4 ms·
Same as it ever was, I think. It's just that when you look back in retrospect, you spend all the time talking about the paths that turned out to be successful.
by ertian 3y ago
Same as it ever was, I think. It's just that when you look back in retrospect, you spend all the time talking about the paths that turned out to be successful. The history of science is littered with now-forgotten theories that, in their day, dominated their fields.
- int_19h 3y agoTextbooks and encyclopedias on physics that I'm familiar with do go there, though. I distinctly recall reading a lot about the fight between proponents of light-as-particles vs light-as-waves (and various experiments along the way that moved consensus), including various aether theories. Or, say, how the model of the atom evolved from simplistic solar-system-like stuff to probabilistic electron clouds etc. Even in middle school textbooks there was discussion of the originally dominant theories of gravity ("heavier things fall faster" etc) and how they were disproven. I'm not a science historian, and it may well be that various important details there were wrong, but nevertheless you did get a very clear impression that scientific progress involves a lot of loops, detours, and dead-ends.