25% of 18th century science

5 thoughts on “25% of 18th century science”

1. John Venier

   3 January 2012 at 12:50

   He was number -exp(Pi*i)!
2. sasha

   3 January 2012 at 12:51

   Euler is 25%
3. Cogitoergocogitosum

   3 January 2012 at 13:20

   “Would have been written”?!?! Is that at all like “was written”? You know, Im pretty sure if no one in history ever contributed to science, I “would have” single handedly caught this world back up.
4. Johnny

   3 January 2012 at 13:47

   I read it as “[If a hypothetical listing were created of] all of the mathematics, physics, mechanics, astronomy, and navigation work produced in the 18th century, a full 25% would have been written by Leonard Euler.”
5. John Venier

   3 January 2012 at 17:10

   I read it like Johnny, too, but that leads to the question of metric. 25% of what? Books? Pamphlets? Pages? Words? Peer-reviewed journal articles? ;-)

   Then again, using the 80-20 rule, 80% of the valuable content is in 20% of the work, so maybe Euler is responsible for more than 80% of the valuable content in those fields :-D

   But seriously, although those are mighty fields, I think science ought to also include chemistry, metallurgy, biology, and geology at least, and maybe medicine, so perhaps it isn’t fair to credit Euler with 25% of science as a whole.

   According to me:

   … in a list of mathematics, physics, mechanics, astronomy, and navigation, a full 20% is the word, “navigation.”