Most important piece of scientific knowledge

[tade]

In Six Easy Pieces, Richard Feynman said

If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words?

I believe it is the atomic hypothesis that all things are made of atoms.

In that one sentence, you will see, there is an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied.

If such a cataclysm actually occurred, and you could preserve just one piece of scientific knowledge for a future race, what would it be?

 

[mfb]

I would try to preserve knowledge about scientific methods - with that, you can discover the existence of atoms again.
It is useless to know about atoms, if you have no reasonable way to do science, and the development of the scientific method took way longer than the discovery of atoms.
If knowledge about the scientific method is free, I think atoms are a good choice. The study of those atoms will eventually lead to subatomic processes and quantum mechanics.

 

[phyzguy]

I suggest the most important idea is captured in Galileo's famous quote, which I have seen paraphrased as,

"The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics."

 

[256bits]

If the next generation of creatures is as technologically simple as a cave man, then to give him his start on the way to investigation and discovery I would just give them something simple as the Pythagorean theorem, and with time hopefully they could expand upon it to invent mathematics and geometry, which would be more useful to them than atomic theory could ever be at their level of knowledge.

Feyman speaks to an audience already versed in science and technology, those who do not need much, if any, explanation of the point he is trying to bring across. His statements are most reflective upon our present state of knowledge and how far we have progressed to understand the world in which we live.

 

[tade]

Thanks for the interesting and on-point responses guys.

 

[Popper]

If such a cataclysm actually occurred, and you could preserve just one piece of scientific knowledge for a future race, what would it be?

Actually it's quite a coincidence but I answered the question to myself before I read the post and answered it in the same way that Feynman did.

 

[tade]

Actually it's quite a coincidence but I answered the question to myself before I read the post and answered it in the same way that Feynman did.

Great minds think alike? Haha.

Sorry about getting banned.

 

[WannabeNewton]

sorry about getting banned.

loooooool

 

[FlexGunship]

All of reality is logarithmic and humans can only observe the must mundane middle points.

EDIT: My hope would be that this might prevent some of the more extraordinary claims of religion from cropping up again (assuming they were also destroyed by this hypothetical cataclysm).

 

[tade]

loooooool

What does the equation in your user title represent?

All of reality is logarithmic and humans can only observe the must mundane middle points.

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean.

 

[FlexGunship]

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean.

As a species we're very poor at understanding scope. Visible light is the smallest part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Our tallest mountains are dwarfed by those on other planets. A tiny grain of sand has 10²⁰ atoms in it; more than all the humans that have ever lived (or might EVER live). The distance a human will walk in his lifetime is trivial compared to the closest cosmological bodies.

To our species: far, close, fast, many, tall, big, hot, cold, slow, small, a short time, and a long time are ridiculously infantile descriptions.

A campfire is hot in a trivial way.
A field is big in a trivial way.
Cheetahs are fast in a trivial way.
Seasons are long in a trivial way.
A mountain is tall in a trivial way.
There are a lot of trees in a forest in a trivial way.

Et cetera...

 

[tade]

As a species we're very poor at understanding scope. Visible light is the smallest part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Our tallest mountains are dwarfed by those on other planets. A tiny grain of sand has 10²⁰ atoms in it; more than all the humans that have ever lived (or might EVER live). The distance a human will walk in his lifetime is trivial compared to the closest cosmological bodies.

Et cetera...

I think that is a very good point too.

 

[jim hardy]

If such a cataclysm actually occurred, and you could preserve just one piece of scientific knowledge for a future race, what would it be?

I'd want a 1950-ish slide rule. It contains most of the math that was known until, well, whenever they became fluent with transcendentals.

It'd also make a good conversation starter should aliens land. :)

 

[tade]

I'd want a 1950-ish slide rule. It contains most of the math that was known until, well, whenever they became fluent with transcendentals.

It'd also make a good conversation starter should aliens land. :)

Cool. What does it look like?

 

[jim hardy]

Cool. What does it look like?

http://www.sliderulemuseum.com/SR_Course.htm

spend a few minutes on that site !

old jim

 

[epenguin]

I would say the idea of atoms is not very helpful, they would not know what to do with it and it took 2 millenia at least after the first intuition to get anywhere with it. So I would tell them everything is made up of tiny bits of electricity, what you can see when you comb a cat etc. That would be really useful because it is a just noticeable but seemingly quite minor unimportant phenomenon - so telling them it is the Secret Of The Universe is giving them some really useful information. Once they started taking it seriously in a century they had really moved things.

Alternatively I would give them some instructions on how to make clear glass. In biology and astronomy that opens whole new worlds literally, in physics you get spectra, interference etc., chemistry would be a whole lot slower if you could never see anything happening inside a vessel, and it is so convenient we use it without thinking even when sometimes we could use something else.

 

[tade]

I would say the idea of atoms is not very helpful, they would not know what to do with it and it took 2 millenia at least after the first intuition to get anywhere with it. So I would tell them everything is made up of tiny bits of electricity, what you can see when you comb a cat etc. That would be really useful because it is a just noticeable but seemingly quite minor unimportant phenomenon - so telling them it is the Secret Of The Universe is giving them some really useful information. Once they started taking it seriously in a century they had really moved things.

That would definitely be more practical, though I'm not too concerned with practicality.

Alternatively I would give them some instructions on how to make clear glass. In biology and astronomy that opens whole new worlds literally, in physics you get spectra, interference etc., chemistry would be a whole lot slower if you could never see anything happening inside a vessel, and it is so convenient we use it without thinking even when sometimes we could use something else.

Yeah, someone else suggested teaching them fire too, like Prometheus. We need fire before we can have glass.

 

[tade]

http://www.sliderulemuseum.com/SR_Course.htm

spend a few minutes on that site !

old jim

Wow. Talk about enthusiasm for simple objects.

Too bad the virtual rule has been flagged as malicious by Google.

 

[bp_psy]

Scientific knowledge.
First
Your right hand is to the right and your left hand is to the left. Very confusing concept.And it might be 'just a theory'.
Second
You can kill animals with pointy stuff then eat them.(people are animals too)
Third.
The Cartesian Coordinate system.

 

[Aimless]

While I like the idea of passing on the scientific method, there's something even more fundamental that I'd like to pass on (and something which addresses what I consider to be the biggest flaw in the human psyche):

"It requires competence to recognize competence; be wary of those who only sound competent - ask them for proof."

 

[tade]

Your right hand is to the right and your left hand is to the left. Very confusing concept.And it might be 'just a theory'.

You can kill animals with pointy stuff then eat them.(people are animals too)

Many of you focus on practicalities which is not what I'm really concerned with. And cannibalism?

Third.
The Cartesian Coordinate system.

This is what I'm looking for. great.

 

[epenguin]

Cool. What does it look like?

mnyah mnyah, there are people here, young fellow, who can remember astounding their classmates with this magic thing that could calculate these tedious divisions in a trice!

It was considered the badge of the engineer.

Some memorable recommendable sliderule things and moments:

a Harold Lloyd film where the young genius with all the innocent genius defects wins any prize by calculating with his sliderule;

the moment in When Worlds Collide, a film that came just before The Forbidden Planet and is a better film IMHO but you hardly ever see it, when the Chief Scientist throws his sliderule on the table in anger;

the autobiog 'Slide Rule' by Neville Shute, who before becoming a novellist was an engineer who worked on the doomed R101 airship, the British Hindenburg disaster, and other plane ventures in the (too) small world of pre-WW2 British aviation, De Havilland etc., fascinating.

I'm sure others could add examples like that.

 

[tade]

While I like the idea of passing on the scientific method, there's something even more fundamental that I'd like to pass on (and something which addresses what I consider to be the biggest flaw in the human psyche):

"It requires competence to recognize competence; be wary of those who only sound competent - ask them for proof."

Been arguing with one too many cranks?

The second part is kinda obvious, the first part really strikes me. "It requires competence to recognize competence"

 

[tade]

mnyah mnyah, there are people here, young fellow, who can remember astounding their classmates with this magic thing that could calculate these tedious divisions in a trice!

It was considered the badge of the engineer.

Some memorable recommendable sliderule things and moments:

a Harold Lloyd film where the young genius with all the innocent genius defects wins any prize by calculating with his sliderule;

the moment in When Worlds Collide, a film that came just before The Forbidden Planet and is a better film IMHO but you hardly ever see it, when the Chief Scientist throws his sliderule on the table in anger;

the autobiog 'Slide Rule' by Neville Shute, who before becoming a novellist was an engineer who worked on the doomed R101 airship, the British Hindenburg disaster, and other plane ventures in the (too) small world of pre-WW2 British aviation, fascinating.

I'm sure others could add examples like that.

Haha. Sorry man, times change.

 

[nitsuj]

The definition for length & time; i.e. the constant c

what more could anyone want to know?

SR fan here

As was said before the "scientific method" would be the best one I think. What a ridicules amount of time for it to come about, or for the "belief" side to back -off.

 

[tade]

The definition for length & time; i.e. the constant c

what more could anyone want to know?

SR fan here

Oh yes. But I'm sure people would want to know more.

 

[bp_psy]

Many of you focus on practicalities which is not what I'm really concerned with. And cannibalism?

I was just fooling around.
I think the idea of representing physical concepts like positions and distance, in a clear mathematical fashion would be a good start for the development of physics. On the other hand preserving germ theory would be much more efficient.

 

[tade]

I was just fooling around.
I think the idea of representing physical concepts like positions and distance, in a clear mathematical fashion would be a good start for the development of physics. On the other hand preserving germ theory would be much more efficient.

Germ theory is quite essential yet practical too. Nice.

 

[Aimless]

Been arguing with one too many cranks?

The second part is kinda obvious, the first part really strikes me. "It requires competence to recognize competence"

Yes; although all told I'm not worried about the cranks arguing with me - I'm worried about what happens when they argue with everyone else. Seems like most of the tragedies in human history can be ascribed to a lot of people listening to someone who sounded convincing.

I agree that the first bit is the interesting part of my statement and that the second part should be obvious. I actually considered not including the second half, but then I thought about my target audience.

 

[tade]

I actually considered not including the second half, but then I thought about my target audience.

I think the posters on this forum are discerning enough.

 

[Office_Shredder]

Do we have to take into account that if we tell them "Spacetime is four dimensions and warped by gravity" by the time they develop Newtonian mechanics and are at a point where they can say "wtf does this even really mean?" the knowledge of this sentence is probably already gone? I mean, how many generations can they seriously be expected to pass it down without any idea of what it actually says

 

[WannabeNewton]

"Science is not as important as the Kardashians".

 

[Ryan_m_b]

I'm not sure what the benefit would be to keeping anything but the most basic physics in this scenario. Aside from empirical philosophy itself knowledge of hygiene, basic germ theory (with antibiotic knowledge), agriculture, metallurgy and principles of democracy would probably give a society the best start.

 

[zoobyshoe]

...empirical philosophy itself...

I can't think of any seed idea that would have any sure, lasting resonance beyond empiricism.

Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence, especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation.

The information that everything is composed of atoms could easily crash and burn, becoming a mystical cult based on "revelation" or tradition, without being embedded in empiricism.

 

[flatmaster]

I don't think we would need to send back any specific information about atoms or the scientific method. After all, it took a while, but we figured it out eventually. I think the message should be more poetic like an omen or warning about how some discoveries can be used for evil. There are countless examples of great discoveries being used to inflict misery on many people.

"Don't be Evil"