h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The Gordian knot was made unsolvable by King Gordias, but it held the promise that anyone who did manage to loose the knot would rule Asia, at that time most of the known world.

At 23, Alexander the Great, after being one of a multitude of high-born princes trying various techniques, waited for the holy sun's first rays to strike the knot from the far horizon and with one mighty heave from his sword he split the knot from top to toe.

This is the myth of the `Gordian Knot', the solution that cuts through the problem with a single stroke. Alexander was only 23 at the time and had many victories before him. He died in India, far away from his homeland Macedonia.

He never lost a battle in his life.

He also founded the city of Alexandria in Egypt, in which was built the world famous Musaeon and Library. The Library was the repository of the sum total of knowledge in the world in it's time.

It was sacked by Christian mobs, and the books it contained destroyed in the second century AD.

Scholars today calculate that this act put scientific research back by at least a century or more.........


GT

Yes, Gandy, Edward Gibbon claimed later that the Library of Alexandria was destroyed by Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, who ordered the destruction in 391. Because the precious works it housed were scientific, philosophical, far from being dogmatically Christian. Gee, thanks, Theo.

Racists take note, mobs or not: what was eventually discovered (e.g. Aristotle's works) were actually manuscripts preserved by arabs, before they collectively took a leaf out of Theo's book (no pun intended) and clamped down on anything non-Koranish, much as Theo had with Christianity.

Correct Jabs........

It is thanx to the Arabs that we have things like Algebra and Geometry today. They preserved quite a lot of the Alexandrine stuff that would have been lost otherwise!



GT