From the Vault: Stargazer and the Well

an episode from the vault while Rob recovers. So he should be back on Mike soon and we should be able to continue the series that we were in the middle of before this week, So that was a series on childhood amnesia. More on that in the future, but for now, we hope you enjoyed this vault episode called The Stargazer and the Well, which originally published May fifth, twenty twenty two. Enjoy Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In today's episode, we're going to discuss a very old association between astronomy and wells, and this ties into various ancient anecdotes and also archaeological sites. Basically getting it down to this idea that if you have a well if you have a deep pit or even a long tube, that this could allow an individual to see starlight during the day. Had you ever heard of this, Joe, No, I don't

think not before you brought this up. Yeah, this is and this is one that there was more to it the more I kept looking into it, but instantly it's kind of a captivating idea of you know nothing about it because there's something about the two extremes in play here, the bottom of an earthly pit and the light of

distant stars. You know, it reminds me of that that that far more recent quote by author Oscar Wilde in his play A Lady Windermere's Fan, which, even if you're not familiar with that source, you may have heard this, this particular quote quote, we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. Well that's a great sentiment. Yeah, I guess I take it to mean that maybe one's character is defined not by the not by where your body is, but by where

your thoughts are aimed. Yeah. Now, one guess starting place for this is that a lot of the especially more recent writings you see and illusions referring to this, well, astronomy situation will frequently point out that, okay, well you had you had Aristotle mentioning and passing, and of course plenty of the elder mentions it. So let's start with the Aristotle quote. He does mention it kind of has an aside, and it is in chapter five of the

fourth century BC text Generation of Animals. Okay, so this is going to be setting up the relationship between looking out of a well or a tube and seeing the stars in the daytime. Right, So this is what Aristotle says. Quote. The cause of some animals being keen sided and others not so is not simple but double. For the word keene has pretty much a double sense, and this is the case in like manner with hearing and smelling. In one sense, keen site means the power of seeing at

a distance. In another, it means the power of distinguishing as accurately as possible the objects seen. These two faculties are not necessarily combined in the same individual. For the same person, if he shades his eyes with his hand or look through a tube, does not distinguish the differences of color either more or less in any way, but he will see further. In fact, men in pits or

wells sometimes see the stars. But one of the curious things here though, and this is ultimately the like the hard fact that we will keep coming back to and thinking about this, is that during the day we cannot see the stars, right, you know, not with the naked eye. And I think i've read that like the brightest star not counting the sun. Of course, the brightest star in the night sky would have to be something like five times as bright for the human eye to see it

during the day. So this is one of those things that's right from the get go here, it's not going to match up with any experience out there. Though, if you have had the experience of standing in a pit and looking up and seeing the night sky during the daytime, certainly right in and tell us more about this. But but for the most part, yeah, it goes against everything we expect to be true from our modern perspective. And yet we see multiple references to this being a reality.

And granted a lot of these are secondhand in the nature of a lot of these ancient texts. For instance, plenty of the elder who's kind of a champ end of the second or third hand account of the natural world, he chimes in on this a little bit in natural history. Quote, the sun's radiance makes the fixed stars invisible in daytime, although they are shining as much as in the night, which becomes manifest at a solar or eclipse, and also when the star is reflected in a very deep Well. Oh, well,

he's doing really good up until that very last part. Yeah, and that's that's something you said. I mean, because first of all, a lot of this, a lot of the times we're talking not talking about, like, you know, just pure folklore here, we're talking about very learned individuals of their age, individuals who who you know, often knew something or a lot concerning astronomy during their time, and they're chiming in on this as if it is true or

said to be true. Well, I mean, he is absolutely correct that the stars are still shining during the daytime just like they are at night. It's the problem is simply that their light is drowned out by the glare of the sun. So it's not as if, I mean, you might assume, if you were just going by intuition, that the stars turn off their lights during the day or something, you know, that they somehow disappear no, that they're still there. They're always there, we just can't see

them because there's too much light from this other light source. Yeah. So so almost everything oh yeah about that statement is corrected. But at the end he loves it. Now. One of the sources I was looking at for this is a nineteen fifty three paper by Eiden Psi Aali and this was republished in two thousand and seven by the Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilization. So Psi Aali major Turkish science historian. So important that he's actually on a bank note.

You can if you look him up on like Wikipedia, you can see see his face on currency. Wow. But this is a very nice little overview of this concept and touches on, you know, the fact that it not only pops up in the history of astronomy, but it also pops up in folklore and literature of vary as

different cultures. And the idea is basically what we've been discussing, that one may stand at the bottom of a well or something similar, like a great pit or some sort of natural formation of caves, and if you look up you can glimpse the stars during the day. And Psiali writes that sometimes this is just a vague tidbit without any specifics, like it's just alluded to, Oh, one can do this, and this has been done. But other times

it's connected to specific individuals and times. So the author mentions several more examples here, and I'm going to touch

on them here. So first of all, it points out that Greek astronomer Cleomides says that the sun appears larger when seen from the bottom of a deep cistern because of the darkness and the moisture of the air, though it does not make mention of actual what we'll discuss in a bit, actual observation wells some sort of a well or deep shaft in the earth that is used, that is either built or repurposed or used for looking

at the stars. Another individual he points to is the writings of Islamic philosopher Abu Barrakat al Baghdatti, who lived ten eighty through eleven sixty four or eleven sixty five CE, And this individual actually wrote a text titled on the reason why the stars are visible at night and hidden in daytime, and in this he contends that it comes down to illumination of part of the atmosphere immediately above the observer, and he does not mention observation wells specifically either,

And then you have Leonardo da Vinci also contending that the atmosphere is dense and full of moisture particles that during the daylight reflect radiance to obscure the stars. So again there's another example. Davinci's not talking about observation wells.

But Psyali contends that all three of these lines of thinking quote would seem to be in agreement with, or even inspired by, the claim that from the bottom of a well or in a tall tower, which is to say, at the bottom of a tall tower, which would prevent the illumination of a portion of the atmosphere immediately above the observer, star has become visible in daytime. Okay, so I think I'm catching onto the intuitive current that's driving this. Might it be something like this. I can see the

stars in the nighttime when things are dark. Therefore, darkness is what allows me to see the stars. So if I get down at the bottom of a well or the bottom of a tower, where I can look out through the top, the dark environment that I have enclosed myself in will somehow like create the conditions of night where I can normally see the stars. Is it something

like that? It seems to be again, this is something where it again this is this is not true, This is not seemed to be exactly what happens when one is standing in a pit looking up, standing in a well et ce. So we can't we you know, we can't break down the exact process of this because this is not a reality. But yeah, this seems to be what the basic argument seems to be like if you can as closely as possible approximate nighttime during the day for your local self and then look up at the sky,

maybe then you would see the stars. Except that doesn't actually happen, right, But again, important knowledgeable individuals who are writing about this and repeating its signal boosting it. If you will, you have you know, ultimately have the likes of say Roger Bacon mentioning it. Seemed to be familiar with the concept, and multiple Islamic authors, according to Sosiali, reference it, and that some of these points to specific observation wells, not just in the generality of this being

a thing. So a few examples of this. Maraga Observatory, founded in twelve fifty seven, was said to be in observation well, but Salways thinks this may be a mistake in reference not to the observatory but to caves beneath the observatory. That quote do not, so far as is known, form any vertical well. Another one he mentions is the Jaja bay Marassa of Kishier, Anatolia, founded in twelve seventy two.

This was used as an observatory and was said to have an observation well formed via a circular hole cut in the roof of the dome of the Madrassa building, and that this was for daytime star observation. Now, on this count, Psiali writes that there is evidence of their having been a well here. But first of all, it was probably not dry, and this could mean that if it was used for an astronomical aid, it was so that one could look at the reflection of the sky

in the water. And there are references apparently to this practice. Oh okay, so this connects to I think the way that Plenty in particular phrased it as opposed to Aristotle, because Plenty said that you could see the stars reflected in a very deep well, And so I'd wonder there

that there might be different optical effects at play. If you're not standing in the bottom of a well looking up trying to see the stars in daytime, but looking down at the water in a dark well to see if it's quote unquote reflecting the nighttime stars even during the daytime, right, Yeah, so I think there could It seems to be the case where you're dealing with a different reported phenomena becoming confused with each other, you know, like, can you can you look up from from the bottom

of well and see the sky? Yes? Can you see stars? Well, yes, potentially if it is nighttime, but then that can be you know, crossed into something else. Likewise, you could have a situation where where the reflection in the well, in the well water could be used to see the stars at night, but that doesn't mean you can see them

in the daytime. Now. A third example that Ssiali brings up is the is Ten Bowl Observatory found it in fifteen seventy nine, and it did have this particular site apparently did have an observation well or tower, and there is confirmation of this in both Turkish and European sources. However, the observatory was demolished not long after its founding. So Siali says it might never have been used, or just there are no records of it being used. I saw

some different dates on this. Perhaps it might have been founded in fifteen seventy seven, but it seems like it was destroyed in something like fifteen eighty, just a very short period later, and the destruction was possibly due to religious opposition to astronomy. So Siali mentions that there's a sixteen thirty mention of observers and students glimpsing the stars in the daytime from the bottom of a very deep well in Cuimbra, Portugal, and there are also accounts from

Spain apparently. And then we have an individual by the name of Erhard Weigel, court mathematician to Duke Wilhelm the fourth of Bavaria. He had a house built in sixteen sixty seven in Jenna, and it was said to have a quote slant tube built into the wall in order to allow the daytime observation of the stars. You shared with me a painting of all Erhard here. And this guy is such a mood he's I don't even know

how to describe this he. I mean, he looks like a very sensitive boy posing for a photo with his dog, you know, like pointing to the dog, except it's just like a big table of mathematical figures. Yeah. Yeah. My first thought was like, here is a man who loves his maths. If you look him up on Wikipedia, you'll see this particular painting. There are other images of him that are not that don't strike the same tone. But

I do really like this painting. It looks like he's like doing his equations and he's going, who's a good boy now? Sayali also mentions that the Paris Observatory he found in sixteen sixty seven through sixteen seventy five feet a vertical hole which, via the caves below, formed a

fifty five meter deep well. Quote It was said that Cassini, shortly after the foundation of the observatory, considered the possibility of its use for daytime observation of the stars, as one of the brightest stars of the constellation Perseus, he said, would come within the field of view of the well, and approximately forty years now. This is interesting to keep in mind talking about the field of view of the well, because I think this can be telling and given some

of the analysis out there. Cassini apparently used the well himself and had another well built. But around this time, Sili says, astronomical advancements may have made venturing down into a well just increasingly obsolete. However, Siali mentions that there were rumors that a janitor at the observatory had a side hustle of taking people down into the pit to glampst the stars. What is this the seventeenth century? Yeah, yeah, well I'm not sure exactly when this, uh, when the janitors.

This may may have come later. Okay, yeah, but it sounds very at groundpo doesn't huh. One more example that Siali mentions is the Chrest Monster Observatory in Austria found a seventeen forty eight that has a fifty nine meter deep well said to have been used as an observation well as well. Well. Given all of these examples and anecdotes from history of people saying they could do this or building facilities in which to do this, I'm starting

to have my doubts. I'm like, wait a minute, can you actually I don't know, I mean, like, would all these people be building starlight tubes and observation wells and towers and stuff and talking about this all the time. If there weren't something to this story I'm having, I'm doubting myself. Yeah, I had the same experience with it,

And and Sialia is basically discussing the same thing. He's like, it would just be strange if this idea persisted for so long and people did all these things, if there wasn't something to it, if there wasn't some factual basis to the whole enterprise, because you know, dudes are incorporating this into their house plans, you know, a buddy. He

does point out, Yeah, there was. There were. There were certainly skeptics as well, including Alexander von Humboldt, who who discussed on the show before old friend of the Show, the subject of a really great biography by Andrea Wolfe called The Invention of Nature I highly recommend. Very interesting.

I'd say Von Humboldt was very important for promoting a kind of a total view of science that kind of the connected all of the natural world together into a vast system of interlocking causes and effects, and viewed nature not just as discreet entities of here's this animal and here's this plant, but as an ecology as a system

of interactions in which everything affected every other thing. Yeah, and so he comes along and you know, he's evidently he's read about this and he's familiar with the concept. But then he's he says, well, I've okay, I spoke with Chimney Sweeps, I spoke with Miners, I've spoke with other people who had ventured down into into conditions just like this. And apparently he sought those conditions out himself, and he did not experience this. He was not able

to see the stars. No, when he spoke to had direct experience of having seen the stars this way. And he's just one of There are a few other historical

critics of the notion as well that Psiali mentions. But but I think Alexander van Homboldt probably though this is one of the more robust ones coming along where he's just saying, yeah, nobody I spoke to has actually experienced this, and and ultimately Psyali even though he's like, again he's thinking, there's you know, people have been doing this and circulating

this idea. There's is there absolutely nothing to it? He does stress that quote, although such wells were connected with observatories, there is no evidence that such observatories were systematically made and utilized by astronomer, So the whole practice could have been largely theoretical, even a you know, an ultimate basis for it could ultimately be more imagination than anything. But he thinks that the whole enterprise might have been connected

more to focusing on particular areas of the sky. So again, come think, think about like what this would mean to stand at the bottom of a well and look up through the circular aperture of the well and behold the sky, behold the sky at night to see the stars. You would it would in a sense, you know, it would limit what you could see. It would take that just overwhelming starscape and limit it to just a single circle

of observation. Yeah, maybe if you were trying to focus on particular stars as they passed through during a night or something. I don't know. And then likewise, I guess if you had a similar setup and you were looking at stars were flected in the water, you could and it was very still water and the reflection was just right, you could have something similar going on. But in terms of yeah, basically, anybody who comes up against this idea of it being somehow a way to see the stars

during the daylight. Every nobody agrees that this is possible. For instance, this is This is brought up in the book Bad Astronomy by phil Plate, for example, and he also points out that Charles Dickens wrote of it as well, and he says that he's never heard a decent explanation

as to why this would work well. One nice takedown of the whole idea came from the Reverend William Frederick Archdall Ellison in the Journal of the British Astronomical Association in nineteen sixteen, writing quote, A very little scientific reason, even without experiment, will be sufficient to dispose of it. For what is it which hides the star in the daytime? It is merely the glare of our atmosphere, illuminated by

the Sun's rays. As the atmosphere extends to a height of fifty miles or more above the Earth's surface, a shaft or chimney one hundred to two hundred feet high could do but little to take away that glare. And anyone who has ever actually looked up from the bottom of such a shaft, as I have from the bottom

of a colliery. This is a British term by the way a coal mine and the buildings and equipment associated with it nine hundred feet below the surface must have been struck not by the darkness of the little disc of sky visible, but by its dazzling brilliance. And this is something that people come back to. It's like, if you actually seek out this experience of gazing up through a shaft at the sky, at the daytime sky, it's the sky's not going to be dark, it's going to

be super bright. It's going to be overwhelmingly bright. Now I totally agree with that. That seems right to me. I do have a counterposing idea. I wonder if you were able to build a tower like some of these supposed observation towers that extended up beyond the top of the atmosphere, then that might actually work. Ooh, I did not see anyone discussing this idea, This idea that through some sort of futuristic megaproject we might be able to

make the daytime a well observatory possible. Yeah, like you build a space elevator and it's just it's a tube going up beyond the atmosphere. Even then, I'm not positive that would work. I think it probably would. I guess it might depend on where the sun is at the moment relative to like is any of the sunlight shooting

down in there. So many commentators also speak to this whole notion being predicated on a misunderstanding of what a telescope does, certainly in the later cases and later circulation of the idea, and that you know, ultimately it's focusing more on the tube rather than the lenses, which are vital to the workings of a telescope, right, not understanding that the purpose of the telescope is to gather light from a from a wider surface and then project that

down into your eye to increase the resolution. One such commentator was Patricia O'Grady, who wrote on the subject in two thousand and two in a paper title day Leaves of my Leidas The Beginnings of Western philosophy and Science. She contends that such wells were used at night as a means of isolating portions of the night sky for

consideration and study. Quote, descending into a well and peering up the extent of the well would isolate areas to be observed, and the rim of the well being similar to that to the tube about which Aristotle wrote, would be a sort of quote unquote telescope but lacking magnification. M Yeah, okay, yeah, so you know it's there was

so much more too than I expected. But it seems like we can think of observation wells as being a mix of secondhand accounts signal boosted by important writers and thinkers during their times, backed up by hypothetical models, as well as the seeming at least limited use of such wells as a means of isolating portions of the night sky for study at night. Yeah, that all seems reasonable

to me. I'm still hung up on the idea that there could also be some kind of garbling of a report of an optical effect that somebody got from looking down at the sunlight reflected in water in a dark well, and that maybe ripples in the water or something. I've never tried it, so I don't know what that would be like, but I could imagine that could look like many points of light instead of one. Yeah. That's a

good point, now, Rob. It's funny you mentioned this book by Patricio Grady about Theles of Melitas, because the other half of this coin the idea of a stargazer in a well connects very directly to a famous anecdote about this philosopher. So Thals of Melitas was a pre Socratic Greek philosopher who lived from the late seventh century to the mid sixth century BC. He was one of the famous Seven Sages of Greece, and as he was revered by other ancient philosophers and writers as in many ways

kind of the primary patriarch of wisdom. He was thought to be in a sense the first philosopher, and in more recent centuries he's been seen by some as quote the father of science, though I think both of those designations are a good bit overstated. Though Thyles was a very interesting figure. Going to the idea of him being the quote father of science, I would say in an informal way, there were empirical observations and experiments and deterministic

theories of nature. Of course, all go on before Thales, no doubt, but he was famous in ancient Greece for appealing to natural material causes rather than ad hoc mythological explanations when trying to understand nature and the world. So, like many ancient Greek philosophers, from Pythagoras to Socrates, we actually have no surviving copies of any text by Thles himself, so if he wrote anything down himself, we no longer

have it. The only sources we have for his life and his work are what other people wrote about him, which of course makes it complicated to know with much certainty what he actually said and believed. So everything that follows that we're going to say about Thales comes with the major caveat that it is based on secondary sources, often writing much later than Thaile's own lifetime, because it's

all we have. Thales was known for wisdom in not just what we would later call science, but in many domains, including in mathematics. He was famous for bringing Egyptian geometry to Greek thought, and for philosophy and politics. He was given credit for the maxim know Thyself, which I have to say I find one of the most powerful aphorisms of all time. You know, know thyself is two words long, and it really hits you. It's like a wrecking ball,

like it manages to be simultaneously empowering and humbling. And there's a whole rich tradition of other philosophers simply trying to explain what they think is meant exactly by the statement know thyself. Is it an admonition to know your place and be humble in the face of the gods? Is it a warning to know your own limitations? Is it an exhortation to deeper philosophical understanding, to understand what you are in a way? Maybe it's all of these things. Yeah,

that's it's a great naval gazer. That one. More, the more you think about it, the slippery it becomes. Now, at this time, there was not much of a division between what we would today call science and what the ancient Greeks would call philosophy. It was it was sort of all the same thing. It was the pursuit of knowledge. But I guess the more scientific version of ancient Greek philosophy would be the kind that focused on explanations of

the natural world and appealing to natural causes. A lot of the science that Thilees believed in has not exactly held up to later scrutiny. For just one example, he was known for arguing that earthquakes were caused by the fact that the continents, the land on which we walk, is actually part of a great a great disc that floats on water and sometimes the continents or the discs on which the continent's rest are rocked by waves in

the underlying cosmic ocean. For ancient accounts of this belief of Thiles, I want to go back to actually a.

Patricio Grady, the source you mentioned earlier. In her book on Thles, she, for example, quote Seneca, who says the cause of earthquakes is said to be in water by more than one authority, but not in the same way Thales of Melitas judges that the whole earth is buoyed up and floats upon liquid that lies underneath the disc is supported by this water, he says, just as some big heavy ship is supported by the water which it presses down upon. And elsewhere. Seneca actually mocks Thales for

his beliefs. He says the following theory by Thales is silly, for he says that this round of lands is sustained by water and is carried along like a boat. And on the occasions when the earth is said to quake, it is fluctuating because of the movement of the water. It is no wonder therefore, that there is abundant water for making the rivers flow, since the entire round is in water. Reject this antiquated, unscholarly theory. There is also no reason that you should believe water enters this globe

through cracks and forms. Bilge Okay, I will not believe in the billage then again convinced me. But also to continue with the ocean theme, Thaley's quite remarkably believed that the entire basis of matter was water. And it can be difficult to parse exactly what he means by this, but I think it's commonly interpreted to mean that all

matter is in some way a form of water. So much like liquid water can turn into vapor, or it can freeze into a solid ice cube, then it can take on other forms as well, and in fact it does take on all the forms we see in the world. Every piece of matter is some type of water or is in some way derived from water. And of course this is wrong, but it does wander kind of close to a profound truth that would be discovered much later, which is that as fundamentally different as all the substances

of the world, blood magma would air. As different as all these things might seem, they're actually made of exactly the same fundamental building blocks. Not water, but the subatomic particles protons, neutrons, electrons in different quantities and arrangements. So he was wrong about the water part but I do think it's still a rather profound hypothesis that at bottom,

all matter is made of the same stuff. Now, coming back to the designation that some authors have used for Thales, as quote the Father of Science, I think one of the big stories leading to that designation, Like I know this, there was a piece at some point that Isaac Asimov

wrote about this. The connecting point here is that there are reports from the ancient world that Thailes did occasionally make testable predictions that proved correct, such as in Matters of Astronomy, where the historian Herodotus claims that Thales correctly predicted a solar eclipse in advance with profound geopolitical implications for an ongoing war with between the Meads and the Lydians.

So to fill out this story a bit, I'm going to describe and quote from Herodotus the translation by A. D. Godly, So a bit of background. Herodotus tells us that at some point in history, a tribe of nomadic Scythians escaped some trouble in their own lands, and they escaped into the territory of the Medians or the Meads, who were

ruled by a king named Siaxaris. The Scythians asked for mercy, and Ssiaxaris granted it, and even gave over some Median young men to the Scythians to sort of like live with them and learn their language and to learn archery from them. But there came a day when the Scythians returned from a hunt with nothing to offer their new king, and Siasaries being short tempered, he took their lack of game as an insult, and he gave him a really bad chewing out. I think the direct quote is he

treated them contemptuously. So in revenge for being dressed down, some of the Scythians took the young Meads their pupils and killed them and dressed their bodies and presented them to the king as if they were animals killed in a hunt. Then they immediately fled the domain of the Meads and went to the domain of a king named al Yadis of Sardists. All right, this is already spiraling out of control. This is a bad situation, right, So Sayaxares was tricked, and indeed he did eat the flesh

of his young countrymen, thinking it was wild game. And after he found out, he wasn't very happy about it, and he went to al Yadis and said, Hey, these guys made me do cannibalism. You need to give them over to me. So now I'm just going to quote from the Herodotus translation. After this, since al Yadis would not give up the Scythians to Siasaries at his demand, there was a war between the Lydians and the Meads for five years, each won mini victory over the other,

and once they fought a battle by night. They were still warring with equal success when it happened at an encounter which occurred in the sixth year, that during the battle the day was suddenly turned to night. Thals of Melitas had foretold this loss of daylight to the Ionians, fixing it within a year, at which the change did

indeed happen. So when the Lydians and Meads saw the day turn tonight, they stopped fighting, and both were the more eager to make peace, And apparently they did make peace by securing a marriage between between the children of the two kings. Happy ending there you go, though, I have to imagine there was a good bit of like, hey, remember when your dad did cannibalism, and then my dad helped the people who made him do it. There's probably still some bad blood. But you know, you get a

nice wedding ceremony in there. You know, it's well catered. It's gonna it's gonna could calm a lot of the waters. Yeah. So anyway, the story again is that Thales predicted this solar eclipse that interrupted the middle of a battle. He

predicted it in advance. Later scientists have worked out that this must be a reference to the solar eclipse of May twenty eight, five eighty five BC, because that's the only one within the right time frame that would have been visible at the place in question, and that does all work out. But if it's true that Thales predicted the eclipse in advance, this is an absolutely extraordinary claim, and I think a lot of modern scholars have doubts

about this story. So we know lunar eclipses where the shadow of the Earth passes over the face of the moon, these have been predicted going way way back, long before Thayles.

The court Astronomers of ancient China and ancient Babylon were able to figure out these patterns and draw up tables, allowing them to predict lunar eclipses, but solar eclipses, where the Moon passes directly between the Earth and the Sun, blocking out the sunlight, these are much much harder to predict, especially because they are localized to specific vantage points on Earth's surface. I mean, there are solar eclipses all the time, but living wherever you do, you don't see most of them.

They're they're on some other part of the globe. Yeah, Like if you've scout tried to scout one out for yourself, you may have encountered this situation where you know, someone's like, hey, there's a solar eclipse coming up, and you're like, great, when can we see it? And it's like, well, on this date, if we're in Arkansas or parts of Texas, right, there's the solar eclipse coming, we have to travel to

Baffin Island. Yeah, that sort of thing. But that being said, I mean, if you have the ability to go witness solar eclipse under safe circumstances, that absolutely do so, because it's it's wonderful. Oh absolutely, yes, it is worth it is one of the most magical experiences of my life. Now, the first solar eclipse is that we know for sure we're predicted in advance, came after we had much better astrophysical theories in hand. This would be in the early

eighteenth century. The first case where we know for sure that someone accurately predicted to solar eclipse was on May third, seventeen fifteen, when English astronomer Edmund Halley of Halley's Comet fame, built upon the scientific revolution unlocked by Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation. Halle was a friend of Newton's and he used Newton's new theories to accurately pinpoint and eclipse

that would be visible in London. And I think he got it right within a margin of about four minutes. But Hallie's prediction and all subsequent solar eclipse predictions, they require a lot of information that was, as far as we know, not available in ancient Greece. And unfortunately no writings of Thailees exist today. As I said, and Herodotus does not bother to mention the method by which Thaylees

made this prediction. I don't think other authors who mentioned this story share any further insights either, and so we and we also don't know what the level of precision of this prediction would have been, though the herodotus does say that it took place that year, which makes me wonder if it's possible Thailies just said there will be a solar eclipse sometime this year and got extremely lucky.

But ultimately we don't know. We don't know what was going on here if he actually did make the prediction and it was correct. Did he just have an amazing stroke of luck, or did he have some kind of incredibly advanced type of knowledge about astrophysics that nobody else at the time had and he left no record of it.

And as with the observation, wells, we're dealing with you secondhand accounts in vague references here, right, So also we don't even know for sure it's true that he made this prediction, though it seems to be a widely attested story, and we do know the eclipse did happen. Now, I was reading about a few other scientific contributions of Thales. One source I was looking at was by W. KC. Guthrie called a History of Greek Philosophy volume one, the

earlier Presocratics and the Pythagoreans. This was Cambridge University Press, nineteen sixty two, and Guthrie collects a lot of observations. He writes that Thales made gave guidance about the relative usefulness of different constellations for c navigation, pointing out that the minor bear the little bear constellation was better than the Great bear for finding the poll and this story

was related by Callimachus. Apparently, the use of the minor bear was already in practice by the Phoenicians, and Thales showed why it was better than the Greek standard of versa major. He apparently also is said to have used geometry to measure the dimensions of the pyramids, and to show how you could calculate how far away a ship

at c was. And in summary, writing about the Thile's reputation in ancient Greece, Guthrie says, quote, once he had achieved in the popular mind the status of the ideal man of science, there is no doubt that the stories about him were invented or selected according to the picture of the philosophic temperament, which a particular writer wished to convey and so Guthrie goes on to describe an example of what he calls this quote mutually canceling propaganda, which

is the contrast between the story of the olive presses and the story of the fall into a well or into a pit. And these are given respectively by Aristotle and Plato. I'm going to start with the story of the olive presses, which we have from Aristotle, so this is an Aristotle's politics translation by Benjamin Jowitt. I'm just

going to read directly. Aristotle says, there is the anecdote of Thales, the Miletian and his financial device, which involves a principle of universal application, but is attributed to him on account of his reputation for wisdom. He was reproached for his poverty, which was supposed to show that philosophy was of no use. According to this story, he knew by his skill in the stars, while it was yet winter, that there would be a great harvest of olives in

the coming year. So having little money, he gave deposits for the use of all the olive presses in chias and militas, which he hired at a low price. Because no one bid against him when the harvest time came and many were wanted all at once, and of a sudden he let them out at any rate which he pleased, and made a quantity of money. Thus he showed the world that philosophers can easily be rich if they like,

but that their ambition is of another sort. And you notice at the beginning that Aristotle said this financial device, he says, involves a principle of universal application. So Aristotle is actually saying, you know, the thing that they lees is doing this story is a well known move. It's called monopoly. The exploitation of a monopoly is a standard, well known commercial and political practice, and he gives examples having to do with like cornering the iron supply in

a local area or something. Of course, the principle is, if you're the only person selling something and it's in demand, then you can set whatever price you want. So you know, when a smart person figures out how to create a monopoly, how to be the only person offering a good or service that is needed, they will use this to their advantage. I guess, with the caveat of unless they're a philosopher who is above worldly concerns, it will only gouge to

make a point. Yeah. I love this. It's like there's like, hey, hey, Thailees, if you're so smart, why aren't you rich? And he's like, oh, yeah, well I could do that if I wanted to hear, he proves himself and then it goes back to whatever he was doing beforehand, right, Yeah, So it portrays that the Lees as worldly, full of potential for practical cunning, but simply lacking interest in financial gain unless it's to own the haters. All right. So that's one vision, one

invoked vision of Thales. What's another one. Well, here's where we come back to the idea of the stargazer in the well. So Plato tells this totally different story of Thales. This takes place in Plato's Theatitis dialogue. And if you've ever taken a logic or a philosophy course that tried to define the word knowledge, you might have encountered the Theatitas, because I believe this is the one where Socrates builds up to a definition of knowledge as something like true belief,

with an account sometimes paraphrased as justified true belief. So under this definition, to know something, to actually have knowledge, it means you have one a belief to which is true, because if you believe something but it's false, that's not knowledge. And three, it is something of which you are aware of a warrant for believing. So if you believe something and it turns out to be true, but you had no good reason for believing it, that's still not knowledge.

Like if if I believe I'm going to win the lottery this year, and then I happened to win the lottery this year, that was not knowledge. I had no good reason to believe that. I just got lucky. But anyway, the story of the stargazer in the well is actually a digression within this dialogue. So I'm quoting from the Fowler translation of Plato here. So this is Socrates speaking, and Socrates says, take the case of Thles, he speaking

to somebody named Theodorus. Take the case of Thales. Theodorus, while he was studying the stars and looking upwards, he fell into a pit sometimes translated as a well, and a neat witty Thracian servant girl jeered at him, They say, because he was so eager to know the things in the sky that he could not see what was there

before him. It is very feet. The same jest applies to all who pass their lives in philosophy, and you can't actually find these charges in their original form in stuff like rob did you ever read the Clouds by Aristophanes? The play Mocking Socrates? No, I don't think I did.

Oh yeah, well, so it's a whole play is just vicious, brutal mockery of Socrates in the school of philosophers of Athens, showing them to be absolute buffoons who are wasting their lives just making up garbage about trivial and unimportant topics. And so in a way, I wonder if you know this is kind of responding to that sort of criticism,

because yeah, it's the same kind of thing. It's like, oh, you know, you think you're so smart, but you actually just fall into pits all the time, or you trip and fall into well because you're trying to figure out ursa major and ursa minor. Yeah, nothing you do is practical and you're in the bottom of well, how'd you get their, old man, you must have tripped. It's also the classic oh philosophy major, how what are you going to do with that? And then so Socrates goes on

to explain his view. I've made some abridgments to this section, but I just want to read part of what he says. Socrates says, hence it is my friends, such a man, both in private when he meets with individuals, and in public, as I said in the beginning, when he is obliged to speak in court or elsewhere about the things at his feet and before his eyes, is a laughing stock, not only to Thracian girls, but to the multitude in general.

For he falls into pits and all sorts of perplexities through inexperience, and his awkwardness is terrible, making him seem a fool. For when it comes to abusing people, he has no personal abuse to offer against anyone, because he knows no evil of any man, never having cared for

such things. So his perplexity makes him appear ridiculous. And as to laudatory speeches and the boastings of others, it becomes manifest that he is laughing at them, not pretending to laugh, but really laughing, and so he is thought to be a fool. When he hears a panegyric, meaning like a sort of a sermon praising the virtues of

a public figure. When he hears a panegyric of a despot or a king, he fancies he is listening to the praises of some herdsman, a swineherd, a shepherd, or a neat herd, for instance, who gets much milk from his beasts. But he thinks that the ruler tens and milks a more perverse and treacherous creature than the herdsman, and that he must grow coarse and uncivilize no less than they, for he has no leisure and lives surrounded by a wall, as the herdsman live in their mountain pens.

And when he hears that someone is amazingly rich because he owns ten thousand acres of land or more. To him, accustomed as he is to think of the whole earth, this seems very little. And he goes on and on at length, talking about how, you know, the common man might think himself very important because he claims to trace his ancestry back to to Heracles and Amphytrion. And meanwhile the philosopher is like, but everybody has thousands of ancestors

of all kinds, what does that matter? And he just goes on and on, listing all these cases of the concerns of regular people who are squabbling over like power and money and prestige and hierarchy, and the philosopher who seems to them to be a fool because he cares not for those things. Now, I think it's interesting to sort of compare and contrast Aristotle's vision of the of

Thales here versus Socrates' vision of Thales. Both essentially assume that true philosophers, and I think the modern reader might might sort of read this in a more inclusive way, just as the thoughtful person thoughtful people that they are

above petty worldly concerns. But the olive press story communicates a kind of deliberate aloofness which can be subverted and cast side anytime when some wisecracker comes along and says, you know, like you said, Robert, hey, Thles, if you're so smart, how come you're not as rich as me? The point is here, Well, Thelees could be if he

wanted to, that's just not his concern. Meanwhile, in the story told in the Plato's Dialogue here Socrates makes it sound like falling into the ditch and being mocked by

the Thracian girl. It does communicate the same kind of aloofness, but in a more helpless and involuntary mode, like well, okay, yeah, he might be so wrapped up in the stars that he falls into pits all the time and he's always ending up at the bottom of wells, But that's actually a sign of a virtuous mind, concerned with the stars and concerned with the nature of reality, rather than the nasty pettiness that occupies your mind, all of the grubby

business and politics and social gossip and hierarchy that you're so obsessed with. Which is funny though, because it essentially comes down to these philosophers putting them selves at the top of a hierarchy and saying like, you know, my, my life of the mind is so much more virtuous than your existence. Yeah, I mean a little bit of hypocrisy. Yeah, yeah.

In both cases, the philosopher is disconnected from this world, and you know it didn't It basically just comes down to the nuances of what you're saying about that, like it's it's it's uh, they're disconnected from this world, yes, but if they wanted to game this world like other people, they could easily or you know, even if they're falling down wells. It's like, yeah, he's not concerned with wells and pits. Oh, you're so obsessed with the well thing.

Come on. But it is interesting how this ties back in because you know, they Lees is said to be an individual who is very interested in the stars. Here he is falling into a well. And indeed some have looked at this, in particular that paper I cited earlier, and you also cited this off there. Patricia O'Grady um looks at this and says, yeah, this connection between an individual who is who analyzes the stars and fall in

a well that they fall into. Perhaps this is also connected to the idea of a well being an observatory and they LEAs may have. And again we're dealing with second accounts and fictionalized and mythologicalized versions of reality. But on some level, maybe you have this individual falling into a well because that's the kind of place that that

astronomers and philosophers go to. They're climbing to the bottom of a well to look up at the stars and and I don't know, it kind of falls that that that kind of just that basic vision uh kind of falls into these uh, these these views of philosophy that

we've been discussing. Well, another theme that emerges for me is just the the tenuous and artificial nature of the distinctions between practical and impractical knowledge knowledge that knowledge which seems impractical today may in several hundred years becoming incredibly practical.

The astronomy and the geometry of these ancient Greek philosophers might have seemed absolutely ridiculous and of no practical use whatsoever to to somebody at the time, but then they would sort of be built upon in generations to form the foundation of all existing technology, navigational techniques and you

know everything like that. M yeah, yeah, I'm also suddenly struck by how how one could conceivably compare a stylight a you know, an individual a hermit atop a pillar, to the idea of a of an astronomer crawling down to the bottom of a pit. You know, both are kind of like they're removed from from the surface world, from the from the affairs of man, and in either case it's about, you know, contemplating things beyond the realm

of man. This is funny. I've thought of potentially doing something about the stylite tradition on our on our show before. I can't remember. Has it ever come up in an episode? It was like, it's a particular type of asceticism where you would, you know, you would subject yourself to just living at the top of a pillar. Yeah, yeah, I feel like it's come up. I don't know if we did. Yeah, I feel like it's come up at least once, But

I don't remember the context. Maybe when we were talking about Diogenes and living among the dogs, Oh, Diogenes the cynic Yeah, living in a jar with some dogs eating fava beans or not fave Lupin's I think okay, I'd forgotten about the being consumption. Yes, yeah, okay, I've actually

got a call to listeners. I'm curious if, if you're somebody out there with a good basis in astronomy and physics, what do you think is the most plausible scenario by which Thales could have truly predicted the five eighty five eclipse If the story is true, if you actually made the prediction and it was not just a lucky guess but actually justified true belief, that he had a warrant for believing that, what could it have been? Yeah? Right

in let us know. Likewise, if you have any thoughts about the concept of glimpsing the stars from the bottom of a well, the bottom of a pit. All right, we're gonna go and close out this episode, but yeah, we'd love to hear from everyone. Core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind published on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed listener mail on Mondays, Artifact or Monster Fact on Wednesdays, and on Friday,

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