Mario Livio, the author of Brilliant Blunders once said, “The way we march to truth is not on a straight line, but rather on a zig-zag path finding one blunder after the other to guide us to the correct way and correct scientific theory.” This quote is the premise of his literary work. All people make mistakes—even those who were credited to be the greatest minds in human history. Livio’s goal is to change the paradigm that scientific discoveries are solely success stories.
Livio attempts to accomplish his goal by taking the reader through a background of each scientist. He discusses Darwin, Kelvin, Pauling, Hoyle, and Einstein. He chose these five because he understood that these are highly recognizable names, whose individual errors are all related through evolution. That is, through the evolution of life, earth, stars and the universe as a whole.
Darwin discovered natural selection. This proclaims that all living beings did not arise, as they are, out of thin air. Each had adapted to their environment over time, allowing nature to choose those who were most fit for survival. Unfortunately, he failed to realize the error in the commonly held concept of heredity. This was that each trait from the parents was mixed together when generating offspring—similar to the process of mixing paint, as opposed to the correct analogy of mixing a deck of cards. Favorable traits would therefore never be properly passed down, revealing Darwin’s blunder.
Kelvin’s blunder was made due to his stubborn personality. He attempted to estimate the age of the earth. He calculated 400 million years, whereas other scientists, including his former pupil (who also discovered the cooling characteristics of radioactive energy) were estimating billions of ...
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...e humorously, I was able to add information to what Livio left out.
Livio teaches his readers that thinking outside the box can lead to mistakes. However, those mistakes can lead to great things, such as the accomplishments of the once smartest men alive. Throughout the context of the book, Livio distinguishes between blunders and brilliant blunders. In other words, he does not encourage mistakes due to ignorance, or lack of reason. What makes a blunder brilliant, and therefore useful to society and furthering success, is adding another element that can justify the error: logical thought. This element is what furthers progress in a field, making the blunder brilliant. This element gives the blunder potential to be able to take calculated risks that may fail, but have the opportunity to get great rewards. An opportunity I hope to have in all of my future endeavors.
In Charles Darwin’s life he had helped make a significant advancement in the way mankind viewed the world. With his observations, he played a part in shifting the model of evolution into his peers’ minds. Darwin’s theory on natural selection impacted the areas of science and religion because it questioned and challenged the Bible; and anything that challenged the Bible in Darwin’s era was sure to create contention with the church. Members of the Church took offense to Darwin’s Origins of Species because it unswervingly contradicted the teachings of the book of Genesis in the Bible. (Zhao, 2009) Natural selection changed the way people thought. Where the Bible teaches that “all organisms have been in an unchanging state since the great flood, and that everything twas molded in God’s will.” (Zhao, 2009) Darwin’s geological journey to the Galapagos Islands is where he was first able to get the observations he needed to prove how various species change over t...
...ing fascinating about science, one gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such trifling investments of fact."
In Lewis Thomas' book The Medusa and the Snail we can observe a passage with great insight into the human condition. With it we can determine the value of being wrong and mistakes. He makes a stellar case on the power of making mistakes and deriving new axioms of thought or progress. By virtue of us being man we can draw whole new conclusions and even better ourselves. Lewis Thomas in this passage defines our greatest strength as beings and defines it in very clear understanding. Lewis Thomas is absolutely right in his ideas of the power of being wrong.
X-rays, pacemakers, microwave ovens, chocolate chip cookies, and countless others are all examples of inventions made by mistakes. These “mistakes” have enabled significant creations and discoveries to be made in medicine, technology, and food that would have otherwise remained nonexistent. In fact, without mistakes our world would be unable to innovate and grow into the highly developed planet we have become. In Lewis Thomas’s The Medusa and the Snail, he presents that human discovery is the result of human error rather than accuracy and precision because without error there is no trial.
Throughout history, we have come to significant inventions and discoveries that have influenced our lives greatly. It is obvious that these inventions and discoveries occasionally occur at the cost of making major mistakes, but are they always worth it? Errors can either lead to difficulties, and can also lead to development. So the real question is, “Are mistakes a key part of making discoveries and inventions?” Well, after gathering the facts, I think that mistakes are in fact a key part of discovering. There are many reasons as to why errors contribute to helping making inventions and discoveries, but I only have three. First of all, mistakes are an important part to making inventions because they help you determine what you did incorrect
People may say that mistakes just hold scientists back and provide obstacles. John Denker says, “scientists worked to avoid mistakes.” He says that scientists did not just make one mistake that led to a big discovery, but they invented their products little by little, trying to make it perfect. Mistakes may hold you back sometimes,
Diamond, J. (1987). The worst mistake in the history of the human race. Discover, 8(5), 64-66.
Darwin theorized that nature selects those traits that best allow a species to reproduce and survive.
Frankenstein is a young scientist who is blinded by the fame and dangers of the knowledge of creation. "So much has been done," exclaims Frankenstein after he hears a lecture on famous scientists. "More, far more, will I achieve: treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unk...
Galileo’s struggle, and the struggle of his period in history, is with the challenge of truth. Rather, it is the challenfe of whether to accept the world as it has been portrayed for him or to attempt to understand the world around him in order to determine his own truth. How does Brect portray this challenge? The answer is quite emphatically one-sided. As galieo states, “The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom,but to set a limit to infinite error.”¹ Within this simple statement Brecht highlights the very nature of both sides of the struggle. Here Brecht recognizes two absolutely imperative themes. First science, and free thought by extension, cannot and will not immediately grant a total understanding of the world. Furthermore, the scientific process is a process ...
...vercome, there is more of a chance to capture such great discoveries. People need to realize that if they never take the time to stop and look around, appreciate the small things in life, they might miss out on important details and or moments that the world has to offer. Scientist didn’t obtain their greatest discoveries by looking at the world with a closed mind. During the months of September through Novemeber, the leaves start to fall off the trees. It is obvious its fall, but what else is occurring? Gravity. Albert Einstein discovered gravity by watching and ordinary object fall. At that moment he became a scientific unscrupulous observer.
...o walks to direct his steps.” King James Version 2000. Victor proved this true, he had no ability to rectify the costly mistakes namely the deaths of his closest friends and family. Scientists today seek knowledge of things outside the predefined laws of nature. Have they truly considered the consequences of their successes now and future? Is there any way to truly know for sure the benefits versus the risks? Time will tell.
With the studies that Charles Darwin obtained he published his first work, “The Origin of Species.” In this book he explained how for millions of years animals, and plants have evolved to better help their existence. Darwin reasoned that these living things had gradually changed over time to help themselves. The changes that he found seemed to have been during the process of reproduction. The traits which would help them survive became a dominant trait, while the weaker traits became recessive. A good example of what Darwin was trying to explain is shown in giraffes. Long-necked giraffes could reach the food on the trees, while the short-necked giraffes couldn’t. Since long necks helped the giraffes eat, short-necked giraffes died off from hunger. Because of this long-necks became a dominant trait in giraffes. This is what Charles Darwin would later call natural selection.
Throughout the course of history, from era to era, mankind has been on a continuous attempt to perpetuate what they perceive as the truth; and in doing so, embark on a quest to find their true identity and place in life. One must realize that the common theme in all literature is the search for identity and belonging. Bertolt Brecht, author of "The Life of Galileo," effectively uses the developing character Galileo Galilei to portray a strong message; a message which five hundred years after the fact has still not been completely comprehended. Through Galileo's continuous battle with the Church in prevailing his work, Brecht is telling the readers that in any one man's attempt to propagate the truth, whether it be in terms of literature, discoveries or new technologies, there is always an opposing power to suppress this new found truth. In doing so, it is through such opposing power against the search for truth which suppress our ability to think. In a sincere attempt to eliminate the common generalization that "Science is the devil", Brecht uses Galileo's external struggles such as those with the church. The writer also uses his personal internal struggles as a basis for developing Galileo's character to inform readers of the common yet false misconception of Science and the truth.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand” (Albert Einstein). Albert Einstein’s claim could be broken down into two segments; one is defining the term knowledge as being “limited to all we know” and the second defines imagination as “embracing the entire world.” His words are not meant to attack any other scientist out there, all he meant was that imagination initiates our curiosity which leads us to conduct studies that eventually reveal information that we know as knowledge. Come to think of it, all great breakthroughs in history came from these ‘Eureka’ moments instead of solely reason of logic.