Re:One possibility... (Score 1)

I call it a possibility because, unless more books survived the destruction of the Great Alexandrian Library and other attempts to obliterate Classical civilization, we will never know for certain what the Greeks had managed to deduce from their knowledge. Our knowledge of ancient Greek civilization is fragmentary and sometimes contradictory. For example, there is evidence of the Greeks frowning on experimental science, preferring the purity of the abstract. This is one reason their steam engine never got anywhere. It never occured to them to see what it could actually do. However, Archimedes was unquestionably an experimental scientist and there is ample evidence of many others.

At the time of the desctruction of the Alexandrian Libary most the important scientific work of the hellenistics was already lost or away from the library. Persecution of scientists started quite before the romans.
We surely lost forever part of their work, I.E. in astronomy, but important parts are left: of Archimedes for istance we still have important books. Some of Euclides (mathematic and optic) the same for others.

Experimental science is addicted at the Greeks of the classical period, at the Egyptin end mesopothamic region, not at the hellenistic. We learned mathematic and geometry -for many many centuries (and still do) - from the Euclides work: is there anybody here who would call it "not science"?!

Archemedes in particular was NOT an experimental scientist, how could you say that is truly a mistery, unless you only know Archimedes from the mith.

You have a theory, you DEMOSNTRATE your theory. That's science. Others after you may apply your theory in practical forms.

But we should equally well not conclude that they failed to see what was right in front of them.

That's NOT the point. The point is that who came after them was not able anymore to understand what was left in front of them. You could easily know it reading their books, Plinius could be a good starting point.