From: okerdavid <oker59@...>
Subject: [CRNtalk] well, more from me! one of my latest quotes for the day!
To: CRNtalk@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, December 17, 2008, 7:12 PM

" . . . the originators of new ideas are too protective of their brainchildren to develop them properly; creativity impliies a corresponding lack of perspective." - Paul Dirac
Going from one mathematical science development after another reveals a lot of different slants and takes on this; for instance, Archimede's integral and differential calculus was hampered by his use of geometric algebra and arithmetic; while some like Frederick Gauss argued and wondered why and how come Archemedes didn't think to make the hindu/arabic numerals; well, I'd argue that Archemedes certainly developed his ideas 'improperly', but considering lifes pressures and that he could(obviously) see how to get the results he wanted without travelling all over the world . . . stumbling on India's invention of zero . . . hanging out with the arabs to see them symbolize algebra and arithmetic(really this didn't happen till Vieta anyways!) . . .and all this while managing to live for a thousand years or more; well, I think you get the point.
Newton's invention of the Calculus is actually a good example of what Mr Dirac had in mind; Galileo had the idea of average speed, Fermat had done the tangent to the line thing, and his initial teacher and as teacher to Isaac Newton as he could be Barrow had much of the various calculus theorems like the derivative of the sum, multiplication and so on; but, Barrow could not see how to put it all together; even here, Newton actually could not see how to do all of the basic calculus students learn today; he did not know rolle's theorem and the proving of all the basic derivative formula's by means of limits that Cauchy did in the eighteen hundreds.
What to make of it all? Just goes to show you that you can never confine mankind in a finite box and expect to learn the universe
(kind of a necessity for us humans I would say! ------------------------------------
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