MECHANICS AND PHYSICS 179 



We know also that a pebble thrown almost vertically 

 by means of a sling stops at the highest point of its 

 path and then falls back again. But what path has 

 this pebble travelled and what has been its speed at 

 each instant ? Can we hope to deduce the explanation 

 of such diverse phenomena from a few conceptions 

 and a few principles ? 



It must be stated at the outset that the Greeks did 

 not succeed in realizing this ideal or at least they 

 could only do so imperfectly. It is the opinion of 

 many thinkers that the Greek mind was too logical 

 to be able to create sciences exclusively based on 

 experience and experimentation. The reproach stated 

 in these terms is certainly unjust. The Greeks were 

 able not only to observe but to control phenomena 

 as far as they were in a position to do so with the 

 instruments at their disposal. G. Milhaud has clearly 

 brought out this point, which proves the truth of the 

 technical inventions of the Greeks and of the physical 

 concepts which guided them. 1 



1. TECHNICAL INVENTIONS AND PHYSICAL 



CONCEPTS 



We already find in Homeric times an advanced 

 technique, especially in the construction of swing- 

 doors and their fastenings {Odyssey, xxi, 42) . 2 A 

 little later, at the time of Thales, the engineer Eupalinus 

 constructed in the island of Samos a tunnel which 

 passed under the hill of Kastro. This was dug out 

 from the two sides of the hill at the same time and 

 the meeting-point of the miners was almost exact, 

 which implies quite advanced methods of triangulation. 

 In Magna Graecia in the south of Italy, Archytas, the 

 disciple of Pythagoras, became celebrated for his 

 mechanical inventions and discovered the use of the 



1 21 Milhaud, Etudes, p. 257. 

 8 10 Diels, Antike, p. 34. 



