Eastern and Western Science

Science blossomed during the Hellenistic age. Because of the increase in the exchange of ideas between East and West, rapid progress was made in a number of fields, including philosophy, medicine, mathematics, and others. Greek and Babylonian scholars collaborated in the areas of math-

Ematics, science, and astronomy. Technology also advanced, and many new machines and instruments were invented.

As in other areas, much more is known about Greek science than about science in the Persian Empire. One reason is that an impressive Greek collection of literary, scientific, and other texts still exists, while documents predating Alexander’s conquests have not fared as well. This is partly because as papyrus became more commonly used, clay tablets were forgotten. But papyrus was hard to preserve in climates other than that of Egypt. Therefore, beyond several relatively short public inscriptions, there is little written documentation of the period between the fall of Nineveh in Assyria in 612 B. C.E. and Alexander’s invasion-a fact that has long frustrated scholars and historians. One thing that is clear is that the scientific perspectives of Greece and the Middle East were very different. The Greeks believed everything could be understood through science, that knowledge was based on reason, and that all the natural sciences rested on a foundation of mathematics and geometry. This rationalism, which advocated mastery of a subject through the method of inquiry, even challenged the Greeks’ traditional religious beliefs. Today, mathematics and rationalism still underlie the Western approach to science.

The Greeks were the first to develop many fields of science and they furthered most of those already in existence. Scientists included practitioners of philosophy, geometry, physics, economics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, psychology, and other fields.

In the Persian Empire people also studied, explored, and experimented, but they did not share the Greeks’ approach to science. For them, there was no separation between science and religion; science was an outgrowth of the divine. They did not want to master the world through scientific knowledge, but instead wished to learn how to adapt to the forces that affected the world. Their science was based on personal experience, not on analysis, theory, and methodology. Nevertheless, they made many contributions to the world of science.