| DOI: 10.3933/APPLRHEOL-24-52918 | WWW.APPLIEDRHEOLOGY.ORG Everything Flows πάντα ῥει̃: Antony N. Beris1, A. Jeffrey Giacomin2* 1 Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA 2 Chemical Engineering Department, Polymers Research Group, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada * Corresponding author: [email protected] Received: 12.3.2014, Final version: 27.4.2014 Abstract: This historical study deepens the rheologist’s understanding of the motto of The Society of Rheology, of its history, and of its many typographies. The motto “ ” is not verbatim something written or said by the ancient Greek Ionian philosopher παντα ῥει̃ Heraclitus, ca. 540 – 480 BCE. Rather it is first encountered much later, in the writings of the Roman Simplicius ca. 490 – 560 CE. Thus, although it is uniformly agreed by Greek scholars that it correctly and concisely distills Heraclitian philosophy, that of con- stant change, and although this is appropriately used as the motto of The Society of Rheology, there is little point in trying to rewrite it into another form (for example to capitalize it) in an effort to be more faithful to an ancient prototype. Rather, we sug- gest simply reinstating the two missing diacritical marks, and thus, to express it as “ “ which is the form in which the πάντα ῥει̃ motto was introduced in 1929. This is also consistent with current typography of ancient Greek writings, in use since the ninth century CE, following the byzantine scholars. We provide Table 1 to facilitate accurate typesetting of the motto. Zusammenfassung: Diese historische Studie liefert dem Rheologen ein vertieftes Verständnis des Leitspruchs der Rheologischen Gesellschaft, seiner Geschichte, und seinen unterschiedlichen Schreibweisen. Der Leitspruch “ ” ist kein Verbatim, das vom frühantiken grie- παντα ῥει̃ chischen Philosophen Heraklit (ca. 540 – 480 v. Chr.) aufgeschrieben oder mündlich überliefert wurde. Im Gegenteil, man trifft auf den Leitspruch zu einem erst viel späteren Zeitpunkt, nämlich in den Schriften des spätantiken griechischen Philosophen Sim- plikios (ca. 490 – 560 n. Chr.). Obwohl es wissenschaftlich erwiesen ist, dass der Leitspruch die heraklitische Philosophie, nämlich die der konstanten Veränderung, in korrekter und prägnanter Weise zusammenfasst, und obwohl dessen Verwendung durch die Rheologische Gesellschaft angemessen ist, gibt es wenig Anlass, dessen Schreibweise zu verändern (z. B. alle griechischen Buch- staben groß zu schreiben), aus der Bestrebung heraus, getreuer an der antiken Urform zu sein. Stattdessen schlagen wir vor, nur die zwei fehlenden diakritischen Zeichen wieder einzusetzen. Der Leitspruch würde dann die Form “ “ annehmen, wel- πάντα ῥει̃ che genau diejenige Form ist, die bei der Einführung im Jahr 1929 verwendet wurde. Das wäre dann auch im Einklang mit der aktuellen Schreibweise, die seit dem neunten Jahrhundert n. Chr., im Anschluss an die byzantinischen Gelehrten, in der antiken griechischen Literatur eingesetzt wird. Wir stellen die Tabelle I bereit, um eine getreue Schreibweise des Leitspruchs der Rheolo- gischen Gesellschaft zu ermöglichen. Résumé: Cette étude historique approfondit la compréhension pour le rhéologue de la devise de The Society of Rheology, de son histoire et de ses diverses typographies. La devise “ ” n’est pas un verbatim, écrit ou dit par l’ancien philosophe grec Ionien Hera- παντα ῥει̃ clitus, ca. 540 – 480 après Jésus Christ. En revanche, on la trouve pour la première fois plus récemment, dans les écritures du Romain Simplicius ca. 490 – 560 après Jésus Christ. Ainsi, bien qu’il soit uniformément convenu par les disciples grecs que cette devise distille correctement la philosophie héraclitienne, c’est à dire, la philosophie du changement constant, et bien que celle- ci soit convenablement utilisée comme devise de The Society of Rheology, il n’y a aucune raison de réécrire la devise sous une autre forme (par exemple, en la réécrivant en lettres grecques majuscules) en essayant d’être plus fidèle à l’ancien prototype. En revanche, nous proposons un simple rétablissement des deux marques diacritiques absentes et, ainsi, que la devise soit expri- mée sous la forme “ “ , c’est à dire, sous la même forme que celle introduite en 1929. Ceci sera également compatible πάντα ῥει̃ avec la typographie actuelle des écritures grecques anciennes, employée depuis le neuvième siècle, suivant les disciples byzan- tins. Nous fournissons la Table I pour faciliter la composition typographique précise de la devise de la Société. Key words: Confucius, Greek accents, Greek breathings, Greek typography, everything flows, Heraclitus, panta rhei, rheology motto © Appl. Rheol. 24 (2014) 52918 | DOI: 10.3933/ApplRheol-24-52918 | 1 | 1 INTRODUCTION translated unequivocally to its intended meaning, “everything flows.” This motto concisely describes the The motto of the science of rheology, and specifically of omnipresence of flow phenomena. The Society of Rheology, is the ancient Greek proverb: In this paper we explore problems with the literal translation of (Section 2), its ancient histori- πάντα ῥει̃ (1) cal origins, and more importantly, its proper interpre- πάντα ῥει̃ (2) tation (Section 3), and the various accents and breath- πάντα ῥεῖ (3) ings that are needed to properly type it (Section 4). We πάντα ῥει̂ further explore Eugene Bingham’s special role in con- Since and are equivalent forms, and since is a com- necting to the subject of rheology and to The ῖ ι̃ ι̂ πάντα ῥει̃ mon writer’s variant of , Typographies 1 through 3 are Society of Rheology (Section 5) and the many ways that ῖ equivalent. We believe that Typography 1, with three has been typed (Sections 6, and Table 1 and πάντα ῥει̃ diacritical markings, one on the letter , another on the Table 2), and, in Section 7, we conclude that Typogra- ρ first letter , and one last one on the letter , is the wis- phy 1 is the best way to type The Society motto. This α ι est way to type this motto. Further, for epsilon, we paper is based on prior reports [1, 2]. choose the Greek small letter symbol, , over the lunate ε epsilon, ϵ, which is normally reserved for mathematics. For when the motto is typed this way, it can be recog- 2 GREEK GRAMMAR AND nized immediately as Ancient Greek, and can then be πάντα ῥει̃ Were we to overlook the diacritical marking on the let- ter in Typography 1 we would get: ρ (4) πάντα ρει̃ and if we then attack this phrase with a dictionary of modern Greek1, as an exercise (as many must have cer- tainly done), we find that is the contracted (archaic) ρει̃ form of the third person singular of the verb , and ρέω means “flow” as in “I flow.” During most of the mod- ρέω ern period, in the 19th and 20th centuries, Modern Greek has existed side-by-side in two forms: A mostly written Table 1: Classification codes of Greek small letters for motto “pure” archaic form, called “katharevousa” ( καθαρεύ- typography. ) and a mostly spoken “popular” simplified form, ουσα called “demotic” ( ). The form “ ” as the con- δημοτική ρει̃ tracted form of the verb, would have appeared only in katharevousa, where, as also in the ancient Greek lan- guage from which it emanates, it coexists with its non- contracted form “ ”. Only the latter form appears in ρέει demotic Greek. Greek verbs have many forms of infinitive. In An - cient Greek, there are four tenses with three voices of infinitive, and in Modern Greek, one tense with two voices. This is perhaps why grammarians classify Greek verbs by their first person present singular forms, and thus, is classified under its first person present sin- ρει̃ gular form . By contrast, the English verb “flows” is ρέω classified under active voice infinitive “to flow” (Eng- lish admits only the present tense infinitive). If we continue our exercise by turning our atten- tion to the first word in Typography 4, we get two dif- ferent translations for (with the accent on the πάντα first ). One is an adverb meaning “always,” and the α other, the nominative case of the plural form of the pro- Table 2: History of The Society of Rheology Motto. noun “ ”, meaning “everything”. The full cases, gen- πα̃ς © Appl. Rheol. 24 (2014) 52918 | DOI: 10.3933/ApplRheol-24-52918 | 2 | ders and number forms of the pronoun “ ” have been 3 ANCIENT GREEK HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY πα̃ς preserved only in katharevousa. In demotic Greek we only encountered certain isolated forms (always with The aphorism has been circulating for quite some time articles) that have since become nouns with very spe- and it is attributed to perhaps the greatest of the Greek cific meaning, such as the singular form “ ” mean- Ionian philosophers, Heraclitus2, ca. 540 – 480 BCE [5]. το παν ing the whole or the universe and the plural form “ He lived in ancient Ephesos at the shore of Asia Minor, τα ” meaning everything. by the Aegean sea, at the end of the sixth century and πάντα One further item to note regarding Typographies 1 through the beginning of the fifth century BCE3. Eph- or 4 is the lack of concordance between the form (plur- esos eventually became the largest commercial city of al) of the (pro)noun and that (singular) of the verb! This Asia minor after the destruction of Miletus by the Per- is a syntax anomaly dating from Homeric times, and is sians in 494 BCE [6]. Heraclitus’s family was aristocrat- fairly common in the old Attic Greek dialect used in both ic. This influenced Heraclitus in that he was always in poetry and prose, thus called “Attic syntax” or “ favor of the few, “aristoi” (the experts), as opposed to αττική ” [3]. It has only been preserved in modern the many, “plethos” (the crowd), and he was against σύνταξη Greek in certain proverbial expressions such as “ the “tyrants” (dictators). The key element of Heracli- τα παι- ” (the kids are playing).