To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science (62 page)

3
. Aristotle,
Physics
, Book II, Chapter 2, 194a 29–31 (Oxford trans., p. 331).

4
. Ibid., Chapter 1, 192a 9 (Oxford trans., p. 329).

5
. Aristotle,
Meteorology
, Book II, Chapter 9, 396b 7–11 (Oxford trans., p. 596).

6
. Aristotle,
On the Heavens
, Book I, Chapter 6, 273b 30–31, 274a, 1 (Oxford trans., p. 455).

7
. Aristotle,
Physics
, Book IV, Chapter 8, 214b 12–13 (Oxford trans., p. 365).

8
. Ibid., 214b 32–34 (Oxford trans., p. 365).

9
. Ibid., Book VII, Chapter 1, 242a 50–54 (Oxford trans., p. 408).

10
. Aristotle,
On the Heavens
, Book III, Chapter 3, 301b 25–26 (Oxford trans., p. 494).

11
. Thomas Kuhn, “Remarks on Receiving the Laurea,” in
L’Anno Galileiano
(Edizioni LINT, Trieste, 1995).

12
. David C. Lindberg, in
The Beginnings of Western Science
(University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill., 1992), pp. 53–54.

13
. David C. Lindberg, in
The Beginnings of Western
Science, 2nd ed. (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill., 2007), p. 65.

14
. Michael R. Matthews, in Introduction to
The Scientific Background to Modern Philosophy
(Hackett, Indianapolis, Ind., 1989).

4. Hellenistic Physics and Technology

1
. Here I borrow the title of the leading modern treatise on this age: Peter Green,
Alexander to Actium
(University of California Press, Berkeley, 1990).

2
. I believe that this remark is originally due to George Sarton.

3
. The description of Strato’s work by Simplicius is presented in an English translation by M. R. Cohen and I. E. Drabkin,
A Source Book in Greek Science
(Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1948), pp. 211–12.

4
. H. Floris Cohen,
How Modern Science Came into the World
(Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 2010), p. 17.

5
. For the interaction of technology with physics research in modern
times, see Bruce J. Hunt,
Pursuing Power and Light: Technology and Physics from James Watt to Albert Einstein
(Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Md., 2010).

6
. Philo’s experiments are described in a letter quoted by G. I. Ibry-Massie and P. T. Keyser,
Greek Science of the Hellenistic Era
(Routledge, London, 2002), pp. 216–19.

7
. The standard translation into English is Euclid,
The Thirteen Books of the Elements
, 2nd ed., trans. Thomas L. Heath (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1925).

8
. This is quoted in a Greek manuscript of the sixth century AD, and given in an English translation in Ibry-Massie and Keyser,
Greek Science of the Hellenistic Era.

9
. See Table V.1, p. 233, of the translation of Ptolemy’s
Optics
by A. Mark Smith in “Ptolemy’s Theory of Visual Perception,”
Transactions of the American Philosophical Society
86,
Part 2 (1996).

10
. Quotes here are from T. L. Heath, trans.,
The Works of Archimedes
(Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1897).

5. Ancient Science and Religion

1
. Plato,
Timaeus
, 30A, trans. R. G. Bury, in
Plato
, Volume 9 (Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1929), p. 55.

2
. Erwin Schrödinger, Shearman Lectures at University College London, May 1948, published as
Nature and the Greeks
(Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1954).

3
. Alexandre Koyré,
From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe
(Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Md., 1957), p. 159.

4
. 
Ancilla
, p. 22.

5
. Thucydides,
History of the Peloponnesian War
, trans. Rex Warner (Penguin, New York, 1954, 1972), p. 511.

6
. S. Greenblatt, “The Answer Man: An Ancient Poem Was Rediscovered and the World Swerved,”
New Yorker
, August 8, 2011, pp. 28–33.

7
. Edward Gibbon,
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
, Chapter 23 (Everyman’s Library, New York, 1991), p. 412. Hereafter cited as Gibbon,
Decline and Fall.

8
. Ibid., Chapter 2, p. 34.

9
. Nicolaus Copernicus,
On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres
, trans. Charles Glenn Wallis (Prometheus, Amherst, N.Y., 1995), p. 7.

10
. Lactantius,
Divine Institutes
, Book 3, Section 24, trans. A. Bowen and P. Garnsey (Liverpool University Press, Liverpool, 2003).

11
. Paul,
Epistle to the Colossians
2:8 (King James translation).

12
. Augustine,
Confessions
, Book IV, trans. A. C. Outler (Dover, New York, 2002), p. 63.

13
. Augustine,
Retractions
, Book I, Chapter 1, trans. M. I. Bogan (Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C., 1968), p. 10.

14
. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall
, Chapter XL, p. 231.

PART II: GREEK ASTRONOMY
6. The Uses of Astronomy

1
. This chapter is based in part on my article “The Missions of Astronomy,”
New York Review of Books
56
, 16 (October 22, 2009): 19–22; reprinted in
The Best American Science and Nature Writing
, ed. Freeman Dyson (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, Mass., 2010), pp. 23–31, and in
The Best American Science Writing
, ed. Jerome Groopman (HarperCollins, New York, 2010), pp. 272–81.

2
. Homer,
Iliad
, Book 22, 26–29. Quotation from Richmond Lattimore, trans.,
The Iliad of Homer
(University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill., 1951), p. 458.

3
. Homer,
Odyssey
, Book V, 280–87. Quotations from Robert Fitzgerald, trans.,
The Odyssey
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1961), p. 89.

4
. Diogenes Laertius,
Lives of the Eminent Philosophers
, Book I, 23.

5
. This is the interpretation of some lines of Heraclitus argued by D. R. Dicks,
Early Greek Astronomy to Aristotle
(Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., 1970).

6
. Plato’s
Republic
, 527 D–E, trans. Robin Wakefield (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1993).

7
. Philo,
On the Eternity of the World
, I (1). Quotation from C. D. Yonge, trans.,
The Works of Philo
(Hendrickson Peabody, Mass., 1993), 707.

7. Measuring the Sun, Moon, and Earth

1
. The importance of Parmenides and Anaxagoras as founders of Greek scientific astronomy is emphasized by Daniel W. Graham,
Science Before Socrates—Parmenides, Anaxagoras, and the New Astronomy
(Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013).

2
. 
Ancilla
, p. 18.

3
. Aristotle,
On the Heavens
, Book II, Chapter 14, 297b 26–298a 5 (Oxford trans., pp. 488–89).

4
. 
Ancilla
, p. 23.

5
. Aristotle,
On the Heavens
, Book II, Chapter 11.

6
. Archimedes,
On Floating Bodies
, in T. L. Heath, trans.,
The Works of Archimedes
(Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1897), p. 254. Hereafter cited as Archimedes, Heath trans.

7
. A translation is given by Thomas Heath in
Aristarchus of Samos
(Clarendon, Oxford, 1923).

8
. Archimedes,
The Sand Reckoner
, Heath trans., p. 222.

9
. Aristotle,
On the Heavens
, Book II, 14, 296b 4–6 (Oxford trans.).

10
. Aristotle,
On the Heavens
, Book II, 14, 296b 23–24 (Oxford trans.).

11
. Cicero,
De Re Publica
, 1.xiv §21–22, in
Cicero, On the Republic and On the Laws
, trans. Clinton W. Keys (Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1928), pp. 41, 43.

12
. This work has been reconstructed by modern scholars; see Albert van Helden,
Measuring the Universe—Cosmic Dimensions from Aristarchus to Halley
(University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill., 1983), pp. 10–13.

13
. 
Ptolemy’s Almagest
, trans. and annotated G. J. Toomer (Duckworth, London, 1984). The Ptolemy star catalog is on pages 341–99.

14
. For a contrary view, see O. Neugebauer,
A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy
(Springer-Verlag, New York, 1975), pp. 288, 577.

15
. Ptolemy,
Almagest
, Book VII, Chapter 2.

16
. Cleomedes,
Lectures on Astronomy
, ed. and trans. A. C. Bowen and R. B. Todd (University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2004).

8. The Problem of the Planets

1
. G. W. Burch, “The Counter-Earth,”
Osiris
11
, 267 (1954).

2
. Aristotle,
Metaphysics
, Book I, Part 5, 986a 1 (Oxford trans.). But in Book II of
On the Heavens
, 293b 23–25, Aristotle says that the counter-Earth was supposed to explain why lunar eclipses are more common than solar eclipses.

3
. The paragraph quoted here is as given by Pierre Duhem in
To Save the Phenomena—An Essay on the Idea of Physical Theory from Plato to Galileo
, trans. E. Dolan and C. Machler (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill., 1969), p. 5, hereafter cited as Duhem,
To Save the Phenomena.
A more recent translation of this passage from Simplicius is given by I. Mueller: see Simplicius,
On Aristotle’s “On the Heavens 2.10–14”
(Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., 2005), 492.31–493.4, p. 33. We don’t know if Plato ever actually proposed this problem. Simplicius was quoting Sosigenes the Peripatetic, a philosopher of the second century AD.

4
. For very clear illustrations showing the model of Eudoxus, see James Evans,
The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy
(Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998), pp. 307–9.

5
. Aristotle,
Metaphysics
, Book XII, Chapter 8, 1073b 1–1074a 1.

6
. For a translation by I. Mueller, see Simplicius,
On Aristotle “On the Heavens 3.1–7”
(Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., 2005), 493.1–497.8, pp. 33–36.

7
. This was the work, in 1956, of the physicists Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang.

8
. Aristotle,
Metaphysics
, Book XII, Section 8, 1073b 18–1074a 14 (Oxford trans.).

9
. These references are given by D. R. Dicks,
Early Greek Astronomy to Aristotle
(Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., 1970), p. 202. Dicks takes a different view of what Aristotle was trying to accomplish.

10
. Mueller,
Simplicius, On Aristotle’s “On the Heavens 2.10–14,”
519.9–11, p. 59.

11
. Ibid., 504.19–30, p. 43.

12
. See Book I of Otto Neugebauer,
A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy
(Springer-Verlag, New York, 1975).

13
. G. Smith, private communication.

14
. Ptolemy,
Almagest
, trans. G. J. Toomer (Duckworth, London, 1984), Book V, Chapter 13, pp. 247–51. Also see O. Neugebauer,
A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy, Part One
(Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1975), pp. 100–3.

15
. Barrie Fleet, trans.,
Simplicius on Aristotle “Physics 2”
(Duckworth, London, 1997), 291.23–292.29, pp. 47–48.