Janna Levin: belief

Transcript context

…We’re in a time until that theory comes along and it’ll be obvious in retrospect, but right now we’re- Right. Well, this, it was obvious to no one, that space-time was curved, but even Newton understood something wasn’t right. He knew to his something missing. I think that’s always fascinating when we’re in a situation where we’re pressure testing our own ideas. He did something remarkable, Newton did, with his theory of gravity, just understanding that the same phenomenon was at work with the earth around the sun as the apple falling from the tree. That’s insane. That’s a huge leap. Understanding that mass, inertial mass, what makes something hard to push around is the same thing that feels gravity, at least in the Newtonian picture, in that simple way. Unbelievable leap. Absolutely genius, but he didn’t like that the apple fell from the tree, even though the earth wasn’t touching it. Yeah. The action-at-a-distance thing.…

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