String Tension and Pitch: Uncovering the Origins of Physics

[Loren Booda]

Is the oldest known physics the relation between string tension and pitch, first discovered by the Pythagorean school?

 

[vanesch]

I would say that the oldest physics (although it is often seen as "mathematics") is probably the empirical discovery of certain geometrical relationships, which are nothing else but properties of space (before this was cast in a more comprehensive whole by Euclid).

 

[jostpuur]

I don't have an opinion on this, but I'll mention the Aristotelian mechanics as a candidate for the earliest physics.

Checking Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotelian_physics, reveals that Pythagoras lived before Aristotle, though... It's just that what do you want to call physics here.

 

[Danger]

Might I assume that you mean the earliest formulation of physics? The earliest physics, in my opinion, would be whatever the hell went on when the Big Bang detonated.

 

[Andy Resnick]

According to "A History of Mechanics" by Dugas, the first recorded textbook devoted to mechanics (simple machines) orginates with Aristotle (384-322 BC), "or, more accurately, with the author of the probably acrocryphal treatise called 'Problems of Mechanics'. Aristotle wrote other texts as well, including 'Physics' and 'Treatise on the Heavens'.

Archimedes (287-212 BC) made statics an autonomous theoretical science with his treatise on the lever.