Talk:Standing on the shoulders of giants
The page says "see below" with regards to Newton's quote, but doesn't have anything below referring to it.
Why not just get rid of the Latin and put the actual English quotation there? Bradridder (talk) 14:35, 23 February 2009 (UTC) Cannot be traced to this source. This is the whole point of Robert Merton's book, cited below, that the attribution to Lucan is a pure fabriction by Bartlett's book of quotations. Didacus Stella (Diego de Estella) was a Franciscan monk who wrote a book about the gospel of Luke (not Lucan) a few decades before Burton wrote his Anatomy.- John Rodgers Oct 3, 2005]
Newton's use of the phrase
"Newton was perhaps making a more personal point than the mere expression of modesty seeing that Hooke was a man of remarkably short stature." What personal point? Sounds like original research to me. Superm401 | Talk 09:06, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
also it is Known that Newton was so small when born, that everyone thought that the baby wouldn't survive the day, and didn't bother to harry for a doctor. So if he was mocking Hooke, he would qualify himself in the same category —Preceding unsigned comment added by ThomCh (talk • contribs) 21:18, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
"What Des-Cartes did was a good step. You have added much several ways, and especially in taking the colours of thin plates into philosophical consideration. If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."
This statement of Newton's, in a letter on the 5th of February 1675 to Hooke, has relatively recently begun to be construed to be, or is even reported as "certainly" having been somehow an insult to the small stature of Hooke, either physically, intellectually, or both, but I cannot see that there is anything either certain, obvious, or even the least bit valid to such an interpretation.
A statement by William C. Waterhouse, Professor of Mathematics, at Penn State University presented at http://www.science-jokes.refleksje.pl/9_3.html indicates that the idea that this was somehow intended as a personal insult seems to have originated with Frank Manuel, in his book A Portrait of Isaac Newton (1968), and that he has "never seen any reason to believe it."
I have found that there is even an irresponsibly warped and presumptive interpretation of Newton's "Shoulder of Giants" statement in An Underground Education (1997) by Richard Zacks which declares: You might translate Newton's sentiments: "While I admit to building on the work of my scientific predecessors, I certainly didn't learn anything from a dwarf like you."
Personally, from what is indicated by the statement, I wouldn't translate Newton's sentiments into anything of the sort, and would consider this and other such interpretations as some people have made upon it to be an insult to normal human intelligence, if it were not plainly an indication of an appalling deficiency in their own. ~ Achilles † 19:17, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Someone needs to check the accuracy of the Latin translation to clarify the difference between "sitting" and "standing". Currently, the Latin version says one but the English the other. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.48.104.134 (talk) 16:39, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I have read a history of Physics book that alludes to this insult. Further, one of the books cited on the Robert Hooke's WIKI page suggests some major controversial influences in the Newton-Hooke dynamic. From my understanding, he was a hunchbacked dwarf, and Newton ridiculed him from a vanity perspective in the quote [The whole book will unveil the ill-will toward one another] See http://books.google.com/books?id=n6oJAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=robert+hooke+hunchback&source=web&ots=3Ree4f-r4N&sig=JmQZRjYej_ERjFWo8QmzsjNWPuo#PPA28,M1 MonteShaffer 02:58, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
The phrase is quoted in the book Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer by Michael White at at this amazon link for free: http://www.amazon.com/reader/073820143X?_encoding=UTF8&openid.assoc_handle=usflex&openid.return_to=https://www.amazon.com/gp/search-inside/sign-in%3Fie%3DUTF8%26query%3Dgiants%26asin%3D073820143X&openid.mode=id_res&openid.ns=http://specs.openid.net/auth/2.0&openid.claimed_id=https://www.amazon.com/ap/id/amzn1.account.16JFC2EVMJCZAM&query=giants&openid.signed=assoc_handle,claimed_id,identity,mode,ns,op_endpoint,response_nonce,return_to,signed&openid.sig=WO0FuWkloxuDxkmHX%2BQZkxCrl/GRqhkh3U6XNNWqvaQ%3D&openid.op_endpoint=https://www.amazon.com/ap/signin&openid.response_nonce=2010-10-29T09:48:35Z8672971983931184796&openid.identity=https://www.amazon.com/ap/id/amzn1.account.16JFC2EVMJCZAM
"If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants." Earlier in the passage, the author mentions that the convention of the time "personal letters between gentlemen should remain outwardly polite and mutually respectful." The author builds a case for Newton repeatedly warring with Hooke through letters and this quote being a possibility. If this author is correct, why is this quote misquoted all over wikipedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.87.32.5 (talk) 10:09, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
Lucan or no Lucan
what about Lucan now? We cannot say "it can be traced to Lucan, except... it can't". Can it or can't it? I have to admit there is nothing of the sort in Pharsalia 2.10, Edward Ridley (1896) has:
- Matter unformed to his subduing hand,
- And realms unbalanced, fix by stern decree
and the original [1]:
- Se quoque lege tenens, et saecula iussa ferentem
- Fatorum immoto divisit limite mundum:
nothing about pygmies or shoulders indeed. Searching the entire text of the translation for "shoulder", "giant", "titan" or "pygmy" yields no result either. I will remove Lucan for now, but it will be interesting to see how the attribution came about. dab (ᛏ) 14:19, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
- I figured it out, from de:. dab (ᛏ) 14:39, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
The Book
Note that there is a book titled "On the Shoulders of Giants" compiled by Steven Hawking. It has original works of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler,Newton, and Einstein.
There is nothing in this article about the book nor an article for the book.Gagueci 22:12, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Abelson's roommate
What if someone calls Abelson or confirms this in person; how do you cite that? --Alan Au 06:05, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
- You don't - it's not a reliable source. Thanks/wangi 08:58, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
- I've also got no idea what you're on about, but hey... /wangi 09:00, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Rose window
Regarding this:
- The thirteenth-century stained glass of Chartres Cathedral's south transept may also be influenced by the metaphor. The tall windows under the Rose Window show four major Old Testament prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel as gigantic figures and the four New Testament evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as sitting on their shoulders. The evangelists, though smaller, "see more" than the larger Old Testament prophets in that they see the Messiah about whom the prophets spoke.
As far as I know this is original research. The Chartres Cathedral's rose window is an instance of theological typology (see also medieval allegory), prevalent throughout the Middle Ages, in which the Old Testament is seen as pre-figuring (analogy) of the life of Christ and the events of the New Testament. I do have a source for this if anyone is interested - but as far as I know, the original "shoulder of giants" phrase was in relation to the pagan authors (Aristotle and Plato etc) while the rose window is a typological pre-figurement. Also, showing the Apostles as "dwarfs" might have even been heretical - medieval iconography commonly re-sized things to different proportions to give the viewer a sense of importance. If someone can show there was in fact a direct connection between the rose window and the phrase, but otherwise I think its a loose analogy of modern origin. -- Stbalbach 16:20, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Gigantum or gigantium?
Which of the above is right? The article states gigantium whereas there seems to be enough books that used gigantum. Wiki San Roze †αLҝ 14:59, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
