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Richard P. FeynmanPerfectly Reasonable Deviations (From the Beaten Track)326 |
It appears the Greeks take their past very seriously...
It appears the Greeks take their past very seriously. They study ancient Greek archeology in elementary school for six years, having to take 10 hours of that subject every week. It is a kind of ancestor worship for they emphasize always how wonderful the ancient Greeks were - and wonderful indeed they were. When to encourage them by saying yes and look how modern man has advanced beyond the acient Greeks (thinking of experimental science, the development of mathematics, the art of the renaissance, the great depth and understanding of the relative shallowness of Greep philosophy, etc., etc.) - they say, “What do you mean - what was wrong with the ancient Greeks?” They continually put their age down and the old age up, until to point out the wonders of the present seems to be an unjustified lack of appreciation for the past. They were upset when I said that the thing of greatest importance to mathematics in Europe was the discovery by Tartaglia that you can solve a cubic equation - which, altho it is very little used, must have been psychologiclly wonderful because it showed a modern man could do something no ancient Greek could do, and therefore helped in the renaissance which was the freeing of man from the intimidation of the ancients - what they are learning in school is to be intimidated into thinking thet have fallen fo far below their super ancestors.