It wasn’t their inspiring myths of the Ancient Greeks that captured our imaginations. It was more. Much of philosophy, drama, science, medicine, and mathematics were pioneered by these people from that particular peninsula in the Mediterranean. These are six amazing breakthroughs from ancient Greece, born from some of history’s greatest minds.
· Pythagoras’ Theorem Formed the Foundation of Geometry
Pythagoras of Samos is arguably the most famous of many mathematicians from ancient Greece, and that’s because nearly every person at some point in their education is taught his Appellative Theorem. Expressed as a2 + b2 = c2, the Pythagorean theorem states that the sum of the squares of the two legs of a right triangle is equal to the square of the hypotenuse.
This recognized the presence of irrational numbers and was the bedrock of what became Euclidean geometry. Some of the world’s smartest minds have set out to provide proofs of the Pythagorean theorem, including Albert Einstein, and new corroborations are still being discovered. The world would be a very different place without Pythagoras’ triangular insight.
· Hippocrates Looked for a Scientific Cause of Illness
Most of us have hear of the Hippocratic Oath, meaning a doctor’s sacred duty is to do no harm. It is a lasting testament to the life and work of Hippocrates. He’s known as the “father of medicine” because he took a scientific approach to studying illness and tried devising treatments.
Living in the fifth century BCE, Hippocrates was one of the world’s first physicians to investigate the cause of illness beyond the usual divine explanations, such as blaming the gods for misfortune. His most important student was arguably Galen of Pergamum in the second century CE, a Roman physician whose work became the basis of European and Arabic medicine for more than an epoch, and who once claimed that all his knowledge originated with Hippocrates.
· Aristotle Devised a System for Classifying Animals
During Aristotle’s astounding life in the fourth century BCE, he wrote about an abundance of scientific subjects including physics, psychology, economics, ethics, government, and poetry. But Aristotle was also ahead of his time in biology.
Today, we classify animals using Latin names, but Aristotle created a classification system back in ancient Greece that was surprisingly similar to our modern one.
Aristotle separated animals into two groups: those with blood and those without blood. It is similar to how the animal kingdom is separated into vertebrates and invertebrates. From there, the Greek thinker divided animals into “genera,” which were broader categories than the genus distinction we use today, and then by species.
· Euclid Knew that Light Traveled in a Straight Line
Considered the “father of geometry,” Euclid also studied the nature of light and vision. His work Optics, published in 300 BCE is considered the initial scientific thought to the nature of light. Euclid theorized that light generated in rays and traveled in a straight line, a big departure from the Platonic idea of light as an “ethereal emanation.”
The nature of light and human vision became a vast field of study, interesting Romans, Muslim astronomers, Renaissance thinkers, Enlightenment scientists, and even 20th-century minds.
· Aristarchus Knew the Planets Orbited the Sun
In 1519, Nicolaus Copernicus’ work directly contradicted Catholic dogma that the Earth was at the center of the solar system. But Copernicus was generally reiterating what some ancient Greeks knew nearly two thousand years before. In the third century BCE Aristarchus theorized that the sun was much more massive than the Earth, and he placed the planet in its rightful orbit around the star—the first heliocentric model of the solar system.
· Eratosthenes Accurately Measured the Globe
Greek mathematician Eratosthenes developed one of the greatest calculations in world history. For nearly 300 years, the ancient Greeks had known the Earth was round, but Eratosthenes discovered the earth’s precise proportions.
He measured a shadow cast by a stick in Alexandria, Egypt, that measured 7.12 degrees. Meanwhile, in Syene, modern-day Aswan, Egypt, a particular well cast no shadow, meaning the sun was directly overhead. He then hired surveyors to measure the distance from Alexandria to Syene and came up with 5,000 stadia. This measurement enabled him to calculate the Earth’s circumference at 250,000 stadia, (arena) or somewhere between 24,000 and 29,000 miles. Today, we know the Earth measures about 24,900 miles around the equator. In other words, even over 2,200 years ago, Eratosthenes wasn’t far off.
Do you have any of these Greek visionaries on your list of men and women who have changed the way the world thought or communicated scientific information?
Frank Victoria is an award-winning author and screenwriter. He’s been an Amazon bestseller with his recent book, The Founders’ Plot, a political thriller for our times. He donates proceeds of his books to Tunnels to Towers and Fisher House, helping military veterans and first responders. His novellas, The Ultimate Bet and The Protectors are available on his website and Amazon. Check out his new website: FrankVictoriaAuthor.com.
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