Shoulders of giants

Why it stays with me

Newton wrote this in a letter to Robert Hooke, and the image is much older than him. It goes back at least to the twelfth century, which makes the quote an example of its own point.

It is a reminder that no discovery comes from nowhere. Newton built on Galileo and Kepler, who built on Copernicus, who built on centuries of careful observation. Every idea I find exciting today is resting on someone else’s patient work.

It also changes how I think about my own small efforts. Learning in public, writing things down and sharing them is a modest way of adding a step for someone else to stand on.