Re: [math-fun] Isaac Newton quote (?)
"You can see more by standing on the shoulders of giants, than by stepping on their toes." -- unknown (??) From goodreads.com: "Sir Isaac Newton was asked how he discovered the law of gravity. He replied 'by thinking about it all the time'" He also supposed said: "If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been due more to patient attention, than to any other talent" --- We all learned while kids -- probably due to Walt Disney or equivalent -- that Newton discovered the law of gravity by sleeping under an apple tree! At 11:05 AM 3/20/2018, James Propp wrote:
I could've sworn that Isaac Newton, when asked how he got his solutions to math and physics problems, replied "By thinking upon them constantly", but I've tried entering this sentence (and semantically-equivalent variants) into Google, and I haven't been able to find it.
Does anyone know the quote I'm mis-remembering?
I should say I've done my due diligence (five minutes with a search engine) before daring to bother you all.
Jim
Thanks for the exact wording, Henry! I'm now finding the quote in various places, but I'm guessing that it's apocryphal; all the references are to collections of quotations and self-help books, none of which provide primary source information. Jim On Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 2:27 PM, Henry Baker <hbaker1@pipeline.com> wrote:
"You can see more by standing on the shoulders of giants, than by stepping on their toes." -- unknown (??)
From goodreads.com:
"Sir Isaac Newton was asked how he discovered the law of gravity. He replied 'by thinking about it all the time'"
He also supposed said:
"If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been due more to patient attention, than to any other talent"
--- We all learned while kids -- probably due to Walt Disney or equivalent -- that Newton discovered the law of gravity by sleeping under an apple tree!
At 11:05 AM 3/20/2018, James Propp wrote:
I could've sworn that Isaac Newton, when asked how he got his solutions to math and physics problems, replied "By thinking upon them constantly", but I've tried entering this sentence (and semantically-equivalent variants) into Google, and I haven't been able to find it.
Does anyone know the quote I'm mis-remembering?
I should say I've done my due diligence (five minutes with a search engine) before daring to bother you all.
Jim
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