You may be alluding to the idea of not "reinventing the wheel." I have heard
this argument against reading original sources many times, and do not agree
with it. I would say that Copernicus reinvented the wheel, as did
Lobachevski, and Einstein. Their discoveries were made, I think, at least in
part because they were trying to understand things from their most basic
origins, and going back to the sources. Sometimes I wonder whether in 100
years a Freshman in college will be able to prove the Pythagorean theorem,
or whether he will just look at the proof-requester with condescending
incredulity: "are you stupid? everybody knows that!".
Jacob Keller
ps I recognize that the above was probably not what you meant...
*******************************************
Jacob Pearson Keller
Northwestern University
Medical Scientist Training Program
Dallos Laboratory
F. Searle 1-240
2240 Campus Drive
Evanston IL 60208
lab: 847.491.2438
cel: 773.608.9185
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
*******************************************
----- Original Message -----
From: "David J. Schuller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2008 10:57 AM
Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] Crystallogrphy today
On Mon, 2008-09-22 at 10:52 -0500, Jacob Keller wrote:
To understand the fundamentals of any discipline, I have always found
it
completely worthwhile to go back to the original source, where the
idea was
first discovered or presented. This is really, really valuable,
although not
always possible.
I have found this to be not possible, and therefore not valuable, in the
disciplines of fire-starting and wheel-building.
-
=======================================================================
With the single exception of Cornell, there is not a college in the
United States where truth has ever been a welcome guest - R.G. Ingersoll
=======================================================================
David J. Schuller
modern man in a post-modern world
MacCHESS, Cornell University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
