Who is More Important for Physics: Newton or Einstein?

[Leon W Zhang]

Who is more important for Physics World, Newton or Einstein? And why? Who do you think is more intelligent based on each one's contributions to science and level of difficulty they discovered?

 

[waznboyd]

I think Newton, since Einstein's physics more or less follows the path that Newton laid down.

 

[Cyrus]

What do you like better, your left eye or your right eye?

 

[chroot]

Well, my left eye is dominant. Oddly, it also has the worse vision of the two. I guess I like my right eye better because it sees more clearly, but my brain disagrees. I don't even know how you can disagree with your own brain, but there I am.

- Warren

 

[ranger]

Who is more important for Physics World, Newton or Einstein? And why? Who do you think is more intelligent based on each one's contributions to science and level of difficulty they discovered?

I don't understand why people keep asking these questions

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
~Isaac Newton

 

[Evo]

Odd, I like my right eye best, and it's also my weakest eye. Maybe we should start a poll.

 

[FredGarvin]

I like pie.

 

[chroot]

Pie are not squared. Pie are round!

- Warren

 

[Cyrus]

This is survey,

ha ha ha.

Sorry, could not resist. So wrong of me. Totally inappropriate.

 

[chroot]

I don't know about you guys, but I think if Newton and Einstein got in a bar fight, Newton would totally have won. I mean, it's so easy to pound on a pacifist.

- Warren

 

[RandallB]

I like Robert Hooke for the insight of universal gravity and putting Newton on the right track with it.
Newton and Einstein would have been lost without it and he doesn’t get proper credit for it, even if he was a bit of a jerk.

edit) & while Newton pounds on the pacifist, Hooke could bite Newton on the ankles.

 

[russ_watters]

Pie are not squared. Pie are round!

- Warren

Not if it's one of those ones that you get at McDonalds...

I don't know about you guys, but I think if Newton and Einstein got in a bar fight, Newton would totally have won. I mean, it's so easy to pound on a pacifist.

People tend to stop being pacifists when people start hitting them. Besides - didn't Newton become a physicist because he was a sickly kid and couldn't do anything physical?

 

[Moonbear]

People tend to stop being pacifists when people start hitting them. Besides - didn't Newton become a physicist because he was a sickly kid and couldn't do anything physical?

Aww...c'mon, Newton got beat up by an apple tree, and it wasn't even trying!

 

[JamesU]

Aww...c'mon, Newton got beat up by an apple tree, and it wasn't even trying!

 

[FredGarvin]

This is survey...

I was SOOOO going to do that! You had the guts to though. LOL!

 

[George Jones]

I'm making a choice, but:

I think Newton, since Einstein's physics more or less follows the path that Newton laid down.

?

Regards,
George

 

[George Jones]

I don't understand why people keep asking these questions

I agree ... somewhat.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
~Isaac Newton

I have become aware recently that this may be a "short" joke, i.e., that this might be a sarcastic reference to Robert Hooke, a short contemporary whom Newton detested.

Anyone know anything about this?

Regards,
George

 

[RandallB]

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
~Isaac Newton

I have become aware recently that this may be a "short" joke, i.e., that this might be a sarcastic reference to Robert Hooke, a short contemporary whom Newton detested.

Anyone know anything about this?

I believe the earliest source found on this quote (maybe only one) was in a letter from Newton to Hooke acknowledging some credit for the progress he had made in math and science. Yes, Hooke was what we might describe as a Little Napoleon, both in size and personality (not that Newton was any walk in the park either).

It wasn’t long after that Hooke started publicly complaining that the early drafts of Principia didn’t give him proper credit. Newton then removed Hooke’s name from later parts of the book before publishing, and worked to avoid giving Hooke any credit at all in any area.

In addition, Newton avoided publishing Optics, until the year after Hooke died; an area of science Hooke was considered as an expert.
Newton did not like criticism and he did not like Hooke.

 

[BobG]

I believe the earliest source found on this quote (maybe only one) was in a letter from Newton to Hooke acknowledging some credit for the progress he had made in math and science. Yes, Hooke was what we might describe as a Little Napoleon, both in size and personality (not that Newton was any walk in the park either).

It wasn’t long after that Hooke started publicly complaining that the early drafts of Principia didn’t give him proper credit. Newton then removed Hooke’s name from later parts of the book before publishing, and worked to avoid giving Hooke any credit at all in any area.

In addition, Newton avoided publishing Optics, until the year after Hooke died; an area of science Hooke was considered as an expert.
Newton did not like criticism and he did not like Hooke.

Newton also had any portraits of Hooke removed from the Royal Society for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge after Hooke died. Netwon had a tendency to get in feuds with quite a few people (Hooke, Leibniz, Flamsteed, for example), but he despised Hooke more than anyone else - mainly because Hooke was a very obnoxious person, himself. A lot of people felt Hooke compensated for his dwarfish appearance by making everyone around him feel even smaller than Hooke.

Hence the idea that maybe Newton wasn't exactly complimenting Hooke with that comment.

 

[RandallB]

Newton also had any portraits of Hooke removed from the Royal Society ...

I hadn't heard that - maybe he even had them destroyed. I know finding a good image of Hooke was historically difficult, the one good portrait of Hooke used in most books was original stored as and thought to be someone else. Maybe putting it under another name back then saved it from a destructive purge.

Can you imagine that happening now! – I wonder - who’s photos would Hawking be tossing out?

 

[Igor_S]

One of my favorites is actually... W.L. Bragg who got Nobel prize at the age of 25. Among others are ofcourse Albert, Newton, Feynman, Heisenberg, etc. But I don't have rankings or something like that.

Oh yeah... and there is this one guy, John Bardeen, who had actually been awarded with 2 nobel prizes in physics (respect!).

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

Oh yeah... and there is this one guy, John Bardeen, who had actually been awarded with 2 nobel prizes in physics (respect!).

was that the dude who helped invent the transistor?

 

[ranger]

was that the dude who helped invent the transistor?

The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded in 1956 to John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain, and William Shockley for "investigations on semiconductors and the discovery of the transistor effect," carried on at the Bell Telephone Laboratories.

http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1972/bardeen-bio.html
http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1956/

 

[Integral]

I agree ... somewhat.



I have become aware recently that this may be a "short" joke, i.e., that this might be a sarcastic reference to Robert Hooke, a short contemporary whom Newton detested.

Anyone know anything about this?

Regards,
George

That is the claim made by John Gribbin in his book In Search of Schrödinger's Cat

 

[George Jones]

That is the claim made by John Gribbin in his book In Search of Schrödinger's Cat

The nice thing about having a bad memory is ... rediscovery.

Years ago, I read this book, but I had forgotten that part.

I think I still have the book, but if I do, my spatial location is about 2000 km from the box in which it is packed.

Regards,
George

 

[zoobyshoe]

I heard that whenever Einstein found a portrait of Newton in a book he would scrawl "LOSER!" on it and giggle.

 

[RandallB]

I heard that whenever Einstein found a portrait of Newton in a book he would scrawl "LOSER!" on it and giggle.

Not likely, according to Robyn Arianrhod in “Einstein’s Hero’s” his was one of three photos he actually put on his study wall. Although Maxwell got the top spot for unifying two forces.

I’d guess someone was just cracking wise with you. – But I wouldn’t want to guess what he might have been doing to photos of Born and Heisenberg

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1972/bardeen-bio.html
http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1956/

cool! that's my old physics teacher's teacher!

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

I heard that whenever Einstein found a portrait of Newton in a book he would scrawl "LOSER!" on it and giggle.

that is hilarious!

 

[zoobyshoe]

that is hilarious!

(Shhhhh. Randallb thinks I am a gullible person taken in by a wise-cracker.)