Vial and Error - Science’s wonders are oft built on blunders

By Benjamin Breen. Does hindsight matter in history? From one perspective, the answer must always be a resounding "yes." We pay more attention to the education of a schoolboy in Switzerland named Albert, even before he himself had performed any calculations of note, than to that of his peers. Without this awareness of future significance, the actual labor of doing history would be frustratingly haphazard: endless errands into the wilderness of the past, searching for meaning amid the flotsam of forgotten lives. More...