DEMOCRITUS — 5th Century BC

Advanced scientific thinking was also going on In the 5th century BC in Greece. Here is what Democritus and the Greek Atomists discovered and taught. (source is Cyril Bailey’s seminal work The Atomists, Oxford U Press, 1928)

- Atomic basis of matter (actually more like molecular, but…)

- idea of vacuum between atoms

- constant motion of atoms

- basic concept of mass/energy conservation

- basic theory of colors (primary and secondary)

- constant formation and destruction of systems on macroscopic scales

- Milky Way composed of stars

- Sun is a star

- heliocentric Solar System

- light is composed of corporeal emanations from surfaces

- basic ideas of perception

- inherent limitations of observations

- introduction of infinitesimals in mathematics

Not too shabby for 2500 years ago. And there is no way a track record like that could be attributed to lucky guesses. They were skilled OBSERVERS of nature and natural philosophers. Not metaphysical dandies.

Too bad the Aristotelians and Platonists (think today’s string theorists) stopped this progress and led us into the Dark Ages for many centuries, until the Renaissance scientists rediscovered the wisdom of the Democritus and other ancient Greek scientists and got the ball rolling again.

Robert L. Oldershaw

http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

Discrete Scale Relativity/Fractal Cosmology