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A comment on Hollywood Movie Aside, Just How Good a Physicist Was Oppenheimer?. Parent comment

Re:Hollywood Movie Aside, Just How Good a Physicist Was Oppe... by bboygravity on Friday July 21, 2023 @07:18AM (#36812475)
That's kind of like claiming that SpaceX isn't that special because it was all just "ripe for picking" (or any new tech or theory really was all ripe for picking at the time that it was picked).

It seems to me that people forget that the "picking" part is what it's all about: actually doing the work.

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Re:Hollywood Movie Aside, Just How Good a Physicist Was Oppe... by coldtea on Friday July 21, 2023 @08:30AM (#36813028)
SpaceX isn't that special. It's 70+ years of NASA work
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Re:Hollywood Movie Aside, Just How Good a Physicist Was Oppe... by llamaLord on Friday July 21, 2023 @09:16AM (#36813381)
That's why there's so many other companies effectively competing with them... Oh... Wait...
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Re:Hollywood Movie Aside, Just How Good a Physicist Was Oppe... by kevin_thibedeau on Friday July 21, 2023 @09:23AM (#36813457)
Making reusable boosters work was pretty special. No incumbent was going to attempt it because they were unwilling to reduce their per launch profit margin on an unproven risk. SpaceX changed the entire economics of launch services and obsoleted every other player with their plan that detractors were sure would never work.
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Re:Hollywood Movie Aside, Just How Good a Physicist Was Oppe... by abakker on Friday July 21, 2023 @10:22AM (#36814132)
Ideas aren't special...execution is special. And SpaceX has not just execution but commercialization.
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Re:Hollywood Movie Aside, Just How Good a Physicist Was Oppe... by dmbche on Friday July 21, 2023 @09:11AM (#36813344)
Yeah can you point to something SpaceX is doing of a similar magnitude of importance to Calculus or Classical Mechanics?
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Re:Hollywood Movie Aside, Just How Good a Physicist Was Oppe... by bmitc on Friday July 21, 2023 @11:28AM (#36814938)
I didn't say Newton's work wasn't special. The implication is that general relativity is special-er.

> because it was all just "ripe for picking" (or any new tech or theory really was all ripe for picking at the time that it was picked).

Yea, that kind of is the point. General relativity came out of nowhere and was executed on at the same time. SpaceX is irrelevant to discussing achievements in physics.

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