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Science's own Icarus, with a tale of woe to tell being so ahead of the rest. Or like Ozymandis, a monument to greatness we can look back on in wonder. Part of
by nickhalfasleep 11y ago
Science's own Icarus, with a tale of woe to tell being so ahead of the rest.
Or like Ozymandis, a monument to greatness we can look back on in wonder.
Part of the human condition is passing such information forward, as these papers represent.
- logicallee 11y agoI don't know. At first I get your Icarus reference, it seems appropriate because Curie, too, flew close to the forefront of science and was left dead. But the take-away from Icarus seems to be about hubris - he should have just flown low as his father besought. But Curie's contributions are lasting, she didn't fly too close to the forefront of science out of pure hubris that left her with nothing, with others warning her not to. There was no middle ground of escaping Crete (ignorance) while flying low only - if she hadn't done her research, she wouldn't have learned and accomplished what she did. Likewise the point of Ozymandias is that nobody remembers who the guy even was - it's just arrogance. But Curie will go down in history forever, and her research has fundamentally changed civilization at the expense of her own life. I would say she is the opposite of Ozymandias, building no monument at the time (her public image was dragged through the mud anyway by some affair), but really changing history by contributing a lasting foundation.
- ajuc 11y ago> But the take-away from Icarus seems to be about hubris That's the cashed interpretation from ancient times (when flying was for gods). Do we think Wright brothers were guilty of hubris and arrogance too? Or Otto Lilienthal for better analogy?
- a1369209993 11y ago> But the take-away from Icarus seems to be about hubris No, the take-away from Icarus is that wax is a shitty adhesive. The rest is good points though.
- batou 11y agoI came up with the same answer many years ago at school. I was told I'd make a good engineer but a bad philosopher by my teacher :)
- logicallee 11y agoHaha, that's hilarious. Teacher: "Write a report on the story of Icarus. What lessons can we learn?" Then you write up a report like a post-mortem of a failed rocket launch. Materials science, testing, dry runs, abort procedure. A graph of wax temperature versus sheer strength, tensile strength. Altitude versus temperature graph. Temperature versus phase diagram for wax. Finally conclude that besides lack of a suitable abort procedure the major error was in choosing a midday launch, dusk should have been chosen in order to reduce incident light, which would have kept the temperature within design constraints for the altitudes Icarus was flying. Until more suitable materials were found, the Greeks should stick to night-time launches.