4 ms·
This is survivorship bias. They 'knew' it only retrospectively, they also 'knew' a lot of different incorrect theories. In some sense one could argue that Arist
by ithinkso 5y ago
This is survivorship bias. They 'knew' it only retrospectively, they also 'knew' a lot of different incorrect theories. In some sense one could argue that Aristotle halted the progress of physics for about a thousand years (not related to atoms, but a general comment of what the Ancient Greek 'knew')
- mannykannot 5y agoIf the progress in physics really was halted for a millennium (actual physics was not moving that fast beforehand), any blame must rest with the intellectuals of that time.
- ithinkso 5y agoI fully agree, I'm not blaming him. It is interesting though that maths was taught for a 1000 years from Euclid's Elements, Euclid living approximately at the same time as Aristotle, and it is still as valid today as it was 2000 years ago but physics was taught from Aristotle's teaching and it was just bonkers. Took 1000 years for someone to finally say 'wait, something's not right'