The meaning of the ancient, pre-Socratic scientific theories will be rethought in light of modern physics, and fresh, new interpretations will be presented. It will then be realized that, not only the rationality in pure abstract thought of the pre-Socratic philosophers makes now more sense, but most importantly, that their scientific theories, which were the first ever, indeed support unbelievably well a realistic interpretation of nature on a most fundamental level, according to modern science.

Specifically, it will be shown that, in light of modern physics, 1) many ancient Greek scientific theories are profoundly and fundamentally similar with our modern scientific ones, more often than what has ever been thought of up to now. That is, despite the fast-growing and ever-changing field of science, it will be shown that some ancient ideas appear to have a timeless appeal, and have been proven to be core concepts in modern physics. And 2) the pre-Socratic philosophers have contemplated on the most ultimate of scientifically-oriented philosophical questions, which are still unanswered today, even with all the advancement of modern physics. For example, whether something can be created from nothing, or whether there is such a thing as nothing, on continuity of space, time, matter, on the primary substance of matter, on competing opposites and conservation laws, on the ultimate changes in nature, the origin of the cosmos, etc.

Once it is shown that the relation between ancient and modern scientific theories, is fundamentally closer more often than ever before thought of, one can reason out, that the experimental work carried out during the last few decades as a result of technological advancement that allowed sophisticated experiments to be designed and implemented, no only confirms the predictions and validity of modern physics, but also the correctness, at least on a fundamental level, of many ancient scientific theories. And the reason it took us so long to realize the fundamental similarity between the ancient and modern theories of science, is because their theoretical (intellectual) understanding was literally millennia ahead from their or anyone else’s technological advancement which was required for devising experiments to verify their theories. It is true that technology advances more slowly than pure thinking, since thinking does not demand making fancy, expensive and complicated tools required by experimental science, rather, only a desiring-to-know mind.

For example, Parmenides’ unchanged oneness (The Being) with one of its implications to be that motion is just a deception of the senses, is generally commented from the point of view of an attractive and perhaps possible philosophical abstraction, but without a specific suggestion of how it is possible that motion is a deception of the senses. But within the context of this book, such an abstraction will be related to experimentally confirmed modern theories of physics. At the same time caution must be applied in arriving at absolute conclusions. Because even though an experimentally confirmed modern physics model may be supportive to Parmenides’ motionless Being, motionlessness as an absolute reality, it will be shown, that still remains an ambiguous concept. In fact, the opposite concept, Heraclitus’ perpetual motion, is also supported by experimentally confirmed modern physics models. Therefore, the lesson from this example (or other situations for which different experimentally confirmed theories support antithetical concepts), must be to be aware of both our mind’s and model’s limitations, a concept well-recognized by the pre-Socratic thinkers, one that should keep us grounded and distant from making absolute statements.

Unfortunately, it is very challenging to know exactly what the early ancient scientists have written, because only fragments from their original writings have survived, or other writers (not necessarily philosophers or scientists, but mere historians) centuries later, referred to them, thus quite possibly altering the original texts due to inability to fully understand it. Looking at these original fragments and references, and using the knowledge of modern physics, to be able to address the two goals set above, first I will try to create a complete picture and understand the essence of the most profound of the ancient scientific theories. I realize that this is a very ambitious task to be undertaken by any single individual, even assuming long and hard work is devoted to it, especially goal 1, but I am hoping to make a beginning.

Some examples from the ancient scientific concepts that will be compared to modern physics will be from the topics of theorization (pure reasoning), experimentation, methodology (i.e. mathematical deductive reasoning), important concepts of the abstract such as a) the fundamental constituents of matter, the notions of b) sameness, c) atomic (quantum nature of matter), d) change, e) symmetry f) quantum "forms" and its relation to Platonic forms, and f) diversity in nature (including the diversity in humans) and the role and interplay of the opposites in it.