The event that eventually led to Newton writing and publishing the Principia
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The event that eventually led to Newton writing and publishing the Principia
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Re: The event that eventually led to Newton writing and publishing the Principia
#2This is illustrated in Neil Degrasse Tyson’s Cosmos on Disney+ for those interested
Re: The event that eventually led to Newton writing and publishing the Principia
#3Fascinating, I didn’t realize Newton was into his 40s before he made any specific contributions that led to his larger widespread influence. I just assumed that, like most of the greatest scientists in history, he was in his 20s when he changed the world.
Re: The event that eventually led to Newton writing and publishing the Principia
#4> In England around 1650 coffee houses became the favourite meeting places of the English scientific intelligentsia, the astronomers, mathematicians and natural philosophers. Here, these savants would meet up to exchange ideas, discuss the latest scientific theories and pose challenges to each other.
Why don't we have coffee houses like this today? I'd go. You could argue that the web is the modern-day version of this, but I've never heard of such coffee houses in the decades years immediately before the web (1970s, 80s, 90s), so it's not like the web displaced them. EDIT: To be clear, I don't think the web is good replacement. So I'm puzzled why we don't have these kind of coffee houses anymore.
What would you say to a coffee shop, open late, with intelligent speakers, animal exhibits, autopsies[1], science experiments, all kinds of talks, painting lessons, something different every night, lots of random and interesting things to try and rekindle the intellectual coffee shop of old England?
[1] Well maybe not this one, but a Victorian-era coffee shop actually did do some public autopsies.
Re: The event that eventually led to Newton writing and publishing the Principia
#5> In England around 1650 coffee houses became the favourite meeting places of the English scientific intelligentsia, the astronomers, mathematicians and natural philosophers. Here, these savants would meet up to exchange ideas, discuss the latest scientific theories and pose challenges to each other. Why don't we have coffee houses like this today? I'd go. You could argue that the web is the modern-day version of thi…
> Why don't we have coffee houses like this today? I'd go. You could argue that the web is the modern-day version of this
No, I disagree. The web is not a replacement for normal social interaction. Zoom is not a replacement for in person meetings. The web does not replace an actual coffee shop, and social media or email does not replace a phone call.
Unfortunately, our newest adult generation will never understand what beauties there were in life before people only communicated electronically.
Re: The event that eventually led to Newton writing and publishing the Principia
#6> In England around 1650 coffee houses became the favourite meeting places of the English scientific intelligentsia, the astronomers, mathematicians and natural philosophers. Here, these savants would meet up to exchange ideas, discuss the latest scientific theories and pose challenges to each other. Why don't we have coffee houses like this today? I'd go. You could argue that the web is the modern-day version of thi…
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Re: The event that eventually led to Newton writing and publishing the Principia
#7> In England around 1650 coffee houses became the favourite meeting places of the English scientific intelligentsia, the astronomers, mathematicians and natural philosophers. Here, these savants would meet up to exchange ideas, discuss the latest scientific theories and pose challenges to each other. Why don't we have coffee houses like this today? I'd go. You could argue that the web is the modern-day version of thi…
I studied in Vienna which was the origin of the western coffee culture after the Ottoman siege on its gates. Viennese coffee houses to this day have that "public living room" flair to them, as do the greek καφενεíο: you get one coffe and stay for hours. You read, you talk, and then after hours you get another one or leave.
Many other places will try to get you out after you finished your drink and they want you to finish the drink fast. This means instead of being social places of interaction where additionally you can get a coffee many modern cafés have become places of consumption that you should leave rather fast unless you are consuming continuously.
Re: The event that eventually led to Newton writing and publishing the Principia
#8Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle is set in this era. Newton, Hooke, Wren, Leibniz and many others all appear as characters. It’s a 2800 page monster, but a treat if you enjoy historical fiction and the history of ideas.
Re: The event that eventually led to Newton writing and publishing the Principia
#9> In England around 1650 coffee houses became the favourite meeting places of the English scientific intelligentsia, the astronomers, mathematicians and natural philosophers. Here, these savants would meet up to exchange ideas, discuss the latest scientific theories and pose challenges to each other. Why don't we have coffee houses like this today? I'd go. You could argue that the web is the modern-day version of thi…
> Why don't we have coffee houses like this today? I'd go. You could argue that the web is the modern-day version of this No, I disagree. The web is not a replacement for normal social interaction. Zoom is not a replacement for in person meetings. The web does not replace an actual coffee shop, and social media or email does not replace a phone call. Unfortunately, our newest adult generation will never understand wh…
You do understand that pre-pandemic people still met face-to-face, right?
Re: The event that eventually led to Newton writing and publishing the Principia
#10Wow, I know Hooke was a complete dick to Newton over the optics, but I didn't realize he tried to shaft Newton _again_.