29 June,2010 02:26 PM IST | | Agencies
In what could be called a historical discovery, a science historian at The University of Manchester has cracked "The Plato Code"u00a0-- the long disputed secret messages hidden in the great philosopher's writings.
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Plato was the Einstein of Greece's Golden Age and his work founded Western culture and science.
And Dr Jay Kennedy's findings are set to revolutionise the history of the origins of Western thought.
Kennedy has revealed that Plato used a regular pattern of symbols, inherited from the ancient followers of Pythagoras, to give his books a musical structure.
A century earlier, Pythagoras had declared that the planets and stars made an inaudible music, a 'harmony of the spheres'.
Plato imitated this hidden music in his books.
The hidden codes show that Plato anticipated the Scientific Revolution 2,000 years before Isaac Newton, and discovered its most important idea - the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics.
The decoded messages also reveal a surprising way to unite science and religion.
Plato said that the awe and beauty we feel in nature, shows that it is divine; discovering the scientific order of nature is getting closer to God.
This could transform today's culture wars between science and religion.
"Plato's books played a major role in founding Western culture but they are mysterious and end in riddles," said Kennedy, at Manchester's Faculty of Life Sciences.
"In antiquity, many of his followers said the books contained hidden layers of meaning and secret codes, but this was rejected by modern scholars.
"It is a long and exciting story, but basically I cracked the code. I have shown rigorously that the books do contain codes and symbols and that unravelling them reveals the hidden philosophy of Plato.
"This is a true discovery, not simply reinterpretation," he added.
The discovery would transform the early history of Western thought, and especially the histories of ancient science, mathematics, music, and philosophy.
