“Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why.”
This was once said by an American businessman, Bernard Baruch, who lived until 1965. As several millions of apples have fallen to the ground from the beginning of time, Newton was the first one who actually wondered why things fall. He began working within the area and came up with his famous three laws. These three laws are still the basics in our days, and they are some of the most important discoveries within science throughout history.
For me it clearly shows that it doesn’t matter how smart you are, or how much you know about science. To discover something new that no one has seen before, your curiosity is your best tool. I think that is why Newton was so successful. The picture I have of him is that he always wanted to discover new things, learn just a little bit more every day. He himself has said he was not much smarter then anyone else, he was just more eager to learn. I guess this is not the whole truth, of course he was very clever, but it still shows that you need more than brain to make it work.
To be successful within science you need four major factors. First, of course you need to have some good genes, you need to be smart. Second up, you have to have pre-knowledge about the subject you’re into. Then you need curiosity and creativity. Without these it is hard to make any discoveries. You must be curious to be able to come up with a question you want to solve, you need to be smart and have pre-knowledge to understand what you are working about, and you must be creative to figure out a lab, a way to solve it. I feel that these are crucial factors, but if anyone else has any other opinions feel free to discuss it.
To me Newton is the greatest scientist ever. Being a scientist today is not comparable, because now you have the basic laws, and you have electricity. A man named Fredrik Härén was talking about knowledge on the Day of Knowledge in Sweden 2007, and his idea was that ideas=p(k+i). P stands for persons, k is for knowledge already existing and i stands for the information we have. This means that more and more ideas come along as new discoveries are made and the population on the Earth is growing. And it is true! 20 years ago there was no internet or computers, and very few people had a cell phone. But as the population grew, and more and more knowledge and information came along, idea after idea was born. That makes Newton’s discoveries even greater, as they did not have much pre-knowledge back then.
What do you think? Is there any greater than Newton? Or any greater discoveries throughout history?
If you want to see the performance of Fredrik Härén, you can click the links below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0jDJ-wsMYI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohHNONAbheE
/Sebastian Carlshamre
I would not say that he was THE greatest scientist ever, he was actually a chemist most of his life, but certainly gave name to something good. Gallelieo was kind of great to, so was Da vinci. I think it depends on which subject you lok into, gravity is GREAT in the world of physics, because without it it would be much harder:p
Very nice post Sebastian!
I have to say I agree with Gabriel the perhaps he is not the greatest scientist ever, but he is absolutely one of the best. It is also as you say that his discoveries are some of the most important throughout history since they are used all the time in science.
Very nice written entry Sebastian! I really enjoyed reading it =)
I agree with the others, that he was a great scientist but maybe not the greatest...
And I agree with you that curiosity is so important to discover something new! =)
