Talk:1584: Moments of Inspiration
Needs to explain who Lise Meitner is - I'd never heard of her, she's not on a level with the others in public consciousness. 141.101.70.43 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
- Using Marie Skłodowska Curie (instead of Lise Meitner) would be more understandable - both of them made groundbreaking discoveries in radioactivity research and Ms Curie is definitely more famous than Ms Meitner. But the author probably did not want to join everyone else in using Ms Curie as "the only one token lady scientist" - as discussed in 896: Marie Curie, where Lise Meitner (as well as Emmy Noether) is mentioned.--141.101.106.77 07:52, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
- Never let it be said that XKCD doesn't educate! (I think it's a good thing to have used Lise as the example. If everyone knows just about Marie Curie but few people know Lise Meitner, having read the comic they now know two influential women in physics, twice as many as before! Compare and contrast others such as Florence Nightingale and Rosalind Franklin. Ada Lovelace and Dame Stephanie 'Steve' Shirley.) Also, can anyone think of an observation that Marie could have made that wasn't what she did anyway, i.e. the ability of an electrometer to measure radiation, or that pitchblende is more radioactive than uranium.
- Reading the wiki article about Dame Stephanie 'Steve' Shirley, I suspect that being woman in man-dominated field was her only notable accomplishment. Not comparable with Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, who was at worst second programmer ever and discovered first computer bug. -- Hkmaly (talk) 11:45, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
- Anyway, who do you think element 109 was named after? ;) 141.101.98.188 10:05, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
- Never let it be said that XKCD doesn't educate! (I think it's a good thing to have used Lise as the example. If everyone knows just about Marie Curie but few people know Lise Meitner, having read the comic they now know two influential women in physics, twice as many as before! Compare and contrast others such as Florence Nightingale and Rosalind Franklin. Ada Lovelace and Dame Stephanie 'Steve' Shirley.) Also, can anyone think of an observation that Marie could have made that wasn't what she did anyway, i.e. the ability of an electrometer to measure radiation, or that pitchblende is more radioactive than uranium.
Does anyone know who "John and Mildred" might be? --Lou Crazy (talk) 09:13, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
- May Mildred be Mildred Lager? An "american pioneer of natural foods and health food", but there's no mention of "John" in this article. 162.158.114.217 11:19, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
I'd like to point out that Newton really was inspired by watching apple fall, that isn't a myth. The myth is that he was actually hit by the apple. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton#Apple_incident KingSupernova (talk) 12:17, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
