How would you title each of the six books of De Rerum Natura?
What would of their names be?
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6.
Just to get the ball rolling...
1. "The True Philosophy"
Book One: Prayer to Mother Nature, Ode to Epicurus, Superstition causes the worst evils, Illuminating lost science in verse, Deities do not control nature, Nothings comes from nothings, Nothing goes to nothing, Particles cannot be seen, Matter is mostly empty space, Density, The Universe is bodies and void, Bodies are particles or compounds, Particles are indestrucible, Refutation of Herákleitos, Summary of pluralisms, Refutation fo Empedoklēs, Refutation of Stoic pneuma, As particles to bodies, so letters to words, Refutation of Anaxagoras, Purpose of poem, A spoonful of sugar, The universe has no edge, Cosmic expansion, Refutation fo Aristotle, There can be no center in infinity, Read and grow confident.
2. "The Play of Particles"
Book Two: The pleasure of prudence, Life is a struggle in darkness, Particle physics (and how!), Particles forever bounce and fall, Brownian Motion (1827), The speed of particles, Refutation of divine providence, Everything falls due to its weight, The swerve is needed for generation, Bodies fall at the same speed in void, The swerve is needed for choice, The swerve is needed for imagination, The Cosmological Principle (1687), Special Relativity (1905), The shapes of the particles, The effects of a particle’s shape, The particles have limited forms, Each form has unlimited particles, Creation and destruction, Everything is a combination, Earth, Mother of the Gods, Religious personification, Differences due to atomic form, Law of Definite Proportions (1797), Particles have no color, There is no color in darkness, Particles are insensible, Awareness arises from blind matter, We come from heavenly seed, From earth back to earth, The innumerable worlds, Inevitability from infinity, Nature is her own mistress, All things must pass,
3. "The Mortal Soul"
Book Three: Proem to Epicurus, Fearless of death, The soul is an organ of the body, Rejection fo Pythagoras, The matter of mind and spirit, The mind and spirit are material, The particle sof the soul, The qualities of the soul, The chemistry of the soul, The union of the body and soul, Experience comes from sensations, Refutation fo Democritus, We live more in mind than in spirit, The soul dies, The mind and spirit are the soul, The soul dissolves upon death, The mind is an organ of the body, Mental illness is real, The mind is a material body, Epileptic seizures, The mind is mortal, The spirit is mortal, The soul is mortal, The mind and body act as one, The soul dissolves upon dying, The mind’s seat in the body, The soul needs a body, Distribution in the body, The soul dies with the body, Refutation of reincarnation, Character is hereditary, There are no “old souls”, A mind cannot live before its body, Death is nothing to us, There is no afterlife, Grief is not the answer, There is no longing in death, What to do with the time before us, We hold but a lease on life, Hell is a bad state of being, None of us own death, Study the nature of things, Do not fear death
4. "Sight, Illusions, Dreams, Sex"
Book Four: The road less traveled, A spoonful of sugar, The nature of perception, All things emit films of particles, Tjhe fineness of the films of particles, Microscopic activities, Pareidolia, Patterns in the clouds, Constant streaming, The speed of light, Seeing or visual perception, Distinguishing distance, Mirror reflection, Lateral Inversation, Angled mirrors, Retina Adjustment, Persistence of Vision, Xanthopsia, Dark Adaptation, Distance Illusion, Beta MOvement, Induced Movement, Parallax, Vanishing Point, Vertigo, The “Moon” Illusion, More Induced Movement, Entasis, Vanishing point, Refraction of Light, Still More Induced Movement, Diplopia or “Double-Visions”, Rapid-eye movement sleep, Refutation of Skepticism, Sensations cannot lie, The other sense perceptions, Hearing or auditory perception, The nature of speech, The nature of echoes, Sitght vs. sound, Tasting or gustatory perception, Food for one is poison for another, Smelling or olfactory perception, The discharge of aroma, Each creature has its own weakness, The nature of imagination, The substance of dreams, The nature of ideas, Rejection of teleology, Consumption and replenishment, Locomotion, The nature of sleep, The content of dreams, Dogs dreaming, Nightmares, Nocturnal enuresis, Nocturnal emissions, Puberty, Sexual psychology, Dangers of Romantic Love, love is blind, Sex is recreational, Biological inheritance, The causes of infertility, Positions for conception
5. "The Story of Life"
Book Five: Proem to Epicurus, A good life requires a pure mind, For Lucretius next trick…, All things must pass, The sun is not a god, The wrold was not made for us, The world is mortal, The world is still fresh, Nature is a mix of bodies and void, Balance between the forces, The forces of creation, The Nebular Hypothesis (1734), Motion of the stars, The plurality of causes, Sourcce of the Sun’s energy, Seasonal arc of the sun, The dance of night and day, The nature of moonlight, Solar and lunar eclipses, Evolution, Mother Earth, Everythign is in flux, Natural selection, Extinction, Mythic hybrids do not exist, Early hominids, Discovery of controlled fire, The origin of civilization, The origin of speech, Fire from lightning, The origin of cooking, The origin of political power, The influence of wealth, Reponse to authocracy, Response to societyal collapse, The origin of religion, The dangers of superstition, The history of metallurgy, Value changes over time, The Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, The laboratory of war, The origin of gender roles, The origin of agriculture, The origin of music, The sake of convenience, Behavioral acclimatization, The origin of timekeeping, The development of the arts
6. "Spectacles and Curiosities"
Book Six: Pleasure is the Greatest Good, The natural sciences, The nature of thunder, The nature of lightning, Speed of lightning vs. thunder, The nature of thunderbolts, The nature of cyclones, Seasonal changes in weather, Superstition is a bad joke, The nature of waterspouts, The nature of clouds, The hydrological cycle, The nature of rainbows, The nature of preciipitation, The nature of earthquakes, The volume of the sea, The nature of volcanos, The plurality of causes, The nature of the Nile River, The nature of toxic gas, Everything is a product of nature, The nature of springs, Burning springs, The nature of magnetism, Compound bodies are mostly void, The nature of disease, Airbone pathogens, The Plague of Athens (430 BCE), Symptoms of the plague, The plague of hopelessness, The inadequacy of religion
