On the Nature of Things

First, an apology for only giving it three stars. I am well aware that this is a brilliant piece of poetry, but my Latin is very poor, and I rapidly abandoned my initial plan of reading it in the original with the English translation alongside. In a way, though, I'm following Lucretius's advice: he......more

Epicurian Physics 31 July 2013 Well, here I am, once again sitting in the passenger seat of my Dad's car on our final trek to Melbourne, and since I have been reading, sleeping, or driving for most of the day, I might as well fix up a couple of my reviews while I am sitting here (and since I have a s......more

The antiquity of this book calls for respect and appreciation. However, for a modern reader it is very boring to read. It's a long (300 pages) poem written in the first century BC in which the author pontificates about the physical sciences for the purpose of defending Epicureanism philosophy. It is......more

Perhaps I should say 3.5 stars. 3 because it could be difficult to read at times, taking away from the enjoyment; and it could be rather repetitive and contradictory at times. 4 stars for the amazing content of Lucretius' arguments about the phenomena of the natural world written in 50BCE!!!! Quite......more

Wow, this was a real surprise. Lucretius was just so shockingly ahead of his time. It's probably more important than Newton in terms of the sheer range of thought he originates. His conception of atomic theory is surprisingly accurate, down to recognizing that atoms are composed of about three diffe......more