The Great Apple
Big Cheese
If you look at animals, most communicate using their bodies immediately (verbally or physically), rather then leaving lasting markers. Some do both... but AFAIK none just leave markers.Sidhe said:
What's the most significant advance in the history of science?
- Thread starter Sidhe
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The Great Apple said:
This is true I agree the modelling of fluid/airflow dyanamics is often just too complicated and has to many variables at a large scale to model on a computer alone(at least at present who knows what will happen in the future?) At some point you do have to test something, but I think the point is you do the math then you do the test, contrary to how things were done in the distant past, where it was often trial and error, although the Egyptians used triangulation of forces to build the pyramids, a model of such is carved into one of the pyramids.
Physics proposes theories and engineering makes them real, but these days the physics and theoretical modelling always seems to come first. Oh glorious computers, how would you interpret the results of wind tunnels if it weren't for computers and where did that research come from
The Great Apple
Big Cheese
Physics... but without a good healthy dose of engineering the computer age would never have started.Sidhe said:Oh glorious computers, how would you interpret the results of wind tunnels if it weren't for computers and where did that research come from
I think we're agreed that engineering would be useless without physics, and physics useless without engineering. I still think that more work goes into engineering and object than researching the physics behind it... but then there is the whole "standing on the shoulders of giants" business - the physics behind computers has been worked on for generations, while they've only been engineered in the past couple.
Oh... and shouldn't this be in the history forum?
Absolutely it's an incetuous relationship with all sorts of ideas going both ways. Engineering is in the ascendance because we are reaching a sort of limitation in the speed we can come up with applicable ideas, but with further research who knows how the two way street will develop.
It's kind of like standing on the shoulders of giants but with the giants switching places occasionaly.
And yeah, guess so, it belongs in the history section, but then I did try and insert some visionary thinking into the deal, I hope you noticed
It's kind of like standing on the shoulders of giants but with the giants switching places occasionaly.
And yeah, guess so, it belongs in the history section, but then I did try and insert some visionary thinking into the deal, I hope you noticed
Like the Great Apple said a few posts back, most of the aforementioned advances aren't scientific. Fire? I would hardly call the numerous hunter-gatherers that discovered that "scientists"; they just got lucky. Writing? How in the world was writing developed scientifically? Sanitation, internal combustion engines, etc., are closer to science, as they're more formal engineering, but they're still not quite there, in my opinion...
I'm assuming we're supposed to talk about stuff developed through the scientific method. Therefore, I don't think the scientific method itself counts---that was a philosophical development, not a scientific one. Obviously the scientific method wasn't developed using the scientific method!
I think I'll cast my vote for Newtonian mechanics, which set the stage for all sorts of future discoveries and practical developments.
I'm assuming we're supposed to talk about stuff developed through the scientific method. Therefore, I don't think the scientific method itself counts---that was a philosophical development, not a scientific one. Obviously the scientific method wasn't developed using the scientific method!
I think I'll cast my vote for Newtonian mechanics, which set the stage for all sorts of future discoveries and practical developments.
newfangle
hates you.
Leibniz calculus. Note the lack of Newton.
tomsnowman123
Simple Liver
Perhaps a poll could be made using some of the most posted ideas on this subject?
Wolfe Tone
Which Way Did He Go?
The second wheel. The first one wouldn't be a lot of good on it's own.
newfangle said:
Yes the chain rule is easier to use than the Newtonian version
at least IMO.That said though I think the application Newton was looking for lead to more far reaching implications than the more ground based science of Liebniz, although they were independantly both responsible for the incredibly useful mathematics of calculus and Liebniz is so often forgotten.
Wolfe Tone said:
How about a wheel that extends under the chasis to form one big wheel or a log as I like to call it
The evidence points to speech first, counting second, and writing third.Sidhe said:
The earliest antecedents of cuneiform were counting methods used in the middle east called "tokens". Tokens first appeared about 8000 BCE and gained complexity in symbols and use until about 3100 BCE. At that time some one figured out to get away from concrete counting and separate numerals from the object being counted. Once that happened, written symbols could be used for things other than counting: names, places, actions etc.
I recommend "How writing came about" by Denise Schamdt-Besserat for the full story.
Kozmos
Jew Detective
After going through my bookmarks I would have to say GameFAQs.
IMHO, the most significant advance in science is Newtonian mechanics; it set the gold standard for future scientific advance, for better or ill. The emergence of modern astronomy, the development of the modern evolutionary synthesis, quantum mechanics are all good candidates.
The Great Apple said:
What do you mean by the scientific method?
If you mean trial and error, ie empiricism, then that is philosophy. Aristotle named the sciences and the methods of observation (most sciences are named after his work, for example Physics is named after his book about the natural world; Physico is greek for natural) although philosophy existed ofcourse before him as well.
I would say that the scientific method (trial and error, and categorisations) is not the most basic step in human evolution, since that too breaks up to smaller ones, and definately language had to predate it, since it would have been impossible to present the steps of the scientific method as different from each other without the use of a language. This is not stating the obvious: what i mean is that language serves as a pseudo-stable way of expressing oneself (it is not true, since different people understand widely different things about the same words, and then each word is understood in a different way as to the foundations of its understanding as well) whereas thought is entirely individualistic. By having a plateau of language where individualistic thought can appear to be something mutually understood, you could move away from the problems of the personal thought, and make a new level of thought; the supposedly common for all who read/think it.
Thus language has to be more significant than scientific method, since it is a pre-requisite for it
Archbob
Ancient CFC Guardian
Your all wrong. Duct tape is the most important invention of all time.
Archbob
Ancient CFC Guardian
Its incredily good to hold stuff together. If the Pharohs had duct tape, the sphinx would still have a nose. You can build anything with duct tape. Its fairly cheap too.
Side note: And Chuck Norris is way more important that McGyver
Side note: And Chuck Norris is way more important that McGyver
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