Foundations

The other night on the Nat Geo channel, a documentary told the story of a star device made by the Greeks in the 5th century BCE. It had a great number of cogs and wheels, and charted the movement of the stars for any given century past or future. Truly amazing... on two counts, the creation of the device and the math behind the movement of the stars. Our 5th century BCE Greek friends lived in a much more sophisticated society than we have ever given them credit for.



It's nice to find nuggets of surprise in history that we have not known before. It happens every so often. The Rosetta Stone showed how well the early cultures moved among themselves speaking each other's languages. An early form of portable generation of electricity was found in the middle east, the place algebra was born. An underground city was found in Turkey that had been carved in the very early centuries of civilization for reasons that appear to be related to evading aerial notice. A city has been discovered in India that contains bones and ceramics with all the signs of a radioactive blast. The list is lengthy. All the hints are that the past was a most sophisticated world.



So, we in this modern era are the beneficiaries of cumulative effect. We thrive because the foundation included a great deal of forward thinking and avante garde living. That seems to be a principle in life: we thrive because of events and people that propel us to heights we would not otherwise achieve.