Show, Don't Tell

We’ve all heard the phrase “show, don’t tell.” In fact, we here at Big Spaceship live by those three words. To tell is to inform. But to show is to wow. German mathematician Joseph Furtenbach proved this quite simply:

The year was 1627. Furtenbach wanted to prove Galileo’s theory that the earth spun on a fixed axis. Rather than presenting the people with a 500-page essay, he loaded a cannon. After firing a cannon ball straight into the sky, he climbed on top of the cannon’s muzzle.


If Galileo knew what he was talking about, the cannon ball would return to the earth at a point west of the cannon, while the earth would rotate east. If, on the other hand, Galileo’s theory was wrong, it was curtains for Furtenbach.

The ball soared into the sky. The crowd gasped – some unable to watch aside from the occasional peek. Furtenbach sat atop the cannon and smiled, waiting for the ball to descend.

POW. The thud was followed by an eerie silence. Furtenbach’s head was intact. Just west of him, the earth revealed an impressive dent. Galileo was right. He had always been right…but now people believed him.

This has been another great moment in the history “show, don’t tell.”

(The above was paraphrased from Erik Larson’s Isaac’s Storm.)