The Smartest Man in Human History

That’s right I said it, but don’t take my word for it. Listen to Astronomer/Physicist and fellow science ambassador Dr. Neil Tyson discuss Sir Isaac Newton in this TIME special:

Much like Einstein’s famous E=mc², the reigning champion in the realm of famous equations prior to Einstein was Newton’s F=ma. An even more elegant and simple equation since there is no square involved.

Last time we provided an example of how to “read” and equation in English. Lets try this again with our second most famous equation in science history:

Translation: “The force (F) on any object must be equal to (=) the mass of the object (m) multiplied by the acceleration (a) of the object”

This may seem painfully obvious to you, but at the time, this was some mind-blowing stuff. Acceleration can be an abstract idea to some, so let's clear this up right now. Acceleration is a rate. It describes the change in velocity of an object.

Newton’s concept comes down to a firm base in position of where something exists in space. A simple concept that we all are quite used to. “My car is parked in the garage” is an example of a position of an object. You could also say, “my house is on 101 Newton Avenue”, but there’s a big difference between a car and a house: a car moves!

Since you car actually moves from time to time, its position must change. The rate of positional change of your car is known as velocity (or speed). If we take this idea one step further, we can determine the rate at which an object changes its speed over time. This rate is known as acceleration. A car cannot move without accelerating first, and it cannot stop without decelerating.

Back in Newton’s time, the distinction between speed and acceleration wasn’t very clear to most people and many actually considered them the same thing. Newton however, realized something amazing: of these 3 (position, velocity and acceleration) the human body can only “feel” acceleration. You feel the same whether you are sitting in your house or at work. If you were riding in a car on a perfectly smooth road with your eyes closed, you would not sense that you are moving at all! The only way to know you are moving would be using your eyes. However, when you accelerate or decelerate, you can “feel” it. Your body is forced into your seat when you are accelerating. A force therefore is something you can physically feel.

Newton correctly, and for the first time in history, realized that the force you feel on your body must be directly related to your body’s acceleration. Conversely, in order for an object to change is velocity (speed up or slow down), it MUST experience a force. Sometimes the force you experience is a bad thing…in a car accident, the force that hurts you is due 100% to how fast you decelerate to a stop.

But Newton also realized that mass plays a large role in this relationship because the heavier an object is…the more force it takes to speed it up and slow it down. So as you can hopefully see, there is something oddly fantastic about this because it describes something visceral and basic in your experience as a human being: the sense of physical feeling. Anytime you feel motion as a human being, you must be accelerating in some fashion.

Believe it or not from this formula, spawned forth all modern forms of travel, machinery, weapons, our understanding of the solar system, and even how we measure the passage of time! If it wasn’t for Newton, it might have been another 1000 years before this law of nature was realized, and we’d still all be travelling by horse, never going more than a few miles away from our homes…

...An interesting Newton Fact: The smartest man to ever live wasn't smart enough to avoid the 18th century's largest economic bubble when he lost over a million dollars (in today's money) when the South Sea Company's stock crashed in 1722.

He later remarked: "I can measure the motions of celestial bodies, but I cannot measure human folly."

Keep this in mind any time you here economists who believe they actually know how the economy works. If Newton couldn't figure it out, its doubtful anyone else can.

A sort of introduction.

Ask yourself a question: do you understand what the above two equations "mean"? I suspect for most, the truthful answer is no, which is a really good illustration of how we tend to fail at conveying science.

Recently, I read a story on digg and reddit that asked the following question: are you wealthier today than John D. Rockefeller (whom was worth close to 80 billion dollars in the late 1800's)?The truth is that, in almost every meaningful and measurable way...you are. The reason is not money, but time and the above two equations. You were lucky enough to born a little over 100 years later after engineers had some time to tinker with these equations...the benefits of which Rockefeller, despite all his wealth, could never enjoy.

Lately, "climate gate" has been a leading headline in the news. The following discussions that occurred made it clear that scientists have a problem. They have a very big problem: no one else can figure out what the hell they are doing, why they are doing it and why it matters.

Scientists are great at a lot of things. They are smart as hell. But one weakness just about every honest scientist confesses to in secret is that they are bad communicators. One needs only to sit in any University Freshman Physics or Calculus course to see this illustrated first hand.

That's why this blog exists. Being able to do the whole "math" thing makes life a bit easier I find. Bear in mind I don't consider myself to be "good" at math, and I certainly don't like it. Yet I have always found it somewhat easy to do and very useful. I tend to live in the layman's world, only temporarily hopping over to the ivory tower to check out whats going on. In this blog, my goal is to help you understand a little bit more about what these weird guys in lab coats are up to all day. When it matters, when it doesn't, and to delicately mock the journalism profession for endlessing screwing up their job in this respect.