The Greeks

The Greeks had not invented the scientific method.

• Their theories were not developed with the goal of experimental verification.

Precise measurement and mathematical calculation were difficult in ancient times.

The base 10 number notation for arithmetic dates back only to around AD 700, when the Hindus took the first great strides toward making that subject a powerful tool.

The abbreviations for plus and minus didn’t come until the 15th century.

And neither the equal sign nor clocks that could measure times to the second existed before the 16th century.

Aristotle, however, did not see problems in measurement and calculation as impediments to developing a physics that could produce quantitative predictions. Rather, he saw no need to make them.

In that manner, no matter how severely his theory deviated from actuality, he could always alter it just enough to seem to remove the conflict.

For example, his theory of motion specified that heavy bodies fall with a constant speed that is proportional to their weight.

To explain the fact that objects clearly pick up speed as they fall, he invented a new principle—that bodies proceed more jubilantly, and hence accelerate, when they come closer to their natural place of rest, a principle that today seems a more apt description of certain people than of inanimate objects.

Though Aristotle’s theories often had little predictive value, his approach to science dominated Western thought for nearly two thousand years.

The Greeks’ Christian successors rejected the idea that the universe is governed by indifferent natural law. They also rejected the idea that humans do not hold a privileged place within that universe. And though the medieval period had no single coherent philosophical system, a common theme was that the universe is God’s dollhouse, and religion a far worthier study than the phenomena of nature. Indeed, in 1277 Bishop Tempier of Paris, acting on the instructions of Pope John XXI, published a list of 219 errors or heresies that were to be condemned. Among the heresies was the idea that nature follows laws, because this conflicts with God’s omnipotence.

Interestingly, Pope John was killed by the effects of the law of gravity a few months later when the roof of his palace fell in on him.