Πάντα Ῥει̃: Everything Flows

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 “παντα ῥει̃” is not verbatim something written or said by the ancient Greek Ionian philosopher Heraclitus, ca. 540- 480 BCE. Rather it is first encountered much later, in the writings of the Roman Simplicius ca. 490- 560CE. Thus, although it is uniformly agreed by Greek scholars that it correctly and concisely distills Heraclitian philosophy, that of constant 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 suggest simply reinstating the two missing diacritical marks, and thus, to express it as “πάντα ῥει̃“ which is the form in which the 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.