Tag Archives: Ancient Greece

Making (Gravitational) Waves Pt 1

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I have seen these spirals so many times in the last week that they're etched into my brain.
When the universe wants to hypnotise you.
Credit: MoocSummers CC4.0
You might have read that gravity has been making waves recently. The discovery of gravitational waves has apparently added substantial weight to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, truly one of the the ground breaking theories on how our universe operates. Nevertheless, it is has been a long road to get to our current understanding of the universe, and there is no reason to think we’re anywhere near the end of it. In fact, the road is so long and winding that I’m going to split this history of the theory of gravity over two weeks.

Strangely enough, I can’t seem to find a reference on when people first started to notice that things held up in the air would drop to the ground if you let them go. Nevertheless, for a long time in the West at least, Aristotle was considered the foremost authority on gravity (keeping in mind the term “gravity” itself wouldn’t be coined for over one and a half thousand years by Newton). Aristotle held that everything in the world was composed of four elements: earth, water, air and fire. Each of these elements wanted to be in its proper place, with earth wanting to occupy the centre of the universe below and fire the heavens above. According to Aristotle, everything was made up of these elements in differing quantities, and it was their relative compositions that determined whether they wished to rise or fall.

Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle...
It’s almost ironic that we think of him as a man of great intellectual vigour.
Interestingly, the fact that a falling object accelerates as it “nears its proper place” (ie. falls), rather than slows down or remains constant, was well known to Aristotle, but he managed to avoid this critique of his theory by using one of the most traditional discursive strategies of the Ancient Greeks: he ignored it. It is also worth noting that in Ancient Greece, there was also a competing theory of gravitation from atomists—those who believed everything was composed of tiny particles—that posited that all atoms attracted each other on some level and therefore everything had some type of gravity. Therefore going from the Ancient Era to the Middle Ages we had two competing theories of gravity—one over a thousand years ahead of its time and one that almost could not have been more wrong—I’ll let you guess which one we chose.

One the most curiously logical and yet mind-bending paradoxes in the history of gravitational theory is that for the majority of human history it did not seem to occur to anyone that what made objects fall to the floor and what kept the planets sailing around the sun (or earth, as it was believed for a long time) was the same thing. Aristotle seems strangely reticent on why the planets wander around the sky, but he maintained that the universe consisted of perfect symmetry and therefore they must orbit in perfect circles, while the Earth sat still at the centre of the universe. A beautiful model of the universe it may have provided, but unfortunately it failed to describe the movements of the planets as they were actually observed. The issue was that the planets would move forward across the sky for many months of the year, conduct funny little reversals, and then proceed forward like nothing had happened. Aristotle took his usual approach to explaining such inconsistencies—he ignored it.

Aristotle: "I don't see it."
Aristotle: “I don’t see it.”
(Apparent retrograde movement of Mars)
Credit: NASA Public Domai

Basically, it's God's spirograph.
Basically, it’s God’s spirograph.

Fortunately, Ptolemy stepped in to the rescue. To solve this conundrum, he introduced epicycles and a deferent. In essence, to correct for this backwards movement, the planets didn’t simply rotate around the earth, they traced small circles around a point—an epicycle—and that point traced a large circle around the Earth, along the deferent. There were even other aspects, such as equant and eccentric, because the model clearly wasn’t complicated enough already.

Again, as seems to so often be the case, there were Ancient Greeks who pointed out that if the planets and the earth revolved around the Sun, it explained many of these inconsistencies. But on the authority of that great thinker Aristotle, the model was rejected.

Credit where credit’s due, Aristotle was not without reason. There were problems with a heliocentric model of the solar-system. If the Earth were spinning, for instance, why don’t we all just go flying off? Similarly, why don’t objects dropped from a great height fall westwards? Why didn’t the stars appear to move around the sky? And finally, it needs to be kept in mind that whilst assuming the planets all revolves around the sun explains many of the inconsistencies, the model still does not entirely line up with observations.

However, for those answers, we need to wait about one and a half thousand years. Or at least until next week.

The orbits of the planets in Ptolemy's universe. I wasn't joking about the spirograph thing.
The orbits of the planets in Ptolemy’s universe. I wasn’t joking about the spirograph thing.

Academic Sources

Applebaum, W 2005, The Scientific Revolution and the Foundations of Modern Science, Greenwood Press,Connecticut.

Ede, A & Cormack LB 2012, A History of Science in Society: From Philosophy to Utility, 2nd ed., University of Toronto Press, Toronto.

Grant, E 1996, The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages: Their Religious, Institutional and Intellectual Contexts, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Horvitz, LA 2002, Eureka!: Scientific Breakthroughs that Changed the World, John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey.

Huff, TE 2003, The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West, Cambridge University Press Cambridge.

Krebbs, RE 1999, Scientific Development and Misconceptions Through the Ages: A Reference Guide, Greenwood Publishing Group, Connecticut.

The Olympic-sized problem of cheating in sport

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They could have at least won something.
They could have at least won something.
So, I’m an Essendon fan. Needless to say, I’m unhappy about 34 players being suspended, but I’m even less thrilled about the doping happening in the first place. The problem, as far as I can tell, is modern professional sports. People much smarter than I have pointed out that as a society we worship these athletes, who do little of use for society. They destroy their bodies in their quest for glory. And when the inevitable cheating and fall from grace occurs, the scandal can literally stand as a token of their shame for hundreds of years. These critics, for the record, were: Xenophanes, Euripides, Galen and Pausanias. Considering that the most recent died in 180 AD, perhaps we shouldn’t use the word “modern”.

The scale of ancient athletics is difficult to grasp. Firstly, although the Olympics are the most famous of the ancient games, with 40,000 plus people attending them at their height, there were actually four key events held in Olympia, Delphi, Nemea and the Isthmus of Corinth. Apart from these, there were many other local games. The origins of the games are unclear, but they were held regularly from 776BC. They ran for over a thousand years until about the turn of the fifth century AD. To put that in perspective, it would be the equivalent of the modern Olympics running until the year 3066.

Yes, this is definitely more rewarding than a giant golden statue of my likeness.
Yes, this is definitely more rewarding than a giant golden statue of my likeness.
Much is made of the ancient tradition of competing not for money but for olive wreathes. This is a lovely ideal, and something to be aspired to, if it weren’t for the fact that not only could athletes expect monetary prizes at all the other games, but an athlete who won at the Olympics would likely be greatly paid and possibly set up for life once they got home. Surprise, surprise, where there was big money, the temptation to cheat proved just that bit too hard to turn down.

Doping, it must be admitted, wasn’t really a big deal. There are all sorts of stories floating around the internet about the various potions athletes were supposedly taking in order to improve performance, but I can’t find much academic evidence for most of them.1 Additionally, the idea that “doping” is wrong is a relatively recent phenomenon, but I’ll save that history for another entry when the next doping scandal rolls around.2

Instead, when it comes to cheating, it seems good old fashioned bribery was the most popular form. In fact, the first recorded conviction for cheating was of Euopolus of Thessaly in 388BC for bribing his opponents, so bribery might literally be “the oldest trick in the book”. Though first, Eupolus was far from last, and many athletes were subsequently convicted of cheating, almost universally bribery.

Strangely enough, giant piece of bronze didn't exactly linger a long time in the ancient world...
Strangely enough, giant pieces of valuable bronze didn’t exactly linger a long time in the ancient world…
These athletes were fined large amounts of money, which was used to build bronze statues of Zeus outside the stadium, each bearing an inscription of the name of the athlete and their infraction.3 According to ancient accounts, there seems to have been quite a number. Curiously, even if convicted of cheating, the athlete got to retain their wreath and title for those particular games. So much for “Cheaters never win and winners never cheat”.

Other offences included one competitor who arrived late to the games. He provided the excuse that he had been delayed by pirates and so was allowed to compete. Subsequently, it was discovered that he’d actually been making a few extra drachma on the side at the Ionian games. Sarapion, from Alexandria, has the dubious honour of being the only Olympian to be immortalised for his cowardice. He was due to fight at the Olympics, but was so afraid of his opponent that he fled the day before his bout. In fairness to Sarapion, he was due to fight in the pankration. This was a mix of boxing and wrestling which had exactly two rules: no gouging, no biting. If I found myself due to fight in that event, I’d probably rethink my decision to compete.

Of course, the fiddle hadn't been invented in Nero's day, which rather ruins the whole saying.
When it comes to ridiculous things done in world history, this man crops up a lot.
Possibly the most spectacular case of cheating was by our old friend Nero, Emperor of Rome. Firstly, in 67BC, he managed to have poetry reading added to the competition, as he thought this would be his strong point. Then, not content with this, Nero entered the four-horse chariot race with a 10-horse chariot. In spite of falling off his chariot and nearly killing himself, Nero was still awarded the wreath for the event. Of course, his magnificent victory was short-lived, as Nero was dead the next year and had his name stricken from the victors’ roll. And the judges were forced to repay the bribes they accepted.

As far as I can tell, it’s the ancient equivalent of having a movie made about your corrupt practices and inevitable downfall.

Academic Sources

Crowther, N 2002, “The Salt Lake City Scandals and the Ancient Olympic Games”, The International Journal of the History of Sport, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 169-178.

Euripides, Ancient Olympics, accessed 18/1/2016 at http://ancientolympics.arts.kuleuven.be/sourceEN/D180EN.html.

Hyde, WW 1921, Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington DC.

Kotynski, EJ 2006, The athletics of the ancient Olympics: a summary and research tool, University Vanderbilt, Nashville.

Pausanias, Description of Greece, translated by WHS Jones, accessed 18/1/2016 at http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias5B.html.

Perrotet, T 2004, The Naked Olympics: The True Story of the Ancient Games, Random House Publishing Group, New York.

Xenophanes, Ancient Olympics, accessed 18/1/2016 at http://ancientolympics.arts.kuleuven.be/sourceEN/D179EN.html.

  1. Lizards “prepared a certain way” (without specifying what way) crops up everywhere. Also, “the rear hooves of an Abyssinian ass, ground up, boiled in oil, and flavoured with rose hips and rose petals” was supposedly prescribed by Galen, but considering he’s on record as being quite cynical about ancient athletics, I’m somewhat sceptical of this story. ↩
  2. Isn’t it sad that I can just assume there’ll be another opportunity? ↩
  3. When I said “literally”, I meant literally. ↩