I had the sublime experience last night of wandering onto the TVTropes page for Frederick. I didn’t realize such a thing existed (and has since May) until I stumbled into it.
Thanks go to troper (and, presumably, Frederick fan) Moogi. Your (apparently single-handed) creation of the Frederick page brought me some joy. I’m glad somebody thinks enough of our silliness to deconstruct it some on the internet.
In my mind, creating our own page on TVTropes would have been tantamount to cheating. However, now that it is out there, I see no problem in exhorting others to connect us in as examples in other tropes.
–Geoff
As a kid, I was always fascinated by Iceman’s form of locomotion on Spider Man and his Amazing Friends. At the time, I didn’t have an Iceman action figure, so Darth Vader had to stand in with a sort of Force Bridge that he would surf around on and now, because I still don’t have an Iceman action figure, I clearly have to have Isaac Newton zooming about on a calculus bridge in order to scratch that itch.
Poor Em…
– Count Dolby von Luckner
Newton’s “Shoulders of Giants” comment, made in a letter to Hooke during one of their attempts at reconciliation, has been interpreted in all manner of ways. To all appearances, it was Newton attempting to give Hooke credit, along with other greats mentioned in the letter, for the work he had done, and recognition for how it had helped Newton himself. But Newton detractors believe that he couldn’t have been that considerate of a rival, and say that the tone is, at best, condescending, and at worst is a direct insult, given that Hooke’s twisted spine made him of a diminutive stature, so that any phrase about “giants” might seem deliberately antagonizing.
I’m willing to give Newton the benefit of the doubt here – that he thought Hooke had some good ideas, but knew that his grasp of mathematics was several orders of magnitude greater than Hooke’s, giving him certain insights that couldn’t be entirely ignored, and that he had to find a way to say all of that diplomatically. The “Shoulders of Giants” letter does that about as well as anybody could, and remarkably well considering Newton’s general temperament.
– Count Dolby von Luckner
