How scientific disciplines "branch" (why it matters to the history of design)

 

Ptolemaic model of the universe (the planets and sun move around the earth)

Science is a form of design. Why? Any science form has a writing form, a nomenclature. And the symbols matter for their clarity and maneuverability.

For example, Leibniz symbols for equal sign  ( =) was this:  Π

Greeks did not have a symbol for zero,

 (see omicron at the bottom right)

Check this Wikipedia entry,  

Astrology and astronomy were archaically treated together (Latin: astrologia), but gradually distinguished through the Late Middle Ages, into the Age of Reason.

This was precisely my point yesterday. 

Using the term "archaically," Wikipedia looks at the issue from the future of the "branching" of astrology and astronomy. This is important. 

But we excuse Wikipedia for this faux pas. 

My point is that up to the late middle ages, the study of celestial bodies was ONE DISCIPLINE, not two. 

And if you happen to be alive in 1023, 1223, 1323, or even 1523, and you are a scientist studying astronomy, you are not "ignorant" of anything that doesn't belong in YOUR EPOCH, just as much as we, in 2023, are cannot be ignorant of the science in 2223, two hundred years into our future.

right? 

Take Ptolemy and his geocentric model of the universe. If you are a young person in Alexandria (today, Egypt) in 123 AD, and you're a student of Ptolemy, you have a top world scientist as a teacher! 

And you'd be thrilled to use his model to explain the universe!

Yet, looking at Ptolemy's geocentric model from 2023 looks archaic. 

This is our present model.

We always live inside epochs. You and I are contemporaneous to this epoch. Many of the things we take for granted a hundred years from now will simply fade away. I'm talking about knowledge in general.

That's the right approach to history. 

The same happens with the pair alchemy/chemistry. Even Sir Isaac Newton, the most influential physicist of his time and one of the most important scientists in the history of science, believed in alchemy.

If you were a brilliant physics student in the 17th century, you would give anything to study with Newton. 

No matter how "right" you are in your epoch, you are never quite right in the future of that epoch. 

That's why I'm a skeptic. 

Now back to the history of graphic design. I want you to look at history and everything you see in it with the awe of someone who has internalized this: 

No matter how much we think we know, we only know within the boundaries of our time.