Re:Paul Graham on Conversations with Tyler
by somenameforme on Thursday August 10, 2023 @12:19AM
(#37071904)
I think there's an ongoing bias for many of us. During our lifetimes things have changed so rapidly, and generally positively, that we kind of assume that this is the normal direction of things. And so when things slow down we look for some profound meaning to it. In reality, we have all been fortunate enough to live through a really weird time in history.
One of my favorite quotes: "The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote. ... Our future discoveries must be looked for in the sixth place of decimals." - Albert Michelson, 1894
That quote is from from Albert Michelson of the famous Michelson-Morley experiment. [1] For some really brief background, before Einstein it was believed that light had to have a medium to travel through in space. Light was seen as a wave, and waves can't propagate in a vacuum. That medium was called the luminiferous (light) aether. Morley set out to experimentally prove the existence of this medium by showing that the speed of light measured from 2 perpendicular directions would be different, given that the trajectory of the aether, and thus the speed of propagation, would be different.
Yet he kept measuring near the exact same value for light. He was so convinced in the correctness of the luminiferous aether (which had dominated scientific thought for centuries, and was imminently logical) that he doubted his own results and would continue to repeat similar experiments for decades. Hence, the context of his quote. But then of course Einstein was soon enough to be on his way and discover relativity, which would not only completely invalidate the aether but completely revolutionize science. And then quantum mechanics was also right on the way.
The point of all of this is that Albert Michelson was convinced science had effectively come to an end in terms of major discoveries, let alone revolutions, let alone those driven by one off thinkers, in much the same way you do. And there's no real reason to think anything has really changed. Science has historically always had long lulls, as well as societies driven to the point of assuming as absolutely true ideas which are ultimately proven to be fundamentally and completely wrong, and whose assumption of truth was actually one of the reasons progress lulled.
One of my favorite quotes: "The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote. ... Our future discoveries must be looked for in the sixth place of decimals." - Albert Michelson, 1894
That quote is from from Albert Michelson of the famous Michelson-Morley experiment. [1] For some really brief background, before Einstein it was believed that light had to have a medium to travel through in space. Light was seen as a wave, and waves can't propagate in a vacuum. That medium was called the luminiferous (light) aether. Morley set out to experimentally prove the existence of this medium by showing that the speed of light measured from 2 perpendicular directions would be different, given that the trajectory of the aether, and thus the speed of propagation, would be different.
Yet he kept measuring near the exact same value for light. He was so convinced in the correctness of the luminiferous aether (which had dominated scientific thought for centuries, and was imminently logical) that he doubted his own results and would continue to repeat similar experiments for decades. Hence, the context of his quote. But then of course Einstein was soon enough to be on his way and discover relativity, which would not only completely invalidate the aether but completely revolutionize science. And then quantum mechanics was also right on the way.
The point of all of this is that Albert Michelson was convinced science had effectively come to an end in terms of major discoveries, let alone revolutions, let alone those driven by one off thinkers, in much the same way you do. And there's no real reason to think anything has really changed. Science has historically always had long lulls, as well as societies driven to the point of assuming as absolutely true ideas which are ultimately proven to be fundamentally and completely wrong, and whose assumption of truth was actually one of the reasons progress lulled.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_exper...