The First Earliest Scientists - Part I

Having once been the long time wife of a scientist, it got me to thinking a lot over the years about the fine line between being a genius and an idiot.

Some of the most interesting and eccentric men in the world have been our mathematicians, philosophers, and our early scientists.

The best and the brightest throughout history, have often been misunderstood, forgotten, or never talked about in today's fast paced world.

Some Of The Early Scientists And Mathematicians

When we think of a scientist, many people might come to mind, like Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, and others. That's pretty far removed from the real image of early scientists and how science evolved.

Along with these notable scientists we usually picture a laboratory. The scientist looks at deadly germs through his microscope, or he hold a test tube containing a bubbling chemical up to the light.

Or perhaps, it's the astronomer that we see gazing at the stars through a telescope bigger than he is. Some of us may even imagine the laboratory of Hollywood, with bolts of man-made lighting leaping with a blinding flash.

The first scientists had no laboratories, no microscopes, none of the wonderful inventions which help researchers today. In fact, the microscope, the telescope, the X-ray machine, and all that came after them -- weren't even invented until scientists had discovered the principles on which they were constructed.

One of the early keys to science, was of course, unlocking the keys to mathematics. Without those who studied math, science would not have progressed.

Science seems to have developed first in Egypt and in Mesopotamia, where there were great and splendid kingdoms more than five thousand years ago.

The pyramids of Egypt and the remains of the palaces of Babylon and Nineveh show that these countries had fine engineers. Also during that time, there were already scientists studying the moon and the stars. Other men were teaching themselves about the different kinds of trees and smaller plants and about the treatment of diseases. Still others were devising ways to measure things.

In Egypt, the Nile River overflowed the farm lands ever year, leaving behind a deposit of rich much which made the land yield enormous crops. However, frequently the flood waters washed landmarks away so that even in early times, the Egyptians needed a good system of land measurement to make sure that each farmer always got back his own tract of ground.

For this reason, one of the first scientific studies to develop was the branch of mathematics called geometry. The word "geometry" comes from two Greek words meaning earth measurement.

By about 2000 B.C. the Egyptians had a fairly good knowledge of arithmetic and of an elementary geometry. No books of theirs on chemistry remain, but in the practical chemistry involved in preparing metals, paints, wines, perfumes and cosmetics, and in the making of many kinds of beautiful glass -- the Egyptians were experts.

The oldest known work on surgery was edited (with references to older works) by Egyptian physicians in 2500 B.C. A copy made eight hundred years later is still preserved. It is on a roll of papyrus paper fifteen feet long.

The Babylonians and Assyrians made at least as much progress as the Egyptians. Much of their knowledge was in the great library of King Assurbanipal, who lived in Assyria in the seventh century before Christ. The books in his library were clay tablets into which the strange writing of that ancient land had been pressed.

Now, it is an interesting fact that many of Assurbanipal's books were on scientific subjects. There were six hundred and sixty clay tablets just on medicine and one hundred and twenty devoted to lists of plants.

The greatest attention was given to the date-palm, because that tree was one of the chief sources of the country's wealth at the time.

Science owes our calendar system, measuring time with water and sun clocks, and the Babylonian Numerical System (Sixty minutes in an hour; and 360 degrees in a circle) -- all to the Babylonians.

Thousands of miles to the east of Babylon and Nineveh, in China -- civilization may have begun almost as early as it did in Egypt and Mesopotamia. There, also progress was made in science long before the time of Christ, but we know even less about early Chinese science than we do about that of Egypt and Mesopotamia.

None of us should forget that the "four great discoveries" all came from the Chinese. They were the first to invent:

• Compass
• Gun powder
• Papermaking
• Printing

You will notice that I have not so far mentioned any names of the ancient scientists. The names of these pioneers of four and five and seven thousand years ago, have all been forgotten. We do not know what they looked like or how they were rewarded for their discoveries.

The first people to study science purely and simply for the satisfaction of learning about nature, just for the fun of it seems to be the Greeks. No doubt the astronomers of Mesopotamia must have been thrilled by the cold beauty of the far off stars. No doubt the Egyptian mathematicians were happy when they found the solution to a hard problem. However, the Egyptian, Chaldean, and Chinese scientists worked entirely for practical or would-be practical ends, as far as we know.

The Greeks, however, loved knowledge for its own sake more than any other people who ever lived. Their scientists sought knowledge regardless of whether it would serve any practical use. They also made enormously greater progress than any other ancient people.

However, some modern thinkers believe that the Greek scientists would have made even finer progress, if they had been more interested in everyday practical affairs and had sought to make their scientific studies yield useful inventions and products.

The oldest important name in Greek science is Thales (624-565 B.C.). Thales and other very early Greek scientists did not live on the mainland of Greece, but in Ionia, as part of the coast of Asia Minor and the nearby islands were called xxxxxx.

About 582 B.C. a Greek boy was born on the Ionian island of Samos. He was named Pythagoras. When he grew up he is said to have left home because he opposed the tyrant who ruled the island. The story is that he was a great traveler and lived a long time in Egypt.

At this time the coasts of southern Italy and of Sicily were studded with Greek colonies, small independent city-states.

Pythagoras finally settled in one of these, the town of Crotona, just below the instep of the Italian boot. Here he founded a school which was something like a fraternity or secret society, devoted to study. His followers were called Pythagoreans and it was their custom to give the credit for all of their discoveries to the "master," Pythagoras.

They were students of moral and religious quesitons, as well as science, and they finally nixed in the politics of several of the city-states.

When Phythagoras was an old man, his enemies drove him from Crotona. The Pythagoreans continued their studies, however, until about fifty years later, when mobs burned their meeting houses and their leaders had to flee from Italy.

Phyathagoras' greatest work was in mathematics. He also started the scientific study of music, discovering that the pitch of musical notes depends on the length of the string which is plucked or struck.

Pythagoreans found that if two strings were of the same thickness and one was half as long as the other, the shorter string would give a note an octave higher than the longer one.

Since the Pythagoreans thought that numbers were the basis of everything, they were delighted, for now they could say that even music was based in a sense, on mathematics.

They also developed a strange and beautiful theory that the starry heavens themselves made music. Many of the ideas held by his followers were not taught by the master teacher.

Anaxagoras (about 499-428 B.C.) was probably the first to teach a sort of atomic theory, though he did not use the word atom.

He was a Greek, born in Ionia. Much of his life as a teacher was spent in Athens, where he had some brilliant pupils, including Pericles, the statesman; and Euripedes, the writer of plans; and Socrates, the philosopher.

He studied the problem of squaring the circle, which is considered one of the three great problems of Classical Geometry. Since 1800 B.C. mathematicians worked on the problem of constructing a square equal in area to that of a given circle. It was finally determined that whether or not this is possible, depends completely on what tools you allow yourself. Yet, by 1882 A.D. it would be proven that the task is technically impossible.

He began the study of perspective to aid in producing plays in the theater. In spite of his friendship with Pericles, whom the Athenians loved dearly.  naxagoras was condemned to death for impiety -- by the citizens of Athens. Later, the sentence was changed to exile.

Anaxagoras believed that there were many different kinds of elementary particles. Today, we know that there are one hundred and seventeen elements, partly because of the work he and others did so long ago.

Leucippus (fifth century B.C.) and Democritus (about 460 - 370 B.C.) also developed an atomic theory. Leucippus called the tiny particles "seeds." Democritus was the first to use the word "atom" in science.

All things, he taught, were made of atoms with empty space in between. Water was a liquid, in his theory, because its atoms were smooth and could glide over each other. The atoms of metals, however, were hard and rough, as they stuck together firmly.

The atomic theory today, as you doubtless know, is very different from that of old Democritus -- but scientists still admire him for his boldness and originality.

The father of Democritus was rich, but Democritus seems to have sold his property when he inherited it. He used the money to travel in the East in search of knowledge. Like Thales and Pythagoras, he studied in Egypt.

There is a story that the people of his native town, Abdera, once thought him insane and called in Hippocrates, the great physician, to cure him.

Hippocrates is reported to have had a very pleasant conference with Democritus and then to have announced that if there was any madness in that town -- it was among those who had called them that, and not in the mind of Democritus.

Whether the men of Abdera finally decided Democritus was a genius or mad, or both -- they gave him a striking nickname "the Laughing Philosopher." He's obviously having the last laugh, because it's not their names we remember throughout history, but his.