. But I don't believe Newton said this either. You know who said things like that? Horatio Alger. So let's see a textual source in Newton's works before accepting it as evidence. Here's a helpful trick. When you Google a quote and the first page consists entirely of junk like this: http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&source=hp&q=%22If+I+am+anything%2C+which+I+highly+doubt%22 http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&source=h... ... that's a sign that the quote is bogus.