So far in this blog, I have talked about science in ancient Greece and what different Greek philosophers influenced science. So far the types of science I talked about being botany physics, and astronomy. So far we have talked about how many scientists were in ancient Greece and how they got many discoveries wrong. Even though they got many things wrong, they got a few things right and their studying was something that influenced our science today. The Greeks were the first society to study science and think about thinking. Without ancient Greece we wouldn't have the society we have today with medicine, knowledge, and technology. Goodbye friends this is my last blog.
Hi guys this is my third post which is about astronomy. The ancient Greeks created geometry to help study how the earth goes around the sun, the size of the earth, and that the moon went around the earth. I will talk about 3 famous Greek philosophers Thales, Anaxagoras, and Aristarchus. Thales discovered that the earth is round and was the first scientist to create a scientific explanation for planets, weather, and stars instead of it all being dictated by the gods. Thales didn't get everything right. He thought since water was necessary for all existence, everything was made of water.Thales was right that everything is made out of something, but those things are protons and neutrons not water. He did get something's right though, he was right that the earth is round, the moon was lit by reflecting light, and according to Herodotus is that he was the first person to calculate an eclipse. He also was a great mathematician which helped him with his discoveries such as discovering that circle is bisected by the diameter. Next is Anaxagoras, he was the first person to have an accurate definition for an eclipse, he also.Theorized that the sun was made of hot-metal, the moon was earthy, and the stars were fiery stones. Anaxagoras thought that the only state of the cosmos was a mixture of all ingredients so none were evident, but the mixture was not uniformed or homogeneous. Aristarchus figured out the relative distance between the earth, sun, and moon. Aristarchus measured the distance of 87 degrees and the ratio was 1/19. The actual distance is 89 degrees, 51 minutes, and 1/400 the earth is 400 times farther than the moon then the sun. http://www.astro.cornell.edu/academics/courses/astro201/aristarchus.htm http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/greeks/science/astronomy/#! http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/greeks/science/thales/#! http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/anaxagoras/ Hi, this is my second post about Ancient Greece and this one is about physics. Even though physics wasn't really studied, though philosophers like Aristotle would ask questions about the physical world such as what makes the planets move across the sky, why does water fall when flames don't, and why does a rock fall when smoke rises. He tried to explain this by saying that all matter is made of five elements called air, earth, water, fire, and aether; a substance of the heavens. The four elements air, earth, water, and fire were said to be the elements of the world and exchange with each other, while aether was an entirely different substance. Each element was said to have its own realm, for example: air's realm would be what we call today our atmosphere and earth's realm would be the ground. Aristotle presumed that all objects original state would be at rest, meaning all of these would be in balance and when an object would move it meant it was trying to find balance. For example rocks would fall because the earth realm is naturally down. Or water would flow down because it's Relm is natural below the earth. Or smoke rises because it's composed of both fire and air, and it is trying to reach the fire realm. Although Aristotle was famous for his work in logic, he never thought of finding a solution for all these problems using mathematics or logic. After Aristotle there was Archimedes who used logic and scientific principles to solve problems. He is best known for finding density and buoyancy by sitting in a bath tub. He also outlined that mathematical principles for the lever,defined the center of gravity, he used Ancient Greek geometry to find the equilibrium state of objects that would have been hard to find in modern physics. http://physics.about.com/od/physicshistory/a/GreekPhysics_3.htm http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/458717/physical-science/32540/Greek-physics https://explorable.com/ancient-physics Botany Post Hi people this is my intro post for Ancient Greece. In the following post I will talk about 3 sciences in Ancient Greece; Botany, Physics and Astronomy. Botany is the study of plants and was started in Ancient Greece by Thesauratus, an Ancient Greek philosopher. Studying Botany is important because plants are the basis of our ecosystem and everything we eat comes from plants directly or indirectly. Every plant in Ancient Greece had its own myth or god assigned to it to explain its use and creation. The Ancient Greek philosophers were the first people to name plants. Two philosophers in Ancient Greece that studied Botany were Theophrastus and Aristotle. Even though Aristotle contributed to Botany he is more famous for his work with Zoology and he did organize plants into angiosperms and gymnosperms. Theophrastus was the first person to contemplate the idea that plants sexually reproduce and classify plants into monocotyledons and dicotyledonous. Unlike most scientists at that time Theophrastus did more studying of the plants than experimenting with them and had observed 300 plants. Theophrastus is also important because being the first person to ever really study the growth of plants. Until then, people knew very little about the growth of plants and never really saw the value in it. His knowledge of plant growth made him study and become more aware of how climate might affect how plants grow. He started studying how plants grew and behaved differently from plants that grew on other terrain. He knew how frost and wind damaged plants. This is important because without knowing how plants grow, we wouldn't be able to grow food as efficiently as we do today. Even though he had a great passion for growing things, he also studied aquatic vegetation. He studied plants near mountains or rivers to see how they grow compared to other plants. He described successions on river floodplains and stirred soils. Even though he was considered one of the great minds of his time, his approach to research was unencumbered and was not based off any theory; he described things as he saw them. Due to being empirical he came to most of his conclusions through inductive reasoning, though deductive logic was a very common mechanism to solve problems in ancient Greece. Even though Theophrastus was the father of Botany he made no real advances in Botany and there was no tangible information on Botany till the 15th century. Look at the pink words in the dictionary page. http://taxusbaccata.hubpages.com/hub/History-of-Botany-Part-1-from-Neolithic-Revolution-until-the-Middle-Ages http://science.jrank.org/pages/996/Botany.html http://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/10551453 http://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/sites/harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/files/publications/pdfs/Raup_AnnAssocAmGeographers_1942.pdf http://botany.about.com/od/HistoryBotany/a/Early-Botanists.htm http://www.theoi.com/Flora1.html Multi-MediaOne plant Theophrastus discovered. (Plantarum Maioricarum) Video on Theophrastus Hi everyone my name is Imani and my blog is on science in Ancient Greece. Even though many sciences were popular during this time this blog will focus mostly on botany,biology, astronomy, and the philosophy behind science. I have decided to do my blog on science because science and math have been my favorite subjects in school since I was 6 years old. I also think that science in Ancient Greece isn't really focussed on as much as their government and mythology, so I'm trying to do something original. My last reason is that most of the kids in my class decided to do mythology,government,arts, or sports and I realized that if I did the same topic as someone else my teacher will compare our blogs. I hope you enjoyed my first blog post comment on my next page for any suggestions or if you want me to give you a shout out.
|
ArchivesAuthorMy name is Imani I am doing this because I have to. |