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Physics - Concepts of atom and theory of relativity were explicitly stated by an Indian Philosopher around 600 BC. Looks pretty accurate to me. All the best s

by seiji 13y ago

Physics - Concepts of atom and theory of relativity were explicitly stated by an Indian Philosopher around 600 BC. Looks pretty accurate to me. All the best science comes from philosophers backed by feelings and visions instead of math.

markshepard 13y ago
he he. In fact every group claim that the "ancients" already knew "everything" but we just forgot about it and rediscovering it..
- hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
  That's a stretch, but we can certainly argue that we mostly validate and refine ideas that have been around for a while. After all we have hundreds thousands years of human knowledge, most of it forever gone. It's not like we only started thinking after the Illuminism, or even ancient Greek.
- seiji 13y ago
  Well, The Ancients did know a lot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_(Stargate) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_(Stargate)
  - markshepard 13y ago
    lol . touche!
- maaku 13y ago
  Well the "ancients" did know everything. As do I. No, really, I know every conceivable thing! It's just knowing which things I know are right that's the hangup.. Everyone has hindsight, but few are blessed with foresight :\
jerf 13y ago
Based on that sentence, there is an interpretation that would make that true. The idea that the matter may be discrete rather than continuous is quite old; the word "atom" after all from ancient Greece. Wikipedia also mentions Indian philosophers had the idea. Of course, they never were able to prove that the idea was correct, and a modern educated viewer can not help but bring in the modern view of the atom when they see the word "atom" (protons, quarks, gluons, etc), but the modern view would not match either the Greek or Indian conception. The word choice of "stated" is correct enough; they did not prove, they did not demonstrate, they could not resolve the argument, but the very fundamental root idea was recognized. Similarly, the modern ear hears "relativity" and can't help but think of Einsteinian relativity, but the adjective "Einsteinian" is not redundant as it is not the only idea of relativity. Relativity as a concept also goes back a long way, but it looked more like Galilean relativity (if indeed it was even that formalized, which it probably wasn't), which contains certain contradictions in it which can be determined with pure reasoning, and indeed may have been (see [1]). The summary leads to misleading ideas about what the Indian philosophers really knew/discovered/thought, if for no other reason than there is no way to accurately summarize the ancient ideas in modern words that briefly; it is not clear to me whether the author of the linked web page is himself confused or being deliberately mendacious. [1]: http://mathpages.com/rr/s3-07/3-07.htm http://mathpages.com/rr/s3-07/3-07.htm , and indeed, the entire first half of that book or so. Among this book's many points is that physicists were seriously beginning to consider whether they were going to have to give up on the general idea of relativity until Einstein was able to rescue it.
memracom 13y ago
Problem is that anyone could come up with the concept of the atom, and even relativity is not beyond the bounds of possibility. We are all genetically identical to the earliest Homo Sapiens who left Africa. And the ones who stayed in Africa. Any one of those people who had the fortune to have a life of diverse experience and the spare time needed to think about things, would have discovered any number of supposedly modern things. They might have even written about it 10,000 years ago on parchment or leaves which have long since disappeared. But we have no evidence of any of this, and therefore we claim that it did not happen. That is not a very rational position to take. It should be clear by now that wonderfuly discoveries often happen in parallel in different geographical locations. Sometimes they are almost forgotten for generations until a historian discovers old documents. There is no good reason to believe that this kind of thing has been going on since Homo Sapiens first came to be. The only real advantage that we have today is the law of large numbers and the network effect.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > Problem is that anyone could come up with the concept of the atom, and even relativity is not beyond the bounds of possibility. We are all genetically identical to the earliest Homo Sapiens who left Africa. And the ones who stayed in Africa. The last sentence is manifestly not true (we're not even genetically identical to each other, much less all of us to the earliest example of H. Sapiens, or even the earliest examples of H. Sapiens sapiens.) And even if it was, the first doesn't follow from it: intellectual capacity may have an upper bound set by genetics, but realizing it is more than genetics, its environment starting in the vary early environment. And nutrition is, manifestly, a big part of that. > The only real advantage that we have today is the law of large numbers and the network effect. And lots of other things; to name just one key one, the adoption of the scientific method which does a lot to help identify the useful ideas from the attractive-but-useless ones. Even if we were no better at thinking up ideas, we are a lot better at validating ideas, and its not just through numbers, its through approach. Because of an idea that was thought up, and widely adopted.

by seiji 13y ago

markshepard 13y ago

he he. In fact every group claim that the "ancients" already knew "everything" but we just forgot about it and rediscovering it..

hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
That's a stretch, but we can certainly argue that we mostly validate and refine ideas that have been around for a while. After all we have hundreds thousands years of human knowledge, most of it forever gone. It's not like we only started thinking after the Illuminism, or even ancient Greek.
seiji 13y ago
Well, The Ancients did know a lot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_(Stargate) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_(Stargate)
- markshepard 13y ago
  lol . touche!
maaku 13y ago
Well the "ancients" did know everything. As do I. No, really, I know every conceivable thing! It's just knowing which things I know are right that's the hangup.. Everyone has hindsight, but few are blessed with foresight :\

jerf 13y ago

Based on that sentence, there is an interpretation that would make that true. The idea that the matter may be discrete rather than continuous is quite old; the word "atom" after all from ancient Greece. Wikipedia also mentions Indian philosophers had the idea. Of course, they never were able to prove that the idea was correct, and a modern educated viewer can not help but bring in the modern view of the atom when they see the word "atom" (protons, quarks, gluons, etc), but the modern view would not match either the Greek or Indian conception. The word choice of "stated" is correct enough; they did not prove, they did not demonstrate, they could not resolve the argument, but the very fundamental root idea was recognized. Similarly, the modern ear hears "relativity" and can't help but think of Einsteinian relativity, but the adjective "Einsteinian" is not redundant as it is not the only idea of relativity. Relativity as a concept also goes back a long way, but it looked more like Galilean relativity (if indeed it was even that formalized, which it probably wasn't), which contains certain contradictions in it which can be determined with pure reasoning, and indeed may have been (see [1]). The summary leads to misleading ideas about what the Indian philosophers really knew/discovered/thought, if for no other reason than there is no way to accurately summarize the ancient ideas in modern words that briefly; it is not clear to me whether the author of the linked web page is himself confused or being deliberately mendacious. [1]: http://mathpages.com/rr/s3-07/3-07.htm http://mathpages.com/rr/s3-07/3-07.htm , and indeed, the entire first half of that book or so. Among this book's many points is that physicists were seriously beginning to consider whether they were going to have to give up on the general idea of relativity until Einstein was able to rescue it.

memracom 13y ago

Problem is that anyone could come up with the concept of the atom, and even relativity is not beyond the bounds of possibility. We are all genetically identical to the earliest Homo Sapiens who left Africa. And the ones who stayed in Africa. Any one of those people who had the fortune to have a life of diverse experience and the spare time needed to think about things, would have discovered any number of supposedly modern things. They might have even written about it 10,000 years ago on parchment or leaves which have long since disappeared. But we have no evidence of any of this, and therefore we claim that it did not happen. That is not a very rational position to take. It should be clear by now that wonderfuly discoveries often happen in parallel in different geographical locations. Sometimes they are almost forgotten for generations until a historian discovers old documents. There is no good reason to believe that this kind of thing has been going on since Homo Sapiens first came to be. The only real advantage that we have today is the law of large numbers and the network effect.

dragonwriter 13y ago
> Problem is that anyone could come up with the concept of the atom, and even relativity is not beyond the bounds of possibility. We are all genetically identical to the earliest Homo Sapiens who left Africa. And the ones who stayed in Africa. The last sentence is manifestly not true (we're not even genetically identical to each other, much less all of us to the earliest example of H. Sapiens, or even the earliest examples of H. Sapiens sapiens.) And even if it was, the first doesn't follow from it: intellectual capacity may have an upper bound set by genetics, but realizing it is more than genetics, its environment starting in the vary early environment. And nutrition is, manifestly, a big part of that. > The only real advantage that we have today is the law of large numbers and the network effect. And lots of other things; to name just one key one, the adoption of the scientific method which does a lot to help identify the useful ideas from the attractive-but-useless ones. Even if we were no better at thinking up ideas, we are a lot better at validating ideas, and its not just through numbers, its through approach. Because of an idea that was thought up, and widely adopted.