31–40 of 61 posts
> 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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
That's just nostalgia, electronic communication is in many ways better than face to face, even if it is worse in others. Electronic communication allows you to communicate with the specialist in your field, located in the other side of the world. It is constantly available thanks to smartphones. If you have a great idea, you can share it immediately, if your phone is waterproof, you don't even need to leave your show…
Fascinating, 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.
He was ~ 23 years old in 1666 when he published on calculus, the dynamics of moving bodies, inverse-square universal gravitation, and optics (prisms).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He was ~ 23 years old in 1666 when he published on calculus, the dynamics of moving bodies, inverse-square universal gravitation, and optics (prisms).
He worked on some of those things in 1666 but did not publish anything. That is kind of the point of the article. Newton had a lot of reluctance around publication; he did not follow modern norms.
> 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…
1/3 of London burned down in 1666. It was right at the end of the great plague of London. Wren and Hooke were put in charge of rebuilding the city. Hooke was the "techie" who could actually engineer and build many of the experiments in the Royal Society. As founding member, he was made "chief curator", responsible for producing the empirical demonstrations.
kind of like 2020.
> 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 have seen this environment at a small university town where I used to live. You overhear all sorts of interesting conversations ranging from the middle school kids who walk there after school to professors researching antibiotic resistance.