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

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I've heard of both toxo and Foucault. (That one. I've even studied him briefly, but for literature reasons, not philosophy.) But I know bugger-all about lots of people/things that other people assure me are very famous - watching Sport rounds on Pointless with me is apparently hilarious - so it all works out in the end. :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'll join you in the sport-ignorant corner. Me and a few friends go to a couple of different local pub quizzes occasionally, and the thing that invariably lets us down is our football knowledge :) At a quiz last Sunday, four (of the ten) "in the news" questions were about football...

Of course, if we wish to take the quiz world by storm the answer is for one of us to learn about football, but we're all hoping the 'one' will be someone else.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I did once win a sport round in a pub quiz where I was on a team by myself (complicated reasons involving the quizmaster being my then-boyfriend's housemate and very good at Scrabble), simply by writing Arsenal for all the football questions, guessing at the only golfer I could think of, and knowing a little bit about horse-racing. 5 out of 10 was better than all the other teams managed. :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

We have our own personal standards for sport questions... for example, if the question is "Who scored the most goals in Premiership football this season?", then if we manage to name a Premiership striker we consider ourselves to have got it right[*]. Basically, we only need a plausible answer, not a correct one, to feel like we've succeeded.


[*] Not to the extent of actually marking it right and trying to claim the points, of course.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Yup - I similarly go with "well, I got the right sport at least" for Pointless questions even if I name the highest scoring person, extending it to "I've actually heard of him/her" for the Pointless answers. That is a moral victory, in my book.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I didn't understand a word of that, but now I have discovered that Pointless is a TV game show in which the idea is to name thing other people don't, thus scoring as a few points as possible. Is it interesting to watch if you don't like sport? I guess it would never occur to me to watch a sporty quiz as I'd expect to find it quite dull (though I guess I might learn stuff).

DId I mention that our second-weakest subject is television :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

D'oh, just realised you originally said "sport rounds", so presumably it's a general quiz, so my question is irrelevant.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

*g* Yeah, I do pretty well on most rounds they have (yesterday I got three zero-scoring answers for "actors who have appeared in Star Wars films"), but sport is my Achilles heel and the main reason I would dread going on the show. :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Er.... er... I'm poor at film questions, too!

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Yes I too know sod all about sport! And does this face look bovad?