'Standing on the shoulders of giants'?

Question

On which everyday object would you find these words?

Answer 1

£2 coin.

Answer 2

There is an appendix to this Newton and Hooke story that does not give quite so much credit to Newton for magnanimity.

Newton loathed Hooke, and by all accounts, was not a particularly likeable character himself. Hooke, however, though a brilliant scientist, possibly greater than Newton, was not only an ugly man, he was also very short. Newton was not one to share scientific glory (just consider the arguments with Leibnitz), and it is thought in some quarters that Newton's remark about "standing on the shoulders of giants" was intended to be ironic and pejorative, referring obliquely to Hooke's diminutive size as well as Newton's perception of Hooke's achievements as a scientist.

Answer 3

On a British Pound Coin.  The quote is from a Sir Isaac Newton - "If I have seen further it is because I am standing on the shoulders of giants" .  It has been interpreted as a barbed aside to his rival Robert Hooke (who did early work which led to Newton's theory of Gravity) who was rather short.

Answer 4

As the previous people have said.

The point is----do you know what it means? And do you know what it says around the rim of the £1 coins---in 3 different languages?

The English coin has on its edge----( translation from Latin)

A decoration and safe guard.

The Scots----No one provokes me with impunity.

The Welsh----True am I to my country

Answer 5

On a British £2 coin.  Dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants (Latin: nanos gigantum humeris insidentes) is a Western metaphor meaning "One who develops future intellectual pursuits by understanding the research and works created by notable thinkers of the past"; a contemporary interpretation. However, the metaphor was first recorded in the twelfth century and attributed to Bernard of Chartres. It was famously used by the seventeenth-century scientist Isaac Newton who wrote it as: Pigmaei gigantum humeris impositi plusquam ipsi gigantes vident (see below). The picture is derived from the Greek mythology where the blind giant Orion carried his servant Cedalion on his shoulders.

"The edge inscription encapsulates perfectly the essence of the reverse design, and has been taken from a letter written by Isaac Newton to fellow scientist Robert Hooke on 5th. February 1676, where he very modestly claimed that his success had been built on the achievement of others: "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants"".

It is possible that Benjamin Franklin said it also, but later!

Answer 6

without repeating the others -they are correct

Answer 7

£2coin - or the cover of an Oasis album!