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It’s a quote from Newton, so that’s obviously why we say it.

The reason he said ‘giants’ is supposedly that it was a dig at Robert Hooke, who was famously short. Impressively, if true then he both managed to get this dig in and to be remembered for his humility as a result of it.

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Newton is a fascinating guy. Did way more work in alchemy trying to turn lead into gold than he did in math and physics (the mercury he used probably made him nuts). He took a day job running the British treasury where he investigated counterfeiters which was punishable by death at the time. And he was responsible for setting the exchange rate between gold and silver. He messed up, all the silver was worth way more melted down and used to make things like utensils than it was as currency so it disappeared from circulation which was critical for creating the gold standard that would last the next 300ish years

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