Lucretius Part II - Remembering my Notes On: On the Nature of Things - Books I and II and the Muir Net Cast Through History by Peter G Pereira

Lucretius Re-Reading On the Nature of Things

Sculpture ( Plaster, Wood, Paper, Plastic and other)

by Peter G Pereira  - 1988

     What is Remarkable is the Steadiness of Evolution on the Poem by Lucretius. It Charts Territories of Math Art and Poetry and Science in particular Physics that brings us all the way through the Renaissance and Age of Enlightenment and the Doorstep of Modern Atomic and Quantum Theory.

     Lucretius  was no doubt well read in the brilliant and indispensable works Archimedes and Euclid, Heron and Papas and others, (themselves well versed int the Works Of Earliest Egypt) but his Synthesis of the Ancients into recognizable modern form and Poetry signals an Achievement of  Unique and Unequal Rank.
     For if (as it did ) -  all of History and Civilisation were to have collapse...Crumble into the Proverbial Seas of the Abyss...

     What Texts would we require to Rebuild from our Sorry States...On the Nature of Things is One of those rare Texts we count as a Fortunate Survivor.

    Imagination is our greatest Gift, and has proven our Great Curse.

    To remind us how Civilization is a Target not yet Our Domain...and Fragile are the Threads which tether one to the Other are always in Peril... To think Good Thoughts in this Greater Pursuit of Happiness.

     Below are Excepts from my Notes  Circa 1980-81. In this Blog Entry  Mostly from Book II ...
on my Anatomy Class on the Nature of Things. While some 30 years old they still weather Time and Space between the first Insightful Dissections and Today's Remembrance of  On the Nature of Things.

    I will be Exploring  my Notes and Artwork Inspired from all 6 Books in Blogs to Come.

     The Ability to Inspire Others is the Mark of Longevity and ultimately the Measure of Greatness...
     Lucretius Inspired Many and his Measure...

      Of Particular Interest I think in this Section of Mine is Newton and his Principia Mathematica and the Questions it Resolves as if the Theories of Gravity and Motion, The Calculus  and Hydrostatics among others...young Newton's  Interpretative Responses in Order to Understand Lucretius's Work.

     Also of Interest  - Beginnings of Influence on a Young Einstein in the interpretations of Photons and Brownian Motion as Well as the the Question Posed on the the Nature of the Speed of Light.



Book I





On the Nature of
Infinities

There's no beyond, and so it lacks all end.



Book II





On the Nature ofAtomic Motions





Now come: I will untangle for thy steps

Now by what motions the begetting bodies

Of the world-stuff beget the varied world,

And then forever resolve it when begot,

And by what force they are constrained to this,

And what the speed appointed unto them


On the Nature of Spherical Geometry


It matters nothing where thou post thyself,

In whatsoever regions of the same;

Even any place a man has set him down

Still leaves about him the unbounded all

Outward in all directions; or, supposing


On the Nature of Finite and Infinite Spaces

moment the all of space finite to be,

If some one farthest traveller runs forth

Unto the extreme coasts and throws ahead


Newton's First Law of Motion/Euclid
Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.

A flying spear, is't then thy wish to think


It goes, hurled off amain, to where 'twas sent


And shoots afar, or that some object there


Can thwart and stop it? For the one or other


Thou must admit; and take. Either of which


Shuts off escape for thee, and does compel


That thou concede the all spreads everywhere,

Owning no confines. Since whether there be

Aught that may block and check it so it comes

Not where 'twas sent, nor lodges in its goal,

Or whether borne along, in either view

'Thas started not from any end. And so

I'll follow on, and whereso'er thou set

The extreme coasts, I'll query, "what becomes

Thereafter of thy spear?" 'Twill come to pass

That nowhere can a world's-end be, and that

The chance for further flight prolongs forever

The flight itself. Besides, were all the space

Of the totality and sum shut in

With fixed coasts, and bounded everywhere,

Then would the abundance of world's matter flow

Together by solid weight from everywhere

Still downward to the bottom of the world,

Nor aught could happen under cope of sky,

Nor could there be a sky at all or sun-


On the Nature ofQuantum States

 

Indeed, where matter all one heap would lie,

By having settled during infinite time.

But in reality, repose is given


Unto no bodies 'mongst the elements,


Because there is no bottom whereunto


They might, as 'twere, together flow, and where


They might take up their undisturbed abodes.

In endless motion everything goes on


On the Nature ofHilbert Spaces


Space has no bound nor measure, and extends

Unmetered forth in all directions round.

Since this stands certain,


On the Nature ofQuantum Particles/Photons



Nowhere accepted in the universe,

And nowise linked in motions to the rest.

And of this fact (as I record it here)

An image, a type goes on before our eyes

Present each moment; for behold whenever

The sun's light and the rays, let in, pour down


On the Nature of  
Particulate Nature and
Newton's Spectra

Across dark halls of houses: thou wilt see

The many mites in many a manner mixed


Amid a void in the very light of the rays,

And battling on, as in eternal strife,

And in battalions contending without halt,

In meetings, partings, harried up and down.


On the Nature of
Electron States of Motions


Namely, because such tumblings are a sign


That motions also of the primal stuff

Secret and viewless lurk beneath, behind.

For thou wilt mark here many a speck, impelled


On the Nature of
Vectors Manifolds, Angular Momentum and Brownian Motion/Einstein



By viewless blows, to change its little course,

And beaten backwards to return again,

Hither and thither in all directions round.

Lo, all their shifting movement is of old,

From the primeval atoms; for the same

Primordial seeds of things first move of self,

And then those bodies built of unions small

And nearest, as it were, unto the powers

Of the primeval atoms, are stirred up

By impulse of those atoms' unseen blows,

And these thereafter goad the next in size;

Thus motion ascends from the primevals on,

And stage by stage emerges to our sense,


On the Nature of Perception/
Quantum versus Relativistic
States of Apparent Motion


How 'tis that, while the seeds of things are all



Moving forever, the sum yet seems to stand


Supremely still, except in cases where



A thing shows motion of its frame as whole
 
 
On the Nature of  
The Garden Hose Dimensions, Infinites
 and Projective Spaces



For mark, indeed, how things we can see, oft



Yet hide their motions, when afar from us

Along the distant landscape. Often thus,

Upon a hillside will the woolly flocks

Be cropping their goodly food and creeping about

Whither the summons of the grass, begemmed

With the fresh dew, is calling, and the lambs

Well filled, are frisking, locking horns in sport:

Yet all for us seem blurred and blent afar-

A glint of white at rest on a green hill.

Again, when mighty legions, marching round,

Fill all the quarters of the plains below,

Rousing a mimic warfare, there the sheen

Shoots up the sky, and all the fields about

Glitter with brass, and from beneath, a sound

Goes forth from feet of stalwart soldiery,

And mountain walls, smote by the shouting, send

The voices onward to the stars of heaven,


And hither and thither darts the cavalry,

And of a sudden down the midmost fields

Charges with onset stout enough to rock

The solid earth: and yet some post there is

Up the high mountains, viewed from which they seem

To stand- a gleam at rest along the plains.


On the Nature of
The Speed of Light
Now what the speed to matter's atoms given


Thou mayest in few, my Memmius, learn from this:


When first the dawn is sprinkling with new light


The lands, and all the breed of birds abroad


Flit round the trackless forests, with liquid notes


Filling the regions along the mellow air,


We see 'tis forthwith manifest to man


How suddenly the risen sun is wont

At such an hour to overspread and clothe

The whole with its own splendour; but the sun's

Warm exhalations and this serene light


Travel not down an empty void; and thus


They are compelled more slowly to advance,


Whilst, as it were, they cleave the waves of air;


Nor one by one travel these particles

Of the warm exhalations, but are all

Entangled and enmassed, whereby at once

Each is restrained by each, and from without


Checked, till compelled more slowly to advance.


But the primordial atoms with their old


Simple solidity, when forth they travel


Along the empty void, all undelayed

By aught outside them there, and they, each one

Being one unit from nature of its parts,


Are borne to that one place on which they strive


Still to lay hold, must then, beyond a doubt,


Outstrip in speed, and be more swiftly borne


Than light of sun, and over regions rush,

Of space much vaster, in the self-same time

The sun's effulgence widens round the sky.


On the Nature of
Newtonian Gravitation


With what a force the water will disgorge



Timber and beam? The deeper, straight and down,


We push them in, and, many though we be,


The more we press with main and toil, the more


The water vomits up and flings them back,


That, more than half their length, they there emerge,


Rebounding. Yet we never doubt, meseems,

That all the weight within them downward bears

Through empty void. Well, in like manner, flames


Ought also to be able, when pressed out,


Through winds of air to rise aloft, even though


The weight within them strive to draw them down.


Hast thou not seen, sweeping so far and high,

The meteors, midnight flambeaus of the sky,

How after them they draw long trails of flame

Wherever Nature gives a thoroughfare?

How stars and constellations drop to earth,

Seest not?


Newton's Spectra

 Nay, too, the sun from peak of heaven



Sheds round to every quarter its large heat,


And sows the new-ploughed intervales with light:



On the Nature of  Atomic Weights 
Newton's Calculus
 

We wish thee also well aware of this:


The atoms, as their own weight bears them down

Plumb through the void, at scarce determined times,


In scarce determined places, from their course


Decline a little- call it, so to speak,


Mere changed trend. For were it not their wont

Thuswise to swerve, down would they fall, each one,


Like drops of rain, through the unbottomed void;


And then collisions ne'er could be nor blows

Among the primal elements; and thus

Nature would never have created aught.

LUCRETIUS


     I am Very Thankful To Charly Rose on PBS and his excellent Show which bring together some of the Brightest, most Articulate and Diverse Collection Minds round his Table to bear witness to lives and events Near and Far from the Mainstream - Including the Yale Professor Steven Greenblatt and his Award Winning Book The Swerve.(on Lucretius and the Nature of Things)
     It reignited in the Popular Discussion the influence of Lucretius on a Host of great Men and Women who went on to Shape their Times. It also provoked in us who are of our time and were Inspired by Lucretius that sometimes the Toils and Insights we bear in Private art often Shared by Like Minds...even Centuries...Millenia...Minutes...now naoseconds Apart.

PETER

Pollen Grain, The Sun and Electron Cloud Alpha/Beta Orbits about the Nucleon

Collage by Peter G Pereira - 2012