Why did Sir Isaac Newton say, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants?"
494662
Pundits use this quote as "the ultimate expression of humility in genius," but what they miss (and almsot everyone else too) is that Newton wrote that line to a very, very short man, a hunchedbacked fellow scientist with whom he was having a bitter feud.  Newton wrote a long letter to Robert Hooke on Feb 5, 1675, defending himself from charges of intellectual piracy, praising Hooke for trifles, and then Newton built to the famous quote "standing on the shouldersof giants" line. (adapted from a line about pygmies in the then-famous book called Anatomy of Melancholy.)  \nTranslation:  "While I admit to building on the work of my scientific predecessors, I certainly didn't learn anything from from a dwarf like you!"
154788
Newton was an odd character almost from birth. He was always extremely intelligent, but never took much interest in social settings. Sort of an extreme, classic nerd.\n\nI doubt he sat down and "decided" anything, his interests in mathematics and physics no doubt seemed just the normal thing to do.\n\nBut it is also worth noting that he spent a lot more time on what we would call alchemy, than he did on calculus and physics. He came up with the essense of that in 1666 when he went home because plauge swept London. \n\nLater in life he also got swept up in a horrendous argument with the German philospher Leibnitz over who invented calculus first. (The answer: probably both did independently - we use Leibnitz's notion today).\n\nHere is a bit about his early life from the link below\n\n-------\nIsaac Newton was born in Lincolnshire, near Grantham, on December 25, 1642, and died at Kensington, London, on March 20, 1727. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and lived there from 1661 till 1696, during which time he produced the bulk of his work in mathematics; in 1696 he was appointed to a valuable Government office, and moved to London, where he resided till his death.\n\nHis father, who had died shortly before Newton was born, was a yeoman farmer, and it was intended that Newton should carry on the paternal farm. He was sent to school at Grantham, where his learning and mechanical proficiency excited some attention. In 1656 he returned home to learn the business of a farmer, but spent most of his time solving problems, making experiments, or devising mechanical models; his mother noticing this, sensibly resolved to find some more congenial occupation for him, and his uncle, having been himself educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, recommended that he should be sent there.\n\nIn 1661 Newton accordingly entered as a student at Cambridge, where for the first time he found himself among surroundings which were likely to develop his powers. He seems, however, to have had but little interest for general society or for any pursuits save science and mathematics. Luckily he kept a diary, and we can thus form a fair idea of the course of education of the most advanced students at an English university at that time. He had not read any mathematics before coming into residence, but was acquainted with Sanderson's Logic, which was then frequently read as preliminary to mathematics. At the beginning of his first October term he happened to stroll down to Stourbridge Fair, and there picked up a book on astrology, but could not understand it on account of the geometry and trigonometry. He therefore bought a Euclid, and was surprised to find how obvious the propositions seemed. He thereupon read Oughtred's Clavis and Descartes's Géométrie, the latter of which he managed to master by himself, though with some difficulty. The interest he felt in the subject led him to take up mathematics rather than chemistry as a serious study. His subsequent mathematical reading as an undergraduate was founded on Kepler's Optics, the works of Vieta, van Schooten's Miscellanies, Descartes's Géométrie, and Wallis's Arithmetica Infinitorum: he also attended Barrow's lectures. At a later time, on reading Euclid more carefully, he formed a high opinion of it as an instrument of education, and he used to express his regret that he had not applied himself to geometry before proceeding to algebraic analysis. \n----------
444192
I think it is Albert Einstein... Einstein stated The Theory of Relativity, breaking down Isaac Newton's The laws of Three Motions and Theory of Gravitation, demonstrated that Newton's theories were only partially right. What is more, scientists believe that there will need more than 200 years for another "Einstein" be born in this world to help the innovation of Physics. Current Mathematics is not adequate for solving Physical problems any more.
44342
ALL was.  ALL is.  ALL ever shall be.  [The primordial state for which there is no beginning or end]  The ALL spake [Big Bang], and Motion was [Creator], and is, and ever shall be; and being positive [going forth outward], was called He and Him.  The ALL MOTION [created universe] was His speech.\n\nHe said, I AM!  And He comprehended all things, the seen and the unseen.  Nor is there aught in all the universe but what is part of Him.
169921
shosh is correct. Cause they are! The pull of gravity comes from the earth. Don't get hung up on UP and DOWN. There is no UP or DOWN... What is UP? Why would you assume that you are UP and I am DOWN? Or vise versa? There is no UP or DOWN. We have just chosen north as up as a convenience. You could hold a map in any direction or a globe at any angle it doesn't matter. We just have tried to standardize our thinking. We are working with a 1000 year old model that doesn't take into account what we know today.
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The sphericity of the earth was known long before Eratosthenes, but he did measure the size of the earth. \n\nEratosthenes had heard tales from travellers that at noon on midsummer's day in Aswan, Egypt, one could see the image of the Sun on the water at the bottom of a deep well. He realized that this could only happen if the Sun was directly vertical on that day at Aswan. He then measured the angle of the Sun from vertical at his home in Alexandria at noon on midsummer's day, and determined (using a compass) that the angle was 1/51 of a full circle. Since he also knew that the distance from Aswan to Alexandria was 5000 stadia (about 500 miles), he computed the circumfrence of the Earth to be 51 * 5000 or 255,000 stadia. This is a remarkably accurate result.
690650
Some of Einstein's Ideas are already being rewritten. So, quoting him as an end-all to the question of anti-gravity really doesn't mean a whole lot. Newton's laws were rewritten after his time, as science learned more about itself. It's not unreasonable to assume that the same will occur in reguards to this taboo topic too. I remember seeing a video of a man who has come close, with a spinning top device. By itself, it weighs far too much to lift by hand. But, once it is set spinning, it could be lifted by a child. :)\n\nCurrent science is not an absolute. :) Don't give up hope!
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when he looked up at the stars
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Achieve what other people say you cannot do.\nFor then you will be fulfilled from within.\n\n"Death comes to all\nBut great achievements raise a monument\nWhich shall endure until the sun grows old." \n- George Fabricius, 'In Praise of Georgius Agricola'
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On the rim of a £2 coin, it's a quote from Isaac Newton.\n\n (He's saying that he couldn't have got to be the great scientist that he was without having the work of other scientists before him to work with) \n\nWikipedia will tell you that it has been "mistakenly" attributed to Isaac Newton - but although it has been used by other people before him - the quote is most famous for Newton's use.
529393
From the greek mythology about Atlas, a superman who holds the earth on his shoulders.\nhttp://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Atlas.html
631442
Invention of EARTH??? neaver heard such a phrase before......
813386
okay ...now where is your list of believers huh???\n\nchristopher columbus, abraham lincoln, galileo, issac newton, and on and on.\n\n\nbiased flawed reasoning...yet once again. no i have found just the opposite. when i put too much faith in my finite mortal flawed self...my achievments are limited.\n\nfaith in God is the greatest weapon ever.\n\nbut i am guessing yo don't even understand what i mean.
80954
Galileo's laws of motion were sort of precursors to Newton's laws of motion. The law of inertia was actually Galileo's. Galileo investigated forces, but did not go as far as Newton. Galileo also felt all bodies would fall at the same rate in a vacuum, regardless of mass, contrary to Aristotle. \n\nGalileo (possibly with his student Viviani) also realized that a pendulum swings with the same period, independent of the amplitude of the swing.
425047
There was a problem with his theory. See the rest of the article at:\n\nNewton's aether model\nFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton's_aether_model\n\n"In his book Optiks Isaac Newton described a model that attempted to unify descriptions of light, matter and gravity by describing that both the action of gravity on light and the action of matter on light as effects of variations in lightspeed relate to the density of an underlying aetherial medium. This is referred to as Newton's aether model.\n\nNewton described light as starting to bend before it reaches the boundary of an air/glass surface, and related this deflection towards the region of greatest density to the tendency of paths to be deflected towards a gravity-source (again, to a region of greater mass-density). According to the model, particles and waves would be deflected in the same way, matter could be said to be "refracted" by the lightspeed gradient associated with gravity. Newton's postulated light-corpuscles - and the associated "wavelike" effects that he suggested were responsible for steering them - would be deflected in the same way. In modern language, we can say that Newton's aether model was an early attempt at a "geometrical" theory of gravity, or a curved-space model."\n\n"Critically, Newton had mistakenly inverted the relationship between lightspeed and refractive ability: he thought that light had an affinity for regions of higher rather than lower lightspeed. This meant that instead of saying that the aether was the gravitational field and/or the mass density (as with general relativity, Einstein 1920), Newton had to say that his medium was progressively displaced by the gravitational field and by matter, which was a less satisfying concept."
526084
This goes back to the famous story where Newton was sitting under a tree and he saw an apple fall.  Whether or not that is true, it says that he made the connection that the same force that caused the apple to fall was the force that caused the moon to orbit the Earth.  From there, he developed the Universal Law of Gravitation.  \n\nThis was all published in his masterpiece: Principia Mathematica.  It was published in 1687, although he had the work finished a lot earlier.  He was afraid to publish it.
733235
So - I am going to go for the fact that you are saying that Descartes starts with an assumption that cannot be justified. He says "I think therefore I am". On this he bases his entire life's work making him a world renowned philosopher and frankly - as you pointed out - his foundations are built on sand.\n\nOr maybe I red one too many glasses on red wine...