Science: A History

Origins

• One potential date for the beginning of the revival of Western Europe is 1453:
  • Publication of "On the Structure of the Human Body" by Andreas Vesalius and of "On the Revolutions of the Celestial Bodies" by Copernicus", mark the start of the scientific revolution that would transform first Europe and then the world.
  • The Turks captured Constantinople marking the end of the old Roman Empire, causing many Greek-speaking scholars fled westwards to Italy with their documents, and there the Italian humanists took up these documents and the teaching found therein to -establish civilization along the lines that head existed before the Dark Ages.
  • Perhaps equally important was the depopulation of Europe by the Black Death in the 14th C, which led the survivors to question the whole basis of society, made labor expensive and encouraged the invention of technological devices to replace manpower.
  • Also, Gutenberg's development of moveable type in the mid 15th C had an obvious impact on what was to become science, and discoveries brought back to Europe by another technological development, sailing ships capable of crossing the oceans, transformed society.
• The scientific revolution did not happen in isolation, but eventually became the driving force of Western civilization over the next 450 years.
• The development of technology is more important than human genius, and it is no surprise that the start of the scientific revolution "coincides" with the development of the telescope and the microscope.
• Western science got started because the Renaissance happened. And once it got started by giving a boost to technology it ensured that it would keep on rolling, with new scientific ideas leading to improved technology, and improved technology providing the scientists with the means to test new ideas to greater and greater accuracy. Technology came first, because it is possible to make machines by trial and error without fully understanding the principles on which they operate. But once science and technology got together, progress really took off.

Renaissance Men

• Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) - "On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres" (1543)
• Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) - "On the Structure of the Human Body" (1543)
• William Harvey - discovery of the circulation of the blood.
• Gabriele Fallopio - discover of the fallopian tubes

The Last Mystics

• Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) - De Nova Stella (1573)
  • Sees a comet in 1577. First astronomer to imagine the planets hanging unsupported in space
• Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) - The Mystery of the Universe (1597)
  • Suggested that planets were kept moving in their orbits by a force he called "the vigour" reaching out from the Sun and pushing them along.
  • "My aim is to show that the machine of the universe is not similar to a divine animated being, but similar to a clock."
  • First and second laws about planetary orbits.
  • "Astronomia Nova" (1609)
  • "Harmony of the World" (1618) - Third law about planetary orbits
  • Writes one of the first science-fiction stories, "Dream of the Moon
• John Napier (1550-1617) - Invented logarithms

The First Scientists

• William Gilbert (1544-1603)
  • Concerning Magnetism, Magnetic Bodies, and the Great Magnet Earth (1600)
  • Discovered laws of attraction and repulsion, that the Earth acts like a magnet, names the north pole and south pole
  • Nothing new was discovered about magnetism until the discovery of electromagnetism in the 1820s
  • Galileo described Gilbert as the founder of the experimental method of science.
• Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
  • Always carried out experiments to test hypotheses, modifying or abandoning those hypotheses if the outcomes of the experiments did not match their predictions.
  • Also investigated hydrostatics, magnetism
  • Proved that a bullet fired from a gun describes a parabola
  • Built a telescope better than any other in just 24hrs
  • Discovered the four largest moons of Jupiter early in 1610, that the Milky Way is made up of many individual starts, and that the surface of the Moon is scarred by craters and has mountain ranges several km high in book The Starry Messenger (1610)
  • He was willing to test his reasoning by clearly thought-out experiments, in public, and to stand by the results.
  • Was one of the first to develop an effective compound microscope, involving two lenses each ground with a doubly convex shape.
  • Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems (1629)
  • Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Concerning Two New Sciences (1638) - summed up his life’s work on mechanics, inertia, and pendulums and the strength of bodies, as well as spelling out the scientific method. The first modern scientific textbook, spelling out that the Universe is governed by laws which can be understood by the human mind and is driven by forces whose effects can be calculated using maths.
  • Realized that moving objects have a natural tendency to keep on moving, unless they are affected by friction or some other outside force.

Science Finds its Feet

• The symbols + and - were only introduced to maths in 1540 in Robert Recorde’s « The Grounde of Artes
• In another book, « Whetstone of Witte » (1557), he introduced the equals sign.
• The multiplication symbol was introduced in 1631, and the division symbol in 1659.
• The introduction of logarithms early in the 17th C enormously simplified and speeded up the laborious processes of calculations for astronomers and other scientists.
• Logarithms are a way to "undo" exponentiation. If $b^y = x$, then we say that the logarithm base $b$ of $x$ is $y$, written as $\log_b(x) = y$. In simpler terms, a logarithm answers the question: "To what power must I raise the base $b$ to get the number $x$?"

For example, since $10^2 = 100$, we know that $\log_{10}(100) = 2$. Here, 10 is the base, 100 is the number, and 2 is the logarithm (or the exponent).

Logarithms are incredibly useful for simplifying complex calculations, especially those involving very large or very small numbers. They turn multiplication into addition, division into subtraction, and exponentiation into multiplication. This made them invaluable before the age of calculators and continues to be important in various fields like science, engineering, and finance.

• Réné Descartes (1596-1650)
  • A Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting Reason and seeking Truth in the Sciences (1637)
  • Cartesian co-ordinates (x,y) allowed geometry to be analyzed using algebra
  • Mediationnes de Prima Philogsophia (1641)
  • Principia Philosophiae (1644)
• Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
• Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655) - revived the concept of atomism, which dates back to Democritus in the 5th C BC
• Evangelista Torricelli (1608-1647) - invented the barometer and created a vacuum
• Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695) - from 1658 allows ordinary people to have access to accurate timepieces.
  • Uses the Aether to explain how light is refracted
  • Treatise on Light (1690)
• Royal Society is founded in London in 1645, In Paris, the Académie des Sciences in 1667
• Ole Romer (1644-1710) Calculated the speed of light as 225,000km/s, very close to the modern calculation of 299,792km/s
• Robert Boyle (1627-1691)
  • « We assent to experience, even when its information seems contrary to reason. »
  • The Spring of the Air (1660) - treats air pumpts and the problem of raising water by suction. Boyle’s la. Seen as a turning point for chemistry.
  • Came close to discovering Oxygen - essential similarities between the processes of respiration and combustion.
  • His most famous book, The Sceptical Chymist (1661)
  • Origin of Forms and Qualities (1666)
• Marcelo Malpighi (1628-1694) - Circulation of the blood
• Giovanni Borelli (1608-1679)
  • On the Movement of Animals (1680-1681) - treated the body as a system of levers acted on by the forces exerted by the muscles, and analysed geometrically how muscles in the human body acted in walking and running.
• Edward Tyson (1650-1708) - founding father of comparative anatomy
  • Anatomy of a Porpess
  • Orang-Outang - evidence that humans and chimps were built to the same body plan. The place of human beings as part of the animal kingdom is clearly established.