“We are seeing farther because we are standing shoulders of giants”.
I. Newton
These impressive words, said by Newton are used by everybody emphasizing the cumulative property of the scientific work or be able to point out how far is able to see, but at the same time the modesty supposes us to take into account the impact of our predecessors. In fact, this is a retelling of the phrase by monk Bernard of Charter pronounced at XII century A.D.: “… the dwarfs are able to see farther because they are ascending on the shoulders of giants”, used by Newton as a mordant hint about the physical ailment and the claims of one of his contemporaries and opponents (to say the least) Robert Hook – a person with essential scientific impacts, but remaining a hunchbacked dwarf due to overzealousness with gymnastic exercises at the time of his childhood.
In fact, it is not bad to ascend on the shoulders (and if you are able to do so, on the necks) of Bohr, Einstein or Landau …
And what about the shoulders we are standing on?
Often wrapping up with pleasure reading a heavy biography of an eminent scientist (I can list scores of such titles) before me rises the vision of how all these biographers have spent years of their lives for perusing another’s life and then have spent as much time being bent on writing their books. And the question that rises up is: “And what about us? Whom we can devote our efforts, time, …, fondness and gratitude”
The idea, that the present day is created by its own – in its difference, its “novelty” with respect to the past is essentially wrong. Since we are living in the “triple kingdom of our ancestors, contemporaries and inheritors”
In spite of the fact, that we, the contemporaries belonging to the variety of generations living at the same time, are filing, even not always confessing, uncontemporaneity among the present. Unfortunately, this increasing feeling of getting farther, which in the way of the chain of various generations aspires to tame the sense of duty of the contemporaries to their predecessors… In fact, if the present cares about itself, then it might be unique as a linking node between the past and the future or as a place of the present in the universe.
Address:
GEORGI NADJAKOV INSTITUTE OF SOLID STATE PHYSICS
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
72 Tsarigradsko chaussee blvd.
BG-1784 Sofia, Bulgaria
Phone: +359 2 979 58 31; GSM +359 899 75 05 90
Fax: +359 2 975 36 32
E-mail: gkamish@issp.bas.bg
Skype: physmuseum
Back
Created: 15 September 2006
Updated: 1 October 2015
