580 2 .:..::....------CQRRESPQNDENCE----NA_TIJRE_vo_L.JOO_IAP_RIL_I9S4 • Artful scientists A Homeric riddle solved • • • again SIR - In 1878, J.H. van't Hoff (who became the first Nobel laureate in white grue + yellow '- green purple and or chemistry in 1901) read an inaugural + red + / . and + brown + pink and or lecture at the University of Amsterdam black '- yellow + grue / blue orange entitled "Imagination in Science". In that lecture, van't Hoff suggested a correlation SIR - I note with interest the recently pre­ systems such as Homeric Greek, which between scientific eminence and creativity ferred explanations of Homer's "wine­ divides the spectrum into only four parts, in the fine arts and literature based upon a dark sea". The field of anthropological the equivalents of "white", "black", study of more than 200 scientific linguistics provides another, more elegant "red" and "yellow"3, and the related biographies. I am attempting to verify solution. adjectives cover a correspondingly wide van't Hoff's thesis with regard to All languages possess between two and spectral band. (Compare Old Irish /ion important scientists since 1800. Van't Hoff eleven basic colour terms, that is, colours dubh "black wine" and glas-muir grue himself was a poet, as were his colleagues that cannot be described as "shades" of sea" within a five-colour system.) 1 Walther Nernst, Fritz Haber and Richard other colours • They enter a language in a HEIDI ANN LAZAR-MEYN Willstlltter. One can add to the list Ronald fixed order2, as shown above, where 9321 Cedar Lane, Ross, Julian Huxley, E.N. da C. Andrade "grue" covers both the green and blue Bethesda, Maryland 20814, USA and Jacob Bronowski. van't Hoff's friend areas of the spectrum. "Grey" can enter at I. Berlin, B. & Kay, P. Basic Color Terms (University of Wilhelm Ostwald was a painter, as were any time after the first five. California Press, Berkeley, 1969). 2. Kay, P. Language 4, 257-270 (1975). Louis Pasteur, F.F. Runge, Ogden Rood, As English has all eleven basic colour 3. Capell, A. Studies in Sociolinguistics (Mouton, The Hague, Ernst Haeckel, Theodor Boveri, Frederick terms, we find it difficult to cope with 1966). Banting, Lord Adrian and C.G. Jung. C.H. Waddington wrote a history of twentieth century science-art interactions. 1 2 Ernst Mach, Hermann von Helmholtz, SIR - Homer's seas were not always SIR- It has been suggested • that Homer James Jeans, Max Planck, Albert Einstein, "wine-dark". Often, they were "gray" addressed the sea as "wine-dark" either Waldemar Voigt and many others had an (Iliad 14:190, Odessy 2:261. .. ) or, because his wine was blue or because dust intense interest in music. J.B.S. Haldane, "bright", "black", even "violet" (Od. clouds at dusk made his sea crimson. C.P. Snow and Leo Szilard wrote works of 5:57, 11:107). Surprisingly, oxen could be The true reason is quite different but fiction. "wine-dark" too (/1. 13:703), while ships equally wonderful. Our colour system is The problem is that all too often these might have "purple-red" cheeks (Od. primarily based on the frequency spectrum nonscientific activities are not mentioned 11:124, 23:271. .. ). Cloaks worn by of light: not so the Homeric one. It was that in obituaries or standard biographies since nobility were invariably plain "purple" great classical scholar and part-time Prime they are regarded as unimportant. The (Od. 4:154). Yarn and wool, however, Minister, William Ewart Gladstone, who actual products (paintings, sculptures, might be "sea-purple" (Od. 6:53, 6:306) or first noted that Homer used colour terms to manuscripts and so on) are even more "violet-dark" (Od. 4: 135). Sometimes a refer primarily to distinctions of light and difficult to locate. Yet to those interested in "steel" or, "bright blue" was mentioned shade3. nonverbal thinking and scientific (11. 18:564, Od. 7:87) or a "grayish blue Thus the word khloros describes both creativity, van't Hoff's hypothesis is an green"- glaucous. green leaves and yellow sand: meaning intriguing one that can only be studied in The mysterious, often-used epithet something like "pale". Whereas glaukos the light of the relevant non-scientific "wine-dark" very possibly did come, in describes grey eyes and green willow leaves: products of the scientist's imagination. part, from the bluish-purple collour of meaning "glinting". So Homer's wine­ Further references to scientists of signifi­ wine mixed with water (Od. 7:164 ...) - dark sea merely had the albedo of wine, not cant professional stature who were notably as has been suggested by others. its frequency. creative in other fields would be Mostly, however, it was probably a Gladstone suggested "the organs of appreciated, as would descriptions of discreet salute to the surly, dark-haired sea­ colour and its impression were but poorly collections or sources of reproductions of god, Poseidon, ever raging against developed among the Greeks of the heroic creative artefacts. Odysseus to take his life. "Flaming" or age" (cited in ref.4). But we need not ROBERTS. ROOT-BERNSTEIN "swarthy" wine, ar8na (11. 1:462, 4:259 asume there was anything physiologically The Salk Institute, ...) was used for libations to the gods. the matter with the ancient Greeks. Indeed p_ 0. Box 85800, Poseidon spent his leisure moments several tribes today have a notion of colour San Diego, California 92138-9216, USA feasting with the Ethiopians, Arlbna, remarkably similar to that of Homer. For "who dwell sundered in twain, the farther­ example5 the Jale of New Guinea have but most of men, some where Hyperion sets two colour terms, corresponding to Proxy records and some where he rises". His watery "dark" and "light"; and the Tiv of Nigeria SIR - The article "Frost rings in trees as realm divided Zeus's heaven and Hades' have three colour terms, meaning "dark", records of major volcanic eruptions" by underworld (/1. 15: 189). He was the jealous "light" and "reddish". LaMarche and Hirschboeck (Nature 307, husband to Amphitrite, the ancient sea One final speculation. According to 121-126; 1984) included the phrase "Re­ goddess and his vengeful roiling of the sea tradition, Homer was blind. Perhaps he cent development of proxy records of past with quakes, storms and winds was akin to was just colour blind? eruptions ... " But what does this mean? a besotted spirit's. His name, 1loaw5awv JONATHANTREITEL This use of "proxy" is unknown to the surely derived from Tro01s, (1) "drink", Department of Physics, Oxford English Dictionary, and two US (2) "husband" and, oarw,(l) "set ablaze"' Stanford University, colleagues I have consulted cannot tell me (2) "divide" (as with the trident). Stanford, California 94305, USA the precise meaning of the phrase "proxy Like Odysseus, Homer the poet-minstrel records''. was probably a frequent sailor from P.R. BELL kingdom to kingdom. He may also have I. Wright, R.H. & Cauley, R.E.D. Nature 303,568 (1982). Department of Botany 2. Rutherfoird-Dyer, R. Nature 306, 110 (1983). felt assailed by treacherous seas. 3. Gladstone, W .G. Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, and Microbiology, J.ASHLEY 457-499 (Oxford University Press, 1858). University College London, 4. Wodworth Psych. Bull. 7 325-334 (1910). 7320 Barberry Lane, 5. Berlin, B. & Kay Basic Color Terms (University of Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK Manlius, New York 13104, USA California Press, Berkeley, 1%9). © 1984 Nature Publishing Group