how ****** would humankind be

[IAteYourMother]

I was just thinking... Euler pretty much made math. So hard to believe that so much of what we do wouldn't be so if it weren't for one guy.

Edited to remove profanity from thread title. Please don't put curse words in thread title.

AnandTech Senior Moderator
Compuwiz1

 

[videogames101]

fairly true...

 

[Ika]

What if Einstein died young? Newton? Tesla? Edison? Da Vinci? I could go on and on...

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: Aflac
What if Einstein died young? Newton? Tesla? Edison? Da Vinci? I could go on and on...

:thumbsup:

 

[Inspector Jihad]

someone else would've done it.

edit: i'm not diminishing anyones accomplishments but sooner or later someone else would have come up with something. who knows, maybe it would take an extra 200 years, but there might be other innovations between then or maybe the next innovation would occur sooner than it otherwise would have.

all in all, what ifs in history are retarded.

 

[Kelemvor]

Not like no one else wouldn't have come up with it eventually..

 

[IAteYourMother]

Originally posted by: Aflac
What if Einstein died young? Newton? Tesla? Edison? Da Vinci? I could go on and on...

Einstein's work hasn't had as much of a tangible impact as Euler. Da Vinci is more or less worthless in the grand scheme of things. Someone else would've figured out classical mechanics pretty easily, and Leibniz figured out calculus too. Edison sucked. Tesla was genius.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

Originally posted by: Eli

Originally posted by: Aflac
What if Einstein died young? Newton? Tesla? Edison? Da Vinci? I could go on and on...

:thumbsup:

or acemac...

Think not of what might not have been, but think of what might now never be...

 

[dighn]

Originally posted by: BrunoPuntzJones

Originally posted by: Eli

Originally posted by: Aflac
What if Einstein died young? Newton? Tesla? Edison? Da Vinci? I could go on and on...

:thumbsup:

or acemac...

Think not of what might not have been, but think of what might now never be...

hah ditto.

Anyway I think somebody else would have made the same discoveries. When there's enough foundation knowledge accumulated, some brilliant mind is bound to connect the dots and find something new.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

maybe because euler was a bully, maybe some super insane genius who would have solved a lot of the worlds problems hung himself. i propose that humankind is fucked because of euler.

 

[George P Burdell]

Originally posted by: Inspector Jihad
someone else would've done it.

OFMFT

 

[BrownTown]

What did Euler invent that was so great?

 

[Jeff7]

Maybe the reason we don't already have faster-than-light engines and Mr. Fusion reactors is because Sir Billiam Dindlestadt III died at age 3.

Originally posted by: BrownTown
What did Euler invent that was so great?

Indulge thyself with a visit to Wikipedia.

 

[Feldenak]

Never heard of him and I can't bring myself to care enough to look him up on wiki.

 

[KillerCharlie]

He also was a huge contributor to fluid mechanics, which I appreciate as an aerodynamicist.

 

[Regs]

What I dont understand is that we invented the wheel ... liek...so long ago yet...Im still lifting funiture and liek beds into my new condo.


:|

 

[tfinch2]

Originally posted by: Regs
What I dont understand is that we invented the wheel ... liek...so long ago yet...Im still lifting funiture and liek beds into my new condo.


:|

That's just because you're an idiot who doesn't know how to use a dolly or rolling cart.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: tfinch2

Originally posted by: Regs
What I dont understand is that we invented the wheel ... liek...so long ago yet...Im still lifting funiture and liek beds into my new condo.


:|

That's just because you're an idiot who doesn't know how to use a dolly or rolling cart.

Bah, that damn cloned sheep didn't do squat to move my furniture.

 

[sandorski]

How ****** would Microsoft be without his sister Eula? :Q

 

[potato28]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: tfinch2

Originally posted by: Regs
What I dont understand is that we invented the wheel ... liek...so long ago yet...Im still lifting funiture and liek beds into my new condo.


:|

That's just because you're an idiot who doesn't know how to use a dolly or rolling cart.

Bah, that damn cloned sheep didn't do squat to move my furniture.

:laugh:

 

[Eeezee]

Euler hardly invented math... he came up with some nifty things, but most of his stuff is elementary. He didn't come up with these results all by himself, he just published them - I'm sure he came up with great ideas, but he hardly gets all the credit.

That was what was so astounding about Einstein, his work on the photoelectric effect and GR was practically done alone (well, not completely alone) and in one fell swoop, theory + experimental confirmation

 

[gorcorps]

IMO it wouldn't change anything. Somebody else would have done it... he was just the one noticed.

 

[jpeyton]

What you guys forget is that the person getting all the recognition was simply the first to claim an idea, theory, or proof.

There were others like them, on the same path, studying the same material, who weren't as quick to the draw.

But humans would have ended up in roughly the same situation had we lost one of our great minds at a young age.

Who knows? Maybe there was a man before Newton who theorized about gravity, but was killed before his research was known?

Also remember that humankind has survived great intellectual losses in our history. One example is the library of Alexandria; most historians say that the collected works destroyed along with the library contained ideas that weren't suggested again until the early Renaissance, over 1000 years later. Think how advanced our civilization would be right now if we had a 1000 year head start on astrophysics, biology, philosophy, etc.

 

[sjwaste]

What about the fact that Riemann did die young? Good chance we'd be a lot farther had he lived longer.

 

[alphatarget1]

Euler's theory of elastic buckling!