This Wikimedia Commons map of the Lydian Empire around BC 547 (at the time of King Croesus) \u2014 the red line represents a possible alternative border \u2014 shows Miletus (Greek, Miletos). Alas, I\u2019ve visited the city only once, driving down from Istanbul with my wife during our first visit to Turkey many years ago.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
But I was amused early today, in this context, to read an opening statement in\u00a0Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity<\/em>, by the prominent Italian theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
This book begins in Miletus, twenty-six centuries ago. \u00a0Why begin a book about quantum gravity with events, people and ideas so ancient? \u00a0I hope the reader eager to get on to quanta of space will not hold this against me. \u00a0For it is easier to understand ideas by starting with the roots from which they have grown, and an important number of the ideas which turned out to be effective for understanding the world originated over two thousand years ago. \u00a0If we briefly retrace their birth, they become clearer, and the later steps turn out to be simpler and natural.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nBut there\u2019s more. \u00a0Certain problems first posed in antiquity continue to be crucial to our understanding of the world. \u00a0Some of the most recent ideas about the structure of space utilize concepts and issues introduced then. \u00a0In speaking of these distant ideas, I put on to the table questions which are going to be central to quantum gravity. \u00a0This makes it also possible, when treating of quantum gravity, to distinguish between the ideas which go back to the very origin of scientific thought, even if we are unfamiliar with them, and those which are radically new. \u00a0The connection between problems posed by the scientists of antiquity, and solutions found by Einstein and quantum gravity, is, as we shall see, surprisingly close. \u00a0(1)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Apparently, Professor Rovelli \u2014 although he may or may not be a theist (my tentative guess is that he\u2019s not) \u2014 hasn\u2019t yet received the memo that old books are worthless and earlier thinkers irrelevant:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
This is the immense legacy of Miletus, cradle of philosophy, of the natural sciences, and of geographical and historical studies. \u00a0It is no exaggeration to say that the entire scientific and philosophical tradition, Mediterranean and then modern, has a crucial root in the speculations of the thinkers of Miletus in the sixth century BCE. \u00a0(6)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 I often encounter the glib dismissal from certain atheist critics that people in the twenty-first century shouldn\u2019t be seeking wisdom or guidance from Bronze Age goatherds, or something to that effect \u2014 by which, of course, they mean the Bible. \u00a0 This has never struck me as a particularly cogent claim. \u00a0For one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1450,1453,1456,1447,1459,1444,1462,1468,1465],"class_list":["post-47343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ancient-texts","tag-bible","tag-chronological-snobbery","tag-miletus","tag-novelty","tag-origins-of-science","tag-value-of-history","tag-value-of-old-texts","tag-value-of-the-past"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Miletus,](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2018\/03\/Miletos_I_4749310141.jpg\")
<\/a>