physicists-from-greece

"The curveball is that we don’t understand the mass of the Higgs, which is about 125 times the mass of a . When we discovered the Higgs, the first thing we expected was to find these other new supersymmetric particles, because the mass we measured was unstable without their presence, but we haven’t found them yet. (If the Higgs field collapsed, we could bubble out into a different universe — and of course that hasn’t happened yet.) That has been a little bit crushing; for 20 years I’ve been chasing the supersymmetrical particles. So we’re like deer in the headlights: We didn’t find supersymmetry, we didn’t find as a particle."

"I grew up, indeed, in West Macedonia. This is in Greece. And I was a terror of a child because I was taking apart everything, just like all engineers and physicists and inventors. I come from a family that they're more artists, designers, and military people rather than scientists. So that was a surprise to my parents, that I was very determined to follow a scientific path in any way, form, or shape, or an engineering path. Initially, I really wanted to be an astronaut, like if you are in West Macedonia, what else would you want to be? An astronaut."

"My best memories are memories of physics questions — not even the answers. It's very bizarre."

"The big bang and the steady state debate in some ways echoed that between the ideas of Anaximander and Anaxagoras from two and a half millennia earlier. Anaxagoras had envisaged that at one time "all things were together" and that the motive force for the universe originated at a single point... Anaximander on the other hand wanted a universe determined by "the infinite" and needed an "eternal motion" to explain the balancing process of things coming into being and passing away in an eternal universe... ancient philosophy was debating the alternatives of a creation event starting the universe from a single point versus a continuous creation in an eternal universe."

"Anaximander the Milesian, affirmed the infinite to be the first principle, and that all things are generated out of it, and corrupted again into it. His infinite is nothing else but matter."

"Anaximandros... pupil and companion of Thales, was like him an astronomer, geographer, and physicist, seeking for a first principle (for which he invented the name); affirming an infinite material cause, without beginning and indestructible, with an infinite number of worlds;—and still showing the Chaldean impulse—speculating curiously on the descent of man from something aquatic, as well as on the form and motion of the earth (figured by him as a cylinder), the nature and motions of the solar system, and thunder and lightning. It seems doubtful whether, as affirmed by Eudemus, he taught the doctrine of the earth's motion; but that this doctrine was derived from the Babylonian schools of astronomy is so probable that it may have been accepted in Miletos in his day."

"The Earth is cylindrical, three times as wide as it is deep, and only the upper part is inhabited. But this Earth is isolated in space, and the sky is a complete sphere in the center of which is located, unsupported, our cylinder, the Earth, situated at an equal distance from all the points of the sky."

"Anaximander relies on the accuracy of geometry in matters beyond the range of any kind of verification—in its application to cosmic proportions—and also in contradiction to appearance, which suggests that the sun is about as large in diameter as the width of a human foot. The concept of geometrical similarity is also the precondition for Anaximander's attempt to construct a map of the world."

"Anaximander denied the fundamental substance to be... any of the known substances. He taught that the primary substance was infinite, eternal and ageless and... encompassed the world. This... is transformed into the various substances... Theophrastus quotes from Anaximander: "Into that from which things take their rise they pass away once more... for they make reparation and satisfaction to one another for their injustice according to the ordering of time." In this... the antithesis of Being and Becoming plays the fundamental role. The primary substance, infinite... ageless... undifferentiated Being, degenerates into... forms which lead to endless struggles. ...Becoming is ...a ...debasement of the infinite Being—a disintegration into the struggle ultimately expiated by a return into that ...without shape or character. The struggle ...is the opposition between hot and cold, fire and water, wet and dry, etc. ...[T]emporary victory ...is the injustice for which they ...make reparation in the ordering of time. ...[T]here is "eternal motion," the creation and passing away of worlds from infinity to infinity."

"There cannot be a single, simple body which is infinite, either, as some hold, one distinct from the elements, which they then derive from it, nor without this qualification. For there are some who make this (i.e. a body distinct from the elements) the infinite, and not air or water, in order that the other things may not be destroyed by their infinity. They are in opposition one to another — air is cold, water moist, and fire hot—and therefore, if any one of them were infinite, the rest would have ceased to be by this time. Accordingly they say that what is infinite is something other than the elements, and from it the elements arise."

"[[Physics|[P]hysicists]]... try to find a fundamental law of motion for matter from which all elementary particles and their properties can be derived mathematically. This fundamental equation... may refer either to waves of a known type... or to waves... which have nothing to do with any of the known waves or elementary particles. In the first case it would mean that all other elementary particles can be reduced in some way to a few sorts of "fundamental" elementary particles... In the second case all different elementary particles could be reduced to some universal substance... energy or matter, but none of the... particles could be preferred... as... more fundamental. The latter... corresponds to... Anaximander, and... this view is the correct one."

"Anaximander displays all the symptoms of the intellectual fever spreading through Greece. His universe is no longer a closed box, but infinite in extension and duration. The raw material is none of the familiar forms of matter but a substance without definite properties except for being indestructible and everlasting. Out of this stuff all things are developed, and into it they return... infinite multitudes of other universes have already existed, and been dissolved again into the amorphous mass. The earth is a cylindrical column, surrounded by air; it floats upright... without support or anything to stand on, yet it does not fall because, being in the centre, it has no preferred direction... if it did, this would disturb the symmetry and balance of the whole. The spherical heavens enclose the atmosphere "like the bark of a tree", and there are several layers... to accommodate the various stellar objects. ...The sun is merely a hole... the moon... it phases... due to recurrent partial stoppages of the puncture, and so are the eclipses. The stars are pin-holes in a dark fabric through which we glimpse the cosmic fire filling the space between two layers of "bark". ...it is the first approach to a mechanical model of the universe. ...yet the machinery looks like it had been dreamed up by a surrealist painter... closer to Picasso than to Newton."

"In Antiquity, Anaximander understood that the sky continues beneath our feet long before ships had circumnavigated the Earth. ...Only one small original fragment of his writings has survived... Things are transformed one into the other according to necessity, and render justice to one another according to the order of time. From one of the crucial, initial moments of natural science there remains nothing but... this appeal to "the order of time.""

"All things must in equity again decline into that whence they have their origin for they must give satisfaction and atonement for injustice each in the order of time."

"That Anaxagoras regarded the senses as incapable of reaching the truth... is shown by... fragments preserved by Sextus. But we must not... turn him into a sceptic. ... He did say (fr. 21) that "the weakness of our senses prevents our discerning the truth," but this meant... we do not see the "portions"... [e.g.,] the portions of black which are in the white. Our senses simply show us the portions that prevail. He also said... things which are seen give us the power of seeing the invisible, which is the... opposite of scepticism (fr. 21a)."

"Anaxagoras adopted the ordinary Ionian theory of innumerable worlds... fr. 4... The words "that it was not only with us that things were separated off, but elsewhere too" can only mean... Nous... caused a rotatory movement in more parts of the boundless mixture than one."

"The cosmology of Anaxagoras is clearly based upon that of Anaximenes... Theophrastos... [states] that Anaxagoras had belonged to the school of Anaximenes. The floating on the air, the dark bodies below the moon, the explanation of the solstices and the "turnings" of the moon by the resistance of air, the explanations given of wind and of thunder and lightning, are all derived from the earlier inquirer."

"is unmixed (fr. 12), and does not... contain a portion of everything. This would hardly be worth saying of an immaterial mind... The result of its being unmixed is that it "has power over" everything... [i.e.,] it causes things to move. Herakleitos had said as much of Fire, and Empedokles of Strife. Further, it is the "thinnest" of all things, so that it can penetrate everywhere... Nous also "knows all things"... [P]robably... Anaxagoras substituted Nous for the Love and Strife of Empedokles... to retain the old Ionic doctrine of a substance that "knows" all things, and... identify this with the new... substance that "moves" all things. Perhaps... his increased interest in physiological as distinguished from purely cosmological matters... led him to... Mind rather than Soul. ...[T]he originality of Anaxagoras lies ...more in the theory of matter than ...of Nous."

"[W]hen "all things were together," and when the different seeds... were mixed... in infinitely small particles (fr. 1), the appearance... would be that of one of... the primary substances. ...[T]hey did present the appearance of "air and aether"; for the qualities (things) which belong to these prevail in quantity... and everything is... that of which it has most... (fr. 12 sub fin.). Here... Anaxagoras attaches... to Anaximenes. The primary condition... before... formation of... worlds, is much the same in both; only, with Anaxagoras, the original mass is no longer the primary substance, but a mixture of innumerable seeds divided into infinitely small parts. This mass is infinite, like the air of Anaximenes, and... supports itself, since there is nothing surrounding it. ... [T]he "seeds" of all things which it contains are infinite in number (fr. 1). But... the... seeds may be divided into those in which the portions of cold, moist, dense, and dark prevail, and those which have most... warm, dry, rare, and light... the original mass was a mixture of infinite Air and... Fire. ..."

"The formation of a world starts with a rotatory motion which imparts to a portion of the mixed mass in which "all things are together" (fr. 13), and this... motion gradually extends over... wider space. Its rapidity (fr. 9) produced a separation of the rare and the dense, the cold and the hot, the dark and the light, the moist and the dry (fr. 15). This... produces two great masses, the one... of the rare, hot, light, and dry, called... "Aether"; the other... [of] the opposite qualities... called "Air" (fr. 1). ...the Aether or Fire took the outside while the Air occupied the centre (fr. 15)."

""There is a portion of everything in everything except , and there are some things in which there is Nous also" (fr. 11). In these words Anaxagoras laid down the distinction between animate and inanimate things. ...[T]he same Nous ..."has power over," ...[i.e.,] sets in motion, all things that have life ...(fr. 12). ...The Nous was the same, but it had more opportunities in one body than another. Man was the wisest... not because he had... better... Nous, but... because he had hands. ...Parmenides ...had ...made the thought of men depend upon ...their limbs."

"Diogenes includes Anaxagoras in... philosophers who left... a single book, and... preserved the... criticism... that it was written "in a lofty and agreeable style." ...[F]rom the ...Apology ...the works of Anaxagoras could be bought at Athens for a single drachma; and ...was of some length ...[as] Plato ...speak[s] of it. ...Simplicius had ...a copy, ...and it is to him we owe the preservation of all our fragments, with ...[a few] doubtful exceptions. Unfortunately his quotations seem... confined to the First Book... dealing with general principles, so... we are... in the dark with regard to... details. This is... unfortunate, as... Anaxagoras... first gave the true theory of the moon’s light and... the true theory of eclipses."

"It is of those opposites... that everything contains a portion. Every particle... large or... small, contains... [all] of those opposite qualities. ...Even snow, Anaxagoras affirmed, was black ...white contains a ...portion of the opposite quality. It is enough to indicate the connexion... with... Herakleitos..."

"Though everything has a portion of everything in it, things appear to be that of which there is most in them (fr. 12 sub fin.). ...Air is that in which there is most cold, Fire that in which there is most heat ... [etc.]"

"[T]here is no void in this mixture, an addition... made necessary by... arguments of Parmenides. Anaxagoras added an experimental proof of this to the purely dialectical one of the . He used the klepsydra experiment ... as Empedokles had done... and... showed the corporeal nature of air by means of inflated skins."

"Like Empedokles, Anaxagoras required some external cause to produce motion in the mixture. Body, Parmenides had shown, would never move itself... Anaxagoras called the cause of motion... . ...[T]his ...made Aristotle say that he "stood out like a sober man from the random talkers that had preceded him," and he has often been credited with the introduction of the spiritual into philosophy. ...[D]isappointment [was] expressed ...by Plato and Aristotle as to the way in which Anaxagoras worked out the theory ... Plato makes Sokrates say: "I once heard a man reading a book... of Anaxagoras... saying it was Mind that ordered the world and was the cause of all things. I was delighted... and... thought he... was right. ...But my extravagant expectations were all dashed... when I... found... the man made no use of Mind... He ascribed no causal power... to it in the ordering of things, but to airs, and aethers, and waters, and a host of other strange things." Aristotle... says: "Anaxagoras uses Mind as a ' to account for the formation of the world ; and whenever he is at a loss to explain why anything necessarily is, he drags it in. But in other cases he makes anything rather than Mind the cause." These utterances... suggest... Nous of Anaxagoras did not... stand on a higher level than... Love and Strife of Empedokles..."

"Alexander of Aitolia... referred to Euripides as the "nursling of brave Anaxagoras." ...The famous fragment on the blessedness of the scientific life might just as well refer to any other cosmologist as to Anaxagoras, and ...suggests ...a thinker ...more primitive ...[T]here is one fragment which distinctly expounds the central thought of Anaxagoras ...We may conclude ...that Euripides knew the philosopher and his views ..."

"The next stage is the separation of the air into clouds, water, earth, and stones (fr. 16). In this Anaxagoras follows Anaximenes... In his account of the origin of the heavenly bodies... he... [was] more original. ...[A]t the end of fr. 16... stones "rush outwards more than water," and... from the doxographers... heavenly bodies were... stones torn from the earth by the rapidity of its revolution and made red-hot by the speed... Perhaps the fall of the ic stone at Aigospotamoi had something to do with... this theory. ...[W]hile in the earlier stages of the world-formation we are guided... by the analogy of water rotating with light and heavy bodies... in it, we are here reminded... of a sling."

"The system of Anaxagoras, like that of Empedokles, aimed at reconciling the Eleatic doctrine that corporeal substance is unchangeable with... a world which... presents the appearance of coming into being and passing away. The conclusions of Parmenides are... accepted and restated. Nothing can be added to all things; for there cannot be more than all, and all is always equal (fr. 5). Nor can anything pass away. What men commonly call coming into being and passing away is... mixture and separation (fr. 17). This... reads almost like a prose paraphrase of Empedokles (fr. 9); and it is... probable... Anaxagoras derived his theory... from his younger contemporary, whose poem was most likely published before his own treatise."

"Anaxagoras was more inclined to the study of physics than of metaphysics, for which reason he is accused by Plato and by Aristotle of not having conceded enough to final causes, and of having converted God into a machine. Accordingly he explained on physical principles the formation of plants and animals, and even celestial phenomena; which drew upon him the charge of atheism. Nevertheless, he regarded the testimony of the senses as subjectively true; but as insufficient to attain to objective truth, which was the privilege of the reason."

"[W]e may assume [Anaxagoras] belonged to a family which had won distinction in the State. Nor need we reject the tradition that Anaxagoras neglected his possessions to follow science. ...[I]n the fourth century he was... regarded as the type of the man who leads the "theoretic life.""

"Anaxagoras was the first philosopher to take up his abode at Athens."

"Empedokles sought to save the world of appearance by maintaining that the opposites—hot and cold, moist and dry—were things, each...real in the Parmenidean sense. Anaxagoras regarded this as inadequate. ...[T]hings of which the world is made are not "cut off with a hatchet" (fr. 8) ...the true formula must be: There is a portion of everything in everything (fr. 11)."

"If one examines the reasons for the persecution of the best minds of different nations, and compares the reasons for the persecution and banishment of Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plato, and others, one can observe that in each case the accusations and reasons for banishment were almost identical and unfounded. But in the following centuries full exoneration came, as if there had never been any defamation. It would be correct to conclude that such workers were too exalted for the consciousness of their contemporaries, and the sword of the executioner was ever ready to cut off a head held high.... A book should be written about the causes of the persecution of great individuals. By comparing the causes is it possible to trace the evil will."

"The big bang and the steady state debate in some ways echoed that between the ideas of Anaximander and Anaxagoras from two and a half millennia earlier. Anaxagoras had envisaged that at one time "all things were together" and that the motive force for the universe originated at a single point... Anaximander on the other hand wanted a universe determined by "the infinite" and needed an "eternal motion" to explain the balancing process of things coming into being and passing away in an eternal universe... ancient philosophy was debating the alternatives of a creation event starting the universe from a single point versus a continuous creation in an eternal universe."

"The Greeks follow a wrong usage in speaking of coming into being and passing away; for nothing comes into being or passes away, but there is mingling and separation of things that are. So they would be right to call coming into being mixture, and passing away separation."

"Thought is something limitless and independent, and has been mixed with no thing but is alone by itself. ... What was mingled with it would have prevented it from having power over anything in the way in which it does. ... For it is the finest of all things and the purest."

"In mathematics... the Greek attitude differed sharply from that of the earlier potamic cultures. The contrast was clear in... Thales and Pythagoras, and it continues to show... in Athens during the Heroic Age. ...while Anaxagoras was in prison he occupied himself with an attempt to square the circle... the first mention of a problem that was to fascinate mathematicians for more than 2000 years. ...Here we see a type of mathematics that is quite unlike that of the Egyptians and Babylonians. It is not the practical application of a science of number... but a theoretical question involving a... distinction between accuracy in approximation and exactitude in thought. ...no more the concern of the technologist than those he raised... concerning the ultimate structure of matter."

"My dear Meletus, do you think you are prosecuting Anaxagoras? Are you so contemptuous of these men and think them so ignorant of letters as not to know that the books of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae are full of those theories, and further, that the young men learn from me what they can buy from time to time for a drachma, at most, in the bookshops, and ridicule Socrates if he pretends that these theories are his own, especially as they are so absurd? Is that, by Zeus, what you think of me, Meletus, that I do not believe that there are any gods?—That is what I say, that you do not believe in the gods at all."

"Anaxagoras says that perception is produced by opposites; for like things cannot be affected by like. ...It is in the same way that touch and discern their objects. That which is just as warm or just as cold as we are neither warms us nor cools us... [I]n the same way, we do not apprehend the sweet and the sour by means of themselves. We know cold by warm, fresh by salt, and sweet by sour, in virtue of our deficiency in each; for all these are in us to begin with. And we smell and hear in the same... And all sensation implies pain... for all unlike things produce pain by their contact. Brilliant colours and excessive s produce pain... The larger animals are the more sensitive, and... sensation is proportionate to the size of the organs of sense. ...Rarefied air has more smell ... when air is heated and rarefied, it smells. ...[S]mell is better perceived when it is near than when it is far by reason of its being more condensed, while when dispersed it is weak."

"Anaxagoras held that everything is infinitely divisible, and that even the smallest portion of matter contains some of each element. Things appear to be that of which they contain the most. Thus, for example, everything contains some fire, but we only call it fire if that element preponderates. He argues against the void, saying that the clepsydra or an inflated skin shows that there is air where there seems to be nothing."

"In science [Anaxagoras] had great merit. It was he who first explained that the moon shines by reflected light... Anaxagoras gave the correct theory of eclipses, and knew that the moon was below the sun. The sun and stars, he said, are fiery stones, but we do not feel the heat of the stars because they are too distant. The sun is larger than the Peloponnesus. The moon has mountains, and (he thought) inhabitants."

"We are not to suppose... he was attracted... by... the character of the Athenians. ...Athens had ...become the political centre of the Hellenic world; but it had not yet produced a single scientific man. ...[T]he temper of the citizen body... remained hostile to free inquiry... Sokrates, Anaxagoras, and Aristotle fell victims... to the bigotry of the democracy, though... their offence was political rather than religious. They were condemned not as heretics, but as innovators in the state religion. ..[A] recent historian observes, "Athens... was far from... a place for free inquiry to thrive unchecked." ...T]his ...has been in the minds of ...writers who ...represented philosophy as ...un-Greek. It was in reality thoroughly Greek, though... thoroughly unAthenian."

"It seems... reasonable... that Perikles... brought Anaxagoras to Athens... Holm has shown... the aim... was... to Ionise his ...citizens, to impart ...flexibility and openness of mind which characterised their kinsmen across the sea. ...The close relation in which Anaxagoras stood to Perikles is placed ...by the testimony of Plato ...In the Phaedrus ...Sokrates say[s]: "For all arts that are great, there is need of talk and discussion on the parts of that deal with things on high; for that seems to be the source which inspires high-mindedness and effectiveness in every direction. Perikles added this very acquirement to his original gifts. He fell in... with Anaxagoras, who was a scientific man; and, satiating himself with the theory of things on high, and having attained to a knowledge of the true nature of intellect and folly, which were... what the discourses of Anaxagoras were mainly about, he drew from that source... to further him in the art of speech.""

"Shortly before the ... ...enemies of Perikles began ...attacks upon him through his friends. Pheidias was the first to suffer, and Anaxagoras... next. ...[H]e was an object of special hatred to the religious party ...even though the charge ...against him does not suggest ...he went out of his way to hurt their susceptibilities. The details of the trial are somewhat obscure... [F]irst ...was ...a psephism by —the same whom Aristophanes laughs at in The Birds—enacting that an impeachment should be brought against those who did not practise religion, and taught theories about "the things on high." ...[A]t the actual trial ... authorities give ... conflicting accounts. ...[F]rom Plato ...the accusation was ...that Anaxagoras taught the sun was a red-hot stone, and the moon earth; ...[H]e ...did hold these views ...[H]e was got out of prison and sent away by Perikles."

"Anaxagoras... went back to ... settled at Lampsakos, and... founded a school there. Probably he did not live long after his exile. The Lampsakenes erected an altar to his memory in their market-place, dedicated to Mind and Truth; and the anniversary of his death was long kept as a holiday for school-children..."

"The sun provides the moon with its brightness."

"Aristotle says... if we suppose the first principles to be infinite, they may either be one in kind, as with Demokritos, or opposite. Simpliciuss, following Porphyry and Themistios, refers the latter view to Anaxagoras; and Aristotle... implies that the opposites of Anaxagoras had as much right to be... first principles as the "homoeomeries.""

"Anaxagoras held that, however far you may divide... things—and they are infinitely divisible—you never come to a part so small that it does not contain portions of all the opposites. The smallest portion of bone is... bone. On the other hand, everything can pass into everything else... because the "seeds"... of each form of matter contain a portion of everything... [i.e.,] of all the opposites, though in different proportions. If we... use the word "element" at all, it is these seeds... [T]he "seeds"... he... substituted for the "roots" of Empedokles, were not the opposites in a state of separation, but each contained a portion of them all."

"Anaxagoras of Clazomenae postulated another element called the aether, which was in constant rotation and carried with it the celestial bodies. He also believed that there was a directing intelligence in nature that he called Nous which gives order to what otherwise would be a chaotic universe. By Nous he meant literally "the Mind of the Cosmos"… Anaxagoras was the last of the Ionian physicists."