This is what FIRST is about for me:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by More from Dean Kamen by William Lidwell October 13, 2005
The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said, "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." What do you think?
Dean's reply: "I think the three stages are accurate, but they are followed by a really daunting fourth stage: by the time that everyone finally gets around to believing something to be obviously true, it will likely be discovered that it is false. Most people do not understand this. They hold on dearly to those things they now accept and think they know to be true, which is one reason that progress is so slow in the world. It's not what experienced people don't know that prevents them from moving forward, it is what they do know that just isn't so anymore. ..."
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Dean's insight above, that today's established truth will eventually be shown to be false, is one of the important reasons for experienced people to do extra-curricular things like mentoring a FIRST team. Helping high-schoolers, who are discovering laws of physics and principles of engineering for the first time, helps keep the understanding of those laws and principles from becoming too rigid in our own minds.
I posted this
in an earlier thread but it seems more appropriate here.
__________________
Richard Wallace
Mentor since 2011 for FRC 3620 Average Joes (St. Joseph, Michigan)
Mentor 2002-10 for FRC 931 Perpetual Chaos (St. Louis, Missouri)
since 2003
I believe in intuition and inspiration. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.
(Cosmic Religion : With Other Opinions and Aphorisms (1931) by Albert Einstein, p. 97)