
Electricity as Power (1880) [pdf] - sturza
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/os-1/1/5.full.pdf
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ummwhat
I love old timey articles like this. I remember reading something from Charles
Babbage about how the means through which coal is cycled back out of the
atmosphere are as yet unknown. Oh if only he knew.

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mhh__
I also like old (although mainly physics) papers like that. Even relatively
recent things prior to the deep scattering of the proton (the discovery of the
quarks) - Feynman pondering in a completely incorrect direction is quite fun.

It's slightly depressing how far we've come and how willfully stupid some
people are (anything from denying global warming to hippies and 5G), although
I wouldn't disagree if you were to argue that the only thing that really
matters is medicine and food at the end of day.

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Danieru
Reading this article has a flow. It feels easier to read than what I expect a
modern article of equivalent content would be like.

Am I crazy, or is there a technique to the ease of reading we've forgotten?

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londons_explore
I think just more effort went into drafting it. Every word conveys meaning,
and the aim was to maximize the information conveyed per word.

Contrast to modern articles where journalists are told "You have 1 hour to
write 500 words. Go!"

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Reason077
Fact check: The Wheel Bug is not an “electrical insect” as reported under the
linked article. Rather, it’s painful venomous bite is often described as
_feeling_ like an electric shock. Don’t believe everything you read in
_Science_!

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segfaultbuserr
On Wikipedia's it's known as a "{{Update|inaccurate=yes}}".

> _The factual accuracy of parts of this article may be compromised due to
> out-of-date information. Please update this article to reflect recent events
> or newly available information._

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zelon88
I think it's humbling to see how much he understands that people of his time
lack knowledge in so many areas. Like the source of electricity in certain
bugs. I feel like modern authors would just do this little bit of research to
find an answer they could cite, but back then the availability of that
information just wasn't there. If you didn't personally already possess some
knowledge, you were hard pressed to find that knowledge.

I also got a chuckle that the text becomes condensed near the end of the
article. What could be the reason for that?

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frosted-flakes
I imagine it could be quite difficult to estimate ahead of time how much of
the page would be filled by the text. I can picture the typesetter cursing
when he realises he's going to run out of room and switching to a smaller
font, rather than re-setting the whole page.

~~~
zelon88
I figured it was something like that.

It's also kind of ironic that the more people become involved in the
refinement of documents like this the less and less obvious their
contributions become. For example, old official hand-written documents were
delegated to scribes. Then authors in this era sent their work out to type-
setters who used hand crafted tools created by another layer of artisans. Then
to printing presses full of machines which were designed by artisans, built by
artisans, and operated by artisans. Now in modern times the layers are as deep
as the technology sector, with thousands of people having contributed to
digital publishing equipment and thousands of programmers writing and re-
writing better and better software to create a better and better product.

It's interesting seeing generations of compounded human knowledge side by side
with earlier generations.

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mapleboi
This is so sick. It's interesting to see how people saw things back in the
day. Thanks for sharing

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nicedicerice
This is mind-blowing. Thanks for sharing, never thought I would read something
like this.

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adammunich
This is delightful

