Standing on the shoulders of giants

Around the rim of British £2 coin are the words “Standing on the shoulders of giants”, based on a famous quote from Sir Isaac Newton. It was in a letter to a rival scientist, Robert Hooke, that Newton wrote in February 1675: “Pigmaei gigantum humeris impositi plusquam ipsi gigantes vident.” This is usually translated loosely as: “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

But Newton’s famous quote was far from original. It may even date back to Greek mythology, in which the blinded giant Orion carried the youth Cedalion on his shoulders as his guide until his sight was restored.

Whatever its origin, the first known appearance of the saying was some 500 years before Newton in the ‘Metalogicon’ of John of Salisbury. He attributed the saying to his mentor Bernard of Chartres, who seems to have used it to compare medieval scholars with the giants of ancient Greece and Rome.

Not long afterwards, the phrase reappeared in the works of Isaiah di Trani, a 13th century Italian Jewish tosaphist (a commentator on the Talmud), who wrote: “We are dwarfs astride the shoulders of giants. We master their wisdom and move beyond it.”

Versions of the quotation continued to appear over the centuries and by the early 17th century it was commonplace, appearing perhaps most notably in Robert Burton’s ‘Anatomy of melancholy’. But Burton was himself quoting the 16th century Spanish mystic and theologian Diego de Estella.

The quote is generally taken to be an expression of humility, meaning, “I could not have made my discoveries without basing them on the findings of major researchers from the past.” But historians have commonly interpreted Newton’s use of it as a sly dig at Hooke, meaning: “While I admit to building on the work of great predecessors, I certainly didn’t learn anything from a little runt like you.”

My favourite variant on the quote comes from a US academic who wrote: “If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders.”