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
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
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Natural philosophy was transformed during the
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...
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An anthropometric device (side view) by Major A.J.N. Tremearne designed "for measuring the living head" for "the use of anthropologists", invented in 1913 with later additions made at the suggestion of A. Keith and Karl Pearson.
Did you know
...that the travel narrative The Malay Archipelago, by biologist Alfred Russel Wallace, was used by the novelist Joseph Conrad as a source for his novel Lord Jim?
...that the seventeenth century philosophers
Gottfried Leibniz, along with their Empiricist contemporary Thomas Hobbes all formulated definitions of conatus
, an innate inclination of a thing to continue to exist and enhance itself?
...that according to the controversial Jan Van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait (pictured), was largely due to the use of curved mirrors and other optical aids?
Selected Biography -
horticulturist and pioneer in agricultural science.
He developed more than 800 plumcot.
Late blight is a disease that spread and destroyed potatoes all across Europe, but caused extreme chaos in Ireland due to the high dependency on potatoes as a crop by the Irish. (Full article...
)Selected anniversaries
April 26:
- 1774 - Birth of Christian Leopold von Buch, German geologist (d. 1853)
- 1785 - Birth of John James Audubon, French-American naturalist and illustrator (d. 1851)
- 1879 - Birth of Owen Willans Richardson, British physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1959)
- 1900 - Birth of Charles Richter, American geophysicist (d. 1985)
- 1920 - Death of Srinivasa Ramanujan, Indian mathematician (b. 1887)
- 1932 - Birth of Michael Smith, English-born chemist, Nobel laureate (d. 2000)
- 1933 - Birth of Arno Allan Penzias, German-born physicist, Nobel laureate
- 1940 - Death of Carl Bosch, German chemist, Nobel laureate (b. 1874)
- 1951 - Death of Arnold Sommerfeld, German physicist (b. 1868)
- Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, creating the world's worst nuclear disaster
- 1994 - Physicists announce first evidence of the top quark subatomic particle
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General images
The following are images from various history of science-related articles on Wikipedia.
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Apollonius wrote a comprehensive study of conic sections in the Conics. (from Science in classical antiquity) -
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A mosaic depicting Plato's Academy, from the Villa of T. Siminius Stephanus in Pompeii (1st century AD). (from Science in classical antiquity) -
Title page from The Sceptical Chymist, a foundational text of chemistry, written by Robert Boyle in 1661 (from Scientific Revolution) -
Schematics of the Antikythera mechanism (from Science in the ancient world) -
A coloured illustration from Mansur's Anatomy, c. 1450 (from Science in the medieval Islamic world) -
Matteo Ricci (left) and Xu Guangqi (right) in Athanasius Kircher, La Chine ... Illustrée, Amsterdam, 1670 (from Scientific Revolution) -
Vesalius's intricately detailed drawings of human dissections in Fabrica helped to overturn the medical theories of Galen. (from Scientific Revolution) -
George Trebizond's Latin translation of Ptolemy's Almagest (c. 1451) (from Science in classical antiquity) -
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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) -
theoctahedral shape of diamond. (from Science in the ancient world) -
The first treatise about optics by Johannes Kepler, Ad Vitellionem paralipomena quibus astronomiae pars optica traditur (1604) (from Scientific Revolution) -
Astronomia Nova by Johannes Kepler (1609) (from Scientific Revolution) -
Detail showing columns of glyphs from a portion of the 2nd century CEEpi-Olmec script. (from Science in the ancient world) -
Isaac Newton's Principia developed the first set of unified scientific laws. (from Scientific Revolution) -
The Abbasid Caliphate, 750–1261 (and later in Egypt) at its height, c. 850 (from Science in the medieval Islamic world) -
A 19th-century portrait of Pliny the Elder (from Science in classical antiquity) -
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) -
An earlysouthern China (note: the south direction is oriented at the top, north at the bottom) (from Science in the ancient world) -
A page fromal-Khwarizmi's Algebra (from Science in the medieval Islamic world) -
Ptolemaic model of the spheres for Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Georg von Peuerbach, Theoricae novae planetarum, 1474. (from Scientific Revolution) -
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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) -
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Diagram fromWilliam Gilbert's De Magnete, a pioneering 1600 work of experimental science (from Scientific Revolution) -
Pliny the Elder: an imaginative 19th Century portrait (from Science in the ancient world)
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The physician Hippocrates, known as the "Father of Modern Medicine" (from Science in classical antiquity) -
Themotions of the planets (from Science in the medieval Islamic world) -
Francis Bacon was a pivotal figure in establishing the scientific method of investigation. Portrait by Frans Pourbus the Younger (1617). (from Scientific Revolution) -
Self trimming lamp inAhmad ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir's treatise on mechanical devices, c. 850 (from Science in the medieval Islamic world) -
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An ivory set ofNapier's Bones, an early calculating device invented by John Napier (from Scientific Revolution) -
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Page from the Kitāb al-Hayawān (Book of Animals) by Al-Jahiz. Ninth century (from Science in the medieval Islamic world) -
Portrait ofmodern science (from Scientific Revolution) -
The physical exercise chart; apainting 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) -
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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) -
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) -
Wonders of Creation (from Science in the medieval Islamic world) -
The FrenchAcademy of Sciences was established in 1666. (from Scientific Revolution) -
Mesopotamian clay tablet-letter from 2400 BC, Louvre. (from King of Lagash, found at Girsu) (from Science in the ancient world) -
Ibn Sina teaching the use of drugs. 15th-century Great Canon of Avicenna (from Science in the medieval Islamic world) -
Surviving fragment of the first World Map of Piri Reis (1513) (from Science in the medieval Islamic world) -
Modern copy ofal-Idrisi's 1154 Tabula Rogeriana, upside-down, north at top (from Science in the medieval Islamic world) -
Ancient India was an early leader in metallurgy, as evidenced by the wrought iron Pillar of Delhi. (from Science in the ancient world) -
conic sections" (from Science in the medieval Islamic world) -
Islamic expansion:under Muhammad, 622–632under Rashidun caliphs, 632–661under Umayyad caliphs, 661–750(from Science in the medieval Islamic world) -
Diagram of the Antikythera mechanism, an analog astronomical calculator (from Science in classical antiquity)
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The eye according to Hunayn ibn Ishaq, c. 1200 (from Science in the medieval Islamic world)
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