[koonsolo]

Having an idea or theory is one thing, but putting it into practice is something completely different.

It's not hard to imagine going to Mars and live there, or even have a bunch of theories on how this would be possible in practice. Doing it however, takes a lot more than that.

I can't imagine current media completely ignoring this when it would actually take place, which basically did happen with the Wright brothers.

Ideas and theories only prove their worth when something practical is done with them.

[hsdkfsdkfjh]

Not so. Having an idea isn't easy. Relativity was "just" an idea long before there was any practical application of it, and it was "just an idea" that took a lot of work. It's simply not true that ideas are easy but practical application is hard. Actually the reverse can be true, sometimes an idea can take a lifetime to develop while the practical applications are trivial by comparison. Nor is it true that "Ideas and theories only prove their worth when something practical is done with them". This one really sends me actually! There's currently no application for theories of black holes, but those theories are worthwhile in their own right, for if there's anything that makes humans worthwhile, it's their ability to conceive of such ideas as black holes. Physics and mathematics, art and music are valuable in themselves regardless of practical application because they are edifying, beautiful, they are something we can be proud of amidst all our failings as a species. So if we wipe ourselves out, by nuclear weapons or some such stupidity, or if we are wiped-out by an asteroid, even if we never reach Mars, future intelligences may find our writings and movies and learn that we dreamed of going to Mars.

[koonsolo]

First of all sorry you got downvoted, because this is actually a pretty good response.

You are indeed correct that not all ideas (or theories) are easy. I think in the case of flight the practicality dominates the theories because they have to be combined just right to actually work.

Whereas your example of relativity, it's indeed the theory that is the hardest part (and Einstein got the proper recognition for that, not the one who practically applied it).

Going to make a weird comparison here, but it's basically like a chicken coming out of an egg. We only see an egg at one moment, and the next there is a chicken coming out. We don't really notice there has been a lot of stuff going on within the egg a long time before it came out. Seems the same as with innovations or discoveries. Suddenly it seems to be there.

But I stand corrected that it's not always the practical application that dominates, sometimes it's indeed the theory that is the biggest achievement.

[Mz]

You are kind of contradicting yourself: Nothing is really new! Except the theory of relativity, proving ideas are hard!

[hsdkfsdkfjh]

I didn't say developing an existing idea was easy, I just said it wasn't entirely original; that all ideas are the result of breeding between existing ideas is no measure of how hard are to develop!