On 11/22/2011 3:57 AM, Christopher Menzel wrote:
> I don't find them any more illuminating with regard to any concrete
> element of ontological engineering than I find poetry. (01)
Don't knock poetry. (02)
_De Rerum Natura_ by Lucretius had an enormous influence in preserving
and transmitting the ancient theories of atoms and thereby influencing
the pioneers in modern chemistry. (03)
The physicists didn't accept atoms until much later than the chemists.
Boltzmann was an early adopter. Unfortunately, he was driven to
suicide by the skeptical Ernst Mach and his cronies. (04)
But Lucretius was presenting atoms as a scientific hypothesis.
His did use a metaphor in calling atoms "seeds of things", but
that was a simple term, not a fanciful embellishment.
See excerpts below. (05)
John
______________________________________________________________________ (06)
http://classics.mit.edu/Carus/nature_things.mb.txt (07)
This ultimate stock we have devised to name
Procreant atoms, matter, seeds of things,
Or primal bodies, as primal to the world... (08)
Indeed, and were there not
For each its procreant atoms, could things have
Each its unalterable mother old? ... (09)
Nothing Exists Per Se Except Atoms and the Void... (010)
Atomic Motions (011)
Now come: I will untangle for thy steps
Now by what motions the begetting bodies
Of the world-stuff beget the varied world,
And then forever resolve it when begot,
And by what force they are constrained to this,
And what the speed appointed unto them
Wherewith to travel down the vast inane... (012)
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