16 APR 2018 by ideonexus
Euclid's Elements as a Game
"If video games had been around in 350 BC, Euclid would have made a video game," Devlin told me. The thirteen books of Euclid's Elements would have been the supplemental material, a PDF file that you could read if you wanted to. "People think I'm joking—I absolutely mean that. Euclid would not have written a textbook, he would have designed a video game." Peek at any of his proofs, Devlin said, and you'll quickly find that the great Greek mathematician, often called the father of geometry, ... 1 
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notes12 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Physics Demonstrates the Principle that Everything has a ...
At first sight nothing seems more obvious than that everything has a beginning and an end, and that everything can be subdivided into smaller parts. Nevertheless, for entirely speculative reasons the philosophers of Antiquity, especially the Stoics, concluded this concept to be quite unnecessary. The prodigious development of physics has now reached the same conclusion as those philosophers, Empedocles and Democritus in particular, who lived around 500 B.C. and for whom even ancient man had a... 1 notes
notesFrom the lecture 'Development of the Theory of Electrolytic Dissociation' by Svante Arrhenius.
30 AUG 2011 by ideonexus
The Universe Was Set in Motion and Everything Else Followed
Certainly the atoms did not post themselves purposefully in due order by an act of intelligence, nor did they stipulate what movements each should perform. [58] As they have been rushing everlastingly throughout all space in their myriads, undergoing a myriad changes under the disturbing impact of collisions, they have experienced every variety of movement and conjunction till they have fallen into the particular pattern by which this world of ours is constituted. This world has persisted man... 1 notes
notesLucretius' very prescient observation.
25 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
The Greatest Greeks Did Not Set Up Schools
Now the wisdom of the Greeks was professorial and much given to disputations, a kind of wisdom most adverse to the inquisition of truth. Thus that name of Sophists, which by those who would be thought philosophers was in contempt cast back upon and so transferred to the ancient rhetoricians, Gorgias, Protagoras, Hippias, Polus, does indeed suit the entire class: Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Epicurus, Theophrastus, and their successors Chrysippus, Carneades, and the rest. There was this difference ... 1 notes
notesThey were too busy doing science to produce useful knowledge than to waste time profiting on their ideas.
25 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
The Platonic School Believed Nothing Was Knowable
A caution must also be given to the understanding against the intemperance which systems of philosophy manifest in giving or withholding assent, because intemperance of this kind seems to establish idols and in some sort to perpetuate them, leaving no way open to reach and dislodge them.
This excess is of two kinds: the first being manifest in those who are ready in deciding, and render sciences dogmatic and magisterial; the other in those who deny that we can know anything, and so introduce... 1 notes
notesThey believed science and nature were simply shadows, mere reflections of a reality we could never hope to truly know.
25 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Aristotle Did Not Work From Experience
The most conspicuous example of the first class was Aristotle, who corrupted natural philosophy by his logic: fashioning the world out of categories; assigning to the human soul, the noblest of substances, a genus from words of the second intention; doing the business of density and rarity (which is to make bodies of greater or less dimensions, that is, occupy greater or less spaces), by the frigid distinction of act and power; asserting that single bodies have each a single and proper motion... 1 notes
notes...having first determined the question according to his will, he then resorts to experience, and bending her into conformity with his placets, leads her about like a captive in a procession.
25 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Science Must Continually Renew Itself
It is idle to expect any great advancement in science from the superinducing and engrafting of new things upon old. We must begin anew from the very foundations, unless we would revolve forever in a circle with mean and contemptible progress. 1 notes
notesGreat advancement does not come from perpetually building on old ideas, but by rebuilding the old in a new light of understanding.
