scholarly journals Mechanics and Mathematics in Ancient Greece

Encyclopedia ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 140-150
Author(s):  
Danilo Capecchi ◽  
Giuseppe Ruta

This entry presents an overview on how mechanics in Greece was linked to geometry. In ancient Greece, mechanics was about lifting heavy bodies, and mathematics almost coincided with geometry. Mathematics interconnected with mechanics at least from the 5th century BCE and became dominant in the Hellenistic period. The contributions by thinkers such as Aristotle, Euclid, and Archytas on fundamental problems such as that of the lever are sketched. This entry can be the starting point for a deeper investigation on the connections of the two disciplines through the ages until our present day.

2010 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 34-36
Author(s):  
Vaia Touna

This paper argues that the rise of what is commonly termed "personal religion" during the Classic-Hellenistic period is not the result of an inner need or even quality of the self, as often argued by those who see in ancient Greece foreshadowing of Christianity, but rather was the result of social, economic, and political conditions that made it possible for Hellenistic Greeks to redefine the perception of the individual and its relationship to others.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (20) ◽  
pp. 42-46
Author(s):  
A.M. Kulish ◽  
V.V. Turpitko

Sport has always served to establish peace, to help different peoples of the world to study each other’s culture, to create conditions for the humane resolution of conflicts, to be an opportunity to express their talents. Therefore, he never fell out of sight of society. In this work, the authors present the formation and development of sports in Ukraine and abroad. The main features of the primitive community were identified. It is determined that the invention of the chariot for the physical culture of the states: Babylon, Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Ancient India, China, Persia became the starting point for the further development of sports in this region. It has been found that ancient Greece made a significant contribution to the development of sports. After all, it was the basis of the main principles of modern professional sport. Attention is drawn to the Olympic Games that took place in Ancient Greece: their appearance, conditions, prohibition, and revival Pierre de Coubertin. Further new competitions (Paralympic Games, Olympic Games, etc.) were added to them. It is revealed that international organizations and institutions have been set up to control such competitions. The authors found that religion had a great influence on the formation of physical culture during the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance. Trends in the development of modern sport and the factors that influence it was found out. As a result, it was concluded that sports are currently in the process of transformation. Therefore, the authors indicate what has the greatest influence on the formation and continued existence of sports. The main stages of the formation of physical culture in Ukraine were analyzed. It is also established that Ukraine has built a domestic sport in accordance with world experience in this field. Keywords: sports, physical culture, Olympics, doping, consolidating function.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 163
Author(s):  
Raimundo Ribeiro dos Santos ◽  
Elisângela Aparecida Aparecida Pereira de Melo

Este trabalho é proveniente de um estudo desenvolvido na Comunidade Indígena Itxala, município de Santa Terezinha, Estado de Mato Grosso, acerca das práticas socioculturais empreendidas pelos indígenas Iny-Karajá em distintas atividades cotidianas que contemplam as paisagens de manifestações culturais e originárias do povo das águas. Como ponto de partida, trazemos a seguinte indagação: Em que termos é possível etnografar os saberes originários do povo Iny-Karajá na perspectiva de mobilizar e potencializar ações educativas para a sala de aula? Nesse sentido, objetivamos descrever as práticas socioculturais que podem mobilizar e potencializar atividades para o ensino de Ciências e Matemática. O estudo pauta-se na abordagem qualitativa de cunho etnográfico, permitindo evidenciar as impressões e as percepções dos professores, por meio da entrevista narrativa e da participação para observar o cotidiano desses indígenas no decurso da realização de suas práticas socioculturais, com destaque para as pinturas corporais e as ações educativas. Nossas reflexões evidenciam, dentre outras possibilidades, o compartilhar de novos conhecimentos e de atividades escolares na e para a sala de aula mediadas por elementos socioculturais do contexto comunitário, emergindo a negociação de significados como estratégia mediadora e potencializadora do aprendizado de Ciências e Matemática no contexto escolar local.Palavras-chave: Práticas socioculturais. Atividades educativas. Ensino de Ciências e Matemática. Abstract: This work comes from a study developed in the Itxala Indigenous Community, located in the municipality of Santa Terezinha, State of Mato Grosso, Brazil. It is focused on addressing socio-cultural practices of the Iny-Karajá indigenous people during their different daily activities, which include cultural and original manifestations of the people of the waters. As a starting point, we bring the following question: How is it possible to know, through ethnography, the knowledge originating from the Iny-Karajá people in the perspective of mobilizing and enhancing educational actions for the classroom? So, we aim to describe the socio-cultural practices that can mobilize and enhance activities for the teaching of Science and Mathematics. This study is based on a qualitative ethnographic approach, allowing to evidence the impressions and perceptions of teachers through narrative interview and participation, with the intention of observing the daily lives of these indigenous people during the performance of their socio-cultural practices, with emphasis on body paintings and educational actions. Among other possibilities, our reflections show the sharing of new knowledge and school activities in and for the classroom, mediated by sociocultural elements of the community context, making the negotiation of meanings emerge as a mediating and enhancing strategy for the learning of Sciences and Mathematics in the local school context.Keywords: Sociocultural practices. Educational activities. Science and Mathematics Teaching.


1986 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 201-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene Mikenberg ◽  
Newton C. A. da Costa ◽  
Rolando Chuaqui

There are several conceptions of truth, such as the classical correspondence conception, the coherence conception and the pragmatic conception. The classical correspondence conception, or Aristotelian conception, received a mathematical treatment in the hands of Tarski (cf. Tarski [1935] and [1944]), which was the starting point of a great progress in logic and in mathematics. In effect, Tarski's semantic ideas, especially his semantic characterization of truth, have exerted a major influence on various disciplines, besides logic and mathematics; for instance, linguistics, the philosophy of science, and the theory of knowledge.The importance of the Tarskian investigations derives, among other things, from the fact that they constitute a mathematical, formal mark to serve as a reference for the philosophical (informal) conceptions of truth. Today the philosopher knows that the classical conception can be developed and that it is free from paradoxes and other difficulties, if certain precautions are taken.We believe that is not an exaggeration if we assert that Tarski's theory should be considered as one of the greatest accomplishments of logic and mathematics of our time, an accomplishment which is also of extraordinary relevance to philosophy, as we have already remarked.In this paper we show that the pragmatic conception of truth, at least in one of its possible interpretations, has also a mathematical formulation, similar in spirit to that given by Tarski to the classical correspondence conception.


2003 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anselm Hagedorn

AbstractThe article aims at utilising some further Greek parallels for an interpretation of the Song of Songs. Cant. ii 15 serves as starting point for the enterprise. Next to the fairly well known and often discussed parallels from Sappho and Theocritus, for the .rst time evidence from Greek vases and from the Anthologia Palatina is discussed. Rather than postulating any literary inuences between Greek texts and the Song of Songs we regard the study as an investigation into the (Eastern) Mediterranean cultural milieu to which the biblical and Greek texts belong. However, if Song of Songs can indeed be dated to the Hellenistic period, such inuences and possible dependencies seem not impossible.


2011 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-147
Author(s):  
Phillip Sidney Horky

This article explores the historiographical traditions concerning Herennius Pontius, a Samnite wisdom-practitioner who is said by the Peripatetic Aristoxenus of Tarentum to have been an interlocutor of the philosophers Archytas of Tarentum and Plato of Athens. It argues that extant speeches attributed to Herennius Pontius in the writings of Cassius Dio and Appian preserve a philosophy of “extreme proportional benefaction” among unequals. Such a theory is marked by Peripatetic language and concepts, which suggests that these speeches derive from a single Peripatetic source, probably Aristoxenus. The reception of Aristoxenus' description of Herennius Pontius among Greeks and Romans is sharply divided. Greek theories of ethics among unequals such as those of Aristotle and Archytas, which aim for moderation, can be distinguished from that attributed to Herennius Pontius, which is circumstantial and stipulates extreme responses to extremes. Romans, in particular Appius Claudius Caecus and Sulla, espouse proverbial wisdom strikingly similar to the theory of “extreme proportional benefaction” associated with Herennius Pontius. Such comparisons suggest that starting in the late fourth century bce, Romans and Samnites may have held shared ideological principles, as defined against Greek cultural paradigms. Scholars are thus prompted to consider Herennius Pontius as a starting point for a much larger inquiry into shared ideology among non-Greeks in Italy during the Hellenistic period and beyond.


Author(s):  
Olympia Bobou

Children’s representations appear early in the Greek visual material culture: first they appear in the large funerary vases of the geometric period, while in the archaic period they appear in funerary reliefs and vases. To the representations in vase painting, those in terracotta statuettes can be added in the fifth century, but it is in the fourth century bc that children become a noteworthy subject of representation, appearing both in small- and large-scale objects in different media. This chapter considers the relationship between changing imagery of children in ancient Greece and social and religious developments from the geometric period, through the Hellenistic period and into the Roman period in Greece.


1995 ◽  
Vol 115 ◽  
pp. 47-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Hornblower

How well known was Thucydides' history in the fourth century BC and the hellenistic period? Gomme, with an eye on Polybius, once wrote of the ‘nearly complete silence about Thucydides in what remains to us of ancient writers before the age of Cicero and Dionysius of Halicarnassus’. This is startling at first and has to my knowledge led to the misconception that Thucydides virtually disappeared after his own time. Gomme was however referring merely to specific mentions or discussions of Thucydides by name: he went on to speak of the ‘silent compliment paid him by Kratippos, Xenophon, Theopompos, and Philistos’. Even this is far from a complete list, and Gomme's possibly misleading paragraph can serve as my starting-point.


Entropy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (11) ◽  
pp. 1521
Author(s):  
Stephen Fox

Active inference theory (AIT) is a corollary of the free-energy principle, which formalizes cognition of living system’s autopoietic organization. AIT comprises specialist terminology and mathematics used in theoretical neurobiology. Yet, active inference is common practice in human organizations, such as private companies, public institutions, and not-for-profits. Active inference encompasses three interrelated types of actions, which are carried out to minimize uncertainty about how organizations will survive. The three types of action are updating work beliefs, shifting work attention, and/or changing how work is performed. Accordingly, an alternative starting point for grasping active inference, rather than trying to understand AIT specialist terminology and mathematics, is to reflect upon lived experience. In other words, grasping active inference through autoethnographic research. In this short communication paper, accessing AIT through autoethnography is explained in terms of active inference in existing organizational practice (implicit active inference), new organizational methodologies that are informed by AIT (deliberative active inference), and combining implicit and deliberative active inference. In addition, these autoethnographic options for grasping AIT are related to generative learning.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 611
Author(s):  
Vanessa Lang ◽  
Christine Eckert ◽  
Franziska Perels ◽  
Christopher W. M. Kay ◽  
Johann Seibert

Models are essential in science and therefore in scientific literacy. Therefore, pupils need to attain competency in the appropriate use of models. This so-called model–methodical competence distinguishes between model competence (the conceptual part) and modelling competence (the procedural part), wherefrom a definition follows a general overview of the concept of models in this article. Based on this, modelling processes enable the promotion of the modelling competence. In this context, two established approaches mainly applied in other disciplines (biology and mathematics) and a survey among chemistry teachers and employees of chemistry education departments (N = 98) form the starting point for developing a chemistry modelling process. The article concludes with a description of the developed modelling process, which by its design, provides an opportunity to develop students’ modelling competence.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document