Editor' Comment: Pythagoras

tere ve de te de ve ire te ee eee eR RRR ve eve ee NR RR WWW WWW DT EU WW FT ROK n x “x ren eier ner Te è EDITOR’S COMMENT f or those interested in the history and evolution of human thought, the question of who was the first to put forward the heliocentric model for the motion of our planetary system has a special place. It is now well established that Copemicus was not the first to put forward this model but rather it was Aristarchos of Samos, student of Straton from Lampsakos and head of the Peripatic School of thought, around 280 BC. However, scientific and gnosiologic breakthroughs come about after the “painful” and slow accumulation of knowledge through the centuries of human experi_ence. The bases that allowed Aristarchos to reach his conclusion should be searched at least to two sources: (a) to the Pythagoreans and especially to Philolaos of Croton who lived the 5" century BC in “Magna Grecia” and the work of which is said to have influenced the writings also of Timeus by Plato and (b) to Heraclides of Pontos who lived the 4" century BC and who was an offspring of Platos Academy. Philolaos (literally meaning friend of the People) was a student of Lysis, one of the two only Pythagoreans that survived the destruction of the Pythagorean brotherhood in Croton by its ruler. it seems that Philolaos himself did not avoid a similar end to his predecessors. He was murdered accused erroneously of wanting to establish tyranny in Croton (a common excuse used to exterminate opponents at those times). Philolaos put forward a Cosmological model in which the Cosmos and all it contains are made of infinite and finite things. According to Stobaios, in the model of Philolaos the Cosmos is one and started structuring itself from a center outwards. The center is the Estia, the central fire, then is Antihthon, then the Earth that moves in a circular orbit around the Estia and exactly anti-diametrical with Antihthon (for which reason we cannot see this body), then the moon, the Sun that just reflects the light of the Estia, and the other cosmic bodies. According also to Diogenius Laertius, Philolaos was the first to put forward the notion of the circular motion of the Earth, although he also mentions another possibility of a predecessor to this idea, /ketas of Syracuse. In any case it seems that the idea that the Earth moves in an orbit around a hot central object was a necessary prior step that helped Aristarchos of Samos to put forward the heliocentric model of planetary motion. Furthermore, the outcome of the studies of Herclides gave a further Woo push to Aristarchos in forming his model. Heraclides found out that Mercury and Venus always appear within a limiting angular separation from the Sun and concluded that this could be only due to their revolution around the Sun and not the Earth, creating therefore the notion of another center of revolution of the heavenly bodies. Furthermore, he also suggested that the apparent revolution of the Cosmos around the Earth could be due to an actual revolution of the Earth around its own axis, if such did exist. Therefore, these Volume 1, Issue 12, Year 7 MIREOREMOS two fundamental observations seem to have opened the way for Aristarchos to put forward his truly revolutionary theory. Although we do not have direct evidence that Aristarchos did prove his suggestion, since his relevant book is lost and we know it only through Archimedes, in his book “Psammites”, it did have a huge impact to the establishment of his time, which can be compared to the impact that all revolutionary theories have, that of Copernicus as well. It created a backclash and a condemnation of Aristarchos and his teachings, seen as a challenge to the “theocratic” establishment. For example, it is said that Cleanthis, the head of the Stoics in Athens called for the condemnation of Aristarchos as an “atheist”. The ideological marginalization of Aristarchos was so efficient that only one more of the ancients is known to have supported his heliocentric views, which as we saw before were the ripe fruit of the accumulated knowledge of the previous generations of physical philosophers. Selefcos of Babylon, who lived a century later than Aristarchos, attempted to establish the heliocentric model but in vain. It took humanity more than 1800 years to put Sun to its rightful position and shift the geocentric view to the so-called Copernician world view. Pythagoras:Eae e>3 Keen ‚Capitoline‘:‘Museum, ¿Rome Italy (there are: no monuments depicting . -Aristarchos' of Samos. ¢or. Philolaos of Croton). dg. Ancient ‘Coin. depicting: :Pythagoras > Page 17