Anaximander: And the Birth of Science

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For history, I found that Rovelli did a very good and thorough job of explaining things. I was astonished to learn that the Chinese thought the Earth was flat until Jesuit missionaries in the late 1500s came, and I think it an interesting example of a scientific idea being a world changer (in a literal sense).

He appeared on BBC Radio 4's The Museum of Curiosity in February 2023. [48] His hypothetical donation to this imaginary museum was a white hole. Ricardo Franco Levi, lettera di dimissioni a Sangiuliano dopo il caso Rovelli e le polemiche sul figlio", Il Messaggero 26-5-2023, 2017. Retrieved 1-6-2023These factors have an urgent relevance, he suggests, for the scientists and citizens and policymakers of today. For a start, the Miletus of 2,600 years ago was a time and place in which the ability to read and write moved beyond a limited circle of elite scribes. The effect of extending education far and wide was instantaneous. And it was no coincidence that Anaximander’s revolutionary thinking also coincided with the birth of the polis – the nascent democratic structures built on debate as to how best to govern society. Once people started seeing power as negotiable then everything else became debatable too. “Alongside the desacralisation and secularisation of public life,” Rovelli argues, “which passed from the hands of divine kings to those of citizens, came the desacralisation and secularisation of knowledge… law was not handed down once and for all but was instead questioned again and again.” The bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics illuminates the nature of science throughtherevolutionaryideas ofthe Greek philosopher Anaximander As Rovelli’s fans will expect, this book is excellent. It is also a chance to see a slightly different Rovelli in action. Just hitting English shelves now, it was in fact published seven years before his million-copy-selling Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (2014) made him a star. Compared to his later books, Anaximander is both a little more guarded and a little more combative – and a little less convincing, when he strays into arguments about myth and religious thought – but it is never less than engaging, and enviably compendious. Despite its modest length Rovelli finds room for everything from a brief history of ancient Greek colonialism to critiques of Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn, with disquisitions on religion, myth and Chinese astronomy thrown in for free. It also has the merit, for those of us who just cannot quite grasp quantum gravity, of leaving the Earth solid beneath our feet.

Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator. Carlo Rovelli (born May 3, 1956) is an Italian theoretical physicist and writer who has worked in Italy, the United States and, since 2000, in France. [1] He is also currently a Distinguished Visiting Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute, [2] and core member of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy of Western University. [3] Smerlak, Matteo; Rovelli, Carlo (3 February 2007). "Relational EPR". Foundations of Physics. 37 (3): 427–445. arXiv: quant-ph/0604064. Bibcode: 2007FoPh...37..427S. doi: 10.1007/s10701-007-9105-0. S2CID 11816650. their intelligence – this makes a huge difference for a speaker. In the Oxford audience I encountered many experts in the field my book covered and even one of the ambassadors I’d quoted What scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known? - Relative Information", Edge.org, 2017. Retrieved 13-9-2019Meant to articulate Anaximander’s multiple insights on the dev of science, it also discusses the theme of human civilisation, political, & social evolution from both; positive and mythico-religious thought. Anaximander's capacity for doubt made most of his discoveries possible. It’s amazing to see how humanity & knowledge have progressed which highlights the importance of tracing the first step in the field. Especially in times where foundation of knowledge was based primarily on myth & divinity. Science] means building and developing an image of the world, which is to say a conceptual structure for thinking about the world, effective and consistent with what we know and learn about the world itself. Anaximander is known as the ancient master of the universe & author of the first surviving lines of Greek philosophy. He speculated & argued about "the boundless" as the origin of all that is. Apart from being one of the earliest pioneers in the fields of what we now call geography, biology, & astronomy.

Personally, an eye-opening read & I’m definitely indulged in the scientific thinking & methodology part of this book which I hoped I’ve read during my postgrad studies. I fancy reading on/discovering thinkers & undoubtedly, it's one of the best read on scientific thought, process, & pioneering scientific frameworks. Rovelli won the second prize in the 2013 FQXi contest "It From Bit or Bit From It?" for his essay about "relative information". His paper, Relative Information at the Foundation of Physics, discusses how "Shannon's notion of relative information between two physical systems can function as [a] foundation for statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics, without referring to subjectivism or idealism...[This approach can] represent a key missing element in the foundation of the naturalistic picture of the world." [19] In 2017, Rovelli elaborated further upon the subject of relative information, writing that: All of this is criticism of Rovelli’s history based on a popular conception of what is meant by “science”. And were Rovelli an adherent of that popular conception, one that revolves around strict adherence to observation, hypothesis, experiment, and “method”, then he would be a scientistic teller of fables about the emergence of science from the darkness of superstition and myth.Anaximander wrote a treatise in prose called On Nature. This book is now lost and only one fragment remains quoted by Simplicius of Cilicia in his commentary on Aristotle's Physics: