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16-09-2015, 17:11

Science

Mathematics and prescience appeared in many of the world’s ancient civilizations but evolved only in Greece.

Date: 600-31 b. c.e.

Category: Science and technology; astronomy and cosmology

Summary Natural science may be defined as a systematic body of knowledge obtained by careful observation, critical experimentation, and skeptical analysis of objective data. Science attempts to construct logically consistent abstract principles, called theories, to explain experimentally obtained facts. To be accepted as valid, a theory must be internally consistent and a consensus of competent researchers must agree that it is at least useful, if not true. Science by its very nature must be a social activity in which mathematics, experimentation, and rational, objective dialogue provide the means scientists employ to convince and persuade.

Natural science develops only when the circumstances are right, and the right circumstances occurred in ancient Greece. Some of the key components necessary for science and mathematics, open debate and objective thinking, are already evident in the oldest Greek literature, such as Homer’s Iliad (c. 750 b. c.e.; English translation, 1611) and Odyssey (c. 725 b. c.e.; English translation, 1614). In these works, despite the gods’ manipulations of their lives, humans control their own destinies and arrange their own affairs. Because Greek society was stable for about one thousand years, there was ample time for these prescientific attitudes to develop into Greek protoscience.

Egyptian technology and mathematics, which made their impressive feats of engineering possible, were greatly admired and copied by the early Greeks, while early Greek cosmology was borrowed from the Babylonians. However, in the sixth century b. c.e., a new development swept the Ionian culture: Rational thought emerged as the hallmark of philosophy, and Greek ideas came to be dominated by the love and pursuit of reason. Mythological explanations of nature were discarded and replaced by natural causes, and the universe became a rational, ordered system capable of being comprehended. Perhaps as new ideas and diverse philosophies clashed at the crossroads of trade, superstitions canceled each other and reason prevailed. Increased trade also created a wealthy leisure class with time to think and contemplate new thoughts, unrestrained by ancient texts or powerful priests with a vested interest in preserving the status quo.

Although the roots of Greek science were Babylonian, the Greek religion itself paved the way for the secularization of human thought as a rational and consistent understanding of nature was sought through reason unconstrained by myth. The Greek pantheon contained a plethora of gods, but ruling both gods and humans was Moira, or Fate, an impersonal higher law to which even the gods were subject. It is then but a short step to replace Moira by incalculable, but comprehensible, laws of nature; order and regularity replace chaos and chance, and mythology begets science as philosophers search for natural causes.

Thales of Miletus (c. 624-c. 548 b. c.e.), who imported geometry to Greece and knew enough Babylonian astronomy to predict an eclipse of the Sun, asked fundamental questions on the origin of the universe and would not accept mythological answers. By searching nature for answers, he liberated protoscience from the spell of superstition. His answers may

The mathematician Pythagoras addresses a group of people. (F. R. Niglutsch)

Have been incorrect, but by the questions asked and by searching nature for answers, he employed a new process for understanding the universe and took the first decisive step toward science.

Another Ionian philosopher, Anaximander (c. 610-c. 547 b. c.e.), postulated that the stars are pinpricks in a rotating celestial dome revealing the cosmic fires beyond, and the Sun is a hole in the rim of a huge wheel turning about Earth. This is the first approach to a mechanical model of the universe; the Sun god’s chariot of the Babylonians and Egyptians having been replaced by a rotating wheel in an automated universe.

However, it was Pythagoras of Samos (c. 580-c. 500 b. c.e.), skilled mathematician and the originator of a mystical religious philosophy, who could be considered the true founder of both mathematics and natural science. Pythagoras and his disciples believed that numbers were the ultimate reality and imbued these with magical qualities. Their concentration on orderliness and number founded mathematics, and their careful observations of nature spawned science. As a case in point, Pythagoras was able to relate musical intervals to simple arithmetic ratios of the lengths of a vibrating string. He also observed that the simpler the ratio, the more consonant the sound of two simultaneously plucked strings, an embryonic theory of music.

Pythagoras is best known as the father of the Pythagorean theorem, although it was known for special cases by the Egyptians and the Chinese hundreds of years before he was born. The Egyptians may have discovered formulas for geometrical calculations, but the Greeks proved these formulas and introduced the concept of generality; they developed abstract methods of proof not restricted to particular cases. It was not the discovery of the Pythagorean theorem that marked the Greek contribution to mathematics, but the proof of the theorem.

The mathematization of the universe by Pythagoras may not have been valid, but mathematical equations still remain the most utilitarian method for delineating physical laws. In other civilizations, no one even imagined that mathematical relationships might be the key to unlocking the secrets of nature. Today this concept is so ingrained into science that without mathematics, modern physics could not exist. Starting with the Pythagoreans, Greek mathematics made the leap from concrete to abstract thinking. Geometry became a rational science of theorems proved by logical deduction from postulates and axioms, which Euclid later organized into a comprehensive whole. This invention probably occurred only in Greece because of the Greek public assemblies where great prestige was attached to debating skills based on rules of argumentation developed over centuries. In the process of developing strong arguments, the early Greek mathematicians discovered formal logic and thereby transformed Eastern numerology into true mathematics.

Although later Greek philosophers such as Aristotle (384-322 b. c.e.) concocted bizarre physical theories, no supernatural agents were involved. The apparent whims of nature were still explained by natural causes operating in certain sequences with predictable regularities. Although Aristotle paid insufficient attention to physical data, his science, though erroneous, was important because it was constructed on logical reasoning and rational deduction. The literary religion of Greece was not dominated by priests with a vested interest in preserving their power, and even the gods were not exempt from physical law. Greek culture with its penchant for reason and objective thinking smashed the barrier of egocentric superstition. Logic, deductive reasoning, and science can originate only in a mind that has freed itself from belief in its own omnipotence.

Significance The traditional view of the true beginnings of science was that it occurred only once—in ancient Greece. Only the Greeks developed the concepts of objectivity and deductive reasoning that are the hallmarks of science. By severing the human inclination toward the supernatural connection and differentiating internal thought from external reality, the Greeks promoted the unique set of cultural circumstances which spawned science.

This view holds that Greek civilization arose autonomously and that the contributions from its North African neighbors, while important, were not substantial. Not only was Greece the undisputed fountainhead of science, but also no other civilization seemed able to abolish irrationality and completely separate internal thought from external reality. Other cultures may have played important roles in the preservation and subsequent development of science, but none was able to develop the objectivity necessary for science to liberate itself from the shackles of superstition.

Only the ancient Greeks, through the development of rational debate, took the definitive step toward the separation of the internal and external worlds essential to the subsequent development of science. The Greeks did not excel in developing technology; rather, they originated the novel concept that the world is governed not by capricious gods but by the natural laws amenable to systematic investigation.

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