Book ID: CBB001510106

In the Light of Science: Our Ancient Quest for Knowledge and the Measure of Modern Physics (2014)

unapi

Nicolaides, Demetris (Author)


Prometheus Books


Publication Date: 2014
Physical Details: 266 pp.; bibl.; index
Language: English

The birth of science in ancient Greece had a historical impact that is still being felt today. Physicist Demetris Nicolaides examines the epochal shift in thinking that led pre-Socratic philosophers of the sixth and fifth centuries BCE to abandon the prevailing mythologies of the age and, for the first time, to analyze the natural world in terms of impersonal, rationally understood principles. He argues not only that their conceptual breakthroughs anticipated much of later science but that scientists of the twenty-first century are still grappling with the fundamental problems raised twenty-five hundred years ago. Looking at the vast sweep of human history, the author delves into the factors that led to the birth of science: urbanization, the role of religion, and in Greece a progressive intellectual curiosity that was unafraid to question tradition. Why did the first scientific approach to understanding the world take place in Greece? The author makes a convincing case that, aside from factors of geography and politics, the power of the Greek language and a cultural proclivity for critical thinking played a large role. In the Light of Science is a unique approach to the history of science revealing the important links between the ancient past and the present scientific endeavor to understand the universe.

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Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001510106/

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Authors & Contributors
Maieron, Mario Augusto
Maria Antonia Rancadore
Guichard, Luis Arturo
Chelsea Harry
García Alonso, Juan Luis
Habash, Justin
Concepts
Philosophy
Pre-Socratic philosophers
Physics
Medicine
Science and religion
Universe
Time Periods
Ancient
20th century
Medieval
21st century
5th century, B.C.
6th century, B.C.
Places
Greece
Hellenistic world
Middle and Near East
Mediterranean region
Egypt
Alexandria (Egypt)
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