Book Review | The pioneering and pivotal thought of Anaximander

Carlo Rovelli is a theoretical physicist who specialises in quantum gravity. The range of his published works includes what might be called popular science — explaining the wonders of science in non-technical terms to the general public. This is particularly challenging when it comes to the quantum world in which he works.

Anaximander and the Nature of Science, however, is not one of those books. It is not a scientific work but rather, a tribute to science. It is a song about the human imagination, its stretch and reach, its challenges and capabilities, a lament about the hatred science faces. It is not even about Anaximander that much.

Rovelli makes it clear from the beginning that this book is not the history of the discoveries of Anaximander. Others have done that better than him, as he puts it. Rather, he uses these works on Anaximander to give this 6th century BCE Greek philosopher his rightful place in the pantheon of the first scientists.

Although his own writings were destroyed, Anaximander is liberally quoted in in other Greek works. “It is said that Anaximander of Miletus first opened the doors of nature,” says Pliny in Natural History 2.

Rovelli gives us context. The milieu of Miletus, a Greek city in what today would be the Turkish coast, where a confluence of ideas from all over the world was possible. The evolution of ancient Greece as a more free-thinking civilisation than the others of its time, and since. He examines what it is that creates that “restless inquisitive Greek spirit” that is so admired, and that managed to separate rational thinking from religion without debunking religion.

The questioning of the gods is of course evident throughout Greek mythology. But Rovelli is no mythologist. Instead he is like a wounded scientist stung by the anti-rational forces which now sweep through the 21st century. The rediscovery of Anaximander is as much a staff of strength for Rovelli, it seems, as it is for those of us who were never taught about him properly.

What made Anaximander get the accolade of being the first to open the doors of nature? He understood, despite all the weight of the creation myths of the world, and of his mentor Thales, that water was the primary element of life; that the Earth was not flat, not the centre of the Universe, not the Universe itself but a rock in space which was all around it. This was stupendous given the varied beliefs of the time — that the Earth was limitless, that there was nothing below it, that it was held up by columns or turtles or elephants. Anaximander ignored all that to devise that what was above was also below.  Look what happened to Copernicus and Gallileo centuries later, for their views on the Earth’s place in the Universe. Anaximander also deduced that all life began in the water and that humans had grown out of these fish-like creatures. Thousands of years later, Charles Darwin would meet the wrath of God for his theory of evolution.

Rovelli writes: “Each time that we — as a nation, a group, a continent, or a religion — look inward in celebration of our specific identity, we do nothing but lionise our own limits and sing of our own stupidity. Each time that we open ourselves to diversify and ponder that which is different from us, we enlarge the richness and intelligence of the human race.”

Thus, through the pioneering and pivotal thought of Anaximander, Rovelli explains to us how science works, how human intelligence works and how the search for perfection or absolutes is doomed to failure and to restriction of thought. Scientific discoveries can lead to ground-breaking technical inventions. But science is much more than that, he says. It is the ability to relook at stated positions and to prove them wrong by building upon them.

Just as Anaximander built upon the works of Thales, so Albert Einstein worked on the ideas of Isaac Newton and changed or improved them. Scientists know that the time is coming soon when Einstein will be proved wrong — especially at the quantum level Rovelli himself works in — and that is to be celebrated. That is how science develops and the tiny human understands his place in the cosmos.

For the layperson interested in science, or even the scientist, this is an easy, lucid read about the endeavours of the mind. To question is to grow says Rovelli, and fear of questions is only counterproductive.

Yes, I suppose you might see some politics in that. So does the author.

Anaximander and the Nature of Science

By Carlo Rovelli

Penguin

pp. 200