E. P. Thompson Quotes
You know as a scientist that both were developed completely independently of each other in the laboratories. And only afterward were the political situations contrived out of which they could be justified.
Thompson, E. P. The Heavy Dancers. Merlin Press, 1985.
By “arts” Jefferson meant the mechanical arts—inventions and engineering. Jefferson Extrapolated the science and technology progress at the time to the future in a way that few others did at that time.
For historians, this is a difficult concept to comprehend, but with the passage of time, Feynman may well be right.
He was right about the pace of technological development, but we have yet to realize his prediction of inexhaustible power.
In the French Revolutionary reign of terror, people were settling old scores and denouncing anyone they had an issue with as anti-revolutionary. And nobility were extremely suspect. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794) was not only a great scientist but a wealthy noble who also was an expert on government finance and had served as a tax collector. Lavoisier’s defense was that he could finish his scientific experiments that the whole world could benefit from. Ironically, 3 months after Lavoisier was beheaded, the judge himself was denounced by an enemy and he too was sent to the guillotine.
Edward Palmer Thompson was a British historian, writer, socialist and peace campaigner. He is probably best known today for his historical work on the British radical movements in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, in particular The Making of the English Working Class (1963).
