3 ms·

The discovery of blackholes was not done by any kind of experiment. Leibniz and Newton's invention of calculus was likewise not a matter of experiment. Evoluti

The discovery of blackholes was not done by any kind of experiment. Leibniz and Newton's invention of calculus was likewise not a matter of experiment. Evolution is more debatable, it seems that Darwin's voyages of discovery were certainly an important part of his thinking. Still, it happened ~200 years after European ocean expeditions really started taking off, so doesn't seem like it was cutting edge experimentation. The evolution of ideas seems like a much more plausible explanation.

roenxi 3y ago
Newton's discovery clearly was a matter of experiment. We don't call them "Newton's Laws" because the person who discovered them liked Newton. The man was a physicist. He was interested in problems like mapping the motion of things like planets. That sort of hobby requires a certain amount of data to be gathered. Leibniz I'm not sure about, but given the timing? There was definitely a lot of interest in basic physics at the time and I bet that was related to his interests, somehow. It isn't a hard set of coincidences to imagine. That was all being fueled by improvements in measuring technology. Evolution of ideas is plausible, but it suggests a remarkably homogeneous intellectual environment in a time where communication was expensive. Economic forces are a lot more likely to me, they scale. What we see in maths is usually one genius can discover a huge amount of stuff very quickly, they don't need to wait for other people to have ideas for them. They just need a little push in what to direct their attention to.
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  Lots of physics experiments are actually thought experiments, they don't require money. The motions of the planets and stars had been largely mapped for more than 50 years or more by the time Newton came up with his novel mathematical description of them. > Evolution of ideas is plausible, but it suggests a remarkably homogeneous intellectual environment in a time where communication was expensive. Science doesn't often advance alone, it requires communication between scientists. And that same communication spreads ideas among those scientists, until they build a common understanding.
  - roenxi 3y ago
    > Lots of physics experiments are actually thought experiments It is impossible to do physics by thought experiments. There are an infinite number of logically consistent mathematical models of universes out there, only a small subset of them match up reasonably well to the one we exist in. Science requires experiment. It doesn't have to be the same person doing the experimenter and interpreting the results, true enough, but the interpreter is still bottlenecked by data collection. > Science doesn't often advance alone, it requires communication between scientists No it doesn't. The whole point of this thread is that science often advances in parallel with no communication between scientists. Once the raw data has been collected - which is an economic issue - or conditions arise where a new problem needs to be solved - also economics - then it is a relatively short matter of time until someone comes up with a compelling theory. One very bright scientist can often exhaust a big chunk of what can be deduced from the currently collected data. And the implication of this is every time there is an economic advance in the cost of data collection there will be a big boom in scientific understanding. People rediscover calculus to this day, every so often we all get a laugh because some very bright doctor figures out he can sum rectangles under a curve. The only limiting factor is whether people realise that they need to describe curves, areas and tangents precisely.
    - GTP 3y ago
      > It is impossible to do physics by thought experiments. Thought experiments are an important tool used by many brilliant physicists when it is not possible to carry an actual experiment yet. Their usefulness is in the opposite of what you say: sure, they can't prove a teory correct, but they can point out potential problems by finding contradictions. As an example, here you can find a famous and very important thought experiment in the field of thermodynamics: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon
    - throwaway8877 3y ago
      > It is impossible to do physics by thought experiments. Tell that to Einstein.
    - mannykannot 3y ago
- ioblomov 3y ago
  Johannes Kepler was effectively Newton’s experimentalist. His detailed observations of the planetary orbits led him to formulate equations of motion that Newton later explained as the dynamics of force, mass, acceleration, etc.
ben_w 3y ago
I visited the Whipple Museum of the History of Science in Cambridge last month; from their display, I think Darwin and Wallace were limited by the instruments rather than their transportation. Microscopes were very expensive back then, and Darwin at least felt he had to prove his worth as a scientist using his microscope before being taken seriously about anything else.
- ioblomov 3y ago
  It wasn’t microscopes so much as detailed and thoughtful observation of macro phenomena—fossil and living specimens from around the world—that sparked the theory of speciation from natural selection. That is, it was noting the morphological, as opposed to cellular, differences and similarities among closely related species—and realizing that environmental factors drove them—that led to understanding. Microscopes were invented in the 1600s and cell biology as a discipline began soon after. But the dynamics of speciation were perhaps too grand to have been noted in the minutiae of slides. And it would not be for almost another century after Darwin till we understood that the mechanics of evolution were driven by random mutations of DNA.
Cacti 3y ago
nonetheless, most major advances require the invention of a new measuring device _before_ the ideas become real, this has largely been based on economic development. You can pretend the world is filled with tiny creatures all day long, but until you can see them with a microscope, it’s just an imaginative idea, not science.
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  That is true today, but the majority of physical theories up to, say, Maxwell or so could have been discovered and verified with nothing more complex than your eyes, a well-measured distance and a decent hourglass. And they were discovered with that + the early telescopes, nothing more complex than that.

roenxi 3y ago

Newton's discovery clearly was a matter of experiment. We don't call them "Newton's Laws" because the person who discovered them liked Newton. The man was a physicist. He was interested in problems like mapping the motion of things like planets. That sort of hobby requires a certain amount of data to be gathered. Leibniz I'm not sure about, but given the timing? There was definitely a lot of interest in basic physics at the time and I bet that was related to his interests, somehow. It isn't a hard set of coincidences to imagine. That was all being fueled by improvements in measuring technology. Evolution of ideas is plausible, but it suggests a remarkably homogeneous intellectual environment in a time where communication was expensive. Economic forces are a lot more likely to me, they scale. What we see in maths is usually one genius can discover a huge amount of stuff very quickly, they don't need to wait for other people to have ideas for them. They just need a little push in what to direct their attention to.

tsimionescu 3y ago
Lots of physics experiments are actually thought experiments, they don't require money. The motions of the planets and stars had been largely mapped for more than 50 years or more by the time Newton came up with his novel mathematical description of them. > Evolution of ideas is plausible, but it suggests a remarkably homogeneous intellectual environment in a time where communication was expensive. Science doesn't often advance alone, it requires communication between scientists. And that same communication spreads ideas among those scientists, until they build a common understanding.
- roenxi 3y ago
  > Lots of physics experiments are actually thought experiments It is impossible to do physics by thought experiments. There are an infinite number of logically consistent mathematical models of universes out there, only a small subset of them match up reasonably well to the one we exist in. Science requires experiment. It doesn't have to be the same person doing the experimenter and interpreting the results, true enough, but the interpreter is still bottlenecked by data collection. > Science doesn't often advance alone, it requires communication between scientists No it doesn't. The whole point of this thread is that science often advances in parallel with no communication between scientists. Once the raw data has been collected - which is an economic issue - or conditions arise where a new problem needs to be solved - also economics - then it is a relatively short matter of time until someone comes up with a compelling theory. One very bright scientist can often exhaust a big chunk of what can be deduced from the currently collected data. And the implication of this is every time there is an economic advance in the cost of data collection there will be a big boom in scientific understanding. People rediscover calculus to this day, every so often we all get a laugh because some very bright doctor figures out he can sum rectangles under a curve. The only limiting factor is whether people realise that they need to describe curves, areas and tangents precisely.
  - GTP 3y ago
    > It is impossible to do physics by thought experiments. Thought experiments are an important tool used by many brilliant physicists when it is not possible to carry an actual experiment yet. Their usefulness is in the opposite of what you say: sure, they can't prove a teory correct, but they can point out potential problems by finding contradictions. As an example, here you can find a famous and very important thought experiment in the field of thermodynamics: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon
  - throwaway8877 3y ago
    > It is impossible to do physics by thought experiments. Tell that to Einstein.
  - mannykannot 3y ago
ioblomov 3y ago
Johannes Kepler was effectively Newton’s experimentalist. His detailed observations of the planetary orbits led him to formulate equations of motion that Newton later explained as the dynamics of force, mass, acceleration, etc.

ben_w 3y ago

I visited the Whipple Museum of the History of Science in Cambridge last month; from their display, I think Darwin and Wallace were limited by the instruments rather than their transportation. Microscopes were very expensive back then, and Darwin at least felt he had to prove his worth as a scientist using his microscope before being taken seriously about anything else.

ioblomov 3y ago
It wasn’t microscopes so much as detailed and thoughtful observation of macro phenomena—fossil and living specimens from around the world—that sparked the theory of speciation from natural selection. That is, it was noting the morphological, as opposed to cellular, differences and similarities among closely related species—and realizing that environmental factors drove them—that led to understanding. Microscopes were invented in the 1600s and cell biology as a discipline began soon after. But the dynamics of speciation were perhaps too grand to have been noted in the minutiae of slides. And it would not be for almost another century after Darwin till we understood that the mechanics of evolution were driven by random mutations of DNA.

Cacti 3y ago

nonetheless, most major advances require the invention of a new measuring device _before_ the ideas become real, this has largely been based on economic development. You can pretend the world is filled with tiny creatures all day long, but until you can see them with a microscope, it’s just an imaginative idea, not science.

tsimionescu 3y ago
That is true today, but the majority of physical theories up to, say, Maxwell or so could have been discovered and verified with nothing more complex than your eyes, a well-measured distance and a decent hourglass. And they were discovered with that + the early telescopes, nothing more complex than that.