If I've learned one thing in my long reign, it's that heat rises.

[GoodTaste]

If I've learned one thing in my long reign, it's that heat rises.


Source: The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking

What does "it's that heat rises" actually mean? At first glance, it seems to be talking about climate change-the temperature rises. What puzzles me is that when I read its authentic version in Chinese, the Chinese text about it appears to mean "is that we are grilled on the fire". It is really puzzling. Because as a king you must have experienced some hard times or gone through ordeals that are as if being put on a grill, where you must feel the heat rising.

What does it really mean?

 

[jutfrank]

The fact 'that heat rises' is a law of nature. The passage concerns the emergence of the concept of laws of nature in the 17th century.

(As you know, it isn't actually heat that rises, but hot air.)

 

[probus]

The joke is that a king, the absolute ruler of many people, should have learnt some things about governance and about the welfare of his subjects, not merely a trivial fact of nature.

 

[GoodTaste]

The fact 'that heat rises' is a law of nature. The passage concerns the mergence of the concept of laws of nature in the 17th century.

(As you know, it isn't actually heat that rises, but hot air.)

Is it called the law of levity, as opposed to the law of gravity?

 

[GoodTaste]

The joke is that a king, the absolute ruler of many people, should have learnt some things about governance and about the welfare of his subjects, not merely a trivial fact of nature.

So it is sarcastic, poking at the king who revealed the fact that he had done nothing for his people?

 

[Tarheel]

@GoodTaste If you mean "poking fun" you are probably right.

I googled "law of levity", but I didn't find much.

 

[GoodTaste]

Yes, that should have been "poking fun at".
Back in 17th century, Newton's law of gravity had just emerged with stunning accuracy. Yet there was no law of levity expressed methematically. I made it jokingly to describe "that heat rises" - the tendency of hot air to rise up, borrowing it from Aristotle's ideas of what made up of our world.