The opposite of the Giant Zero
I’m sorry to be out of town for Doc’s Berkman talk. All I know about it is that it’s called “The Giant Zero,” which plays on Craig Burton‘s idea of the Net as a hollow sphere where all are an equal distance from all others (which Doc and I appropriated in World of Ends), and David Isenberg’s Stupid Network.
And since I seem to be in the mood for opposites, this reminded me of something that struck me—but I don’t know why—in James Gleick’s excellent biography of Newton. Among the mind-boggling list of Newton’s mind-boggling insights, Gleick mentions that Newton had to figure out the summed gravitational effect of all the particles that make up a sphere like the earth. Newton showed mathematically that the summed gravity pulls towards the center of the earth, which now seems obvious, and which accorded with the Aristotelian theory Newton overthrew. But I was struck by how not obvious it must have been to everyone except Newton.
Unrelated to Doc’s talk, I know. It’s not even a good opposite. But I am jetlagged enough to think it worth blogging random associations. (For example: I liked David Berlinski’s Newton’s Gift better than Gleick’s because Berlinski explains Newton’s steps slow enough for a humanities major to follow, although I certainly like Gleick’s.) Your randomness may vary.
Good night. [Tags: doc_searls newton internet]
