Their theory of atoms was also that they were indivisible, being the most basic building block of all matter. Obviously now we know that that’s not true.
They described a lot of things, and were wrong more often than not. Their biggest contribution was really just progress in the scientific method itself.
It was not really what we would know as science, as it does not revolve around strictly constructed experimentation, hypothesis, or reproduceablility or predictivity, so much as it was the concepts of logic itself, of arguing about things with rationality and rhetoric.
A whole lot of Greek philosophy uses what seem like decent arguments to lead to decent sounding explanations that do not actually work if explored further or tested, though there are genuine examples of actual experimentation that still hold up fairly well, like Eratosthenes approximating the size of the Earth based on geometry and shadows.
Theyre basically just known for formally getting the ball rolling of inquisitive discourse on the nature of the world.
Like Hippocrates telling people that a new breakthrough in medicine could allow bones to be seen in detail without cutting into flesh
Didn’t he or some other Greek philosopher also describe atoms?
Rudimentary atomic theory was independently “discovered” multiple times and places throughout history.
Hippocrates also described the four humors.
Their theory of atoms was also that they were indivisible, being the most basic building block of all matter. Obviously now we know that that’s not true.
They described a lot of things, and were wrong more often than not. Their biggest contribution was really just progress in the scientific method itself.
It was not really what we would know as science, as it does not revolve around strictly constructed experimentation, hypothesis, or reproduceablility or predictivity, so much as it was the concepts of logic itself, of arguing about things with rationality and rhetoric.
A whole lot of Greek philosophy uses what seem like decent arguments to lead to decent sounding explanations that do not actually work if explored further or tested, though there are genuine examples of actual experimentation that still hold up fairly well, like Eratosthenes approximating the size of the Earth based on geometry and shadows.
Theyre basically just known for formally getting the ball rolling of inquisitive discourse on the nature of the world.