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

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

You probably need to google it in french.

[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.

[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).

[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...

[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).

[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.

[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)

[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]

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

[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.

[ringbark.livejournal.com]

Thank you for not saying "viola".

[ringbark.livejournal.com]

Far be it from me to criticise bad, nay abominable, French, but...

We had it drummed into us that while ne...pas was the usual form of negating a verb, if it was an infinitive, the correct form is ne pas...
Accordingly, we should have "and trying ne pas sprayer...", leaving aside that half the sentence is in English, sprayer probably isn't a real French word and the t key on my keyboard isn't working properly.

[ringbark.livejournal.com]

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

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Zut! Mon Dieu! Sacre bleu!

Will now stop failing even to swear properly in French. I'll get my coat now.

[ringbark.livejournal.com]

Don't get your coat! My pedantry was such that I had already got mine.
(Canadian French swearing is much more fun, btw.)
cinq six boîtes de tomates vartes!

[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 :)

[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.

[venta.livejournal.com]

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

[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 :)

[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?

[venta.livejournal.com]

But un boule d'eau would be much more impressive.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks for clearing that up.

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't that require zero gravity? If so, adding a fish would at least not increase the weight.