Humans are pretty interesting. Aren’t they?
Feel as if you were an ET. Just imagine it.

As an ET feel yourself in a journey.
It is a journey through history. No, nothing very precise, not about everything. Let’s visit, very briefly, some interesting guys, who have lived in this planet for a while.

Newton
Isaac, maybe the one responsible for the hugest leap in the history of science. I suppose another of them, one called Albert, said that about Newton, or something similar.

Issac Newton, a British citizen. If he liked apples I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure he had good inspiration and intuition.
He was born on Christmas day of a special year, 1642.
Why special? Because in that year one of them (the wise guys), called Galileo Galilei passed away.
One science’s historian would maybe say that Newton was Galileo’s substitute. It does not matter. The fact is that this young brilliant guy – Newton, just hooked up science as no one had ever imagined was possible.
He related the apple to the moon.
If he was a poet? Well, maybe, but for sure he was a very brilliant mind.
He just developed the science for rockets to go up in the sky. He just came up with some natural laws, that made it very clear that physics was not “a thing” for few people, but he stated to the world, through his work, that physics was the science of nature. He started to explain how physical phenomena happened.
In 1687 he presented a brilliant piece of art – …. Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, that would give self-esteem to the scientists of Europe (in the words of Isaac Asimov in “Breakthroughs in Science”.

This very man was popular in his times. He was human. He had his moments of genius as well as those of a normal guy. He, as ninety percent of the earth population, believed in God. He was a very intuitive guy. Many of his breakthroughs came up through it, based on his great scientific background. His analytical skills together with his power of observation (fundamental in a scientist), and with his intuitive approach to the basics phenomenon, enabled him to generate some theories, which helped earth population for more than two hundred years, at least.

Well, how are you feeling as an ET, visiting our first host?
I think we may move ahead, ok?

Watt

Let’s go visiting another guy, he is the father of automation, and he was “the” guy who pushed the industrial revolution to happen when it happened.
His name? … Watt.
He was an engineer, analytical mind, practical guy. He developed the steam machine in such a way that every industry of that century started using it.
He was born in Scotland, UK in the year of 1736, and pushed the world towards the technology evolution as we see it now.
Many engineers, nowadays, use the tools developed or inspired by him and not even know who he was or what he did.
The result of such development got somehow, wrong ways in history. But, let’s go ahead.
Well, let’s visit another guy.

Pythagoras
This is a really interesting guy. He created an Academy to share everything he learned. Just those who attended his academy are able to have a glimpse of his vision of the world.
He is a mathematician, and he is a very sensitive guy. He deals with tools and senses them (the tools). It’s not all the humans who are able to do that.
Usually when people start using some tools they get very good at using them, but they lose the ability of sensing them, They forget their seeds and roots. The most incredible is that humans start considering “weird” those who have that “sense” of dealing with the tool but feel it in a wide range approach.
Well, this guy, Pythagoras developed many theories. He is a brilliant mind and he feels some of the maths tools, from algebra, the numbers as having meanings beyond their appearance as tools to make accounts. He used them as anyone did before. He developed some theories about basic geometry that are still being used five centuries later.
He used to see the deep philosophy that exists in the language of science – maths. He was, as few have been, one who understood and perceived the wide range of mathematics. Not only the formulae or basic applications. But, far ahead of his time, he saw the deep philosophy which dwells forever in that science.

Many fellows studied with him, but one of his requirements was that they should not talk outside about what was going on inside the academy.
It seems crazy, but humans use to judge very severely some attitudes they cannot understand. Even nowadays, some scientists, much behind his brilliance, criticize him and others for having experiences different from the usual ways they stated science to be, as if that was wrong. To keep science inside a limited square where games follows specific rules. Those who dare to do something different are often considered “crazy”.
For those brilliant minds, who developed most of the existing theories in the planet, they say that they had their “moments” of crisis. The intention is very clear, to disqualify those attitudes.
So, hardly ever you will see any college student hearing from professors about the philosophy that was behind those breakthroughs that they are still trying to understand.
It is something interesting, they get afraid of something they cannot understand, yet.

Let’s move ahead.

Einstein
This guy was one of them. He believed in world citizenship. He refused violence. He was a simple child who developed the taste for learning and spreading his knowledge.
He, as any person in the planet, received some influences.
Of course he followed his own way. If he had followed the way of others, he would have been an engineer. He was born in Germany. But in a crazy classification, human use to classify people according to some features and places where they are born. It seems crazy in a macro way, but try to understand it. Then they called him a jew. He was a German Jew. Well, worst than these classifications, from time to time some of the humans seem to have some “ideas” of the cause of their problems. Then, they find a scapegoat for that. One of these guys, called Hittler, claimed that only the “arian race” was good enough to remain on planet earth. All the rest should vanish. So he as a Dictator ruled a huge campaign to conquer the world and eradicate all the “useless people” (Jews, blacks, yellows, browns, everyone who wasn’t an Arian) from the face of the planet.
Albert was a Jew, and like him some of his fellows were very brilliant scientists in Germany.
The physics were quite developed there and they considered the best positions – practical physics, were reserved just for the Arians. So what was available? Theoretical physics. So, the German Jews scientists took their place studying it. They started giving time to their studies and they came up with some great breakthroughs.
Einstein became the most famous of them, but for sure he was not alone. Many other interesting guys were in his company.
Albert feeling the “mood” of the dictator and not appreciating his attitudes renounced his citizenship. Yes, in this planet, according to the place where you are born, you have a classification, called citizenship. Some of them cannot go to another country just because they are born somewhere else that is not considered good enough. Well, let’s give up this topic.

Copenhagen School
Albert, loving science and having very brilliant companions, renounced his citizenship and became countryless. In his view he became a citizen of the world. Logical conclusion, is it not that so?

Some years later some of the most brilliant minds of that time used to meet in another place called Copenhagen. Those meetings established a difference in the way scientists used to work. That was known as the ‘Copenhagen school’. It was different from the Pythagorean academy, much more organized and with a clear purpose of sharing all the knowledge. But that “school of Copenhagen ” was very important for the world. Nielz Bhorn was in charge of it.
Actually it didn’t exist in a formal way. There were just meetings among those brilliant minds.
You cannot imagine how each encounter between just two of those guys was. It was incredible; some of the greatest breakthroughs of the last century became clear in those conversations.
You know, two or more brilliant minds together, with different perspectives, different purposes, putting some topics to be worked out. It was pure fire, true alchemy existed there. Some phrases were transformed into in deep concepts for the history of science.

Well, maybe another day we may go ahead in this journey and meet other interesting guys.
For now, I suggest: do it yourself – as an allien do trips like this – and see how wonderful stories of special guys may emerge;
Hugs for all

By Herbert Santos
Source: http://listeningtothestars.com
Image bythanx