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Pythagoras, Zeno and Anpadheles: From Prehistoric Chemist to Chemical Philosopher

Pythagoras, Zeno and Anpadheles

Before Anaxagoras arrived in Athens, other philosophical traditions had already established themselves in this fertile land, including the Pythagorean school. Pythagoras himself, born on an island in the Aegean Sea, was versed in the teachings of the Ionian philosophers and was exposed to Babylonian and Egyptian mathematics during his travels. This combination of influences led him to a secret society devoted to mathematical thought and religious contemplation. The followers of Pythagoras (who were said to include men and women equally) proposed mathematical theories of matter, which consisted of five elements which they imagined as geometric solids: earth was cubes, water was icosahedral, air was octahedral, fire was tetrahedral, and ether was a nebulous element that filled the spaces not occupied by the other four elements, and was dodecahedral.

The school of thought of Zeno of Elea was the opposite. Zeno insisted that matter was a continuous extension, and rejected the idea that it could be divided into particles of different elements. He said that if two particles of different elements were separated, then whatever separated them must also be something, so matter was a continuous extension. The continuity of matter was defended until the twentieth century, but without Zeno adding anything. Zeno joined a secret organization to overthrow a tyrant who ruled his home city of Elea, but because he refused to reveal the names of his accomplices under torture he died and his ideas died with him.

There was a third important school The school of Anbad-Qalis influenced the philosophy of Athens. It is difficult to give this name its due, but it is sufficient to say that Anbad-Qalis is the founder of the theory of the four elements of matter, an idea that prevailed in Arab and European chemical thought until the end of the eighteenth century. Although Anbad-Qalis was an aristocrat by birth, he was a follower of the Pythagorean school, which called for equality, and he refused the crown offered to him by his native city when he helped overthrow the ruling minority. In return, Anbad-Qalis founded democracy. As a brilliant writer, he wrote a treatise on medicine as well as on natural philosophy, in which he postulated that there are four elements (which he called roots) - earth, water, air, and fire - that form the basis of all things, and that there are two forces - love and hate - that control their combination. According to Anbad-Qalis' theory, all four elements are present in all materials, but in different proportions. Anbad-Qalis is known for having proven physically that air is a material body. He used a water clock with a cone with holes in the bottom and top, and when placed in water it would slowly sink to the bottom, thus acting as an approximate measure of time. He showed that if he blocked the top of the cone with his finger, the water would not fill the cone. When he removed his finger, air rushed out of the hole. Given his ability to use logical precision and his belief in democracy, it is interesting that Anbad-Qalis eventually decided to declare himself a god. He threw himself into a volcano to convince his followers of his divinity. The story goes that the volcano then threw Anbad-Qalis's shoes back, thus destroying his divinity.

Democritus and Leucippus

The last of the philosophies we will study in the preparation stages is Greek atomic theory, and it is the theory whose name and principles will reappear repeatedly in our story. Although the beginnings of Greek atomic theory are usually attributed to Democritus alone, it is more likely that these ideas in general originated with Leucippus, his teacher.

The lively Democritus was known as the philosopher who laughed at the human race, and the teacher's writings may have been mistakenly attributed to his most famous pupil.

The core of the theory states that matter is made of an infinite number of atoms of solid elements in perpetual motion. These atoms were thought to form substances with properties determined by the shape of the atom (for example, membranes are woven from atoms shaped like hooks), an idea that retained its appeal in Western European chemical philosophy until the seventeenth century. The atomic nature of matter is an accepted theory today, although the atoms of modern theories differ greatly from those envisioned by Democritus, as we shall see later.

Socrates the Sculptor

This was the wealthy environment in which Socrates grew up. He was born to working-class parents, his father a sculptor and his mother a midwife. He was short and stout, with bulging eyes and a flat nose. He served as an infantryman in the Peloponnesian War.

This experience may have influenced his philosophy. Because he was concerned with developing rules for a peaceful, orderly, and moral society, he used the deductive method of reasoning, which begins with a truth that seems true and indisputable to all rational beings and then draws conclusions from that truth using clearly defined rules of logic. This method may work well in social systems—and perhaps indisputable truth is something that everyone in a given society agrees on—but it may not work well in chemistry. Nature dictates its rules in chemistry, rules that are not immediately obvious to all rational beings. Socrates rejected proof by analogy (the first plant was not watered and died, so the second plant will die if it is not watered) and proof by induction (the first, second, and third lemurs drowned when they fell into the sea, so the fourth lemurs will drown too), preferring deductive reasoning. These types of reasoning may be useful in chemistry and may serve plants and lemurs in times of need as well. In this respect, Socrates’ logic hindered future chemists who adhered to it.

Socrates rejected experimentation as a means of arriving at truth, believing that the fundamental nature of the world could be known only by rational contemplation. Although his followers experienced the physical world in the same way that we do—by walking, eating, breathing, and observing what we walk on, eat, and breathe—they did not deliberately manipulate substances experimentally. This did not last long, as alchemists even indulged their companions in their experiments, but this logic had a devastating effect, as alchemists saw what they believed to be consistent with their arguments, not what actually existed. Socrates was eventually tried for corrupting the youth and introducing new gods, and sentenced to death (it may be appropriate to note here that in the history of alchemy no one has ever endured persecution as a result of his chemical views, while political views have caused many people to suffer such a fate). Friends seem to have offered to help Socrates escape, but he believed that the sentence of a legitimate court should be carried out. Socrates drank hemlock, leaving his brilliant disciple Plato to carry on the message.