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On the Shoulders of Giants

  • Chapter
Mapping Scientific Frontiers: The Quest for Knowledge Visualization

Abstract

In a letter to Robert Hooke in 1675, Isaac Newton made his most famous statement: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants”. This statement is now often used to symbolize scientific progress.Robert Merton examined the origin of this metaphor in his On the Shoulders of Giants(Merton, 1965). The shoulders-of-giants metaphor can be traced to the French philosopher Bernard of Chartres, who said that we are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size.

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.

Isaac Newton (1642–1727)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Information Science and Technology, Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA

    Chaomei Chen PhD, MSc, BSc

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  1. Chaomei Chen PhD, MSc, BSc
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© 2003 Springer-Verlag London Limited

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Chen, C. (2003). On the Shoulders of Giants. In: Mapping Scientific Frontiers: The Quest for Knowledge Visualization. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0051-5_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0051-5_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-85233-494-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-0051-5

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