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"The alphabet effect "Do you still argue that the alphabet created the unique conditions for the flowering of science, logic, and mathematics in ancient Greece?" I asked Logan, when we had dinner in September 2010. "Absolutely," he replied with enthusiasm. Logan is a physicist by training, but he has followed the discipline of historical media analysis pioneered by Harold Innis, Walter Ong, and Logan's mentor and co-author, Marshall McLuhan. Logan then quoted McLuhan's book The Gutenberg Galaxy: "By the meaningless sign linked to the meaningless sound we have built the shape and meaning of Western man."29 The Greek alphabet built on its Semitic and Phoenician predecessors by adding a few vowels to a couple dozen consonants. "If you have meaningful signs like ideograms that resemble something visually," Logan told me, "you'll need thousands of signs.""

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