The Relativity of Wrong by Isaac Asimov

Appreciation

Importance

Date Added

10.30.25

TLDR

“Right” and “wrong” are not binary absolute (some wrongs are wronger than others). Each century, what scientists believe to be right turn out to be wrong, but through smaller and smaller refinements each time.

2 Cents

Fun read; made me curious about science again (and in awe of how much science has been done already, from Earth's pear-shaped curvature measurements to Einstein's relativistic equations).

Tags

Since the refinements in theory grow smaller and smaller, even quite ancient theories must have been sufficiently right to allow advances to be made; advances that were not wiped out by subsequent refinements.

The Greeks introduced the notion of latitude and longitude, for instance, and made reasonable maps of the Mediterranean basin even without taking sphericity into account, and we still use latitude and longitude today.

The Sumerians were probably the first to establish the principle that planetary movements in the sky exhibit regularity and can be predicted, and they proceeded to work out ways of doing so even though they assumed the Earth to be the center of the Universe. Their measurements have been enormously refined but the principle remains.

Newton's theory of gravitation, while incomplete over vast distances and enormous speeds, is perfectly suitable for the Solar System. Halley's Comet appears punctually as Newton's theory of gravitation and laws of motion predict. All of rocketry is based on Newton, and Voyager II reached Uranus within a second of the predicted time. None of these things were outlawed by relativity.