温伯格《解释世界》第一部分 希腊物理

在希腊科学繁荣之际或更早之前，对技术，数学和天文学做出显著贡献的是巴比伦人，中国人，埃及人，印度人等等。但是欧洲是从希腊吸取的科学模式和灵感，而现代科学起源于欧洲，因而希腊在科学发现方面起着独特的作用。 人们曾一直争论为什么是希腊人取得了如此伟大的成就。可能一个显著的因素是当希腊科学兴起之际，希腊人生活在相对较小的独立城邦，其中许多都是民主政权。但是我们后面会看到，希腊最杰出的成就是在这些小政权被大国吞并以后做出的，先是被希腊化王国，后是被罗马帝国。希腊人在希腊化时代和罗马时代对科学和数学做出的贡献一直到16和17世纪欧洲科学革命以后才被显著超越。 这一部分我主要涉及物理学，希腊天文学留在下一部分讨论。我把第一部分分为五个章节，大致按时间顺序讨论与科学共处的五个思考模式：即诗意，数学，哲学，技术和宗教。科学与这五个相邻思想的关系会贯穿本书。

During or before the flowering of Greek science, significant contributions to technology, mathematics, and astronomy were being made by the Babylonians, Chinese, Egyptians, Indians, and other peoples. Nevertheless, it was from Greece that Europe drew its model and its inspiration, and it was in Europe that modern science began, so the Greeks played a special role in the discovery of science.

One can argue endlessly about why it was the Greeks who accomplished so much. It may be significant that Greek science began when Greeks lived in small independent city-states, many of them democracies. But as we shall see, the Greeks made their most impressive scientific achievements after these small states had been absorbed into great powers: the Hellenistic kingdoms, and then the Roman Empire. The Greeks in Hellenistic and Roman times made contributions to science and mathematics that were not significantly surpassed until the scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe.

This part of my account of Greek science deals with physics, leaving Greek astronomy to be

discussed in Part II. I have divided Part I into five chapters, dealing in more or less chronological order with five modes of thought with which science has had to come to terms: poetry, mathematics, philosophy, technology, and religion. The theme of the relationship of science to these five intellectual neighbors will recur throughout this book.