On the Shoulders of Giants
Nathaniel Libatique, Ph.D.
 Cosmos vs Chaos: Matter, Society, Spirit
 Greek: Nature is inherently ordered & can be
apprehended rationally.
 Roman: ius civile, ius gentium, and ius naturale.
ius scriptum and ius non scriptum.
 Judeo-Christian: Wisdom 7:22b-24,30b.
Proverbs 25:2. Proverbs 8:30-31.
II. Mount Olympus
Mount Rainer, Washington behind lenticular clouds.
III. Roman Order:
A. Jus Naturale
 Although the natural law tradition has roots in
ancient Greece, it was first codified in Roman law
under categories:
a) jus naturale (“natural law”)
b) jus gentium (“the laws of nations”), &
contrasted w/
c) jus civile (“civil law”).
 Natural law -universally applicable expression of
right reason, eternal & unchanging.
 Natural Law provided a guide to proper action—
it underwrote ethical behavior, as well as social
divisions between “natural” categories, such as
the roles of the 2 sexes & differences between
children & adults.
B. Jus Gentium
 Latin for "law of nations"
 originally part of Roman law that Roman Empire
applied to its dealings w/ foreigners, especially
provincial subjects.
 In later times the Latin term came to refer to the
natural or common law among nations
considered as states w/in a larger human
society, especially governing the rules of peace
and war, national boundaries, diplomatic
exchanges, and extradition, that together with
jus inter gentes makes up public international
law.
IV. Judeo-Christian Optimism
 Wisdom as principle of creation:
a) For he gave me sound knowledge that I
might know the organization of the
universe & force of its elements, the
changes in sun's course & variations of
seasons, positions of stars, natures of
animals, tempers of beasts, uses of
plants & virtues of roots
b) For Wisdom taught me, in her is a spirit
intelligent, holy, unique, Manifold,
subtle, agile, clear, unstained, certain,
not baneful, loving the good, kindly,
Firm, secure, tranquil, all-powerful, all-
seeing,
c) Wisdom is mobile beyond all motion, &
she penetrates & pervades all things
passing into holy souls from age to age,
she produces friends of God and
prophets. (Wisdom 7: 17-27)
 God Himself is a word spoken and is incarnate:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God. All things
came into being through him and the Word
became flesh. (John 1: 1,3,14)
V. "The Venerable Bede Translates John"
by J. D. Penrose (ca 1902)
Image of Socrates painted by Arabs during Middle
Ages
 Christian Monasticism & Arabian Civilization
preserved the DNA of Greek & Roman
Civilizations for its eventual reflowering in the
High Middle Ages of Europe and subsequent
Renaissance.
VI. Brief history of science
 Κόσµος –orderly intelligible universe
 Cumulative Progress – Individuals matter in the
march of history: “If I have seen further than
other men, it is because I have stood on the
shoulders of giants.” (Isaac Newton)
 Distinct Method of Inquiry: Logic and Experiment
go hand in hand
VII. Parallels
 The beginnings of numbers and number theory
and RSA (Rivest Shamir Adleman)
 Gutenberg and Google
 Plato’s concept of Essence vs. Object Oriented
programming
 Find your own parallels!
  Look for the ancient or medieval roots of a
modern scientific field, application or world
view!

VIII. Prime Numbers

 Numerology – numbers have mystical

significance
 Pythagoras’ school – “perfect number” = proper
divisors sum up to the number itself. Examples
include: 6 and 28.
 Euclid: every integer can be written as a product
of primes
 Sieve of Erathosthenes – way of calculating
primes
 Rivest-Shamir-Adleman highly secure
IX. Ishango Bone cryptography method by RSA Security, Inc.,
Bedford, MA (www.rsa.com), a division of EMC
 Though the area is sparsely populated today,
Corpo. since 2006. It uses a 2-part key. Private
approximately 25,000 (update from 9,000) years
key- kept by owner; public key-published.
ago by the shores of the lake lived a small
 Data are encrypted by using recipient's public
community that fished, gathered, & grew crops.
key, w/c can only be decrypted by recipient's
 The settlement only existed a few hundred years
private key. RSA is very computation intensive; it
before being buried in a volcanic eruption.
is often used to create digital envelope, w/c
 The place where their remains were found
holds RSA-encrypted DES key and DES encrypted
(1960) has named the people- Ishango.
data. This method encrypts secret DES key so
 Among their remains is the second oldest
that it can be transmitted over the network, but
mathematical object in Africa.
encrypts & decrypts actual message using much
 Some say that the Ishango Bone is the oldest
faster DES algorithm.
table of prime numbers. Marshack later
 RSA is also used for authentication by creating a
concluded, on the basis of his microscopic
digital signature. Sender's private key- for
examination, that it represented a 6-month
encryption, & sender's public key-for decryption.
lunar calendar, prime numbers or menstrual
 The RSA algorithm is also implemented in
calendar.
hardware. As RSA chips get faster, RSA encoding
and decoding add less overhead to the operation
X.

 Plato- Essence
 Aristotle- Aesthetics
 Pythagoras, Euclid- Geometry
 Newton- The Calculus & the Mechanistic World
 Einstein- Special Relativity
 Fermat- Principle of Least time
 Feynman- Quantum Electrodynamics

 "The equation is another way of saying that love

can sometimes be complicated
 "It also implies that Love can be quantified"
 "Another implication of the Love equation is that
Love has symmetry"
 "Love is not a FUNCTION, it is a RELATION"
 "Love is REAL; it is not IMAGINARY"
 "Love has an ABSOLUTE VALUE"
 "Love is a UNION & an INTERSECTION not a
SEPARATION OF VARIABLES..."
 LOVE = [PERSON1 (union) PERSON2] & PERSON1
(intersection) PERSON2]”
 "I wish you were sine squared theta and I was
cosine squared theta so together we could be
one"