"Give me a place to stand a fulcrum and a lever long enough and I will move the earth". Archimedes (287 - 212 BC)

It wasn't so long ago that Thomas Paine wrote "The Rights of Man" so inspired by Archimedes he politicized a mechanical law and metaphorically leveraged Reason and Liberty. One could say he applied a lever to mens' minds.

Thomas Paine (1737-1809) American Author and Revolutionary "The Rights of Man" .

"What Archimedes said of the mechanical powers, may be applied to Reason and Liberty. "Had we," said he, "a place to stand upon, we might raise the world."

The revolution of America presented in politics what was only theory in mechanics. So deeply rooted were all the governments of the old world, and so effectually had the tyranny and the antiquity of habit established itself over the mind, that no beginning could be made in Asia, Africa, or Europe, to reform the political condition of man. Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think.

But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, - and all it wants, - is the liberty of appearing. The sun needs no inscription to distinguish him from darkness; and no sooner did the American governments display themselves to the world, than despotism felt a shock and man began to contemplate redress.

The independence of America, considered merely as a separation from England, would have been a matter but of little importance, had it not been accompanied by a revolution in the principles and practice of governments. She made a stand, not for herself only, but for the world, and looked beyond the advantages herself could receive."

http://www.constitution.org/tp/rightsman2.htm

"When world leading technologists professors doctors engineers scientists and you support one another sparks fly and bonds form - to quote Aristotle - "The whole is more than the sum of its parts".