The Cure Was the Disease
In 1847 Vienna, the doctors’ maternity ward killed far more mothers than the midwives’. Ignaz Semmelweis found the cause, and it was the one thing the profession could not afford to believe: their own hands.
assumptions
4essays tagged "assumptions"
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Gravity Was Never a Force
Newton knew action at a distance was absurd, then used it anyway. Einstein's revolution was refusing to keep the assumption in brackets, gravity is not a force but the shape of spacetime.
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Einstein and the Assumption of Absolute Time
There is no universal now. Einstein didn't merely solve a physics problem, he refused the assumption that everyone, everywhere, shares the same moment.
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Where the Bullet Holes Aren't
The military asked exactly the right question about where to armour their bombers, and still nearly reinforced the wrong parts of the plane. A question carries assumptions; so does the method you use to answer it.