4 ms·

The really mad thing is that while you say it's centuries of abstract thinking and the like, it was only 50 years between the discovery of X-rays and radiation

The really mad thing is that while you say it's centuries of abstract thinking and the like, it was only 50 years between the discovery of X-rays and radiation and the first atom bomb, or 40 between the first idea that you could use fission to make a bomb. Neutrons and the nuclear chain reaction was only theorized in the 30's, about 10-15 years before the first nuclear bomb was detonated. But likewise, there was only a few decades between the first airplane and the first person on the moon (although rocketry goes back hundreds of years. Actually TIL rocketry is older than Newton's laws of physics)

chii 5mo ago
as an example, complex numbers were from the abstract thinking of centuries ago, on which the modern physics derive much value from.
atomicnumber3 5mo ago
It's funny to me to imagine that the whole time humans were doing basically anything on this planet, nuclear fission was also already happening in a few places around the world. I wonder how much science would've been jump-started if we'd found any of the natural nuclear reactors prior to having figured fission out already.
sib 5mo ago
While rocketry is older than Newton, even in 1920, it was widely believed that rockets would not work in space (and therefore couldn't get us to the moon). https://www.astronomy.com/today-in-the-history-of-astronomy/jan-13-1920-the-new-york-times-doubts-spaceflight/ https://www.astronomy.com/today-in-the-history-of-astronomy/... Luckily, the Times did issue a correction - almost 50 years later, on July 17, 1969. The day after NASA launched the first mission to the moon.
ThrowawayR2 5mo ago
That was one of the secondary points of James Burke's Connections documentary (the primary being the "technology trap"). Scientific discovery begets more scientific discoveries in unpredictable ways because of connections between STEM fields in an ever accelerating chain reaction.

chii 5mo ago

as an example, complex numbers were from the abstract thinking of centuries ago, on which the modern physics derive much value from.

atomicnumber3 5mo ago

It's funny to me to imagine that the whole time humans were doing basically anything on this planet, nuclear fission was also already happening in a few places around the world. I wonder how much science would've been jump-started if we'd found any of the natural nuclear reactors prior to having figured fission out already.

sib 5mo ago

While rocketry is older than Newton, even in 1920, it was widely believed that rockets would not work in space (and therefore couldn't get us to the moon). https://www.astronomy.com/today-in-the-history-of-astronomy/jan-13-1920-the-new-york-times-doubts-spaceflight/ https://www.astronomy.com/today-in-the-history-of-astronomy/... Luckily, the Times did issue a correction - almost 50 years later, on July 17, 1969. The day after NASA launched the first mission to the moon.

ThrowawayR2 5mo ago

That was one of the secondary points of James Burke's Connections documentary (the primary being the "technology trap"). Scientific discovery begets more scientific discoveries in unpredictable ways because of connections between STEM fields in an ever accelerating chain reaction.