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You may be alluding to the idea of not "reinventing the wheel." I have heard this argument against reading original sources many times, and do not agree with it. I would say that Copernicus reinvented the wheel, as did Lobachevski, and Einstein. Their discoveries were made, I think, at least in part because they were trying to understand things from their most basic origins, and going back to the sources. Sometimes I wonder whether in 100 years a Freshman in college will be able to prove the Pythagorean theorem, or whether he will just look at the proof-requester with condescending incredulity: "are you stupid? everybody knows that!". Jacob Keller ps I recognize that the above was probably not what you meant... ******************************************* Jacob Pearson Keller Northwestern University Medical Scientist Training Program Dallos Laboratory F. Searle 1-240 2240 Campus Drive Evanston IL 60208 lab: 847.491.2438 cel: 773.608.9185 email: [log in to unmask] ******************************************* ----- Original Message ----- From: "David J. Schuller" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Monday, September 22, 2008 10:57 AM Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] Crystallogrphy today > On Mon, 2008-09-22 at 10:52 -0500, Jacob Keller wrote: > To understand the fundamentals of any discipline, I have always found > it >> completely worthwhile to go back to the original source, where the > idea was >> first discovered or presented. This is really, really valuable, > although not >> always possible. > > I have found this to be not possible, and therefore not valuable, in the > disciplines of fire-starting and wheel-building. > > - > ======================================================================= > With the single exception of Cornell, there is not a college in the > United States where truth has ever been a welcome guest - R.G. Ingersoll > ======================================================================= > David J. Schuller > modern man in a post-modern world > MacCHESS, Cornell University > [log in to unmask] >