Mon, 03 Mar 2008
The 2000-Year-Old Computer (and Other Achievements of Ancient Science)
I went to Ask A Scientist on February 26, and heard an interesting pair of presentations by Richard Carrier at Columbia. The topic was the various achievements of ancient science.
I wrote some notes on the back of my receipt. Direct quotes from him are between quotation marks.
- He likes the word "kooky".
- "chunk of junk"
- Archimedes' Codex is an exemplar of science being overwritten with hymns in the middle ages.
- On Ptolemy's system of epicycles: "The model worked really well. That's why they were so seduced by it."
- When asked about politics of science: "I can't off the top of my head think of an interesting story." (Note that he did, in fact, come up with one.)
- He pronounces "dissection" as if it were "disection."
I also wrote this down, purely my own creation:
- "Amazing what middle schoolers know that the Ancients did not."
