People, as a rule, have short memories. With exceptions such as the Irish, the result of a battle in 1690 still being a sore spot and England with its football (‘soccer’) rivalries based on grudges going back to the Jacobite Rebellion(1745-1746), many of the peoples have a talent for forgetting, each generation leading to the next, largely oblivious. if not outright, ignoring what came before. This can result in some of the greatest innovations being ‘lost to history’.

Ever heard of Stradivarius? They are very famous and popular despite being next to impossible to obtain through legal means. Aging is certainly part of the reason. Wood mellows as it ages making aged, solid-wood Instruments some of the best sounding in the world. Stradivarius instruments are both old and solid wood. They are also incredibly scarce. There was a way of making instruments at the time that is different and better than today, though this slowly went out of vogue and then existence all together, the few remaining instruments after time took its toll and are all we have. Just enough to know there is abetter way but not enough to be able to replicate it.

Granddaddy Newton to Big Daddy deGrasse Tyson

There have been some questions recently as to why we are still bothering to study Physics theories from 100 years ago or longer, when there are so many recent breakthroughs. Why are we still learning old physics?

This is a bit like asking why we still learn to read things printed on paper when moveable type was introduced to the Western World in 1450 but I will play along. What we have here is a basic inability to understand the essential principle of inductive knowledge.

If one took an advance Social Science course cold, it would be utterly perplexing. All the ‘discourse’ and ‘dramaturgy’ and ‘anomie’ zipping right over one’s comprehending head. Context matters for understanding, as does a basic foundation of language and concepts.

When Sir Isaac Newton, who was also known to be an alchemist, started out on his experiments in the late-17th century, people were still trying to turn lead into gold as a matter of course and ‘science’ was regarded as a bit of an odd hobby. It is fair to say that even the brightest sparks knew next to nothing compared to what we know now.

Odd science and old physics

It took people like Newton to figure it all out. When Einstein first proposed the implications of his Relativity Theory, it sounded very odd to many who heard it at the time. The dissent continuing, though on a smaller scale, into the 21st century. It stands mentioning that without the natural physics of Newton, Einstein would have none of the grounding needed for his research into theoretical physics. And, sorry kids, the same goes for “new breakthroughs”. If not for Einstein’s creaky old Relativity, the notion of Gravitational Waves first being proposed in 1916, providing much of the basis for what is now know as “astrophysics”, much of what has happened in theoretical and astrophysics in the last 30 or so years would not have been possible.