16 Apr 06
1 edit
Aristotle tackled Zeno's Paradox, I believe, along with trying to find a way to measure the area bounded by a curve, reducing the solution into smaller parts ad infinitum. It's sad that he was soooooooooo close to developing integral calculus before he was slain by a Roman soldier and the library at Alexandria was sacked and burned, destroying so much of his work. Imagine if calculus had been developed fully in 300 BC instead of the late 1600's. There's a "what if" question for you.
17 Apr 06
Originally posted by General PutzerIndeed, gunpowder would have not been far behind and the knowledge of trajectories given by the new maths. It almost happened in china too, they were delving into infintesimals also.
Aristotle tackled Zeno's Paradox, I believe, along with trying to find a way to measure the area bounded by a curve, reducing the solution into smaller parts ad infinitum. It's sad that he was soooooooooo close to developing integral calculus before he was slain by a Roman soldier and the library at Alexandria was sacked and burned, destroying so much ...[text shortened]... eveloped fully in 300 BC instead of the late 1600's. There's a "what if" question for you.
And there were supposedly batteries in Iraq a few thousand years ago too. BTW, while we are on the subject of ancients, did you get the news about the huge pyramids discovered in Bosnia? 220 meters high, the locals always called them Pyramid hills, not realizing they actually WERE pyramids.
17 Apr 06
Originally posted by General PutzerThat would be Archimedes. Aristotle really did made attempts at explaining the paradox but not very succesful. Besides Xeno's "paradoxes" were aimed at showing the difficulties of giving rational explanation of movement. Thus he did try to decribe the four possible cases (discrete time&continous spaces, continous time&discrete space, discrete time & discrete space, continous time&continous space) and the logical inconsistencies that appear within each of them.
Aristotle tackled Zeno's Paradox, I believe, along with trying to find a way to measure the area bounded by a curve, reducing the solution into smaller parts ad infinitum. It's sad that he was soooooooooo close to developing integral calculus before he was slain by a Roman soldier and the library at Alexandria was sacked and burned, destroying so much ...[text shortened]... eveloped fully in 300 BC instead of the late 1600's. There's a "what if" question for you.