Linnaeus continued to use the symbols for the purpose of distinguishing male and female, and by 1753’s Species Plantarum, he was using the symbols freely įollowing in Linnaeus’ footsteps, other botanists incorporated the symbolism, as did scientists from other fields including zoology, human biology and, eventually, genetics. Linnaeus was also the first to use these signs in a biological context in his dissertation Plantae hybridae (1751), where he used the symbol for Venus to denote a female parent of a hybrid plant and the symbol for Mars to denote a male parent.
In medieval times, European alchemists relied on these shorthand symbols, which were retained through the Enlightenment and used by such notables as Carolus Linnaeus (the father of modern taxonomy who made binomial nomenclature popular), to refer to such metals in his 1735 work Systema Naturae. Writing about these metals, the Greeks would refer to them by their respective gods’ names, and then as now, these were spelled with a combination of letters after awhile, a type of shorthand arose for example, relevant to Mars ( Thouros) and Venus ( Phosphorus): So, for example, the Sun (Helios) was associated with gold (note: in truth, the Sun is white in the human visual spectrum, not yellow) Mars (in Greek, Thouros) was associated with the hard, red metal used to make weapons, iron and Venus (in Greek, Phosphorus) with the softer metal that can turn green, copper. They also came to associate different heavenly bodies with their powerful gods- Mercury, Venus, Mars, Zeus (Jupiter) and Cronus (Saturn).Įach heavenly body, along with its god, was also associated with a particular metal. Logically, then, ancient scholars began to study the heavens in order to better predict, and prepare for, the future. The ancients, after observing how the movements of heavenly bodies like the Sun and planets heralded a corresponding change in events on our planet, eventually came to believe that there was a causal relationship.
The symbols themselves are ancient, and the associations they make date back to the dawn of civilization.
Representing two planets, iron, copper and a couple of Olympian gods, the classical symbols for male and female pack a lot of meaning into a few squiggly lines. asks: Where did the male and female symbols come from?
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