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The History of Science Portal
The
history of science covers the development of
science from
ancient times to the
present . It encompasses all three major
branches of science :
natural ,
social , and
formal .
Protoscience ,
early sciences , and natural philosophies such as
alchemy and
astrology during the
Bronze Age ,
Iron Age ,
classical antiquity , and the
Middle Ages declined during the
early modern period after the establishment of formal disciplines of
science in the Age of Enlightenment .
Science's earliest roots can be traced to
Ancient Egypt and
Mesopotamia around 3000 to 1200
BCE . These civilizations' contributions to
mathematics ,
astronomy , and
medicine influenced later Greek
natural philosophy of
classical antiquity , wherein formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the
physical world based on natural causes. After the
fall of the Western Roman Empire , knowledge of
Greek conceptions of the world deteriorated in
Latin -speaking
Western Europe during the early centuries (400 to 1000 CE) of
the Middle Ages , but continued to thrive in the
Greek -speaking
Byzantine Empire . Aided by translations of Greek texts, the
Hellenistic worldview was preserved and absorbed into the
Arabic -speaking
Muslim world during the
Islamic Golden Age . The recovery and assimilation of
Greek works and
Islamic inquiries into Western Europe from the 10th to 13th century revived the learning of natural philosophy in the West. Traditions of early science were also developed in
ancient India and separately in
ancient China , the
Chinese model having influenced
Vietnam ,
Korea and
Japan before
Western exploration . Among the
Pre-Columbian peoples of
Mesoamerica , the
Zapotec civilization established their first known traditions of astronomy and mathematics for
producing calendars , followed by other civilizations such as the
Maya .
Natural philosophy was transformed during the
Scientific Revolution in 16th- to 17th-century Europe, as
new ideas and discoveries departed from
previous Greek conceptions and traditions. The New Science that emerged was more
mechanistic in its worldview, more integrated with mathematics, and more reliable and open as its knowledge was based on a newly defined
scientific method . More "revolutions" in subsequent centuries soon followed. The
chemical revolution of the 18th century, for instance, introduced new quantitative methods and measurements for
chemistry . In the
19th century , new perspectives regarding the
conservation of energy ,
age of Earth , and
evolution came into focus. And in the 20th century, new discoveries in
genetics and
physics laid the foundations for new sub disciplines such as
molecular biology and
particle physics . Moreover, industrial and military concerns as well as the increasing complexity of new research endeavors ushered in the era of "
big science ," particularly after
World War II . (
Full article... )
The
military funding of science has had a powerful transformative effect on the practice and products of
scientific research since the early 20th century. Particularly since
World War I ,
advanced science-based technologies have been viewed as essential elements of a successful military.
World War I is often called "the chemists' war", both for the extensive
use of poison gas and the importance of
nitrates and advanced
high explosives . Poison gas, beginning in 1915 with
chlorine from the powerful German dye industry, was used extensively by the Germans and the British ; over the course of the war, scientists on both sides raced to develop more and more potent chemicals and devise countermeasures against the newest enemy gases. Physicists also contributed to the war effort, developing wireless communication technologies and sound-based methods of detecting
U-boats , resulting in the first tenuous long-term connections between academic science and the military. (
Full article... )
List of selected articles
Craniometry , the technique of measuring the
bones of the
skull , was once intensively practiced in
anthropology /
ethnology . Through the 20th century, craniometry—especially measurements of brain volume—was a matter of considerable; among other misuses, the apparent scientific support of craniometric theories for
racism was used to the support the racist ideologies, and ultimately
genocidal policies, of the
Nazi party .
Police photograph of Klaus Fuchs (
c. 1940 )
Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs (29 December 1911 – 28 January 1988) was a German
theoretical physicist and
atomic spy who supplied information from the American, British, and Canadian
Manhattan Project to the
Soviet Union during and shortly after
World War II . While at the
Los Alamos Laboratory , Fuchs was responsible for many significant theoretical calculations relating to the first
nuclear weapons and, later, early models of the
hydrogen bomb . After his conviction in 1950, he served nine years in prison in the United Kingdom, then migrated to
East Germany where he resumed his career as a physicist and scientific leader.
The son of a
Lutheran pastor, Fuchs attended the
University of Leipzig , where his father was a professor of
theology , and became involved in student politics, joining the student branch of the
Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), and the
Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold , the SPD's
paramilitary organisation. He was expelled from the SPD in 1932, and joined the
Communist Party of Germany (KPD). He went into hiding after the 1933
Reichstag fire and the subsequent persecution of communists in Nazi Germany, and fled to the United Kingdom, where he received his
PhD from the
University of Bristol under the supervision of
Nevill Francis Mott , and his
DSc from the
University of Edinburgh , where he worked as an assistant to
Max Born . (
Full article... )
List of selected biographies
May 31
1048 - Birth of
Omar Khayyám , Persian poet, astronomer, mathematician, and philosopher (d.
1131 )
1799 - Death of
Pierre Lemonnier , French astronomer (b.
1715 )
1832 - Death of
Évariste Galois , French mathematician (b.
1811 )
1918 - Death of
Alexander Mitscherlich , German chemist (b.
1836 )
1931 - Birth of
John Robert Schrieffer , American physicist and
Nobel Prize laureate
1941 - Birth of
Louis J. Ignarro , American pharmacologist and
Nobel Prize laureate
1976 - Death of
Jacques Monod , French biologist and
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1910 )
1986 - Death of
James Rainwater , American physicist,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1917 )
2006 - Death of
Raymond Davis Jr. , American physicist and
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1914 )
The following are images from various history of science-related articles on Wikipedia.
Image 1
Francis Bacon was a pivotal figure in establishing the
scientific method of investigation. Portrait by
Frans Pourbus the Younger (1617). (from
Scientific Revolution )
Image 2 The French
Academy of Sciences was established in 1666. (from
Scientific Revolution )
Image 3
Mesopotamian clay tablet-letter from 2400 BC,
Louvre . (from King of
Lagash , found at
Girsu ) (from
Science in the ancient world )
Image 5 The physician
Hippocrates , known as the "Father of Modern Medicine" (from
Science in classical antiquity )
Image 6
Apollonius wrote a comprehensive study of
conic sections in the
Conics . (from
Science in classical antiquity )
Image 7 Page from the
Kitāb al-Hayawān (
Book of Animals ) by
Al-Jahiz . Ninth century (from
Science in the medieval Islamic world )
Image 8 Detail showing columns of glyphs from a portion of the 2nd century CE
La Mojarra Stela 1 (found near
La Mojarra ,
Veracruz , Mexico); the left column gives a
Long Count
calendar date of 8.5.16.9.7, or 156 CE. The other columns visible are glyphs from the
Epi-Olmec script . (from
Science in the ancient world )
Image 9 An Egyptian practice of treating
migraine in ancient Egypt. (from
Science in the ancient world )
Image 10 Self trimming lamp in
Ahmad ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir 's treatise on mechanical devices, c. 850 (from
Science in the medieval Islamic world )
Image 11 An early
Western Han (202 BC – AD 9)
silk
map found in tomb 3 of
Mawangdui , depicting the Kingdom of
Changsha and Kingdom of
Nanyue in
southern China (note: the south direction is oriented at the top) (from
Science in the ancient world )
Image 12 The four
classical elements (fire, air, water, earth) of
Empedocles illustrated with a burning log. The log releases all four elements as it is destroyed. (from
Science in classical antiquity )
Image 15 Diagram from
William Gilbert 's
De Magnete , a pioneering 1600 work of experimental science (from
Scientific Revolution )
Image 18 The 1698
Savery Engine was the first successful
steam engine . (from
Scientific Revolution )
Image 20 Portrait of
Johannes Kepler , one of the founders and fathers of modern
astronomy , the
scientific method ,
natural and
modern science (from
Scientific Revolution )
Image 21 A coloured illustration from
Mansur 's
Anatomy ,
c. 1450 (from
Science in the medieval Islamic world )
Image 24 Modern copy of
al-Idrisi 's 1154
Tabula Rogeriana , upside-down, north at top (from
Science in the medieval Islamic world )
Image 25
Air pump built by
Robert Boyle . Many new instruments were devised in this period, which greatly aided in the expansion of scientific knowledge. (from
Scientific Revolution )
Image 27
Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), (965–1039
Iraq ). A polymath, sometimes considered the father of modern
scientific methodology due to his emphasis on experimental data and on the
reproducibility of its results. (from
Science in the medieval Islamic world )
Image 28 Ancient India was an early leader in
metallurgy , as evidenced by the
wrought iron
Pillar of Delhi . (from
Science in the ancient world )
Image 29 The
Royal Society had its origins in
Gresham College in the
City of London , and was the first scientific society in the world. (from
Scientific Revolution )
Image 30
Vesalius 's intricately detailed drawings of human dissections in
Fabrica helped to overturn the medical theories of
Galen . (from
Scientific Revolution )
Image 31 The first treatise about optics by
Johannes Kepler ,
Ad Vitellionem paralipomena quibus astronomiae pars optica traditur (1604) (from
Scientific Revolution )
Image 32 An ivory set of
Napier's Bones , an early calculating device invented by
John Napier (from
Scientific Revolution )
Image 33 The
Abbasid Caliphate , 750–1261 (and later in Egypt) at its height, c. 850 (from
Science in the medieval Islamic world )
Image 34 Diagram of the
Antikythera mechanism , an analog astronomical calculator (from
Science in classical antiquity )
Image 35 Title page from
The Sceptical Chymist , a foundational text of chemistry, written by Robert Boyle in 1661 (from
Scientific Revolution )
Image 36
Ibn Sina teaching the use of drugs. 15th-century
Great Canon of Avicenna (from
Science in the medieval Islamic world )
Image 37 Scholar Nersi with
Anahita in Persia (from
Science in the ancient world )
Image 39
Pliny the Elder : an imaginative 19th-century portrait (from
Science in the ancient world )
Image 40
Matteo Ricci (left) and
Xu Guangqi (right) in
Athanasius Kircher ,
La Chine ... Illustrée , Amsterdam, 1670 (from
Scientific Revolution )
Image 42
Ptolemaic model of the spheres for
Venus ,
Mars ,
Jupiter , and
Saturn .
Georg von Peuerbach ,
Theoricae novae planetarum , 1474. (from
Scientific Revolution )
Image 44 Image of
veins from
William Harvey 's
Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus . Harvey demonstrated that blood circulated around the body, rather than being created in the liver. (from
Scientific Revolution )
Image 46 The
Tusi couple , a mathematical device invented by the Persian polymath
Nasir al-Din Tusi to model the not perfectly circular
motions of the planets (from
Science in the medieval Islamic world )
Image 47 The physical exercise chart; a
painting on silk depicting
calisthenics ; unearthed in 1973 in
Hunan Province, China, from the 2nd-century BC Western Han burial site of
Mawangdui , Tomb Number 3. (from
Science in the ancient world )
Image 50
Isaac Newton 's
Principia developed the first set of unified scientific laws. (from
Scientific Revolution )
Image 51 A
mosaic depicting Plato's Academy, from the Villa of T. Siminius Stephanus in
Pompeii (1st century AD). (from
Science in classical antiquity )
Image 52
George Trebizond 's Latin translation of Ptolemy's Almagest (c. 1451) (from
Science in classical antiquity )
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