Back when I was 106, and my only friend was one goldfish

[venta]

I just regaled ChrisC with a story about the lowly position of empiricists at the French court in the 17th or 18th century. The story goes like this:

All the finest minds of the era were busy debating why a bowl of water should become lighter when you put a goldfish into it. The debate was heated and wide-ranging. Until someone came along and said, er, actually, I don't think a bowl of water actually does get lighter when you add a goldfish. Look, I have here a bowl of water, a fish, and some scales.

His comments were immediately discounted because, well, who would be so low as to actually try the thing?

Which is a lovely story. But when I went a a-googling to try and find out whether I really meant the French court, and which century, and whether the man with the scales was someone whom history remembers...

Well, I can't find any evidence that I haven't just made the whole thing up. I'm sure I remember being told it in school. Has anyone else ever heard this story? If you heard it from me, it probably doesn't count.

Comments

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

men don't have scales, goldfish have scales

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks for clearing that up.

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

You probably need to google it in french.

[ringbark.livejournal.com]

How do you Google things in French? Everyone laughed when W talked about "the Google" so presumably we'd also laugh at anyone who talked about "chercher sur le Google". The only way I could tell Google (en) from Google (fr) would be if we had an article to give us a clue.
By the way, I'm sure I have heard the original story from a non-venta source, but certainly couldn't furnish any details at all, such as country, date, dramatis personae, age of fish...

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

Well, I have only limited linguistic abilities but the google would end something like this.

"Voila, j'ai un poisson rouge, un boule d'eau et des [um... scales?]."

Seriously, my french is bad.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Think un bol d'eau would be more useful. Boule is ball.

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Laughing out loud and trying ne sprayer pas mon petit dejeuner euaveur mon keyboard!

[sammason.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard it until I heard it from you just now. But who am I to judge? This week I got chatting with somebody whose PhD was about a philosopher I hadn't heard of. 'He's a very famous French philosopher!' she said scornfully. I've since goofled him and he does sound interesting but hey, I did a PhD on one of the world's commonest parasites and I'm still explaining the word 'parasitology' to most people who ask about my PhD. As for people having heard of Toxo unless they know that pregnant women shouldn't change the cat litter, I wouldn't be so rude as to scorn anybody.

So I say, why should we have heard of the goldfish-weighing story? It's quite entertaining so thanks for telling us now.

[ringbark.livejournal.com]

On seeing the philosopher's name, my first thought was "oh, is he the pendulum guy?" But it wasn't - that was this guy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Léon_Foucault).

[sammason.livejournal.com]

That was my first response too. It led to the sarky reply about 'very famous'.

[leathellin.livejournal.com]

Well I've heard of your parasite and not because of pregnant women and cat litter (I have also heard of it from a pregnant women who was a nurse and complaining about the vast list of do nots)

[sammason.livejournal.com]

What was per opinion about that list? I'm inclined to think that there'd be an outcry if women weren't given info and babies were harmed as a result.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Hey, I've heard of toxoplasma gondii! I think of it as 'that awesome mind-controlling one. No, the one that does rats. Not the one that does flies. Or the one that does crabs (though that one is also well cool). Yes, the one that may be involved in schizophrenia. That awesome mind-controlling one.'

...I may, of course, not be a representative sample :)

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

Maybe you aren't a represesentative sample, but you are not alone (I went straight for the mind control factoid as well. We're cat people, see....)

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Yes it's that one! When I started my PhD in 2006 I was telling people that they'd do well to get Toxo, hence to acquire immunity to it, if they're female so that they won't get a primary infection during any future pregnancy. But since then it's become clear that this wouldn't be good advice. The psychiatric implications (as you mention) are now well documented. Also it's now clear that long-dormant Toxo can reactivate itself when the immune system is down, making it a risk for anybody who takes immunosuppressant drugs (eg for organ transplants) and also making it a frequent cause of death in AIDS. So it's not only females who need to be concerned. It's a big issue for sheep farmers, too, and that's what my PhD was about.

I'm well proud to have been sharing an office with the (then) fellow PhD student who first found a biochemical explanation for the behavioural effects. She's a good scientist.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I didn't think you should have heard it :) Just that, here I was, regarding it as a key moment in philosophy that would be very famous, and it seems it may be more of a thing I have made up. I just wanted someone to assure me that it really was a real thing...

Which it looks like it may not be :)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

A google for goldfish weight water philosopher turns up this as the top hit (about halfway down), which suggests that person perhaps went to the same school as you, without adding any useful detail.

I'm pretty sure there weren't goldfish in Europe in the Middle Ages, though: your own C17-18 timetable is more plausible.

Overall it sounds a bit of a 'poisson rouge' to me though (ho ho).

[venta.livejournal.com]

Hmm, yes. I don't think I went to school with a Khalid :) However, their story sounds like it's probably the same one I'm thinking... though it's sadly lacking in verifiable fact. Damn, why can't I add [citation wanted] to all bits of the web?

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

You can! – there's stacks of tools that let you do that. Admittedly your comments will only be seen by other people who use the same tool, and I don't think any yet has a critical mass of users. Even Google's one didn't get much traction, and they eventually withdrew it.

[ringbark.livejournal.com]

Do I get a kudo for saying that I am 50 and that my wife hasn't left me?

[venta.livejournal.com]

It's a fairly roundabout way of asking for it, but yes, you get today's kudo :)

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

...of course, while the story may not be true, as a demonstration of the general approach of scientists of that era it's bang-on.

Terrifying, really.

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

Well, if you don't do experiments you eliminate experimental error.

[venta.livejournal.com]

At the piffling expense of propagating, er, error ;)

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I’ve heard structurally similar stories but I don’t think they involved any fish.