Facts Archive

New entry added every weekend.

Week 2: The First Encyclopedia.

Naturalis Historia from Pliny the Elder is both considered the earliest encyclopedic work and the largest work to survive from the Roman Empire.. Estimated publishing date on AD 77–79, Natural History was written by an enthusiastic military autodidact, as it was the first work with the intent of covering almost the entire knowledge corpus, managing to polish the future model and reference for the development of encyclopedias. Being researched through pantagruelian lengths, the work contains around 20,000 "facts" drawn from 2,000 literary sources, by 100+ authors. It's composed of 37 "books" (tomes) in total, which at the time ranged on covering every facet of nature; from flora and fauna (which used Aristotle Taxonomy or division of nature, with concepts such as enhaima as the modern vertebrates and anhaima as the invertebrates, and the theory of four element/humors), celestial bodies, and human variety in structure and expression! (such as art, and ethnography). Despite its archaic nature and various contemporary questionable claims (animism being a quite resonant narrative), the proto-encyclopaedia still managed to devise concepts such as intromission theory (which was just entering the optic consensus on Ibn al-Haytham Book of Optics, into the 11th century) well. Being such a complete overview on the ancient world techniques, beliefs and ideas, it's truly a magnificient artifact of natural philosophy!
Relevant Recommended Book: All the Knowledge in the World by Simon Garfield! A book entirely devoted on the history of encyclopedias, Ancient Greek, to Wikipedia. The book index is also sorted alphabetically, for a stronger attachment to the original idea! I also recommend Sam O'Nella for a fun introduction on the topic, at least for the very first two books...

Week 1: History of Chemistry.

One of the milestones of the development of modern chemistry, particularly in the area of oxidation, combustion and reduction, was the proposition of a theorical substance known as phlogiston (borrowed from the Greek phlogistos, “burned”), introduced by Georg Ernst Stahl in the latter 17th century. Its consensus lasted approximately a century. It was conceptualized as an inherent substance present on varying quantities in every material capable of combustion, and was released once it was burned, however, always transfering into another substance.
It intended to explain historically unresearched phenomena, such as calcination (explained as subtype of combustion which lost "phlogiston", as metals were composed of both calx and phlogiston, the former ending as a visible leftover post-combustion) and oxidation (as the absorption of phlogiston). This theory became superseded when Lavoiser formalized the oxygen theory, with his consistent findings on oxygen ubiquitous involvement in various elements reactions of oxidation and reduction, even if the theory wasn't immediately accepted (as there was skeptical chemists, like Joseph Priestley, noticeably one of the discoverers of oxygen), at the beginning of the 18th century, the oxygen theory became the scientific consensus.. Turns out history is full of these speculative, ephemeral "elements"!