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

[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.