About This Video

Each generation benefits from the insights and discoveries of those who came before. “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants,” wrote Isaac Newton. In a new annual series, World Science Festival audiences are invited to stand on the shoulders of modern-day giants. Continuing from his argument for the support of pure science as well as practical science, physicist Steven Weinberg offers examples in the past where pure, knowledge-driven endeavors have yielded practical, and sometimes revolutionary, discoveries.
More from this series: On the Shoulders of Giants: Steven Weinberg

Pictured: J.J. Thomson, discoverer of the electron; Recorded June 2011; Posted November 2011