In addition, “the echoes of this battle [between the atomists and their critics (e.g., the Platonists, Aristotelians, and Stoics) who held that matter is continuous] were heard from time to time in medieval [Middle Ages (500–1500)] Europe, and it flared up again with great intensity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.”6 Then, Epicureanism was revived and analyzed with even greater zeal when a copy of Lucretius’s poem resurfaced in 1417 in a monastery, inspiring anew various Renaissance philosophers. These included priest Giordano Bruno (1548–1600), who sadly was burned alive at the stake because his scientific ideas were considered heretical by the Roman Inquisition. Like Copernicus and Galileo, his cosmology was heliocentric, not geocentric, as Aristotle and the Catholic Church held. Astronomer, physicist, and self-proclaimed philosopher Galileo cited Lucretius’s work to compare the Epicurean physics of falling bodies with Aristotle’s7 and his own.8 (Legend has it that he first tested his hypothesis of falling bodies by dropping objects from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but later by actually building an inclined plane in order to slow down motion and measure it more easily, a now standard freshman physics experiment.) He included this work in the Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences, a physics book he published in 1638 at the age of 74 that transformed the physics and mathematics of motion. This book inspired Newton, an atomist himself, who in turn inspired Einstein, who had proven atomism theoretically, and who inspired everyone after him. Philosopher priest Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655) “definitely reintroduced atomism into modern science [by promoting Epicureanism against the then-preferred Aristotelianism], and he came to it after studying the fairly substantial extant writings of Epicurus.”9 “From the lives and writings of Gassendi and [philosopher, mathematician,10 scientist René] Descartes [(1596–1650)], who introduced atomism into modern science, we know as an actual historical fact that, in doing so, they were fully aware of taking up the history of the ancient philosophers whose scripts they had diligently studied.”11 Philosopher, physicist, and chemist Robert Boyle (1627–1691) studied Epicurean physics, too—incidentally, Boyle’s gas law is also a standard freshman physics experiment.
Ancient atomism continued to be learned by Enlightenment philosophers such as the empiricist John Locke (1632–1704); polymath Roger Joseph Boscovich (1711–1787), who published a treatise about atomism and forces in 1758; and Founding Father of the United States Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), who proclaimed, “I too am an Epicurean.”12 Since “there are some interesting similarities between the Epicurean theory of indivisibles [atom, recall, means indivisible] and Hume’s theory of space and time [part II of Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature, one of Einstein’s favorite books],”13 and moreover since David Hume (1711–1776) attributed the so-called Epicurean paradox (on the why there is evil in the world) to Epicurus, I’m inclined to suppose that another influential thinker, Hume, was a student of Epicureanism.
One of the challenges for accepting atomism was the debate on the void, which was required to separate the atoms and allow them to move. Plato and Aristotle, for example, whose intellectual influence has practically been uninterrupted through the ages since their beginnings, rejected atomism and embraced the plenum. But as regards science, in the end it matters not who you are and what you teach because the single most important judge for the truth of a scientific hypothesis is experiment, observation, evidence! Science is knowledge based on evidence.
The first evidence for the atomic nature of matter came relatively recently, in the nineteenth century, with the experiments of John Dalton (1766–1844). (Atomic evidence awaited 2,500 years for the “hand” [technology] to catch up with the ideas of the mind and build the proper tools for experimentation.) It was then that atomism began its transition from a purely theoretical scientific hypothesis into an experimentally verified one—thus into a law of nature! The influential physicists Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann (1844–1906) embraced atomism, too. Incidentally, Maxwell’s theoretical work on electromagnetic undulations (caused by accelerating discrete, atomic particles bearing electric charge) inspired Einstein to imagine (in his relativity) space-time undulations—also known as gravitational waves, detected recently as a result of colliding black holes—caused by matter. The atomic concept was established further with additional experimental work from other scientists, including physicist J. J. Thomson, who discovered the electron in 1897.
In 1905 Einstein predicted theoretically the existence of the atom when he explained Brownian motion14 by requiring that his equations treat matter as atomic. Interestingly, Leucippus and Democritus required that matter is atomic in order to explain rationally motion, too, any motion. The year 1905 was Einstein’s miracle year: he also published his theory of special relativity, the equivalence between mass and energy (the famous E = mc2), and the explanation of the photoelectric effect by treating both matter (the electrons) and energy (light, the photons), as atomic (made of discrete particles, discontinuously distributed in space). His explanation of the photoelectric effect won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.
Thomson’s student physicist Ernest Rutherford discovered experimentally the atomic nucleus in 1911. Rutherford’s student Niels Bohr advanced further the theoretical notions of an atom (with his famous Bohr model of the hydrogen atom) and so did the research of so many others, experimental and theoretical scientists, including Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Paul Dirac (1902–1984), Feynman, and every other physicist from the twentieth century on, for atomism has since been an undisputed law of nature and has been incorporated (directly or indirectly) in our teachings and our research.
In fact, the physicists of loop quantum gravity aspire to demonstrate that atomic are not just matter and energy, but also space. I’m certain their research will benefit from the rigorous logic of Epicurus and of his students—in fact, even from the logic of Aristotle (via his well-argued criticism of atomism).
The influence of an idea doesn’t come only from its supporters, but from its intense critics, too. There haven’t been more fierce critics of atomism than the Eleatic school of thought (of Parmenides and Zeno), the Platonic, the Aristotelian, and the Stoic. And who, from the great thinkers of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and later did not read those philosophical schools, especially the last three? Even Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) who, although “admired the pre-Socratics [the Greek natural philosophers from the sixth and fifth centuries bce] except Pythagoras,”15 rejected atomism, and so did the renowned philosopher and physicist Mach, who declared, “I do not believe that atoms exist,”16 and chemist Wilhelm Ostwald (1853–1932) were also spreading it, for their philosophies have been so well scrutinized.
“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants,” stated Newton in 1675. Newton studied Epicurean physics,17 Latin,18 Greek, and Euclidean geometry. It’s not just natural philosophy or in general science that spread ancient atomism from the past to the present; it is also mathematics simply because from the time of Pythagoras it had been realized that the language of science is mathematics. For example, “Plato’s main contribution to science sprang from his realization of the problem of the irrational [numbers and lines], and from the modification of Pythagoreanism and atomism.”19 Inspired by the Pythagorean mathematics, Plato evolved into a geometrical atomist20 (as seen in chapter 6) by replacing the Pythagorean “things are numbers” with things are shapes, forms, Forms.
In light of this super brief history of ideas, it is clear that the intellectual continuity between ancient natural philosophy and modern physics has undoubtedly been tight and systematic.21 I’m hoping with this book that this relationship will be revived not only for history’s sake but also for the inspiration of new ideas. I believe that an interplay between philosophy (ancient or modern) and modern physics is always a more illuminating path to the truth. Great philosophers have been physicists and great physicists have been philosophers. In chapter 1, we asked what is philosophy and what is physics? Philosophy is part p
hysics and physics is part philosophy, and like the parts of the E-atom, they (should) constitute an unsplittable union in the search for a theory of everything. A vision about nature, a philosophy, should be driving the mathematics of physics, not lifeless mathematics forcing itself onto eventful universe.
* * *
1Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011).
2Also known as On the Nature of the Universe.
3Mentioned in the modern introductory commentary of Lucretius, On the Nature of the Universe, trans. R. E. Latham (London: Penguin Books, 2005), xxiii.
4Bertrand Russell, The History of Western Philosophy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1945), 251.
5Andrew Gregory, Eureka! The Birth of Science (Cambridge: Icon Books, 2001), 138.
6David J. Furley, Two Studies in the Greek Atomists (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967), v.
7Lucretius, On the Nature of the Universe 2.226–227 (43), 2.156 (41n15); compare Epicurus’s and Aristotle’s theories of falling bodies.
8Daniel Kolac and Garrett Thomson, The Longman Standard History of Philosophy (New York: Pearson, 2005), 253.
9Erwin Schrödinger, Nature and the Greeks and Science and Humanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 75.
10The Cartesian geometry (of the x-y coordinate system) studied by all math students is named so because Cartesius is Latin for Descartes.
11Schrödinger, Nature and the Greeks, 82–83.
12Anthony Grafton, Glenn W. Most, and Salvatore Settis (eds.), The Classical Tradition (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010), 323.
13Furley, Two Studies in the Greek Atomists, 136.
14The zigzag motion of a tiny particle submerged in a fluid.
15Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 776.
16Carlo Rovelli, Reality Is Not What It Seems (New York: RiverHead Books, 2017), 41 (Kindle ed.).
17Daniel Kolac and Garrett Thomson, The Longman Standard History of Philosophy (New York: Pearson, 2005), 253.
18His famous Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) was written in Latin.
19Karl R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (London: Routledge, 1989), 87.
20Ibid., 81; Gregory, Eureka, 55–59.
21Bruce Thornton, Greek Ways: How the Greeks Created Western Civilization (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002); Carl Sagan, Cosmos (New York: Random House, 1980), chap. 7; G. E. R. Lloyd, Early Greek Science: Thales to Aristotle (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1970); Gregory, Eureka; Russell, History of Western Philosophy; Isaac Asimov, The Greeks; A Great Adventure (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965); Leon Lederman and Dick Teresi, The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question? (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993), chap. 2; Popper, Conjectures and Refutations; Rovelli, Reality Is Not What It Seems; Schrödinger, Nature and the Greeks, 3–99; Stephen Bertman, The Genesis of Science: The Story of Greek Imagination (New York: Prometheus Books, 2010); Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1962).
Epilogue
Our ancient quest for knowledge began with our evolution as a species 200,000 years ago, and with everything we experienced through our struggles to survive and our efforts to thrive and live fully. We hunted and gathered, painted on caves, told stories, domesticated animals and plants, built homes, wondered about nature, gave birth to civilization and religion, picked up writing, philosophized, and engaged in science. In fact, we keep on doing all these wonderful things, but, amazingly, we have been doing them ever more in the light of science.
Since the birth of Greek natural philosophy 2,600 years ago, science has evolved significantly. Nonetheless, its ultimate goal still remains essentially the same: to understand nature rationally and to reduce the explanations of all natural phenomena to the least possible number of basic assumptions (first causes, axioms)—ideally to just one, hence a unified theory of everything. Now, say that has been achieved, will the human intellect be satisfied?
We like Homer’s Odyssey so much because it is a story of a journey (in fact, a long one), not of a destination. Shortly after Odysseus returns to Ithaca, the story ends and we feel melancholic—we like the journey better than the destination. Although, with Odysseus’s return, the events in Ithaca were breathtakingly exciting and awaited eagerly from the start of the story, their completion also brought the absolute end of the epic adventure.
The beauty of nature is in her secrets; the magic is in our discoveries. I never want to know everything—to have the journey of knowledge, of search and discovery, ever end. What would be next if I did? What would happen to the magic? Space, time, matter, energy, the human senses to observe, and the intellect to contemplate—it is all nature, and her nature is her many secrets (her shadows). They are many but also intelligible (steal-able, like Promethean fire)! I hope you have a magical, endless journey searching, in the light of science, for the nature of nature!
A student of Euclid once asked, What would I earn if I learned geometry? If you should earn from what you learn, here is a coin, Euclid responded sardonically. But, really, why should we learn? Because we can, might be the best answer, but also because the journey of knowledge is infinitely interesting. Nonetheless, in front of the wisdom of the universe, we should remain always humble, for as many learned people have come to know (Democritus, Socrates, Russell), we might be wrong on just about everything.
Bibliography
Asimov, Isaac. Asimov’s Chronology of Science and Discovery. New York: HarperCollins, 1989.
Asimov, Isaac. Asimov’s Chronology of the World. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
Asimov, Isaac. The Greeks; A Great Adventure. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965.
Asimov, Isaac. Understanding Physics. US: Dorset Press, 1988.
Baker, Joanne. 50 Physics Ideas You Really Need to Know. London: Quercus, 2007.
Bertman, Stephen. The Eight Pillars of Greek Wisdom. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2007.
Bertman, Stephen. The Genesis of Science: The Story of Greek Imagination. Kindle ed. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2010.
Boardman, John, Jasper Griffin, and Oswyn Murray, eds. The Oxford Illustrated History of Greece and the Hellenistic World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Brunschwig, Jacques, and Geoffrey E. R. Lloyd. Greek Thought: A Guide to Classical Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000.
Brunschwig, Jacques, and Geoffrey E. R. Lloyd. A Guide to Greek Thought: Major Figures and Trends. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003.
Burckhardt, Jacob. The Greeks and Greek Civilization. Edited by Oswyn Murray. Translated by Sheila Stern. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1999.
Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical. Translated by John Raffan. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1985.
Burnet, John. Early Greek Philosophy. London: A & C Black, 1920.
Canales, Jimena. The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate That Changed Our Understanding of Time. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016.
Cox, Brian, and Jeff Forshaw. Why Does E=mc2?: (And Why Should We Care?). Kindle ed. Boston: Da Capo Press, 2009.
Dalling, Robert. The Story of Us Humans, From Atoms to Today’s Civilization. New York: iUniverse, 2006.
Davies, P. C. W., and Julian Brown. Superstrings: A Theory of Everything? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Economou, Eleftherios N. A Short Journey from Quarks to the Universe. Berlin: Springer, 2011.
Einstein, Albert. Relativity: The Special and the General Theory. Kindle ed. Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, 2011.
Feynman, Richard P. The Meaning of It All. New York: Basic Books, 1998.
Feynman, Richard P. Six Easy Pieces. New York: Perseus, 1963.
Feynman, Richard P. Six Not So Easy Pieces. N
ew York: Perseus, 1963.
Freeman, Charles. The Greek Achievement: The Foundation of the Western World. New York: Penguin Books, 2000.
Freeman, Kathleen. Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996.
Furley, David J. Two Studies in the Greek Atomists. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967.
Graham, Daniel W. Explaining the Cosmos: The Ionian Tradition of Scientific Philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006.
Graham, Daniel W. The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy: The Complete Fragments and Selected Testimonies of the Major Presocratics. Translated by W. Daniel Graham. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths. London: Penguin Group, 1955.
Greene, Brian. The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999.
Greene, Brian. The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality. New York: Vintage, 2005.
Greene, Brian. The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos. New York: Vintage, 2011.
Gregory, Andrew. Ancient Greek Cosmogony. Kindle ed. London: Bloomsbury, 2008.
Gregory, Andrew. Eureka! The Birth of Science. Cambridge: Icon Books, 2001.
Hamilton, Edith. The Greek Way. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1930.
Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes. New York: Bantam Books, 1988.
Heisenberg, Werner. Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1962.
James, Renée C. Seven Wonders of the Universe: That You Probably Took for Granted. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011.
Kaku, Michio. Einstein’s Cosmos: How Albert Einstein’s Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004.
In Search of a Theory of Everything Page 23
