A History of Physics in its Elementary Branches

“This history is intended mainly for the use of students and teachers of physics. The writer is convinced that some attention to the history of a science helps to make it attractive, and that the general view of the development of the human intellect, obtained by reading the history of science, is in itself stimulating and liberalizing.”

“In mathematics, metaphysics, literature, and art the Greeks displayed wonderful creative genius, but in natural science they achieved comparatively little. ...it is true that, as a rule, they were ignorant of the art of experimentation, and that many of their physical speculations were vague, trifling, and worthless.”

“As compared with the vast amount of theoretical deduction about nature, the number of experiments known to have been performed by the Greeks is surprisingly small. Little or no attempt was made to verify speculation by experimental evidence.”

“It is reported that he astonished the court of Hieron by moving heavy ships by aid of a collection of pulleys. To him is ascribed the invention of war engines, and the endless screw ("screw of Archimedes") which was used to drain the holds of ships.”

“The Greeks invented the hydrometer, probably in the fourth century AD. ...It was first used in medicine to determine the quality of drinking water, hard water being at that time considered unwholesome. According to Desaguliers it was used for this purpose as late as the eighteenth century.”

“Optics is one of the oldest branches of physics. A converging lens of rock crystal is said to have been found in the ruins of Nineveh.”

“In Greece burning glasses seem to have been manufactured at an early date. Aristophanes in the comedy of The Clouds... introduces a conversation about "fine transparent stone (glass) with which fires are kindled," and by which, standing in the sun, one can, "though at a distance, melt all the writing" traced on a surface of wax.”

“The Platonic school taught the rectilinear propagation of light and the equality of the angle of incidence to that of reflection.”

“The astronomer Claudius Ptolemy... measured angles of incidence and of refraction and arranged them in tables.”

“Metallic mirrors seem to have been manufactured in remote antiquity. Looking glasses are referred to in Exodus 38:8, and in Job 37:18; they have been found in graves of Egyptian mummies.”

“The Greeks elaborated several theories of vision. According to the Pythagoreans, Democritus, and others vision is caused by the projection of particles from the object seen, into the pupil of the eye. On the other hand Empedocles, the Platonists, and Euclid held the strange doctrine of ocular beams, according to which the eye itself sends out something which causes sight as soon as it meets something else emanated by the object.”

“Thales of Miletus... one of the "seven wise men" of early Greece, is credited with the knowledge that amber, when rubbed, will attract light bodies, and that a certain mineral, now called magnetite, or loadstone, possesses the power of attracting iron.”

“Amber—a mineralized yellowish resin—was used in antiquity for decoration. In common with the bright shining silver-gold alloys, and gold itself, it was called "electron"; hence the word "electricity."”

“Theophrastus, in his treatise On Gems mentions another mineral which becomes electrified by friction. We know now that all bodies can be thus electrified.”

“The polarity of magnets and the phenomenon of repulsion which may exist between electric charges or magnetic poles were unknown to Greek antiquity.”

“It is in Athens that we find the oldest contrivance for observing the direction of the wind. There, in its essential parts standing to this day, is the "tower of the winds," built about 100 B.C. Upon an octagon of marble was a roof, the highest part of which carried a weather-vane in form of a triton.”

“Among the Greeks meteorology can hardly be said to have risen to the dignity of a science.”

“Theophrastus of Eresus... wrote a book On Winds and on Weather Signs, but like most other Greek philosophers, he was hardly the man to adopt patient and exact observation in place of dogmatic assertion and the teaching of authority.”

“Aristotle makes a good observation on the formation of dew; viz. dew is formed only on clear and quiet nights.”

“Aratus of Soli... wrote a book of Prognostics, giving predictions of the weather from observation of astronomical phenomena, and various accounts of the effect of weather on animals.”