Hello everyone!

This is the very first post on my new blog, nani gigantum humeris insidentes. That is latin for Dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants. Of course, being the ancient Greek fanatic that I am, I wanted to call the blog νάνοι ίστάντες επί τοῖς ὧμοις γιγάντων (painstakingly translated by me with my limited grammar skills). Alas, I realized the Greek letters would be harder to google let alone read. So, I stuck with Latin.

I created this blog with the idea that I can use interesting topics to educate people about science.  I am going to stick to that idea as much as possible, however, sometimes I may veer off on a tangent. Please bear with me.

To start us off I will give a quick overview of science. <---That image, of course, is not a good representation of science. I thought it was funny.

Today, science is equated with the scientific method. It was not always that way and Wikipedia, fortunately, has a very well sourced article that discusses the history of science. So, we can skip that topic.

What is the scientific method in a nut shell? It is a standardized method for asking questions and attempting to answer them objectively. In essence, it is a highly developed and thought out form of natural inquiry. Ask a question about reality, gather as much information as you can find, form a hypothesis that explains your question, test your hypothesis with experiments. That is scientific inquiry. However, even that is not sufficient to answer a question. It must be shown that the conclusions drawn by the experiments are repeatable and statistically valid.

Eventually we can stitch together many conclusions of many experiemnts to paint a bigger picture of reality. That bigger picture we call a scientific theory. Please do not confuse that with the colloquial term "theory," which is akin to a poorly formed hypothesis.

So you see, we as people stand on the vast body of knowledge that was left by our fellow people before us. We use the knowledge to take one leap further than they did. Always moving forward. Always learning more about the space that we find ourselves in. Science is a standardized and proven method to collect and gather this body of knowledge that has naturally gained favor as the best and most useful method.

By building on this vast knowledge we have characterized  many natural phenomena very well. We have worked out tiny phenomena: a neuron functioning or how muscles work. And we have worked out large phenomena: the composition of stars or plate tectonics.

Hence, the name of my blog. We are all dwarves. However, at this time, we have the advantage of standing on the shoulders of some pretty tall giants.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants" - Sir Isaac Newton


PS as you can see, I enjoy linking Wikipedia articles to my posts. Wikipedia is generally frowned upon because it is a secondary source. However, it is useful for compiling information. As long as you remain highly critical of anything in a Wikipedia article and check the primary sources as they pertain to the specific information you want, then you will be fine. Wikipedia is generally good at explaining well established scientific theory.