Which ancient Greek made the most important contributions to natural philosophy?

By James Dacey

Greece is rarely out of the news these days, but unfortunately that news is almost exclusively focused on the nation’s ongoing economic woes. It is a colossal understatement to say that the country is in a tricky situation right now: either remain in the Eurozone and accept a sustained period of deep austerity; or ditch the Euro and face a period of huge uncertainty while triggering financial shockwaves throughout the rest of Europe.

As the struggle to find a solution continues for the world’s leaders and top economists, I can’t help but wonder what the thinkers of ancient Greece would have made of the current situation. Would Plato or Aristotle have been able to take a break from considering the nature of reality to draw up a solution that benefits all? Or would this kind of affair be too rooted in the mundanities of the everyday world?

In this week’s Facebook poll we are looking back at the brains of ancient Greece by asking you the following question.

Which ancient Greek made the most important contributions to natural philosophy?

Archimedes
Aristotle
Democritus
Euclid
Plato
Pythagoras
Thales

Let us know by visiting our Facebook page. And please feel free to explain your response or suggest a different ancient Greek thinker by posting a comment on the Facebook poll.

In last week’s poll we asked “How significant would the discovery of the Higgs boson be?”. The majority of respondents (66%) chose the option that it would answer the most important question in particle physics. 26% of respondents chose the option that there are more important questions in particle physics. And the remaining 9% believe that it would answer the biggest outstanding question in physics.

Thank you for your participation and we look forward to hearing from you in this week’s poll.