In The Character of Physical Law (1965), the physicist Feynman
presents an informal dichotomy between the “Greek” and the “Babylonian”
approach to science. The Greek:
axiomatic, systematic.
The Babylonian: ad-hoc bricolage. I satirized the latter in the parable of the humble woodchuck (“Constructivist Angelology”).
In this morning’s reading, I happened upon this:
Shlomo Sternberg, Celestial Mechanics (1969), p. 1:
In most popular accounts, the contributions of the Babylonians … are consistently underestimated. The Babylonians, in addition to having accumulated impressive observational data, based their tables and predictions on a form of Fourier analysis (using what are now known as “spline functions” instead of trigonometrical series).
!!! -- I stand corrected.
