Anaximander

Anaximander was born around 610 BC and died around 546 BC. He was the first person known to have placed the Earth in a very particular way, at the centre of the then known Universe. The amazing difference that he proposed – that there was nothing supporting the Earth. He proposed that it was simply suspended and was held there because it was equidistant from all other celestial bodies. Was this a forerunner to some understanding of gravity or was it the beginnings of mathematical modelling, or born out of a world view that could not conceive of any other shape other than a circle when it came to describing the heavens? What and who influenced his thinking to form such a concept? We only know how Greek civilization thought, from their writings and from those who wrote about their writings. We can also study their art, their coins, buildings, architecture, artifacts, and the layout of their towns and cities.

Pliny, in ‘Natural History 2’, said

“It is said that Anaximander of Miletus first opened the doors of nature”

(“Rerum fores aperuisse, Anaximander Milesius traditur primus” for those Latinists among you)

This quote is actually at the beginning of Carlo Rovelli’s ‘Anaximander’. Rovelli is an astrophysicist, physicist, and forging new paths in cosmology. He says of Anaximander,

“Anaximander ignited a conflict between two profoundly different ways of thinking. On the one hand there was the dominant mythical and religious way of thinking, based in large measure on the existence of certainties that, by their very nature, could not be called into question. On the other hand, there was the new way of looking at the world,based on curiosity, rejection of certainties, and change. This conflict has run through the history of Western civilization, century after century, with alternating outcomes. it is still open.” (Rovelli, C. 2007 Introduction p xviii)

Is Rovelli right about Anaximander? Is he right in saying that there has been a running conflict between two ways of thinking? How much were the next generation of thinkers influenced by Anaximander? How far has his influence reached? Was Aristarchus the next ‘Anaximander’ as well as the first ‘Copernicus’?

These are the questions which are occupying my thoughts at the moment, as I prepare the groundwork for my M.A. dissertation. Anaximander seems to hold a very particular key in Greek thought. I wonder, as I consider his suspended Earth, who did he speak to? Who did he listen to in lectures? Where did he discuss his ideas? How did his ideas become known and to whom did he first disclose them? Who was the greatest influence on his life? Was it as true for him as it generally is for us today, that our greatest influencers are usually those who we remember treated us kindly and took us seriously? What influence for example, did Greek women have on these philosophers? Where are all the women philosophers? We know they were there, and one or two are known. I shall be talking more about them as the months go on. The Greeks were human too, and it is easy to forget that when we look at Greek philosophers, and it is easy to look on them with some kind of celestial etherealness.

Apologies for the long times between posts, I intend to post more regularly from here on…

Philolaus

Who was Philolaus and did he or could he have been an influence on Aristarchus. Philolaus was born around 470 BC and died around 385 BC. He was a Pythagorean who is given credit for the theory that at the centre of the universe is a central hearth, or fire, which the Earth revolved around. He also held that there was a counter-Earth which was not possible to be seen from Earth due it being directly opposite the central hearth. This central hearth was the Hearth of the gods. The Sun also in his theory, revolved around the central hearth. Here is an image of what it seems that Philolaus envisaged, from http://www.ancientgreecereloaded.com/files/ancient_greece_reloaded_website/great_persons/philolaus.php

Beginnings…

Why write a blog about classics relating to astronomy? Well, in case you are asking, (and if not then you’re probably not reading this anyway) grab a cuppa and I will tell you a story…

It really began with reading as many books as I could about Copernicus, the reason for that I will talk about as this blog progresses. Nicolaus Copernicus (there are many different ways of spelling his name) was persuaded to write down and publish his reasons for coming to believe that Earth orbits the Sun, rather than the other way around. This was known as the Heliocentric Theory. How he was persuaded is a fascinating story, and has been written about extensively both in fact and fiction. Copernicus was an amateur astronomer, his day job was a catholic priest and also the local GP. His great work was first published in 1543, which also was the year he died.

In the manuscript edition in which his own signature is written, in his great finished work, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) were *several references to a man called Aristarchus of Samos, also often referred to as The Mathematician.

Aristarchus of Samos was born around 310 BC and died around 230 BC. He is most famous for being the first person who is recorded as suggesting the Heliocentric System, in other words, that the Earth goes around the Sun, and not the Sun around the Earth. Just pause, and take this in for a moment…take another sip of tea/coffee of whatever you are drinking and think of this, Aristarchus suggested this, around eighteen hundred years before Copernicus published his great work suggesting the same.

To put it another way, nearly two thousand years before Copernicus, there was a mathematician who figured out that the Earth moved around the Sun. We know that Copernicus knew about Aristarchus. It is not certain how much he knew about Aristarchus’ suggestion of the Earth going around the Sun.

My questions are,

1. Why did it take nearly two thousand years before someone else came to believe Earth went around the Sun, and
2. How did Aristarchus, (and in fact Copernicus) work this out? what observations did they make and did they work it out in the same way(s)?

These are actually enormous questions, and I have spent the last 13 years reading, studying, wondering, pondering, speculating, and now I am about to embark on year two of my Masters in Classical Studies with the OU. One of my many reasons for doing this Masters is to step into my TARDIS and travel back into the world of Ancient Greece and Rome, to try to see glimpses of Aristarchus’ perception of the world. Who was this man? What do we know about him? How did he understand history and his generation’s place in it? How do we know he suggested the Earth went around the Sun? What is the evidence? Then, finally, why was his ‘theory’ dismissed? Or, in fact, was it dismissed or is that what has come down to us through the ages as being the case, but was it? Can we really be sure and how does dipping into Aristarchus’ world affect our own understanding of our perception of the Universe?

I’m stepping into my TARDIS now…see you in Ancient Greece

*Professor Owen J. Gingerich describes these mentions in his article, Did Copernicus owe a debt to Aristarchus (Journal for the history of astronomy, Vol 16, NO.1/FEB. p.37, 1985 if you want to look it up)

A would-be classicist begins an adventure

As I look at the night sky with the thousands of stars, I realise I am looking back into history. It takes the light from these stars anything from a few years to millions of years to reach us, and there are those stars whose light takes thousands of years and which started out from its particular star when, for example, Plato was writing Timaeus and wondering about how the universe came into being, or when Jesus was giving the Sermon on the Mount, or when Chinese astronomers saw a star explode which we now know to be the remnant of a supernova we call M1 or the Crab Nebula. So being a stargazer is also to dip into history and antiquity.

Imagine, as you gaze on a star, who could have still been alive on Earth when that starlight began its journey?

Two years ago I began a Masters in Classical Studies with the Open university. I have honours degrees in Astronomy & Astrophysics and in Theology, so doing this Masters was the logical progression in combining my love of both, well, ok, yes, logical to me. I took a break for a year, and this year I am about to begin my second and final year of this Masters, and so I am a would-be classicist, and a teacher of astronomy (I’ve taught GCSE astronomy for 13 years) and this blog is the beginning of a journey which is, for me, an adventure.

Oh, and I am also an autist, or for those not familiar with that wonderful word, autistic. Studying is what I do best, a bit like how honey is what Tiggers love best…or…wait…was it?

The crater Proclus (the one with all the light being reflected from it centre of the image toward the top) from my image taken by the Liverpool Robotic Telescope