On the Nature of Things | Forum

June 29, 1980
Athens, Greece.

It appears the Greeks take their past very seriously.

They study ancient Greek archaeology in their elementary schools 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 ancient Greeks (thinking of experimental science, the development of mathematics, the art of the renaissance, the great depth and understanding of the relative shallowness of Greek 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 them to be an unjustified lack of appreciation for the past.

They were very 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, although it is very little used, must have been psychologically 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 they have fallen so far below their super ancestors.

~ Perfectly Reasonable Deviations From The Beaten Track, collection of R. P. Feynman letters