The First Scientist: Anaximander and his legacy

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In summary, the book discusses a student of Thales, Anaximander, and his theory of the Earth being a cylindrical drum with the Mediterranean forming a puddle at its center.
  • #36
In case of interest here is an excerpt of an online resource:
Timeline related to Greek Science and Technology

800 BCE
Vowels were by the Greeks to consonants of Phoenician origin.

610 BCE
Birth of Anaximander of Miletus.

About 600 BCE
Thales of Miletus (Θαλής ο Μιλήσιος ) arguing from the fact that wherever there is life, there is moisture, speculated that the basic stuff of nature is water, according to Aristotle. He brings Babylonian mathematical knowledge to Greece and uses geometry to solve problems such as calculating the height of pyramids and the distance of ships from the shore.

About 600 -501 BCE
Sun dial (gnomon) in use in Greece and China.
Theodorus of Samos credited with invention of ore smelting and casting, water level, lock and key, carpenter's square, and turning lathe.
First water supply system in Athens has nine pipes leading to main well.

About 585 BCE
Thales of Miletus predicts a solar eclipse.

About 560 BCE
Anaximander (Αναξίμανδρος ο Μιλήσιος ) proposes that the Earth floats unsupported in space. Its surface is cylindrical. The “author of the first geometrical model of the world...” Charles Kahn Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology

About 530 BCE
Pythagoras (Πυθαγόρας ο Σάμιος ) discovered the dependence of musical intervals on the arithmetical ratios of the lengths of string at the same tension, 2:1 giving an octave, 3:2 the fifth, and 4:3 the fourth. He is also credited with a general formula for finding two square numbers the sum of which is also a square, namely (if m is any odd number), m2+{1/2(m2-1)}2={1/2(m2+1)}2. "The Pythagoreans and Plato [as well as the Renaissance Neo-Platonists] noted that the conclusions they reached deductively agreed to a remarkable extent with the results of observation and inductive inference. Unable to account otherwise for this agreement, they were led to regard mathematics as the study of ultimate, eternal reality, immanent in nature and the universe, rather than as a branch of logic or a tool of science and technology" (Boyer 1949:1). Consequently, when the Pythagoreans developed the theory of geometric magnitudes, by which they were able to compare two surfaces' ratio, they were led, for lack of a system which could handle irrational numbers, to the 'incommensurability problem': Applying the side of a square to the diagonal, no common rational measure is discoverable.

Pythagoras proposes that sound is a vibration of air.

About 510 BCE
Almaeon of Crotona (Αλκμαίων ο Κροτωνιάτης ) a member of the Pythagorean medical circle, located the seat of perception in the brain, or enkephalos, and maintained that there were passages connecting the senses to the brain, a position he was said to have arrived at by dissections of the optic nerve.

About 500 BCE
Water system built by Eupalinus (Ευπαλίνος ο Μεγαρεύς) on Samos, three-quarter-mile-long tunnel, 20 meter deep, started simultaneously at both ends. Herodotus consider this as one of the three greatest Greek constructions.

About 500 BCE
Xenophanes examined fossils and speculated on the evolution of the earth.
Alcmaeon, Greek physician, discovers Eustachian tubes c. -500

479-431 BCE
Golden Age of Athens

About 465 BCE
Hippasus ('Ιππασος ο Μεταποντίνος) writes of a "sphere of 12 pentagons", which must refer to a dodecahedron

About 450 BCE
Anaxagoras of Athens taught that the moon shines with the light of the sun and so was able to explain the eclipses.

About 440 BCE
Leucippus of Miletus said that the world consisted in the void and atoms, which are imperceptible individual particles that differ only in size, shape, and position. That these particles were imperceptible meant they met Parmenides' objection to the Pythagorean's geometric points and, since they alone were unchanging, change could be explained as mere sense impressions. "It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that even in 1900 the only new idea to Leucippus's theory was that each chemical element was identified with a separate atomic species" (Park 1990:41).

Oenopides of Chios (Οινοπίδης ο Χίος) probably created the first three of what became Euclid's 'postulates' or assumptions. What is postulated guarantees the existence of straight lines, circles, and points of intersection. That they needed to be postulated is because they require 'movement,' the possibility of which was challenged by the Eleatics (Szabó 1978:276-279).

About 430-440 BCE
Hippocrates of Chios squared the lune, a major step toward squaring the circle, probably using the theorem that circles are to one another as the squares of their diameters. He writes the Elements which is the first compilation of the elements of geometry

Hippias of Elis (Ιππίας ο Ηλείος) invents the quadratrix which may have been used by him for trisecting an angle and squaring the circle.

Prior to about 425 BCE
Herodotus wrote the first scientific history; that is, he began by asking questions, rather than just telling what he thinks he knows. Moreover, these questions were "about things done by men at a determinate time in the past, [and the history itself ] exists in order to tell man what man is by telling him what man has done" (Collingwood 1946:18).

About 425 BCE
Theodorus of Cyrene (Θεόδωρος ο Κυρηναίος) shows that certain square roots are irrational. This had been shown earlier but it is not known by whom.

Thebans use a flame-thrower at Delium.

About 420 BCE
Democritus of Abdera (Δημόκριτος ο Αβδηρίτης) developed Leucippus's atomic theory: Atoms vibrate when hitched together in solid bodies and exist in a space which is infinite in extent and in which each star is a sun and has its own world. He also produced two major concepts in the history of ideas concerning the brain--that thought was situated there and, anticipating the nervous system, that psychic atoms constituted the material basis of its communication with the rest of the body and the world outside. Socrates, and hence the Platonic school, followed Democritus in locating thought in the brain.

About 387 BCE
Plato founds his Academy in Athens

About 375 BCE
Archytas of Tarentum develops mechanics. He studies the "classical problem" of doubling the cube and applies mathematical theory to music. He also constructs the first automaton.

About 370-360 BCE
Eudoxus of Cnidus invented a model of twenty-seven concentric spheres by which he was able to calculate the sun's annual motions through the zodiac, the moon's motion including its wobble, and the planets' retrograde motion. He used what came much later to be called the 'exhaustion method' for area determination. This method involved inscribing polygons within circles, reducing the difference ad absurdum, and was wholly geometric since there was at that time no knowledge of an arithmetical continuum, at least among the Greeks.

About 340 BCE
Aristaeus writes Five Books concerning Conic Sections.
Praxagoras of Cos discovers the difference between arteries and veins.

About 335 BCE
Strato, experiments with falling bodies and levers.

About 330 BCE
Heraclides of Pontus said that the Earth turns daily on its axis "while the heavenly things were at rest..., considered the cosmos to be infinite..., [and] with the Pythagoreans, considered each planet to be a world with an earth-like body and with an atmosphere" (Dreyer 1906:123-125). He also suggested that Mercury and Venus have the sun at the center of their spheres.

Pytheas navigated the British Isles and the northern seas and upon returning home wrote about an island that he called Thule or Ultima Thule

Aristotle, describes image projection in terms of the camera obscura

About 325 BCE
Alexander orders his admiral, Nearchus, to explore the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf, and Euphrates

Pytheas, tides are caused by moon

330 BCE ??
Diving bell used

About 320 BCE
Eudemus of Rhodes writes the History of Geometry.

About 314 BCE
The first reference to the pyroelectric effect by Theophrastus who noted that tourmaline becomes charged when heated.

310 BCE
Birth of Aristarchus of Samos.

About 300 BCE
Eukleides, better known as Euclid, published his Elements, a reorganized compilation of geometrical proofs including new proofs and a much earlier essay on the foundations of arithmetic. Elements conclude with the construction of Plato's five regular solids. Euclidean space has no natural edge, and is thus infinite. In his Optica, he noted that light travels in straight lines and described the law of reflection.

About 300 BCE
Dicaiarch of Messina (350-290 BCE), Greek geographer introduces to the map making world the notion of latitude and longitude

About 290-260 BCE
Aristarchus of Samos, in On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon, used trigonometry to estimate the size of the Moon and its distance by the Earth's shadow during a lunar eclipse. Archimedes and others said that he maintained that the Moon revolved around the Earth and the Earth around the Sun which remained stationary like the stars.

287 BCE
Birth of Archimedes (Αρχιμήδης ο Συρακούσιος)

276 BCE
Birth of Eratosthenes

About 270 BCE
Greek inventor Ctesibius of Alexandria includes gearing in clepsydras

About 260-250 BCE
Archimedes of Syracuse contributed numerous advances to science including the principle that a body immersed in fluid is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the displaced fluid and the calculation of the value of pi. "His method was to select definite and limited problems. He then formulated hypotheses which he either regarded, in the Euclidean manner, as self-evident axioms or could verify by simple experiments. The consequences of these he then deduced and experimentally verified" (Crombie 1952:278). Description of the Loculus of Archimedes; Archimedean Polyhedra; Volume of Intersection of Two Cylinders; Archimedes' Cattle Problem. Principle of the lever , discovery of the principle of buoyancy

About 245 BCE
Callimachus of Cyrene, a scholar and librarian at the Library of Alexandria, "created for the first time a catalog of Greek literature covering 120,000 books, called the Pinakes or Tables

About 240 BCE
Eratosthenes of Cyrene calculated the diameter of the Earth by measuring noontime shadows at sites 800 km. apart. Assuming the Earth is a sphere, the measured angle between the sites is seven degrees and the circumference is about 50 times 800 km., or about 40,000 km.

About 230 BCE
Eratosthenes of Cyrene develops his sieve method for finding all prime numbers.

Before the end of the third century BCE
Astrolabes were in use for taking the angular distance between any two objects, usually the elevation in the sky of planets.

In the early second century BCE
Diocles, in On Burning Mirrors, proved the focal property of a parabola and showed how the Sun's rays can be made to reflect a point by rotating a parabolic mirror (Toomer 1978).

About 225-210 BCE?
Apollonius of Perga writes Conics. He introduced probably first the terms 'parabola' and 'hyperbola,' curves formed when a plane intersects a conic section, and 'ellipse,' a closed curve formed when a plane intersects a cone.

About 134-127 BCE
Hipparchus of Rhodes (Ιππαρχος ο Ρόδιος ) measured the year with great accuracy and built the first comprehensive star chart with 850 stars and a luminosity, or brightness, scale. He is credited with the discovery of the precision of the equinoxes, and seems to have been very impressed that either of two geometrically constructed hypotheses could 'save the appearance' of the path that a planet follows: One shows the planets moving in eccentric circles and the other moving in epicycles carried by concentric circles (Duhem 1908:8).

THANKS to a German website "miahanas". Much of the timeline is taken from there and edited down to fit in one normalsize post. http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/HistoricEvents.htm
 
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  • #37
marcus said:
In case of interest here is an excerpt of an online resource:
Timeline related to Greek Science and Technology

Thank you marcus - for this wonderful timeline.
 
  • #38
I'm glad you found it interesting! You might want to look at the source
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/HistoricEvents.htm
but it is like drinking from a firehose. I edited selectively from it.
 
  • #39
Very interesting, indeed. Thank you, Marcus.
 
  • #41
WhoWee, Fuzzyfelt, Apeiron, you might be interested in watching this short YouTube about the Antikythera device.
A scientist/historian/craftsman named Michael Wright made a lifesize working model. He operates the reconstructed device and explains it.


Eclipses get predicted by a spiral dial. Planets go around at varying speeds and do their proper retrograde motion (as seen from the earth.) It's "high Greek science"--very neat.
 
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  • #42
I didn't appreciate the complexity of the device until viewing this video.
 
  • #43
I want to appreciate how fast the Aegean science tradition developed after it got started around 600 BCE. Arithmetic is a lot easier for me, intuitively, going forward so I am going to repeat some of the earlier timeline starting the yearcount around 600 BCE.

According to Wkpd, Thales was born in 624 BCE so he would have been 24 years old in 600 BCE when I start the count. It impressed me to see how fast things took off after that. I'm going to call the yearcount "AET" for "Aegean explanatory tradition". If that's too long to say, just call it "Aegean time". Thales et al started a style of explanation (that we now call "natural") involving substances, material process and mechanisms instead of the Olympian pantheon. They used ideas like evaporation, condensation, celestial wheels, spheres, force, periodic motion, and they asked what causes stuff like rain thunder earthquakes lunar phases. They asked about proportions. Let's gauge how fast this developed once it got rolling.

I adapted this timeline from a German website and can't vouch for it in detail.


-200 AET (=800 BCE)
Phonetic Greek alphabet. The Ionian Greeks basically invented vowels, which the Phoenician alphabet they adopted did not have: Since Greek has fewer consonants than Phoenician, when applying the Phoenician alphabet they found they had some extra symbols left over. They assigned these unused Phoenician consonants to Greek vowell sounds.

-24 AET (=624 BCE)
Birth of Thales of Miletus, first documented searcher for systematic natural explanations.

-10 AET
Birth of Anaximander of Miletus (lived from -10 to 54 AET)

About 0 AET (=600 BCE)
Thales of Miletus (Θαλής ο Μιλήσιος ) arguing from the fact that wherever there is life, there is moisture, speculated that the basic stuff of nature is water, according to Aristotle. He brings Babylonian mathematical knowledge to Greece and uses geometry to solve problems such as calculating the height of pyramids and the distance of ships from the shore.

About 15 AET
Thales predicts a solar eclipse (probably thanks to Babylonian records, not to basic understanding, but anyway...)

About 40 AET
Anaximander (Αναξίμανδρος ο Μιλήσιος ) proposes that the Earth floats unsupported in space. The “author of the first geometrical model of the world...” Charles Kahn Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology. Proposed an explantation for rain: that it results from evaporation of water caused by the action of the sun. Proposed natural explanations for numerous other phenomena and suggested that land animals originated from sea life.

About 70 AET
Pythagoras (Πυθαγόρας ο Σάμιος; 30 to 110 AET ) discovered the dependence of musical intervals on the arithmetical ratios of the lengths of string at the same tension, 2:1 giving an octave, 3:2 the fifth, and 4:3 the fourth...Pythagoras proposed that sound is a vibration of air.

About 90 AET
Almaeon of Crotona (Αλκμαίων ο Κροτωνιάτης ) a member of the Pythagorean medical circle, located the seat of perception in the brain, or enkephalos, and maintained that there were passages connecting the senses to the brain, a position he was said to have arrived at by dissections of the optic nerve.

About 100 AET
Water system built by Eupalinus (Ευπαλίνος ο Μεγαρεύς) on Samos, three-quarter-mile-long tunnel, 20 meter deep, started simultaneously at both ends. Herodotus consider this as one of the three greatest Greek constructions.
Theodorus of Samos credited with invention of ore smelting and casting, water level, lock and key, carpenter's square, and turning lathe.
Xenophanes examined fossils and speculated on the evolution of the earth.

About 135 AET
Hippasus ('Ιππασος ο Μεταποντίνος) writes of a "sphere of 12 pentagons", which must refer to a dodecahedron

About 150 AET
Anaxagoras of Athens taught that the moon shines with the light of the sun and so was able to explain the eclipses.

About 160 AET
Leucippus of Miletus said that the world consisted in the void and atoms, which are imperceptible individual particles that differ only in size, shape, and position...
Oenopides of Chios (Οινοπίδης ο Χίος) probably created the first three of what became Euclid's 'postulates' or assumptions...

About 160-170 AET
Hippocrates of Chios squared the lune, a major step toward squaring the circle, probably using the theorem that circles are to one another as the squares of their diameters. He writes the Elements which is the first compilation of the elements of geometry

About 175 AET
Theodorus of Cyrene (Θεόδωρος ο Κυρηναίος) shows that certain square roots are irrational. This had been shown earlier but it is not known by whom.

About 180 AET
Democritus of Abdera (Δημόκριτος ο Αβδηρίτης) developed Leucippus's atomic theory: Atoms vibrate when hitched together in solid bodies and exist in a space which is infinite in extent and in which each star is a sun and has its own world...

About 213 AET
Plato founds his Academy in Athens

About 225 AET
Archytas of Tarentum develops mechanics. He constructs (the first?) automaton.

About 230-240 AET
Eudoxus of Cnidus invented a model of twenty-seven concentric spheres by which he was able to calculate the sun's annual motions through the zodiac, the moon's motion including its wobble, and the planets' retrograde motion. He used what came much later to be called the 'exhaustion method' for area determination. This method involved inscribing polygons within circles, reducing the difference ad absurdum, and was wholly geometric since there was at that time no knowledge of an arithmetical continuum, at least among the Greeks.

About 260 AET
Aristaeus writes Five Books concerning Conic Sections.
Praxagoras of Cos discovers the difference between arteries and veins.

About 265 AET
Strato, experiments with falling bodies and levers.

About 270 AET
Heraclides of Pontus said that the Earth turns daily on its axis "while the heavenly things were at rest..., considered the cosmos to be infinite..., [and] with the Pythagoreans, considered each planet to be a world with an earth-like body and with an atmosphere" (Dreyer 1906:123-125). He also suggested that Mercury and Venus have the sun at the center of their spheres.
Pytheas navigated the British Isles and the northern seas and upon returning home wrote about an island that he called Thule or Ultima Thule. Pytheas explained the tides as caused by the moon.
Aristotle, describes image projection in terms of the camera obscura.
Apparently about this time the diving bell used for work under water.

About 286 AET
The first reference to the pyroelectric effect by Theophrastus who noted that tourmaline becomes charged when heated.

290 AET
Birth of Aristarchus of Samos (lived 290-370 AET)

About 300 AET
Eukleides, better known as Euclid, published his Elements, a reorganized compilation of geometrical proofs including new proofs and a much earlier essay on the foundations of arithmetic. Elements conclude with the construction of Plato's five regular solids. Euclidean space has no natural edge, and is thus infinite. In his Optica, he noted that light travels in straight lines and described the law of reflection.
Dicaiarch of Messina (250-310 AET), Greek geographer introduces the notion of latitude and longitude in map-making.

About 310-340 AET
Aristarchus of Samos, in On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon, used trigonometry to estimate the size of the Moon and its distance by the Earth's shadow during a lunar eclipse. Inferred from observation that the Sun was much farther away than the Moon. Archimedes and others said that he maintained that the Moon revolved around the Earth and the Earth around the Sun which remained stationary like the stars.

313 AET
Birth of Archimedes (Αρχιμήδης ο Συρακούσιος; 313-388 AET)

324 NET
Birth of Eratosthenes of Cyrene (Ἐρατοσθένης ο Κυρηναίος; 324-405 AET)

About 330 AET
Greek inventor Ctesibius of Alexandria includes gearing in clepsydras

About 340-350 AET
Archimedes of Syracuse contributed numerous advances to science including the principle that a body immersed in fluid is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the displaced fluid and the calculation of the value of pi. "His method was to select definite and limited problems. He then formulated hypotheses which he either regarded, in the Euclidean manner, as self-evident axioms or could verify by simple experiments. The consequences of these he then deduced and experimentally verified" (Crombie 1952:278)...

About 355 AET
Callimachus of Cyrene, a scholar and librarian at the Library of Alexandria, "created for the first time a catalog of Greek literature covering 120,000 books, called the Pinakes or Tables."

About 360 AET
Eratosthenes calculated the diameter of the Earth by measuring noontime shadows at sites 800 km. apart. Assuming the Earth is a sphere, the measured angle between the sites is seven degrees and the circumference is about 50 times 800 km., or about 40,000 km.

About 370 AET
Eratosthenes develops his sieve method for finding all prime numbers.

About 375-390 AET
Apollonius of Perga writes Conics. He introduced probably first the terms 'parabola' and 'hyperbola,' curves formed when a plane intersects a conic section, and 'ellipse,' a closed curve formed when a plane intersects a cone.

Before 400 AET
Astrolabes were in use for taking the angular distance between any two objects, usually the elevation in the sky of planets.

In the early fifth century AET (i.e. the early 400s)
Diocles, in On Burning Mirrors, proved the focal property of a parabola and showed how the Sun's rays can be made to reflect a point by rotating a parabolic mirror (Toomer 1978).

About 466-473 AET
Hipparchus of Rhodes (Ιππαρχος ο Ρόδιος; c.410-480 AET) measured the year with great accuracy and built the first comprehensive star chart with 850 stars and a luminosity, or brightness, scale. He is credited with the discovery of the precession of the equinoxes, and [noted] that either of two geometrically constructed hypotheses could 'save the appearance' of the path that a planet follows: One shows the planets moving in eccentric circles and the other moving in epicycles carried by concentric circles (Duhem 1908:8).

This timeline is adapted from http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/HistoricEvents.htm I cannot vouch for it's accuracy. Some details would need to be checked. Corrections are welcome if anyone has some to suggest.
==========

Probably the best source for this whole development, especially the period 350-100 BCE (which would be Aegean years 250-500, through the time of Hipparchus in other words) is the book by Lucio Russo called The Forgotten Revolution.
 
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  • #44
I just found the article on Anaximander at the IEP website. (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy).
http://www.iep.utm.edu/anaximan/

I knew about this, but when I tried to read it earlier the site was down. This time it was up. I really like it. Good source!

IEP has an article on Thales too. On scores of interesting people, in fact. At the top of every page there is an alphabet. Click on any letter and browse the names that begin with that letter.
 
  • #45
Thank you, Marcus, this thread is a treat!
 
  • #46
fuzzyfelt said:
Thank you, Marcus, this thread is a treat!

Thanks to you, and WhoWee as well! It's a pleasure to share an interest like this with you.

Rovelli's new book just came out!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1594161313/?tag=pfamazon01-20
It already has one 5-star review, as I should know :biggrin:
Great book. Not only about a truly original scientific mind but also about the world of those independent coastal Ionian cities interconnected by sea (and in contact with older river-based civilizations.)
 
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  • #47
marcus said:
Thanks to you, and WhoWee as well! It's a pleasure to share an interest like this with you.

Rovelli's new book just came out!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1594161313/?tag=pfamazon01-20
It already has one 5-star review, as I should know :biggrin:
Great book. Not only about a truly original scientific mind but also about the world of those independent coastal Ionian cities interconnected by sea (and in contact with older river-based civilizations.)

Good news! I'm looking forward to reading it!
 
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  • #48
I found more online source material about the Antikythera mechanism:
http://www.antikythera-mechanism.gr/faq/general-questions/why-is-it-so-important

There is an FAQ maintained by "The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project". It gives the estimated date of construction as "150-100BC" which in my way of numbering the timeline of science starting from the time of Thales and Anaximander would be «450» to «500».
Look back at post #43 for a sample timeline. (I decided simple angle quotes were a better way to distinguish the year-number---rather than tagging with some abbreviation like "AET".
Or at least a convenient undistracting alternative.

I noticed that the Anaximander book is selling in the Japanese market as well as more obvious English-speaking ones (Usa, UK,...)
http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/1594161313/ ベストセラー商品ランキング: 洋書 - 508,077位 (洋書のベストセラーを見る)
780位 ─ 洋書 > History > Ancient > Greece
1428位 ─ 洋書 > History > Europe > Greece
8197位 ─ 洋書 > Science > History & Philosophy

It could be fun to try to figure this out. I think 洋書 means ENGLISH. So amazon Japan has a special category of English books and First Scientist is #508,077 just among the English books.
I think 位 means "-th" so 508,077位 means 508,077-th

And then you can see that its salesrank is 780-th among the
English>History>Ancient>Greece books.

It could be that they only HAVE 780 books in that category at Amazon.co.jp
so Rovelli's book could be at the tail end of the line :biggrin: in Japan. But it is interesting they even stock it. They seem to have a lot of English titles at Amazon Japan and a pretty good selection by my standards. More kind of educated reader stuff. which makes sense because the people who want the cruder pops would be buying books in Japanese rather than English.
[Edit: 10 hours later the rank hadn't changed much: 洋書 - 508,205位 ]
 
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  • #49
The Antikythera Mechanism is extremely beautiful and wonderful. It was contructed on the island of Rhodes and looted by the Romans when they attacked and invaded the island. But their ship sank in a storm and they never got it back to Rome.

See these lovely YouTubes



Additional information in this as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrfMFhrgOFc&feature=fvst

X-ray tomography was used to map the gear trains and it was only finally understood in 2008 what all the device calculated (moon phases, planet positions, probable eclipse years on a 63 year cycle, olympiads...)
According to Wkpd http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism
Pindar the Greek poet 119±40 in his 7th Olympic ode (Epode 3) gave high praise to Rhodian craftsmanship ... But that was long before the Antikythera device was constructed.
West of Crete is the island of Kythera where Venus is said to have arisen from the sea, and a small island next to Kythera is called Antikythera. The Roman loot ship sank there in a storm on its way back to Rome.
 
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  • #50
http://www.libreriauniversitaria.it/cos-scienza-rivoluzione-anassimandro-rovelli/libro/9788861840751

Finally the Italian edition of Rovelli's book. I think Mondadori is Italy's largest publisher, so they may do an effective job of promotion. Get it reviewed in the media and so on. That could have some effect on the reception of the English version, I imagine.
It looks like it's now available. "Usually ships in 5 to 6 working days."

The title is different. I will give a rough translation of the publisher's description:
What is science? Anaximander's revolution.
"All human civiliizations have believed that the world consisted of Heaven above and Earth below. All but one. For the Greeks the Earth was a rock floating in space: beneath the Earth there was neither a supporting ground, nor turtles, nor the gigantic columns of which the Bible speaks.
How did the Greeks come to realize that the Earth is suspended in emptiness? Who first grasped this, and how?
The author gives us an account of Anaximander's extraordinary «scientific revolution», which Karl Popper has described as «one of the boldest, most revolutionary, and most important ideas in the entire history of human thought.» And an account of the conflict this opened up, which is still burning. Also of the nature of scientific thought, of its ability to criticize and rebel, of the force with which it subverts the order of things and our image of the world. And an account as well of how scientific knowledge can be, at the same time, extremely effective and «wrong», as the example of XX Century physics shows. To discuss Anaximander is to reflect on the meaning of the scientific revolution that began with Einstein."

Here is the Italian original:

Che cos'è la scienza? La rivoluzione di Anassimandro
di Rovelli Carlo
Tutte le civiltà umane hanno sempre pensato che il mondo fosse fatto di Cielo sopra e Terra sotto. Tutte, eccetto una. Per i Greci la Terra era un sasso che galleggia nello spazio; sotto la Terra non c'era altra terra, né tartarughe, né le gigantesche colonne di cui parla la Bibbia. Come hanno fatto i Greci a comprendere che la Terra è sospesa nel nulla? Chi lo ha capito e come? È di questa straordinaria «rivoluzione scientifica» di Anassimandro che l'autore ci parla, e che Karl Popper ha definito «una delle idee più audaci, rivoluzionarie e portentose dell'intera storia del pensiero umano". E del conflitto che ha aperto, che ancora brucia. E della natura del pensiero scientifico, della sua capacità critica e ribelle, della forza con cui sovverte l'ordine delle cose e la nostra immagine del mondo; di un sapere scientifico estremamente efficace e «sbagliato» al tempo stesso, come ci insegna la fisica del xx secolo. Parlare di Anassimandro è riflettere su cosa significhi la rivoluzione scientifica aperta da Einstein.

I found some more detail here, a kind of newsletter on the media dated end July:
http://www.italiannetwork.it/news.aspx?id=29101

I was puzzled by not being able to find a picture of the COVER of the Italian edition
=========================

If anyone is new to the discussion, the English version of the book is here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1594161313/?tag=pfamazon01-20
 
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  • #51
I put the Table of Contents in a compact form so it gives a kind of outline of the book in a glance. You can see how the book is divided about evenly between a revealing spotlight on the past and reflections on its significance for the present.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1594161313/?tag=pfamazon01-20
==The First Scientist TOC==

Introduction xi

1.The Sixth Century 1
Knowledge and Astronomy 4/ The Gods 15/ Miletus 18

2.Anaximander’s Contributions 29

3.Atmospheric Phenomena 37
Cosmological and Biological Naturalism 42

4.Earth Floats in SpaceSuspended in the Void 45

5.Invisible Entities and Natural Laws 61
Thales: Water 62/ Anaximenes: Compressing and Rarefying 64/ Anaximander: Apeiron 65/ The Idea of Natural Law: Anaximander, Pythagoras, and Plato 70

6.Rebellion Becomes Virtue 75

7.Writing, Democracy, and Cultural Crossbreeding 83
The Greek Alphabet 87 Science and Democracy 93 Cultural Crossbreeding 97

8.What Is Science? 103
The Crumbling of Nineteenth-Century Illusions 104/ Science Cannot be Reduced to Verifiable Predictions 107/ Exploring Forms of Thought About the World 111/ The Evolving Worldview 114/ The Rules of the Game and Commensurability 120/ Why is Science Reliable? 123/ In Praise of Uncertainty 125

9.Between Cultural Relativism and Absolute Thought 131

10.Can We Understand the World Without Gods? 143
The Conflict 147

11.Prescientific Thought 157
The Nature of Mythical-Religious Thought 159 The Different Functions of the Divine 170

Conclusion 179

Notes 183/Bibliography 191/Index 199/Illustration Credit 210/Acknowledgments 211
 
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  • #52
A couple of posts ago I was curious about the Italian edition and found out some things by going to the publisher's (Mondadori) page.
http://www.libreriauniversitaria.it/cos-scienza-rivoluzione-anassimandro-rovelli/libro/9788861840751
http://www.amazon.it/dp/8861840752/
But couldn't find anything about the front cover. Now I see the front of the Italian edition is a long-exposure picture of the Northern sky, showing how the stars move in concentric circles around the pole-star. From which (though without benefit of photography :smile:) Anaximander was able to deduce there was nothing under the Earth to support it. This picture, which is emblematic or iconic of one of his greatest insights, happens to be featured on the back cover of the English edition. Since I have the English edition, I can show you the jacket and you can see the sky picture I mean.
 

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  • #53
Part of the interest in The First Scientist is the urge to understand the consequences of the scientific revolution that started in Ionia around 600. It's effects permeate our life---they are everywhere.
One can also say that about the invention of agriculture or the first stone tools, but among the human initiatives we can date and assign to definite persons the SciTech tradition is possibly the one with most pervasive influence on life today.

So I keep coming back to the SciTech timeline---the sequence of thoughts and events that started around 600 BC which we take as our SciTech "Year One" = 1 ST. If you prefer, think of "ST" as standing for "since Thales".
To illustrate the year numbering convention used here: Columbus sailed the ocean blue in twentyhundred-ninetytwo (2092 ST) and the first demonstration of an electromagnet motor was in 2421 ST by Faraday.
Approximate lifespans will be shown here by midpoint (± halflife)
For instance, Faraday lived 2429±38, fewer digits to remember than with the alternative style b. 2391 and d. 2467.
Here't the latest version of the timeline:

3 ST Solon lived 3±40.
16 ST Thales of Miletus lived 16±39; systematic natural explanations; calculated height of pyramids and distance of ships from the shore; predicted eclipse that occurred in 16 ST.
22 ST Anaximander of Miletus 22±32; Earth unsupported in space, “first geometrical model of the world...”; improved on Thales natural explanations. Nature governed by natural laws analogous to laws of a city?
70 ST Pythagoras of Samos (±40); mathematical formulation of natural laws.
137 ST Anaxagoras (±37); moon shines with the light of the sun, explaining phases and eclipses.
167 ST Socrates of Athens (±35)
218 ST Eudoxus of Cnidus (±28) detailed cosmic model with concentric spheres reproducing observed (e.g. retrograde) motions.
248 ST Aristotle (±31)
270 ST founding of the port city of Alexandria which became a hub of learning and scientific activity; among Mediterranean cities, second only to Rome in size and wealth.
300 ST publication (in Alexandria) of Euclid's Elements

302 ST Strato of Lampsacus (±32); performed physics experiments, noted the acceleration of falling bodies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strato_of_Lampsacus
330 ST Aristarchus of Samos (±40); Inferred from observation that the Sun was much farther away than the Moon, and therefore much larger in actual size. Conceived the heliocentric model. According to Archimedes and others, he held that the Moon revolved around the Earth and the Earth around the Sun, which remained stationary like the stars.
351 ST Archimedes of Syracuse (±38) contributed numerous advances to science including the principle that a body immersed in fluid is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the displaced fluid. "His method was to select definite and limited problems. He then formulated hypotheses which he either regarded, in the Euclidean manner, as self-evident axioms or could verify by simple experiments. The consequences of these he then deduced and experimentally verified" [Crombie 1952, page 278]. Constructed cosmic models using gearwheels. For a later example which has survived, see:


Additional information in this as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrfMFhrgOFc&feature=fvst
He also got some nice math results, for instance in solid geometry, and calculated the value of pi.
365 ST Eratosthenes of Cyrene (±40); calculated the circumference of the Earth and basically got it right (accurate to within a couple of percent).
445 ST Hipparchus of Rhodes (±35) Besides much else, he determined that the distance to the moon was about 60 times the radius of the Earth.

Starting around 500 ST Roman expansion (the Macedonian Wars) disrupted the Hellenistic east Mediterranean. Learning survived in dumbed-down version from which, however, it was eventually able to be revived.
1415 ST Muhummad al-Khwarizmi (±35); Persian mathematician and astronomer, wrote a standard algebra text On Calculation by Completion and Balancing (al-Jabr wa'l Muqubalah = completion and balancing) and a book on "Indian" positional notation that introduced decimal numbers to Europe.
1690 ST Omar Khayyam (±42); Persian poet, mathematician, astronomer.
2092 ST Columbus' voyage
2200 ST Kepler (±30) Stated his first two laws in 2205: (i) Orbits are elliptical with sun at one focus (ii) Planet sweeps out area in its ellipse at a steady rate. Third (square-cube) law in 2218: If you square the number of years that a planet takes to orbit what you get is the cube of its average distance from the sun compared with that of the earth. If a planet takes 8 years to orbit then it must be 4 times farther than we are from the sun because 82=43.
2203 ST Galileo (±39); in 2210 observed Jovian moons with telescope, in 2232 published "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems."
2275 ST roughly accurate measurement of the speed of light by Olaus Roemer at the Paris Observatory.
2388 ST Pierre-Simon Laplace (±39) "Celestial Mechanics" published in several volumes right around 2400. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace
2429 ST Michael Faraday (±38); first demonstrated an electromagnet motor in 2421. Much more. The idea of a field. Intuiting molecular structure. One of three people whose pictures Albert Einstein had on the wall of his office at the IAS. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Faraday
2455 ST James Clerk Maxwell (±24) published "A dynamical theory of the electromagnetic field." in 2464. Another of Einstein's three portraits.
2505 ST Einstein's Wunderjahr.
2515 ST publication of the geometric theory of gravity.
2546 ST semiconductor solar cell patented by Russell Ohl (developed for practical application 2554 at Bell Labs) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic_cell
2611 ST present :)

Feel welcome to suggest additions!
 
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  • #54
Very nice! The third on Einstein's wall was Newton?
(My ordered copy is still some weeks away.)
 
  • #55
fuzzyfelt said:
The third on Einstein's wall was Newton?

:wink:yes

Actually the source I gave for that was this Wkpd article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Faraday
and Wikipedia is not 100% reliable. I looked up the source THEY cite, and again it was not entirely...well. So I can't swear to it. (And it said "study" wall--I should not have assumed it was at IAS!)

==quote Wkpd==
Albert Einstein kept a photograph of Faraday on his study wall alongside pictures of Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell.[6]

[6] ^ "Einstein's Heroes: Imagining the World through the Langauge of Mathematics", by Robyn Arianrhod UQP, reviewed by Jane Gleeson-White, 10 November 2003, The Sydney Morning Herald.
==endquote==

Maybe it's OK. Here is the Gleeson-White review of the book "Einstein's Heroes"
http://www.austms.org.au/Jobs/Library26.html
==quote==
But a young scientist born the year of Maxwell's death, Einstein, was so inspired by Maxwell's mathematics - which he'd had to teach himself because his teachers didn't include it in their curriculums - that he put a photograph of Maxwell on his study wall, alongside pictures of Michael Faraday and Isaac Newton. These three men are Einstein's Heroes.
==endquote==
But I still wonder. I would like to see a firsthand source.
 
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  • #56
No thermo? I'm sure Einstein secretly wished to be a thermodynamicist (didn't he make that remark about if your theory contradicts the second law of thermodynamics?), rather than a plain dynamicist like Newton or Maxwell (well, Maxwell did have Maxwell-Boltzmann). Of course, Jacobson showed he intuited correctly after all. Quite amazing, the Wunderjahr things were Brownian motion, photoelectric and special relativity. If we count the photon as being inspired by blackbody radiation, and special relativity as the precursor to general relativity, then all the Wunderjahr things are thermo related. The other amazing prediction - some say Einstein "invented" the laser - is his prediction of stimulated emission - again thermo related. Now shouldn't that mean the "invention" of fire is start of the scientific age, not Thales?
 
  • #57
Actually I was thinking of adding Ludwig Boltzmann. I'm a fan of his. But would you like to propose an entry? Gibbs? Carnot? Clausius? Boltzmann? Try to think of a very brief (sentence or two) indication of something the person did or idea they got...

Here's a source on Josiah Willard Gibbs, if you decide to contribute a timeline entry about him:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josiah_Willard_Gibbs
(2439 + 2503)/2 = 4942/2 = 2471±32
Boltzmann's mid±half = (2444 +2506)/2 = 4950/2 = 2475±31

A very beautiful title: published in 2424 ST Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire
by Sadi Carnot. It is so beautiful I cannot wait for you to propose this entry! It is in!

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadi_Carnot_(physicien [Broken]) published just one book in his short life:
Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu et sur les machines propres à développer cette puissance

Rudolf Clausius http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Clausius (2422 - 2488 --> 2455±33)
==quote==
... was a German physicist and mathematician and is considered one of the central founders of the science of thermodynamics.[2] By his restatement of Sadi Carnot's principle known as the Carnot cycle, he put the theory of heat on a truer and sounder basis. His most important paper, On the mechanical theory of heat, published in [2450], first stated the basic ideas of the second law of thermodynamics. In [2465] he introduced the concept of entropy...
==endquote==
 
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  • #58
marcus said:
A very beautiful title: published in 2424 ST Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire
by Sadi Carnot. It is so beautiful I cannot wait for you to propose this entry! It is in!

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadi_Carnot_(physicien [Broken]) published just one book in his short life:
Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu et sur les machines propres à développer cette puissance

Rudolf Clausius http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Clausius (2422 - 2488 --> 2455±33)
==quote==
... was a German physicist and mathematician and is considered one of the central founders of the science of thermodynamics.[2] By his restatement of Sadi Carnot's principle known as the Carnot cycle, he put the theory of heat on a truer and sounder basis. His most important paper, On the mechanical theory of heat, published in [2450], first stated the basic ideas of the second law of thermodynamics. In [2465] he introduced the concept of entropy...
==endquote==

Clausius's deduction is one of the most amazing to me, especially because it follows from the "everyday language" of the Klevin and Clausius statements.

I had never known the fascinating history of Carnot's contribution. It is a very beautiful title indeed!
 
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  • #59
marcus said:
:wink:yes

Actually the source I gave for that was this Wkpd article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Faraday
and Wikipedia is not 100% reliable. I looked up the source THEY cite, and again it was not entirely...well. So I can't swear to it. (And it said "study" wall--I should not have assumed it was at IAS!)

==quote Wkpd==
Albert Einstein kept a photograph of Faraday on his study wall alongside pictures of Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell.[6]

[6] ^ "Einstein's Heroes: Imagining the World through the Langauge of Mathematics", by Robyn Arianrhod UQP, reviewed by Jane Gleeson-White, 10 November 2003, The Sydney Morning Herald.
==endquote==

Maybe it's OK. Here is the Gleeson-White review of the book "Einstein's Heroes"
http://www.austms.org.au/Jobs/Library26.html
==quote==
But a young scientist born the year of Maxwell's death, Einstein, was so inspired by Maxwell's mathematics - which he'd had to teach himself because his teachers didn't include it in their curriculums - that he put a photograph of Maxwell on his study wall, alongside pictures of Michael Faraday and Isaac Newton. These three men are Einstein's Heroes.
==endquote==
But I still wonder. I would like to see a firsthand source.

Heh!:) Also, I didn't mean to question the source, sorry.
 
  • #60
fuzzyfelt said:
Heh!:) Also, I didn't mean to question the source, sorry.

I knew you hadn't asked about the source, but would not have minded if you had, Fuzzyfelt!
Your question made me wonder about it, though, and I was glad to be reminded. :)
 
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  • #61
atyy said:
Clausius's deduction is one of the most amazing to me, especially because it follows from the "everyday language" of the Klevin and Clausius statements.

I had never known the fascinating history of Carnot's contribution. It is a very beautiful title indeed!

Possible revision of ST timeline, including Carnot and Clausius. BTW the timeline seems to divide fairly well into millennia:
...
...
Second Millennium ST:
1010 ST sack of Rome by the Western Goths led by their king Alaric.
1415 ST Muhummad al-Khwarizmi (±35); Persian mathematician and astronomer, wrote a standard algebra text On Calculation by Completion and Balancing (al-Jabr wa'l Muqubalah = completion and balancing) and a book on "Indian" positional notation (decimal numbers.)
1690 ST Omar Khayyam (±42); Persian poet, mathematician, astronomer.
1810 ST Leonardo Fibonacci (±40) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci helped introduce decimal numbering to Europe, learned algebra from Arabic sources, an associate of the in-some-ways enlightened medieval king of Sicily, Frederick Hohenstaufen (1822±28) whom Nietzsche called the "first European" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor

Third Millennium:
2092 ST Columbus' voyage
2200 ST Kepler (±30) Stated his first two laws in 2205: (i) Orbits are elliptical with sun at one focus (ii) Planet sweeps out area in its ellipse at a steady rate. Third (square-cube) law in 2218: If you square the number of years that a planet takes to orbit what you get is the cube of its average distance from the sun compared with that of the earth. If a planet takes 8 years to orbit then it must be 4 times farther than we are from the sun because 82=43.
2203 ST Galileo (±39); in 2210 observed Jovian moons with telescope, in 2232 published "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems."
2275 ST roughly accurate measurement of the speed of light by Olaus Roemer at the Paris Observatory.
2388 ST Pierre-Simon Laplace (±39). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace
2391 ST Mozart composed the Magic Flute and Requiem.
2400 ST Laplace's "Celestial Mechanics" in several volumes appeared about this time.
2413 ST Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice.
2424 ST publication of Sadi Carnot's book Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire.
2429 ST Michael Faraday (±38); first demonstrated an electromagnet motor in 2421. Much more. The idea of a field. Intuiting molecular structure. One of three people (according to report) whose portraits Albert Einstein had on the wall of his study. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Faraday
2455 ST James Clerk Maxwell (±24) in 2464 published "A dynamical theory of the electromagnetic field." Another of Einstein's three portraits.
2455 ST Rudolf Clausius (±33) published On the mechanical theory of heat in 2450. Concept of entropy defined in 2465.
2505 ST Einstein's Wunderjahr.
2515 ST publication of the geometric theory of gravity.
2546 ST semiconductor solar cell patented by Russell Ohl (developed for practical application 2554 at Bell Labs) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic_cell
2590 ST Hubble Space Telescope placed in orbit.
2611 ST present :)
 
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  • #62
marcus said:
I knew you hadn't asked about the source, but would not have minded if you had, Fuzzyfelt!
Your question made me wonder about it, though, and I was glad to be reminded. :)

Thank you Marcus!
I won’t be suggesting additions, I'm happy to leave that to you and others! For example, I like the inclusion of Omar Khayyam.
 
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  • #63
It's hard to resist the impulse to add shiny magpie bits of unrelated detail, or to stray from complete timeline seriousness. Had to put in Mozart's Magic Flute for year 2391 since Thales.

One of my sources says Fibonacci (who knew Arabic and studied in North Africa) learned algebra from Omar Khayyam's textbook---he wrote one with a similar title to the earlier one by al-Khwarizmi . There's no doubt Khayyam was a brilliant mathematician and astronomer although we know of him mainly as a poet.

As we all know, Medieval courts held tournaments---ceremonial fighting for entertainment. Frederick II of Sicily had the good idea to hold a MATH tournament with a series of problems to challenge a halfdozen contending scholars. Fibonacci emerged as the champion.

A SciAm blog post about The First Scientist:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...m-its-earliest-beginnings-to-quantum-gravity/
Amazon page:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1594161313/?tag=pfamazon01-20

========================
EDIT to reply to your next post.
I looked down the page and found your post about a dome in Isfahan, a connection with Omar Khayyam (!)
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=2277389#post2277389
 
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  • #64
marcus said:
One of my sources says Fibonacci (who knew Arabic and studied in North Africa) learned algebra from Omar Khayyam's textbook---he wrote one with a similar title to the earlier one by al-Khwarizmi . There's no doubt Khayyam was a brilliant mathematician and astronomer although we know of him mainly as a poet.
I've read similar things, too.

marcus said:
It's hard to resist the impulse to add shiny magpie bits of unrelated detail, or to stray from complete timeline seriousness. Had to put in Mozart's Magic Flute for year 2391 since Thales.
A SciAm blog post about The First Scientist:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...m-its-earliest-beginnings-to-quantum-gravity/
I appreciated the mention of Mozart, and enjoyed the article too.
 
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  • #65
I see they just brought out a kindle (e-book) version of The First Scientist.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005NI3BWI/?tag=pfamazon01-20

atyy said:
Clausius's deduction is one of the most amazing to me, especially because it follows from the "everyday language" of the Klevin and Clausius statements.

I had never known the fascinating history of Carnot's contribution. It is a very beautiful title indeed!

fuzzyfelt said:
...
I won’t be suggesting additions, I'm happy to leave that to you and others! For example, I like the inclusion of Omar Khayyam.
Fuzzyfelt, thanks for your appreciation and encouragement of the timeline.

Atyy's suggestions were helpful (Carnot, Clausius...thermodynamics).
I'm hoping other people will give me some ideas. There is no way a compact selective timeline like this can avoid being a bit idiosyncratic. At best emblematic, not exhaustive. Out of the hundreds of insights and inventions that underlie how we live I can only think of a few. Things I especially admire or approvingly rely on.

The refrigerator, for one thing. This laptop. The electric generators turned by falling water in the mountains, now driving the dishwasher. The stainless steel vessels and implements my family cooks and eats with. Some excellent polymers. The foam we sleep on. Efficient lighting. The internet. Orbital observatories that let us continue Anaximander's program of figuring out the sky. The disc of a favorite opera.

Probably all our lists would be different. I mention the refrigerator as paramount because I just had breakfast. It is based on something like a Carnot cycle and on ideas that Clausius worked out. Like the laptop as well, it is run by a grid of Faraday-invented generators. Breakfast was good and made entirely of items found in the refrigerator. I feel a touch of gratitude to the many inquiring minds woven into that machine. Children of the Ionians. Breakfast makes me glad they asked the questions they did.

If anyone wants to see Rovelli's piece at the online Scientific American, google "sciam rovelli science revolution". Or even just "sciam rovelli revolution". In effect The First Scientist is about a revolution in how we think the world that was started by some Ionian Greek--Anaximander being a prime example. That revolutions permeate our lives.
Part of the interest in The First Scientist is the urge to understand the consequences of what began in Ionia around 600 BC: the year we take to be our SciTech timeline's "Year One" = 1 ST. (if the ST tag didn't mean sci-tech, it could stand for "since Thales") To illustrate the year numbering convention used here: Columbus sailed the ocean blue in twentyhundred-ninetytwo (2092 ST) and the first demonstration of an electromagnet motor was in 2421 ST by Faraday. Approximate lifespans will be shown here by midpoint (± halflife). For instance, Faraday lived 2429±38, fewer digits to remember than with the alternative style b. 2391 and d. 2467.
The timeline (post #54) breaks up nicely into millennia. As a reminder I will bring forward the first part of it. Please contribute if you have any suggestions or comment!

First millennium ST
(SciTech timeline: a series of thoughts and events starting around 600 BC)
3 ST Solon lived 3±40.
16 ST Thales of Miletus lived 16±39; systematic natural explanations; calculated height of pyramids and distance of ships from the shore; predicted eclipse that occurred in 16 ST.
22 ST Anaximander of Miletus 22±32; Earth unsupported in space, “first geometrical model of the world...”; improved on Thales natural explanations. Nature governed by natural laws analogous to laws of a city?
70 ST Pythagoras of Samos (±40); mathematical formulation of natural laws.
137 ST Anaxagoras (±37); moon shines with the light of the sun, explaining phases and eclipses.
167 ST Socrates of Athens (±35)
218 ST Eudoxus of Cnidus (±28) detailed cosmic model with concentric spheres reproducing observed (e.g. retrograde) motions.
248 ST Aristotle (±31)
270 ST founding of the port city of Alexandria which became a hub of learning and scientific activity; among Mediterranean cities, second only to Rome in size and wealth.
300 ST publication (in Alexandria) of Euclid's Elements
302 ST Strato of Lampsacus (±32); performed physics experiments, noted the acceleration of falling bodies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strato_of_Lampsacus
330 ST Aristarchus of Samos (±40); Inferred from observation that the Sun was much farther away than the Moon, and therefore much larger in actual size. Conceived the heliocentric model. According to Archimedes and others, he held that the Moon revolved around the Earth and the Earth around the Sun, which remained stationary like the stars.
351 ST Archimedes of Syracuse (±38) contributed numerous advances to science including the principle that a body immersed in fluid is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the displaced fluid. "His method was to select definite and limited problems. He then formulated hypotheses which he either regarded, in the Euclidean manner, as self-evident axioms or could verify by simple experiments. The consequences of these he then deduced and experimentally verified" [Crombie 1952, page 278]. Constructed cosmic models using gearwheels. For a later example which has survived, see:


Additional information in this as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrfMFhrgOFc&feature=fvst
He also got some nice math results, for instance in solid geometry, and calculated the value of pi.
365 ST Eratosthenes of Cyrene (±40); calculated the circumference of the Earth and basically got it right (accurate to within a couple of percent).
445 ST Hipparchus of Rhodes (±35) Besides much else, he determined that the distance to the moon was about 60 times the radius of the Earth.
Around 500 ST Roman expansion (the Macedonian Wars) disrupted the Hellenistic east Mediterranean. Learning endured in dumbed-down version from which, however, it would eventually be revived. Negligible scientific progress during the second half of the millennium ST.
1010 ST Rome sacked by the Visigoths led by king Alaric.
 
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  • #66
A couple of things to add to the timeline: in the third millennium people understood how the sun works. The basis for the proton-proton chain reaction (releasing energy in the core) is a key step proposed in 2539 ST by Hans Bethe 2555±49. Also in a series of papers 2448-2556 ST Melvin Calvin elucidated photosynthesis and traced how carbon in CO2 is absorbed and built into the yummy carbs. http://www.osti.gov/accomplishments/documents/fullText/ACC0325.pdf
...
...
Second millennium ST
1076 ST Odoacer becomes king of Italy (no more Western Roman Empire, but the Eastern part will continue another 1000 years, preserving a partial record of Greek science in suspended animation.)
1415 ST Muhummad al-Khwarizmi (±35); Persian mathematician and astronomer, wrote a standard algebra text On Calculation by Completion and Balancing (al-Jabr wa'l Muqubalah = completion and balancing) and a book on "Indian" positional notation (decimal numbers.)
1690 ST Omar Khayyam (±42); Persian poet, mathematician, astronomer.
1810 ST Leonardo Fibonacci (±40) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci helped introduce decimal numbering to Europe, learned algebra from Arabic sources, an associate of the in-some-ways enlightened medieval king of Sicily, Frederick Hohenstaufen (1822±28) whom Nietzsche called the "first European" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor
2053 ST Constantinople falls to Turks, no more Eastern Roman Empire.

Third millennium ST
2092 ST Columbus' voyage
2200 ST Kepler (±30) Stated his first two laws in 2205: (i) Orbits are elliptical with sun at one focus (ii) Planet sweeps out area in its ellipse at a steady rate. Third (square-cube) law in 2218: If you square the number of years that a planet takes to orbit what you get is the cube of its average distance from the sun compared with that of the earth. If a planet takes 8 years to orbit then it must be 4 times farther than we are from the sun because 82=43.
2203 ST Galileo (±39); in 2210 observed Jovian moons with telescope, in 2232 published "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems."
2275 ST roughly accurate measurement of the speed of light by Olaus Roemer at the Paris Observatory.
2388 ST Pierre-Simon Laplace (±39). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace
2391 ST Mozart composed the Magic Flute and Requiem.
2400 ST Laplace's "Celestial Mechanics" in several volumes appeared about this time.
2413 ST Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice.
2424 ST publication of Sadi Carnot's book Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire.
2429 ST Michael Faraday (±38); first demonstrated an electromagnet motor in 2421. Much more. The idea of a field. Intuiting molecular structure. One of three people (according to report) whose portraits Albert Einstein had on the wall of his study. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Faraday
2455 ST James Clerk Maxwell (±24) in 2464 published "A dynamical theory of the electromagnetic field." Another of Einstein's three portraits.
2455 ST Rudolf Clausius (±33) published On the mechanical theory of heat in 2450. Concept of entropy defined in 2465.
2505 ST Einstein's Wunderjahr.
2515 ST publication of the geometric theory of gravity.
2546 ST semiconductor solar cell patented by Russell Ohl (developed for practical application 2554 at Bell Labs) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic_cell
2554 ST Melvin Calvin (±43) advanced the understanding of photosynthesis.
2255 ST Hans Bethe (±49) explained the proton-proton chain reaction that heats the sun's core. His first insight was in 2539 when he realized how deuterium can form (helped by a p-to-n beta swop). This was the first of several steps in the process, which he then went on to elucidate.
2590 ST Hubble Space Telescope placed in orbit.
2611 ST present :)
 
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  • #67
I just happened to check to see how the "kindle" e-book version of The First Scientist is doing:Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #45,394 Paid in Kindle Store
#23 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > History > Ancient > Greece
#41 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Science > History & Philosophy > History of Science

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005NI3BWI/?tag=pfamazon01-20
 
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  • #68
http://www.amazon.it/dp/8861840752/ #8766 at 10AM Pacific
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1594161313/?tag=pfamazon01-20 #35,536 at 10AM.
#36 in Books > History > Ancient > Greece
#36 in Books > History > Europe > Greece > Ancient
#79 in Books > Science > History & Philosophy > History of Science
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005NI3BWI/?tag=pfamazon01-20

Out of historical curiosity I looked up some of the other things that were happening around the time of Anaximander, Solon, Pythagoras. They turn out to have been contemporaries of Confucius and Gautama (aka Buddha). So all these people trying different ways of thinking about the world, life, ethics, society etc were living in the years 600-500 BC. And according to the Oxford Bible Commentary the initial versions of the first five books were being composed around then too (Gen Ex Lev Num Deut). Optical illusion? It seems by coincidence that the beginnings of a quite a few important traditions go back to that century.
 
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  • #69
On 10 November Rovelli gave a talk on how our picture of the universe affects how we think and then took part in a panel discussion (wide ranging topics, I gather, role of science in culture, arts, society...possible subversive or revolutionary potential of scientific ideas?) at a famous old theater in Rome----Teatro Valle.

http://www.teatrovalleoccupato.it/incontro-con-la-fisica-giovedi-10-carlo-rovelli-al-teatro-valle

Teatro Valle has been "occupied" for several months to save it as a historical landmark.
It is the oldest regular operating theater in Rome and kind of "belle epoque" velvet romantic looking. Very grand.

So artists and theater people have been occupying it, preventing its destructive remodeling or whatever, and giving interesing persentations and performances which are at least in this case FREE to the public, donation requested.

So Rovelli and some others went down to Rome and gave an evening live talk-show on the 10th and now on the 13th the Anaximander book is doing rather well.
it was just #375 among all books at Italian Amazon, and #3 in the special category of philosophy.

==quote==
http://www.amazon.it/dp/8861840752/
As of 9:50 AM Pacific time, on 13 November

Posizione nella classifica Bestseller di Amazon: n. 375 in Libri (Visualizza i Top 100 nella categoria Libri)
n.3 in Libri > Società e scienze sociali > Filosofia
n.21 in Libri > Scienze, tecnologia e medicina
 
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  • #70
Google translator is amazing. I wanted an example of the use of the early Greek word for feudal lord or tribal leader ANAX

So I monkeyed around with a traditional Jewish prayer and got this

ακουει ισραελ Αναξ ο Θεός σου ένας Αναξ μονοσ

I'm sure that this has grammar mistakes and anachronisms etc but Google translated it.

I will have to try that again. Yes it translates it this way:
hear Yisrael lord your God is one lord ALONE
 
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<h2>1. Who was Anaximander?</h2><p>Anaximander was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist who lived in the 6th century BC. He is often referred to as the first scientist because of his contributions to the fields of astronomy, geography, and philosophy.</p><h2>2. What were Anaximander's major contributions?</h2><p>Anaximander is best known for his theory of the "apeiron", or the boundless, which he believed was the fundamental substance that makes up the universe. He also created the first map of the known world, proposed that the Earth was suspended in space, and developed the concept of the "cosmic cycle".</p><h2>3. How did Anaximander's ideas influence later scientists?</h2><p>Anaximander's ideas had a significant impact on the development of Western science. His theories of the "apeiron" and the Earth's position in space were later expanded upon by philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. His map of the world also influenced the work of later geographers and cartographers.</p><h2>4. What is the significance of Anaximander's legacy?</h2><p>Anaximander's legacy lies in his pioneering approach to understanding the natural world. He was one of the first thinkers to use observation and reason to explain the physical world, laying the foundation for modern scientific inquiry. His ideas also challenged traditional religious and mythological beliefs, paving the way for a more rational and empirical approach to understanding the universe.</p><h2>5. How does Anaximander's work relate to modern science?</h2><p>Anaximander's ideas may seem outdated by modern scientific standards, but his approach to understanding the natural world is still relevant today. His emphasis on observation, reason, and the search for a fundamental substance that makes up the universe are all fundamental principles of modern science. Additionally, his contributions to the fields of astronomy and geography have laid the groundwork for our current understanding of the cosmos and the world we live in.</p>

1. Who was Anaximander?

Anaximander was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist who lived in the 6th century BC. He is often referred to as the first scientist because of his contributions to the fields of astronomy, geography, and philosophy.

2. What were Anaximander's major contributions?

Anaximander is best known for his theory of the "apeiron", or the boundless, which he believed was the fundamental substance that makes up the universe. He also created the first map of the known world, proposed that the Earth was suspended in space, and developed the concept of the "cosmic cycle".

3. How did Anaximander's ideas influence later scientists?

Anaximander's ideas had a significant impact on the development of Western science. His theories of the "apeiron" and the Earth's position in space were later expanded upon by philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. His map of the world also influenced the work of later geographers and cartographers.

4. What is the significance of Anaximander's legacy?

Anaximander's legacy lies in his pioneering approach to understanding the natural world. He was one of the first thinkers to use observation and reason to explain the physical world, laying the foundation for modern scientific inquiry. His ideas also challenged traditional religious and mythological beliefs, paving the way for a more rational and empirical approach to understanding the universe.

5. How does Anaximander's work relate to modern science?

Anaximander's ideas may seem outdated by modern scientific standards, but his approach to understanding the natural world is still relevant today. His emphasis on observation, reason, and the search for a fundamental substance that makes up the universe are all fundamental principles of modern science. Additionally, his contributions to the fields of astronomy and geography have laid the groundwork for our current understanding of the cosmos and the world we live in.

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