Portal:History of science
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...)
Selected article -
Physics is a branch of science whose primary objects of study are matter and energy. Discoveries of physics find applications throughout the natural sciences and in technology. Historically, physics emerged from the scientific revolution of the 17th century, grew rapidly in the 19th century, then was transformed by a series of discoveries in the 20th century. Physics today may be divided loosely into classical physics and modern physics.
Many detailed articles on specific topics are available through the Outline of the history of physics. (Full article...)Selected image
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.
Did you know
... that the Merton Thesis—an argument connecting Protestant pietism with the rise of experimental science—dates back to Robert K. Merton's 1938 doctoral dissertation, which launched the historical sociology of science?
...that a number of scientific disciplines, such as computer science and seismology, emerged because of military funding?
...that the principle of conservation of energy was formulated independently by at least 12 individuals between 1830 and 1850?
Selected Biography -
Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei (/ˌɡælɪˈleɪoʊ ˌɡælɪˈleɪ/ GAL-il-AY-oh GAL-il-AY, US also /ˌɡælɪˈliːoʊ -/ GAL-il-EE-oh -, Italian: [ɡaliˈlɛːo ɡaliˈlɛːi]) or simply Galileo, was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. He was born in the city of Pisa, then part of the Duchy of Florence. Galileo has been called the father of observational astronomy, modern-era classical physics, the scientific method, and modern science.
Galileo studied speed and velocity, gravity and free fall, the principle of relativity, inertia, projectile motion and also worked in applied science and technology, describing the properties of the pendulum and "hydrostatic balances". He was one of the earliest Renaissance developers of the thermoscope and the inventor of various military compasses, and used the telescope for scientific observations of celestial objects. With an improved telescope he built, he observed the stars of the Milky Way, the phases of Venus, the four largest satellites of Jupiter, Saturn's rings, lunar craters and sunspots. He also built an early microscope. (Full article...)Selected anniversaries
- 1657 - Death of William Harvey, English physician and natural philosopher (b. 1578)
- 1659 - Birth of David Gregory, Scottish astronomer (d. 1708)
- 1723 - Birth of Giovanni Antonio Scopoli, Italian-Austrian physician and naturalist (d. 1788)
- 1726 O.S. - Birth of James Hutton, Scottish geologist (d. 1797)
- 1769 - The transit of Venus is observed from many places in order to obtain data for measuring the distance from the Earth to the Sun, most notably by James Cook in Tahiti.
- 1873 - Birth of Otto Loewi, German-American pharmacologist and Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1961)
- 1879 - Birth of Raymond Pearl, American biologist (d. 1940)
- 1899 - Birth of Georg von Békésy, Hungarian biophysicist and Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1972)
- 1924 - Birth of Torsten Wiesel, Swedish neuroscientist and Nobel Prize laureate
- 1929 - Birth of Werner Arber, Swiss microbiologist and Nobel Prize laureate
- 1969 - The science fiction television series Star Trek airs its final new episode after being canceled by NBC after a three-season run.
- 1977 - Death of Archibald Vivian Hill, English physiologist and Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1886)
- 1990 - Death of Robert Noyce, American inventor (b. 1927)
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