4 ms·

So why didn't that occur much earlier in history?

Haga 4y ago
[dead]
anovikov 4y ago
Because there was no way to make money on it. Before the Age of Discovery, there wasn't much money in being able to find out one's coordinates in the open sea - and Age of Discovery only started because a long, grinding war to liberate Spain and Portugal from Muslims had to finish first to provide both economic base for seafaring, and safety of sailing too. And maths mainly developed for the goal of improving navigation.
- Turing_Machine 4y ago
  I don't think either Newton or Leibniz was primarily motivated by money. Far from it, in fact.
  - Qem 4y ago
    IIRC the money motivation for Newton made him pursue alchemy, that didn't lead anywhere and just wasted time that would be more fruitful if applied to calculus and physics.
    - jhanschoo 4y ago
      > made him pursue alchemy, that didn't lead anywhere and just wasted time that would be more fruitful You wouldn't have known in Newton's time if alchemical transmutation into gold worked. Certainly, you knew then that some substances could be transformed into other substances, and it was such research that developed into modern high-school chemistry.
  - junofan 4y ago
    Newton was Master of the Royal Mint for something like 30 years and put people to death for clipping coins. He spent decades trying to manufacture gold. I would say money was a very big motivator. Don’t know about Leibniz.
    - Turing_Machine 4y ago
      That wasn't his money, though. He apparently received a salary between £500 and £600 per year, While that was a lot more money than it is now, an inflation calculator at the Bank of England suggests that it was the equivalent of around £43,000 today (around $US53,000 at today's exchange rate). Not starvation wages, certainly, but neither was it vast riches.
      - junofan 4y ago
        He received a percentage of metal minted on top of that salary and died wealthy.
- anovikov 4y ago
  Ironically, eventual solution to the problem of navigation required no math at all.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
atoav 4y ago
You are looking at this the wrong way. It might have occured much earlier in history, but only after the invention of industrialized book-printing could that knowledge be actually be transfered between different geographies and generations in an efficient way. Book-printing presses have been one of the most influential inventions ever for precisely that reason.
- chii 4y ago
  And for precisely the same reason, the internet is now the most influential invention today. The fact that knowledge is available at a click of your finger tips is astounding. After all, the only thing differentiating humans from animals is the way humans can encode and transmit knowledge beyond their own life times. I would imagine the next biggest influential invention is AGI.
- harvey9 4y ago
  You miss my point. If human society had developed earlier then we would have had the book printing earlier too.
peterfirefly 4y ago
Some of it kinda did (Archimedes + a long line of mathematicians up to at least Fermat). So why not earlier? Because the others didn't have Fermat to learn from.
JKCalhoun 4y ago
I thought the point was made with the comment about the "zeitgeist" (although the word is misused a bit in this context). In as much as things build upon other things, you were not likely to get Calculus before, say, Algebra. But once all the pieces are in place the field is wide open for the smart people of the time to plunder it.
- defrost 4y ago
  Words are there to be abused :-) Or at least bent to purpose, in this case the narrow zeitgeist of the 17th Century European numerate intellectuals .. those were the days of very slow limited copy exchanges of the latest thoughts by mail and by word of mouth via salons. Somewhat like Mastodon with the bandwidth of a hikers backpack full of parchment.

Haga 4y ago

[dead]

Because there was no way to make money on it. Before the Age of Discovery, there wasn't much money in being able to find out one's coordinates in the open sea - and Age of Discovery only started because a long, grinding war to liberate Spain and Portugal from Muslims had to finish first to provide both economic base for seafaring, and safety of sailing too. And maths mainly developed for the goal of improving navigation.

Turing_Machine 4y ago
I don't think either Newton or Leibniz was primarily motivated by money. Far from it, in fact.
- Qem 4y ago
  IIRC the money motivation for Newton made him pursue alchemy, that didn't lead anywhere and just wasted time that would be more fruitful if applied to calculus and physics.
  - jhanschoo 4y ago
    > made him pursue alchemy, that didn't lead anywhere and just wasted time that would be more fruitful You wouldn't have known in Newton's time if alchemical transmutation into gold worked. Certainly, you knew then that some substances could be transformed into other substances, and it was such research that developed into modern high-school chemistry.
- junofan 4y ago
  Newton was Master of the Royal Mint for something like 30 years and put people to death for clipping coins. He spent decades trying to manufacture gold. I would say money was a very big motivator. Don’t know about Leibniz.
  - Turing_Machine 4y ago
    That wasn't his money, though. He apparently received a salary between £500 and £600 per year, While that was a lot more money than it is now, an inflation calculator at the Bank of England suggests that it was the equivalent of around £43,000 today (around $US53,000 at today's exchange rate). Not starvation wages, certainly, but neither was it vast riches.
    - junofan 4y ago
      He received a percentage of metal minted on top of that salary and died wealthy.
anovikov 4y ago
Ironically, eventual solution to the problem of navigation required no math at all.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

atoav 4y ago

You are looking at this the wrong way. It might have occured much earlier in history, but only after the invention of industrialized book-printing could that knowledge be actually be transfered between different geographies and generations in an efficient way. Book-printing presses have been one of the most influential inventions ever for precisely that reason.

chii 4y ago
And for precisely the same reason, the internet is now the most influential invention today. The fact that knowledge is available at a click of your finger tips is astounding. After all, the only thing differentiating humans from animals is the way humans can encode and transmit knowledge beyond their own life times. I would imagine the next biggest influential invention is AGI.
harvey9 4y ago
You miss my point. If human society had developed earlier then we would have had the book printing earlier too.

peterfirefly 4y ago

Some of it kinda did (Archimedes + a long line of mathematicians up to at least Fermat). So why not earlier? Because the others didn't have Fermat to learn from.

JKCalhoun 4y ago

I thought the point was made with the comment about the "zeitgeist" (although the word is misused a bit in this context). In as much as things build upon other things, you were not likely to get Calculus before, say, Algebra. But once all the pieces are in place the field is wide open for the smart people of the time to plunder it.

defrost 4y ago
Words are there to be abused :-) Or at least bent to purpose, in this case the narrow zeitgeist of the 17th Century European numerate intellectuals .. those were the days of very slow limited copy exchanges of the latest thoughts by mail and by word of mouth via salons. Somewhat like Mastodon with the bandwidth of a hikers backpack full of parchment.