I’m sure this is fascinating but sometimes I wish people would put the bottom line at the top of super long posts like this. It would be nice to transmit knowledge even to people who don’t have time to follow along on your multi thousand word voyage.
Too much serendipity
71–80 of 110 posts
Re: Too much serendipity
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was an SF story I read years ago where the core concept was that humanity had somehow "missed" an obvious power-source/FTL drive, which meant that the "solution" to the Drake Equation is that the galaxy is full of intelligent, star-spanning empires that are effectively stuck at a late-1800s tech level (with starships), because getting to there was easy, and doing all the complex 20th century stuff humanity has…
Is it "The Road Not Taken" by Harry Turtledove? The Wikipedia description seems to match. (If so, ChatGPT got it on the second attempt.)
Just curious: what was the first attempt/guess?
Re: Too much serendipity
#73Ace-K was developed by rational investigation of sucrose derivatives, undermining it as an example of 'serendipity'.
I looked at some of the sources linked on Wikipedia for the other anecdotes.
Ace-K: Newton, D. E. (2007). Food Chemistry (New Chemistry). Available on libgen. Also describes the other serendipitous discovery stories, but with no citation or evidence. For Ace-K, there are conflicting accounts of whether the chemist was licking his fingers to pick up a piece of paper or rubbing out a white spot on his sweater or shirt.
Sucralose: Eurekas and Euphorias: The Oxford Book of Scientific Anecdotes. Available on libgen. Also describes the same anecdotes for other drugs. The only supporting evidence for any of them is is a direct quote from James Schlatter on the discovery of aspartame:
"I was heating the aspartame in a flask with methanol when the mixture bumped [boiled abruptly] onto the outside of the flask. As a result some of the powder got onto my fingers. At a slightly later stage, when licking my fingers to pick up a piece of paper, I noticed a very strong, sweet taste. Initially, I thought that I must have had some sugar on my hands from earlier in the day. However, I quickly realised this could not be so, since I had washed my hands in the meantime. I therefore traced the powder on my hands back to the container into which I had placed the crystallised aspartylphenylalanine methyl ester. I felt that this dipeptide ester was not likely to be toxic and I therefore tasted a little of it and found that it was the substance which I had previously tasted on my finger."
The book chalks up the 'test'/'taste' mixup with Ace-K to a language barrier (Phadnis's first name was Shashikant).
Processed Foods and the Consumer claims that Schlatter licked his finger to 'provide friction before reaching for a thin piece of laboratory equipment.'
The story about the discovery of saccharin is from The 100 Most Important Chemical Compounds: A Reference Guide, which also does not cite a source for the story.
An American Chemical Society Molecule of the Week article also reports the "tasting his hand after dinner" story for the discovery of saccharin, but notes that "in another version of the story" he tasted it on his cigarette, just like in the cyclamate discovery story. Of course, the NY Times obit for Sveda, discoverer of cyclamates, is that "he brushed his lips without having washed his hands and found that his fingers tasted sweet," rather than that he put his cigarette into the chemical.
Re: Too much serendipity
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Makes you wonder about tobacco. Hey, all the bugs that are eating that plant are dying. Let's see what happens if we smoke it.
More like: This plant has no insect parasites, it must be special somehow, let's try and use it in different, increasingly "close approach" ways. I mean, humans must have figured quite early that on average, inhaling smoke of a poisonous plant has a fraction of the effect of chewing the same. Someone gets really sick after chewing some leaves, their family burns the rest of the "crop" and they get high.
It seems likely to me that any form of smoking was discovered incidentally by burning stuff that smelled nice, repelled bugs, repelled evil spirits, etc. and happening to inhale some of the smoke.
Re: Too much serendipity
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, to my taste, all the sweeteners have an aftertaste and an odor including stevia.
Re stevia, apparently how you taste it is determined by how sensitive your bitter taste receptors happen to be. It’s somehow also related to why some people can’t stand cilantro, for example. For me, stevia is simply sweet with no aftertaste so I guess I’m lucky in this regard.
Stevia and monkfruit both taste awful to me. Not bitter specifically, but unpleasant in a way that I can't really describe, and do not at all enjoy eating. It also tends to make my stomach hurt.
Meanwhile I have no problem with cilantro or cucumbers.
Re: Too much serendipity
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was an SF story I read years ago where the core concept was that humanity had somehow "missed" an obvious power-source/FTL drive, which meant that the "solution" to the Drake Equation is that the galaxy is full of intelligent, star-spanning empires that are effectively stuck at a late-1800s tech level (with starships), because getting to there was easy, and doing all the complex 20th century stuff humanity has…
Is it "The Road Not Taken" by Harry Turtledove? The Wikipedia description seems to match. (If so, ChatGPT got it on the second attempt.)
Yep, I'm sure that was it. I read it many years ago, but the story description, the reference to matchlocks, and the conclusion all match my memory.
Re: Too much serendipity
#77I'm left curious as to why our taste receptors are so attuned to sweetness if high sugar foods weren't historically correlated with being high in energy.
The references he gives in that section suggest that it boils down to a convenient way to try to gauge poison by contrasting sugars to bitterer phytochemicals. Plants with sugar may be less nutritious on average, but that's just counting calories/macronutrients, not taking into account poisonous substances.
Re: Too much serendipity
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
> there may be quantum effects involved Quantum Mechanics is why atoms and molecules exist and form bonds. QM is the physics of chemistry. Without QM, chemistry does not happen. The universe would just be a big churning mess of particles and you would never get little lego pieces that snap together according to repeatable rules that, when repeated, form macroscopic substances of innumerable description up to and incl…
I would say everyone understands that "quantum effects" refers to situations in which classical approximations break down. Likewise when we say "numerical issues", it's understood that we're talking about situations in which the usual approximation of real numbers by floating point representations breaks down. "Disk corruption" doesn't necessarily mean anything is physically wrong with the disk, only that its content…
>Likewise when we say "numerical issues", it's understood that we're talking about situations in which the usual approximation of real numbers by floating point representations breaks down.
Guys, try this in your desktop or mobile app calculator:
do square root of 2.
then subtract from it the result that you see on screen.
for me:
√2−1.41421356237
i get:
3.095048801E−12
i.e. not 0.
I discovered this on a physical Casio electronic calculator long back, and also verified it just now on a stock Android mobile calculator app.
what is your result, and interpretation of it?
Re: Too much serendipity
#79Ace-K was developed by rational investigation of sucrose derivatives, undermining it as an example of 'serendipity'. I looked at some of the sources linked on Wikipedia for the other anecdotes. Ace-K: Newton, D. E. (2007). Food Chemistry (New Chemistry). Available on libgen. Also describes the other serendipitous discovery stories, but with no citation or evidence. For Ace-K, there are conflicting accounts of whether…
> Ace-K was developed by rational investigation of sucrose derivatives, undermining it as an example of 'serendipity'.
This sort of criticism would imply that an author on LessWrong _wasn't_ a polyglot genius uniquely capable of seeing what others missed.
I don't buy it. /s
Re: Too much serendipity
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would say everyone understands that "quantum effects" refers to situations in which classical approximations break down. Likewise when we say "numerical issues", it's understood that we're talking about situations in which the usual approximation of real numbers by floating point representations breaks down. "Disk corruption" doesn't necessarily mean anything is physically wrong with the disk, only that its content…
>Likewise when we say "numerical issues", it's understood that we're talking about situations in which the usual approximation of real numbers by floating point representations breaks down. Guys, try this in your desktop or mobile app calculator: do square root of 2. then subtract from it the result that you see on screen. for me: √2−1.41421356237 i get: 3.095048801E−12 i.e. not 0. I discovered this on a physical Cas…
It's just the difference between internal and displayed precision.
sqrt(2) ≈ 1.414213562373095048801
So if you type in sqrt(2) - 1.41421356237, you're just getting the next 10 digits after that.
1.414213562373095048801
- 1.41421356237
_________________________
0.000000000003095048801