Abstract
Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) was born at Stagira, a Greek colony a few miles from the present monastic settlement of Mount Athos. He moved to Athens and at seventeen became a pupil of Plato. Following his master’s death in 347 B.C., he settled in Lesbos, an island off the coast of Asia Minor. His rising reputation as a scholar resulted in an appointment as tutor to the young prince Alexander of Macedon, the future Alexander the Great. Returning to Athens in 336 B.C., Aristotle became one of the most noted public teachers, writers, and philosophers of all time. Included among his many works is the treatise Meteorologica, the inspiration for the growth of meteorology into a science.1
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References
For a discussion of the pre-Aristotelian development of meteorology, see H. Howard Frisinger, “Meteorology Before Aristotle,” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 52, No. 11 (November, 1971): 1078–1080.
Carl B. Boyer, The Rainbow (New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1959), p. 38.
There are now several English translations of this work. The one used here was from the translation by H.D.P. Lee; see Aristotle, Meteorologica, trans. H.D.P. Lee (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952).
Aristotle, De Caelo, trans. W.K.C. Guthrie (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1939), p. 213.
W.S. Fowler, The Development of Scientific Method (London: Pergamon Press, 1962), p. 7.
Aristotle, Meteorologica, trans. H.D.P. Lee (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952) pp. 6–9, 27.
William Napier Shaw, Manual of Meteorology (Cambridge: The University Press, 1926), 1: 76.
Alexander Buchan, Handy Book of Meteorology (London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1868), p. 2; D’Arcy Thompson, “The Greek Winds,” Classical Review 32 (1918): 53.
This is the theory of Anaxagoras, as Aristotle later informs us.
Note that in Hellenic times the earth was considered the center of the Universe, and the other heavenly bodies moved around the earth.
Aristotle, Meteorologica, p. 225.
Harvey A. Zinszer, “Meteorological Mileposts,” Scientific Monthly 58 (1944): 261–264.
Gustav Hellmann, “The Dawn of Meteorology,” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 34 (1908): 228.
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© 1983 American Meteorological Society
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Frisinger, H.H. (1983). Aristotle’s Meteorologica. In: The History of Meteorology: to 1800. Meteorological Monographs. American Meteorological Society, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-940033-91-4_2
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