rocketpig said:
On top of that, you don't have to understand the forces that create things like gravity to understand the rules and principles that emanate from said force. After all, several hundred years later, we still think Newton was right. His laws still stand, even though we don't fully comprehend the forces that cause his laws to be true.
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Absolutely. For your run of the mill problem involving gravity Newton's laws still work just fine. There is no way he could have figured out relativity at that stage of the game. And even the theory of general relativity is an imperfect theory, so even Einstein didn't get it completely right.
That is really one of the best things about science, that it is a collaborative effort. You really do see progress made by a group of incredibly talented and incredibly motivated people who devote their lives to learning more about the world.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
