25 Jan 2006
Computing Reviews
The Forgotten Revolution describes the explosion of science in the third
and second centuries BCE. In the age of Archimedes, Eratosthenes, and
Euclid science as we ordinarily recognize the field began as a category
of human knowledge. The forgotten in the title refers to the Alexandrian texts
that were lost and the notion that the breakthroughs of the Renaissance
were based on these texts. Unfortunately, these texts were lost in the
ancient period and subsequently during the Renaissance as well. The
author, Lucio Russo, notes that both scientific revolutions were also
accompanied by great changes and an invigorated awareness in related
fields, such as art and medicine.
The revolution in science is surveyed in ten chapters, an epilogue, and
a mathematical appendix. In chapters 1-7 there is detailed coverage of the
birth, rise, decline and fall of Hellenistic science and technology:
mathematics, mechanics of solids and fluids, topography and geodesy,
optics, astronomy; civil, mechanical, naval, and military engineering; anatomy,
physiology, biology, and medicine; economics and mass production
techniques; architecture and urban development; psychoanalysis and cognitive
sciences.
An interesting inquiry of Russo¹s is the methodological nature of
Hellenistic mathematics. More important than the discoveries of the
Greeks noted above is the method they introduced, that is, the axiomatic,
deductive manner of argumentation that typifies mathematics. In general, the
deductive method, allied to the experimental method also introduced by the
Hellenistic scientists, is a modern approach to exact sciences.
The brilliance of the Hellenistic scientific revolution was lost in that
scientific method was abandoned in antiquity and its renaissance was
incredibly lax and centuries in coming. As late as the age of Newton,
who was representative Renaissance thinker, scientists worked at a level
still far below the Hellenistic level of rigorous method. This in itself is a
worthwhile point to make. When Russo relies on the philological evidence
alone he makes a convincing argument.
Another key inquiry is the idea that the heliocentric theories of
planetary motions were discovered far before the Hellenistic era. Aristarchus of
Samos and a century later with Hipparchus of Nicea Russo convincingly
demonstrates evidence that some Hellenistic writers knew of heliocentric ideas. They
developed a dynamical theory of planetary motions based on the attractions
of the planets toward the Sun. The work of Hipparchus is unfortunately
no longer extant but in an obscure work of Plutarch, sprinkled throughout
the Natural History of Plinius, the Natural Questions of Seneca, and the
Architecture of Vitruvius, enough philological evidence suggests that
the cultural elites of the early Roman Imperial period knew heliocentric
theories.
Much later Newton, who had the complete works of Plutarch in his
library, apparently included the heliocentric idea but without a credit attached.
Although some may think this an unethical act, it was in fact commonly
done if an author works in an academic field and elsewhere clearly credits
one¹ssources, and Newton does.
One simple reason the tradition of heliocentric theory is lost is that
the commonly cited Principia only included this portion in a Scholia or an
annotation on the original manuscript not appearing in the commonly
printed version.
Russo should be appreciated not only in the detailed transmission of
specific ideas but within a major historical problem of antiquity. The
decline and fall of antique civilization was occurring as Hellenistic
ideaswere pushed to the background as Max Weber thoroughly discussed the
issue of decadence. As trade in antiquity declined, so did the accompanied
flowering of art, literature, and scientific inquiry. The key insights of
Hellenistic thought languished then until the Renaissance and their re-discovery by
modern scientific thought.
This volume would not be of interest for most computing professionals
because the only closely related topic are analog computational aids. It
would however be of note for a general educated audience with an
interest in history of science, mathematics, physics, engineering, astronomy,
medicine and classical civilizations.
Four works read in tandem with Russo¹s would be instructive: The
Mathematics of Plato's Academy, by David H. Fowler (Oxford, 1999), and
The Shaping of Deduction in Greek Mathematics, by Reviel Netz
(Cambridge, 1999), Otto Neugebauer, Exact Sciences in Antiquity, and Sir Thomas
Heath, A History of Greek Mathematics. In addition, these four works are often on
sounder ground than Russo¹s volume.
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