Monsoon rain (Goa) Around 1000 BC, in the Vedic period in India, Varuna was an important Hindu god. Varuna was originally a sky god - his name means "the one who covers everything." Often people think of Varuna as a rain god. He represented order in the universe (against the forces of chaos). Some parts of Varuna's identity, at [...]
Near where Pythagoras lived: Doric temple at Paestum, Italy Who was Pythagoras? Pythagoras lived in the 500s BC. He was one of the first Greek mathematical thinkers that we know about, after Thales. Who was Thales? All about Greek mathematics Lots of articles about ancient Greece Pythagoras spent most of his life in the Greek colonies in [...]
Greek math: An Egyptian papyrus from about 100 AD which is a piece of one of Euclid's books Greek math: geometry not algebra Because people in ancient Greece had only very clumsy ways of writing down numbers, they didn't like algebra. They found it very hard to write down equations or number problems. Instead, Greek mathematicians were [...]
Theater of Miletus Anaximander was born about 610 BC in the Greek city of Miletus, in what is now Turkey. So he was able to have the great mathematician Thales of Miletus as his teacher. Thales was probably about 35 when Anaximander was twenty years old. The two mathematicians worked together for most of their lives. Anaximander [...]
Ancient Greek science: Greek doctor letting blood out of a patient because he believes in the four humors When did Greek science get started? By about 600 BC, ancient Greek people were getting richer from trading between Egypt, West Asia, Carthage, and Europe. Now richer families could afford to send their boys to college. More boys got a good education and became scientists. Soon [...]
Nomos and physis: Laocoon: being strangled by snakes People in ancient Greece often thought of the world as being a fight, or an agon, between the two forces of rationalism and chaos, or between law and nature. The Greeks called these two forces "nomos", meaning law and order and rationalism, and "physis" (FU-sis), [...]
Who was Aristotle? An ancient Egyptian papyrus with a scrap of Aristotle's "Politics" Aristotle's family Aristotle's father was Nicomachus, a doctor who lived near Macedon, in the north of Greece. (More about ancient Greek doctors) His mother Phaestis was from Euboea. She probably worked from home. So, unlike Socrates and Plato, Aristotle was [...]
Greek art: A slave woman plays a kithara (Athens, ca. 480 BC) Greek art: order and chaos Artists in ancient Greece thought of art as a way of creating order out of chaos - taming wild things and making them into something human and good. Music in ancient Greece Greek musicians took noise [...]
Metope from the Parthenon On the metopes, just under the roof, Phidias carved the battle between Lapiths (men) and centaurs (the Centauromachy), Greeks against Amazons (Amazonomachy), the gods against the giants (the Gigantomachy) and the sack of Troy. Metope from the Parthenon: Lapith and Centaur All these stories show the greatness [...]
Temple of Zeus at Cyrene (North Africa) Greek architects weren't just copying their old wooden temples for the fun of it though, or just because they couldn't think of any better ideas. There was a lot of thought behind each little decision. For one thing, these are religious buildings, so they have to [...]
