Science in Antiquity: Part 10

 

Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust.

By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

Ca 1500 BC/BCE: 1. Chinese mathematicians work on permutations and probability theory.

            2. Hindu writers mention ants being attracted to a patient’s urine as a symptom of diabetes.

Ca 1550 BC: 1. In Myanmar/Burma, copper is made into bronze.

            2. An Egyptian physician, Hesy-Ra, mentions frequent urination as a symptom of diabetes.

Ca 1750 BC/BCE:  Babylon: square and cube roots, linear and quadratic equations, Pythagorean Theorem.

Ca 1800 BC/BCE: 1. Bronze is in use in China.

            2. The Berlin Papyrus 6619, found in Egypt, describes algebra.

Ca 1890 BC/BCE: The Moscow Mathematical Papyrus, found in Egypt, speaks of applied mathematics: ship construction, beer concentrations, worker efficiency, Pythagorean triples, etc.

Science in Antiquity: Part 9

 Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust.

By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

Ca 582-ca 507 BC/BCE: Pythagoras of Samos stresses the mathematical nature of reality. He declares that “All is number.” Along with metaphysical and religious concepts, Pythagoras teaches other subjects including music, mathematics, vibrating lyre strings, and geometry.

25 May 585 BC/BCE: A solar eclipse ends a war between Lydia and the Medes during the Battle of the Eclipse. The battle stopped because of “day turning into night” and a treaty was signed. The eclipse had been accurately predicted by Thales (Ca 640-546 BC.BCE, WBD), a Greek philosopher. He is considered to have been the father of modern astronomy and geometry.

            The end of fighting resulted in a treaty of alliance cemented by the political marriage of a Lydian princess, Aryenis, to a Median prince, Astyages. 

624-546 BC/BCE:  Thales says the Earth’s surface is curved.

635 BC/BCE: Chinese astronomers notice that a comet’s tail always points away from the sun.

780 BC: The first historical mention of a solar eclipse is made in China.

Science in Antiquity: Part 8

 Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust.

By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

fl 450-370 BC/BCE: The Greek philosopher Leucippus teaches that all matter is composed of identical eternally existing, constantly moving particles surrounded by nothingness between the particles.  His student, Democritus, further developed the atomic theory.  Democritus taught that everything is material and is created by combinations of eternally existing atoms.

Ca 475 BC/BCE: Death of Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher whose ideas correctly predict one of the main concepts of the modern understanding of the nature of matter. He teaches that solid matter is really made of fire (read this in the modern way as subatomic particles) which is in constant motion.

Ca 490-ca 420 BC/BCE: The Greek philosopher, Protagoras, declares that there is no objective truth and that we all have our own reality.

Ca 500 BC: 1. Cataract surgery is performed in India by Susrata, a surgeon. The use of anesthesia is not mentioned until the 1^st Century AD/CE.

              2. Iron tools appear in China.

              3. Chinese weapon makers invent the crossbow.

               4. In Babylon, mathematical calculations are used to predict the movements and positions of astral bodies.

              5. A Greek physician, Alcmaeon, discovers the Eustachian tubes.

16 July 523 BC/BCE: Ptolemy correctly predicts a lunar eclipse.

Science in Antiquity: Part 7

 

Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust.

By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

387-312 BC/BCE: Life of the astronomer, Heraclides of Pontus. Among his statements; Venus and Mercury revolve around the sun; the Earth rotates on its axis once per day.

388 BC/BCE: Plato teaches that the sun, moon, and the planets move in perfect circlers around the Earth.

408 -355 BC/BCE: Eudoxus, a Greek astronomer and mathematician, explains the movements of the planets and calculates that the solar year is six hours longer than the stated 365 days.

426 BC/BCE: Thucydides correctly explains the cause of tsunamis.

428 BC/BCE: Death of Anaxogoras, a Greek philosopher whose students included Socrates, Pericles, and Euripides. He taught that matter is composed of tiny particles and that the heavenly bodies are large stones thrown from the Earth.

Science in Antiquity: Part 6

 Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust.

By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

Ca 290 BC/BCE: Aristarchus of Samos says that the Earth orbits the sun.

3^rd cent BC (300-201): The Greek physician and anatomist, Erasistratus, specialized in the study of the human circulatory and nervous systems. He differentiated between sensory and motor nerves, distinguished between the cerebrum and the cerebellum, and traced arteries and veins back to the heart. He was invented a type of catheter.

Ca 300 BC: The Mayans develop advanced mathematics and an accurate Calendar.

Ca 300 BC: Euclid, a Greek mathematician, expounds his geometrical theories of plane geometry, solid geometry, optics, optical perspective, and proportion.

Ca 340 BC/BCE: The Macedonians utilize catapults as weapons.

Science in Antiquity: Part 5

 Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust.

By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

Ca 240 BC: Chinese astronomers record an appearance of Halley’s Comet in Records of the Grand Historian.

262-190 BC/BCE: Apollonius, A Greek mathematician, develops the theory of conic sections.

Ca 280 BC/BCE: Aristachus of Samos calculates the first known estimate of the distance from the sun to the Earth and says that the Earth orbits the sun.

Fl 285-222 BC/BCE: Ctesibus, an Egyptian barber and scientist, studied pneumatics, siphons, air pumps, and the expansion and contraction of air pressure.

Ca 287 BC/BCE, WBD: Birth of Archimedes (Ca 287-212) in Syracuse (modern Siragusa, Italy), Greek mathematician and inventor. He studied levers, plane and solid geometry, mechanics, pulleys, hydraulics, and heat concentration using mirrors and is the first recorded person to have calculated the value of pi.

Science in Antiquity: Part 4

Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust.

By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

Ca 205 BC/BCE: In 1900 the Antikythera Mechanism is discovered off the island of Antikythera. It is a mechanical model of the solar system (with the then-known five planets) and an astronomical calculator. It can predict solar and lunar eclipses.

212 BC/BCE, WBD: Death of Archimedes, Greek mathematician, in the losing defense of Syracuse (modern Siracusa/Saragusa, Italy) against a Roman assault during the Spring of 213 until the Autumn of 212. The defense of the city included the use of weapons developed by Archimedes. His work included hydrostatics, mechanics, and the invention of a screw device for raising water.

230 BC/BCE: 1. Death of Aristarchus, who declared that the Earth revolves around the sun. He suspected that the stars were suns like ours.

Ca 240 BC: In Cyrene (modern Shahhat, Libya), Eratosthenes calculates the circumference of the Earth.

Science in Antiquity: Part 3

 Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust.

By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

b.80-70 – d. after 15 BC/BCE:  Life of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, a Roman military, civil, material, mechanical, and chemical engineer, architect, artilleryman, construction expert, and acoustical engineer who designed theaters in which whispers could be heard. In Roman times he was best known for standardizing the sizes of pipes. He designed pulleys, cranes, hoists, water clocks, stucco, a type of odometer, a steam engine, catapults, and a type of central heating.

ca 99-ca 55 BC/BCE: The life of Lucretius, a Roman philosopher who was the first to describe Brownian Movement, the random movements of particles which are suspended in a gas or liquid. He speculated on what we would understand to be extraterrestrial life: “Nothing in the universe is unique and alone and therefore, in other regions there must be other earths inhabited by different tribes of men and breeds of beasts.”

120 BC/BCE: Death of the Greek scientist, Hipparchus. He was a mathematician and astronomer who compiled trigonometry tables and calculated the length of the year to within 6.5 minutes of the modern measurement. He also discovered the procession of the equinoxes. He also catalogued over 850 stars and prepared an accurate star map.

Ca 190 BC/BCE: 1. Birth of the Greek scientist, Hipparchus, in Nicaea, Bithynia (modern Iznik, Turkiye) He is a mathematician and astronomer who compiles trigonometry tables and calculates the length of the year to within 6.5 minutes of the modern measurement. He studied optics and geography, prepared star charts, and described a nova in 134 BC/BCE.

Ca 200 BC:  The Hopewell Native American Culture flourishes. (USA). They had knowledge of geometry and astronomy.

Science in Antiquity: Part 2

 

Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was not actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust.

By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

9 March 5 BC/BCE: Chinese astronomers describe a comet which they observed.

24 BC/BCE: Strabo visits Thebes (modern Luxor/al-Uqsur, Egypt). On this trip (24-20), he finds the ruins of Heliopolis (the biblical On). Genesis 41:45. He described the Earth as a sphere and said gravity pulled things to the center.

(b. ca 25 BC/BCE – d. ca 50 AD/CE) Aulus Cornelius Celsus is a Roman medical encyclopedist who wrote about subjects including skin disorders, fevers, kidney stones, eye anatomy, dentistry, jaw fractures, cancers, diet, surgery, and medicines. He taught correctly that fevers were the “effort of the body to throw off some morbid cause.”

10 May 28 BC/BCE: Chinese astronomers recorded the earliest known dated record of a sunspot, a black spot on the sun. Exactly how the sunspots were viewed is not known, since telescopes were not invented until the 1570’s and direct viewing of the sun will damage the eyes.

78-37 BC/BCE:  The Han Chinese genius, Jing Fang, is a music theorist, mathematician, and astronomer. He explained lunar and solar eclipses and musical octaves.

Science in Antiquity: Part 1

 

Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust.

By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

185 AD/CE: Chinese astronomers report a bright star which faded away after eight months. This is Supernova SN 185 which occurred 8200 years ago in the Centaurus constellation.

Ca 140 AD/CE:  A Chinese surgeon, Hua Tuo, is the first recorded to use anesthesia during surgery.

78-139 AD/CE: Zhang Heng, a Han polymath, works in seismology, hydraulics, astronomy, cartography, poetry, and politics. He invents a functional water clock.

100 AD/CE: 1.  The mathematician Theon of Smyrna says that the Earth is a sphere.

Ca 20 AD/CE:1.  Birth of the Greek scientist, Hero of Alexandria, who did work in theoretical mathematics, mechanics, and physics.  He studied the science of light reflection and invented a rotary steam engine and several pneumatic devices.

              2. Geminus of Rhodes studies astronomy and writes The Theory of Mathematics.

8 AD/CE: Chinese astronomer Liu Xin calculates the solar year as 365.25016 days. He calculates pi as 3.154

Science in Antiquity: Part 12

 Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust. By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

Ca 1950 BC/BCE: Quadratic equations are solved by Babylonian mathematicians.

Ca 2000 BC/BCE: In India, fouled water is purified by boiling and subsequent filtration through

charcoal.

Ca 22 Oct. 2137 BC/BCE: A solar eclipse is recorded and described by Chinese officials.

9 May 2138 BC/BCE: Solar eclipse visible over Babylon.

24 May 2138 BC/BCE: Lunar eclipse visible over Babylon.

Science in Antiquity: Part 10

 Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust.

By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

Ca 805 BC/BCE: In India, Baudhayana calculates square roots and quadratic equations.

Ca 1000 BC/BCE: Egyptian mathematicians use simple fractions.

11^th Century BC/BCE: Chinese scholars describe algebra, geometry, and trigonometry.

27 December 1192 BC/BCE: A Chinese oracle bone has been found inscribed with a description of a lunar eclipse occurring between 2148 (9:48 PM) and 2330 (11:30 PM). The lunar eclipse has been confirmed by NASA to have happened on that date and time.

Ca 1486 BC/BCE: Chinese astronomers see a ten-tailed comet.