Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science--from the Babylonians to the Maya

by Dick Teresi

Boldly challenging conventional wisdom, acclaimed science writer and Omni magazine cofounder Dick Teresi traces the origins of contemporary science back to their ancient roots in an eye-opening account and landmark work.
This innovative history proves once and for all that the roots of modern science were established centuries, and in some instances millennia, before the births of Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton. In this enlightening, entertaining, and important book, Teresi describes many discoveries from all over the non-Western world -- Sumeria, Babylon, Egypt, India, China, Africa, Arab nations, the Americas, and the Pacific islands -- that equaled and often surpassed Greek and European learning in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, cosmology, physics, geology, chemistry, and technology.
The first extensive and authoritative multicultural history of science written for a popular audience, Lost Discoveries fills a critical void in our scientific, cultural, and intellectual history and is destined to become a classic in its field.

Genres: History, Science, Nonfiction, History Of Science, Audiobook, Education, Ancient History

464 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Dick Teresi is the coauthor of The God Particle and the author of Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science, both selected as New York Times Book Review Notable Books. He has been the editor in chief of Science Digest, Longevity, VQ, and Omni, and has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic, among other publications.

Reviews

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an interesting book on how modern science and mathematics, long believed to have come purely from Greek roots, in fact arose from a much broader base of ancient cultures, including Babylonia, India, China and the Arab world as well as Greece. There is much to be learned here.

Unfortunately, the level of scholarship in the book leaves something to be desired. For instance, the critical early sections on mathematics are based almost entirely on letters and emails from two colleagues -- Kaplan and Joseph. Numerous points, such as the author's claim that ancient societies anticipated integral calculus, are footnoted only to private email messages from Kaplan or Joseph.

There are also some odd and disappointing inconsistencies. For example, in the chapter on astronomy, the author mentions Aryabhata's writings in 499 CE, including material on "astronomy, spherical trigonometry, arithmetic, algebra and plane trigonometry". Yet this same pivotal author, whose writings are the first to present our modern arithmetic system, is completely unmentioned in the mathematical chapter.

In summary, I completely agree with the author's premise that traditional scientific writers (such as Morris Kline, the writer who has dismissed most non-Greek and non-European mathematics) have badly missed numerous key contributions from other non-Western sources. But I am quite disappointed in the author's scholarship.

Someone needs to write a better book on this topic.

[Silver · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was difficult to decide how to rate this book, because while on the one hand I did thoroughly enjoy reading the book as I found the subject matter to be truly fascinating, on the other hand I found that the way in which the content was presented left something to be desired.

While the content within the book is truly interesting the author presents it in a less than interesting way making the reading at points a bit dry and difficult to grind through. Teresi may be knowledgeable and a good researcher but I fear that he is not a good writer.

I did learn a great deal from this book and I was glad for having read it. I personally thought one of the most interesting, at least to read, chapters was the chapter on Cosmology, as I am fascinated by creation stories from different cultures. In addition because the subject dealt a lot more with myth rather than talking of science and math it did help make the reading a bit more interesting and easy going. It is also interesting to see the similarities between the different cultures.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting read so close after Carnage and Culture.  While the two books don't address exactly the same topic, Lost Discoveries does show how pernicious the Western bias is in many academic works.  It's this bias that makes me all the more suspicious of the assertions in 'Carnage'.What kind of surprised me was just how recent the Western bias is.  The ancient Greeks gave copious credit to the earlier Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations for their thoughts in mathematics, astronomy, physics, and other fields.  The Medieval Europeans knew that much of their sciences were coming from the Islamic world, not just left over from Greece and Rome.That said, Teresi really lost me on some of the cosmology and deep physics discussions.  Yes, it is interesting to look at creation myths and see how closely (or not) they mirror our current Big Bang, quantum physics, string theory beliefs.  But just because the ancient Hindus kinda guessed right (or closer to right than the medieval Christians did) doesn't make creation myths any less wild-ass guesses or kooky.

[Isaac · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read for anyone who likes popular science books. Scientific inquiry was never an exclusively western-european endeavor, though many of the quick historical surveys written make it seem that way. African, Indian, Asian, Central/South American cultures all feed into the thing that is called western science. Respect it!

[عبد الله القصير · Rating 3 out of 5]

اكتشافات مفقودة, الكتاب يبحث في الاكتشافات العلمية الحديثة وعلاقتها مع الاكتشافات العلمية القديمة والتي تمت عن طريق حضارات غير غربية.

[William Schram · Rating 4 out of 5]

Other cultures discovered scientific things, too. That is Dick Teresi’s thesis in Lost Discoveries. I can go along with this. It makes a lot of sense. All people have capacities for deep thought.

I have some issues with the book, but most come from one inaccuracy. Andrew Wiles proved Fermat’s Last Theorem, and I don’t think he was at Princeton when he did so. However, I was wrong about that bit. It was probably just a typo.

The book is about precedent. Who invented electricity and the theorems underlying their use? Who invented mathematics? Some of these questions have no definitive answer.

On the other hand, to take the stance that Western Science is the root of all civilizations is insulting. It implies that these foreign, non-Western people needed saving, and that position irritates me. That’s one reason why I hate Men in Black with Will Smith.

I enjoyed the book. Thanks for reading my review, and see you next time.

[Juan Fuentes · Rating 3 out of 5]

En muchas ocasiones me da la impresión -seguramente equivocada- de que el autor no entiende demasiado de ciencia.

Ligeramente decepcionante en ocasiones, interesante en otras. Se deja leer.

https://liblit.com/dick-teresi-los-gr...

[Connor Lawless · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting book covering the history of scientific discovery throughout the ancient world and the true origins of certain subjects. This is an important subject however I feel like the execution of this book is lacking. Many of the facts from who discovered when's sources are from letters between about 3 people and are not a very reliable or primary sources. This is a problem for a book encompassing so much history and important discoveries. The writing style is also a little all over the place, jumping from personal anecdotes to stories to the ancient history of the sciences. I would recommend this to people who are die hard when it comes to science however beyond that I wouldn't be sure.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

an interesting idea, if not exactly as earth shattering as Teresi intended. He ably points out several of the technologies and sciences that allowed European society to become a dominant force in the 17th-20th Centuries, and traces them back to their origins in Asia and Africa. If the book would have focused on this, and analyzed why the originators lacked to find the potential in many of these technologies, he would have had an excellent book with a strong thread and a cogent point.

Instead, he reaches out for ANY potential breakthrough, and moves from solid, provable facts to generous interpretation of ancient philosophies to claim that ancient civilizations had rudimentary understandings of fields such as atomic structure, the age of the universe, and even quantum theory. Plucking a minute data point out of a philosophy because it happens to share a similarity with current science (i.e., a veda which spoke of spinning energies being equated to the spin of a quark) is not a strong argument. Comparing it to what fallacious concept the Greeks had concurrently gives it no more credence, nor does his habit of pointing out a dozen claims, and arbitrarily saying which he believes are accurate without justification. It merely creates the appearance of scholasticism without the work.

I'm unsure if I'm happy or not about how he wraps things up. Considering he spends a full paragraph to tie together his observations at the end of 300 pages, I prefer to think of the book as an anthology of columns rather than an actual effort to examine the issue in toto. I'm almost afraid of what unsupported conclusion he would have come to -- though mercifully, his musings do not seem to point to the alien visitors so many who have studied ancient technology resort to.

[Rebekah Kohlhepp · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the surface, Dick Teresi’s Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science—from the Babylonians to the Maya is an eye-opening and thought-provoking book on the history of non-Western science. It is a book I would recommend to anyone who believes in the “Greek miracle,” who takes Carl Sagan’s words about the Ionian birth of science at face value, and generally anyone who wants to take a less white, less Western perspective on both science and history as wholes. However, anyone who reads this must also be able to question what they are reading, ask for the author’s sources and motivation, and be ready to think for themselves despite the author’s biases.

Basically, Teresi’s chapter on cosmology was his way of sneaking his fringe beliefs into a book that is otherwise pretty good. He argues that every culture has their creation myth, and in our current time (as of 2002, at least) the big bang (which he intentionally lowercases) is ours. From my positive impression of him and his even-handedness at the beginning of the chapter, I was increasingly surprised to see him aggressively dismiss everything from inflation to the multiverse hypothesis. He did not explicitly say that the Universe must have been created by God, but it was heavily implied. He also showed great disdain later on for theoretical physics as a whole.

Read more: https://sheseeksnonfiction.blog/2021/...

[John Bruni · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just couldn't get into this book, but I don't think it's Teresi's fault. I don't think I'm smart enough to understand a lot of the things he discusses. It didn't help that he started out with a chapter heavy on math. I'm pretty intelligent when it comes to some things, but math is definitely not one of them. Because of this, it was hard to continue with the book. I did stick with it, and the later chapters were more enjoyable. I love the idea of this book. As Americans, we think history goes back only so far as the scientific accomplishments of Western Europe. However, the East (China, in particular) were much better with science, exploration and invention than the West has ever been. For example, Gutenberg wasn't the first guy to come up with the printing press. Not true. In the East, they'd been printing books, albeit differently, almost a thousand years before Gutenberg. Also, we don't give Islamic scholars nearly enough credit for keeping the sciences alive through the Dark Ages to the Renaissance. All in all, this is a good book, but it's not for everyone. It's a very hard read, but a lot of it is worth it.

[Richard Rogers · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me over a year to finish. Sometimes a page a week.

I swear, the central conceit of the book--"The ancient roots of modern science"--is right up my alley. I love this stuff. And there were some excellent chapters in the book. The part on science and math was great.

But there were some long, dull sections that have almost no point. Super well researched, full of awesome detail, but mostly sound and fury. The chapters on cosmology and physics seem so pointless I almost got mad at the book. Okay, I did get mad. The author connects early scientific thought from different cultures to modern concepts in physics, but he does it in about the same way that you can connect children playing "Red Rover" to black holes or evaporation or something. "Many ancient cultures had inklings of quantum theory," he writes. "Where did this come from?" I dunno--ancient astronauts? (Eye roll.) The combination of granular detail and incredibly suspect correlations was frustrating and off-putting. If myths from Oceania suggest a Big Bang origin of the universe and Sumerian tradition suggests a plasma universe, what are we to conclude but that the author is messing with us because it's kinda nonsense?

It's a shame, because so much of the book was interesting and grounded in history and reality. The ancient Chinese inventions like paper and gunpowder and amazing devices for measuring earthquakes and such were very exciting and worth learning about. That was good. My opinion? (Why stop now?) A book 1/2 or maybe 2/3 as long could have been great.

I learned some things, but I didn't enjoy reading the book. Let's call it even.

[Michael Norwitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dick Teresi's book is an account of early science and technology from non-European cultures, arguing against the narrative that such ideas were the exclusive invention of the ancient Greeks, then passed down to the rest of Europe. Some of the material is presented in a muddled fashion (and the Cosmology section is nearly impenetrable, the author's disdain for theoretical physics not helpful in the area), and there are a handful of factual errors, but most of the book I found interesting, and it would be a good starting point for someone wishing to research ancient non-European cultures further.

[Tim Fitzgibbon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great source of alternative information than mainstream science history classes, but his points are often convoluted trying to match up ancient beliefs with current evidence based theory. For example: an ancient people's creation myth is insinuated to be equal to our current standard model of particle physics.

It was billed as roots of modern science but was more aligned with an interesting look at separate findings and beliefs that sometimes were picked up by other cultures but many times were not.

[Will Plunkett · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is about "lost" discoveries just as Columbus or other European explorers made "discoveries" in the Americas or Africa or Asia. Across 350+ pages and 60+pages of Notes and Bibliography, the author shows not that Europeans were wrong about their exploits, but that other peoples had done so long before. A book like this is evidence (pun intended) that facts are important, even if it takes a long time to make that information more available to the public.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Libro profundo y denso, aunque vale la pena leerlo y entender que la primera cultura importante no fue la griega, o que la base de toda la ciencia no se creo solo en occidente.
En resumen, dejarse de mirar el ombligo

[Stef Lynn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Interesting topic but the writing is slow and boring

[Arkrayder · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book fascinating reading but the presentation of the information leaves a lot to be desired. The book as a consequence is dry and a bit boring to read. Also needs more citations.

[Miriam · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted it to both be interesting and well written. It was long and meandering but had interesting bits sprinkled in it. Not really worth the read to find the bits of interesting.

[Adler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative about where many modern place sciences have ancient roots in.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not really lost discoveries, maybe underappreciated, at best. Gets really repetitive with its fake awestruck at the fact that non European's are capable of invention.

[Susan Slack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay I admit I couldn't make it all the way through. I do love the science but was lost most of time. That's okay, though. I like to "read up". In the parts I do know a little about, I found some pretty big errors. For instance, he puts the building of the pyramids at 45,000 BCE! Nope. Hope that was a typo. It is closer to 4,500 BCE. (Eats Shoots and Leaves all over again) Later he quotes one "authority" who estimates that Zoroastrianism started in the 4th Century BCE. Nope. It existed thousands of years prior. The authority was probably noting the addition of Mithra into their cosmology which happened at that time. Just so happens that as each conquering hero invaded the territory, they destroyed most all evidence of what came before. (Does this sound familiar to today's happenings?)

Those are pretty big errors. His writing style is wanting, too. Nonetheless, I do admire Mr. Teresi's attempt to put all this information together in one package. So much of his information, if correct, is really fascinating. I will attempt to finish it on a cold winter night when I can't sleep.

[Julien Rapp · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an enjoyable book in that it opened the pages of long lost ideas and discoveries made around the world and across a wider expanse of time than we are generally taught. However having an idea, or a myth expressing an idea, that is later proven through mathematics or what we now call the scientific method of replication and proofs, is not the same as understanding how things actually work, or being able to explain them. And not only mention them, but to use them to build new things that make our lives easier of allow us to learn even more about the world in which we live. On the other hand, how many science fiction writers are credited with predicting the future? It is fascinating to learn how other people from earlier times came up with incredible ideas that we take for granted today.
The true test of science is what it can do for us. But the ideas that give scientists goals for search and understanding is what gets the ball rolling.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was excited to read this for the topic but was pretty disappointed. This book challenges the notion that the scientific method sprang fully-formed from Greek (western) civilization from a man who started with exactly that premise before starting his research. I wouldn't recommend slogging through the whole thing - particularly the cosmology section is a drag to read (surprising considering it is a mash-up of origin tales & modern science) - rather, pick and choose those passages that most interest you... in my case it was the mathematics portions. Take this alongside Lies My Teacher Told Me and you have a decent set of data to show two things 1) civilization doesn't continue on an upward trajectory, it rises & falls & 2) modern scholarship and science has much to be grateful for from the ancient (and oft-uncredited) peoples of many a non-Aryan race

[Josh Street · Rating 1 out of 5]

This title was thoroughly disappointing. The author waffles between some form of bizarre Euro-guilt and outright distaste for actual science. While the historical notes are interesting, they are typically used to support tangential claims of denigrated contributions from other societies (while sometimes true, often his own research points out that the world-wide discovery of previous scientific findings occurred after western reinvention - it is unclear what the author wants - a renaming of theorems to reflect the now uncovered original discoverer???). More infuriating is the author's need to equate religion and science - it seems an odd editorial choice when considering the stated topic of the work. Combined with numerous inaccuracies in relating scientific theories and discoveries, I simply can't recommend this book to anyone.

[Ell Eastwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

So this book is about the misconception that science was invented by the Ancient Greeks then reinvented during the Renaissance while all other culture invented the fire and then called it quits, waiting for Europeans to invent everything.

It's an interesting read, especielly since I feel that during the more than ten years that has passed since it being published, I don't think much has changed: I feel that the version were Europeans invented science is still prevalent, and that lots of people will never see it another way. Which is a shame.

That said, I enjoyed the first chapter on math, the best. If the entire book had been like that, the rating would have been higher, but even so it was an enjoyable read and I recommend it.

[Tom Schulte · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is a nice overview comparing western achievements in science and technology with non-Western accomplishments. it is organized by category (mathematics, physics, cosmology, medicine, technology and so on) and. within that cultures around the world. I felt the connections drawn between quantum mechanics and religious philosophies was a stretch given too much attention. the ending of chinese technology especially around gunpowder, metallurgy and navigation was very good and central to the theme.

[Georgene · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has been my "read before sleeping" book for the last 6 weeks. All in all, I found it fascinating and thought provoking. I have been disturbed to discover that as much as I have liked this book, there are some factual errors in it, which leads me to wonder how many other errors I have missed. I wouldn't term this book "junk", but read it with the idea in mind that there are errors of fact within its pages.

[Jrobertus · Rating 2 out of 5]

this scholar records various sciences, math, astronomy, geology, chemistry, and technology, in various ancient cultures, like babylonian, egyptian, indian, chinese, meso-american, incan and african. the take home idea is that science was not invented in the west, but assembled there. ok read, but too long winded.

[Kami · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the information in the book was fascinating, the writing was poor though; repetitive explanations abound and then other concepts and people are sparsely discussed. Here's a link to my more complete review.