CH2: STS IN WESTERN CIVILIZATION

Middle or Medieval Ages

the thousand year between the fall of the western roman empire in the 5th century ce and the beginning of the colonial expansion of Western Europe in the late 15th century

Dark Ages

500 to 1000 CE, saw terrible political and economic turmoilin Western Europe as waves of invasions by migrating peoples and Vikings and Saxons from the North destabilized the Roman Empire. Period of declining human achievement.

High Middle Ages (1000-1300 CE)

the conditions of political stability necessary forthe reestablishment of a vigorous commerical and urban life had been secured. 

Studium Generale

centers of learning during 12th century that sprang up across WEstern Europe, drawing scholars from far afield and mixing the knowledge of the ancient greeks with the new discoveries of the great Muslim philosophers and scientists.

Scholasticism

philosophical system that dominated universities during 12th century

Christian scholasticism

methodof learning that places a strong emphasis on Platonic reasoning and deduction working within a background of fixed religious dogma and ARistotelian philosophy.

Franciscan John Duns Scotus

maintained that the world of reason and the world of faith had to be kept apart.

Ockham’s Razor

proposed by William of Ockham, whereby a simple theory is preferred to a more complex one, and speculation on unobservable phenomena is avoided. 

Jean Buridan

developed the theory of impetus, a concept that anticipated Newtonian physics and the modern concepts of inertia, as the cause of the motion of projectiles.

Thomas Bradwardine

had a sophisticated study of kinematics and velocity which predated Galileo’s work on falling objects.

Nicole Oresme

proposed a compelling theory about a heliocentric, rather than geocentric universe, two centuries before Copernicus, and the proposed that light and color were related, long before Hooke.

humans, draft animals, and water

the three main sources of power before the Industrial Revolution

Horse

the first instrument of the power revolution.

Norse Mill

the type of water mill that flourished first in northern Europe, using a horizontally mounted waterheel driving a pair of grdinstones directly, without the intervention of gearing. 

Teutonic tribes

moved into Western Europe and were people of the Iron Age, the first people to use iron ploweshares on forested lowland and rich, heavy wet soils of which had frustrated the agricultural techniques of their predecesssors.

spinning jenny or spinning wheel

this partially mechanized the process of woolen cloth industry

Soapmaking

new craft brought by the Teutonic people. Its  manufacture was one of the first industrial processes to make extensive use of coal as fuel, and which started the coal industry in northern Europe.

gunpowder

what is the main product of the constant wars during the midle ages

Cast Iron

this is the great metallurgical innovation of the Middle Ages. 

Medieval blast furnace

this made complete fusion possible, with the result that the molten metal could be poured directly into molds ready to receive it. 

mechanical clock

driven by weights and controlled by an oscillating arm engaging with a gear wheel.

Artesian well

a thin rod with a hard iron cutting edge is placed in a bore hole and repeatedly struck with a hammer. Underground water pressure forces the water up the hole without pumping.

Wheelbarrow

Useful in construction, mining, and farming.

Spectacles

from florence,Italy, convex lenses to help far-sighted people.

Mirrors

First mention of it was made in 1180 by Alexander Neckham who said “take away the lead which is behind the glass and there will be no image of the one looking in.”

Alchemy

this was an ancient branch of natural philosophy

Alchemist

considered experts onmatter and thought all matter to be made from four main elements: earth, air, water, and fire. They also laid the foundation of modern Chemistry.

Jan Baptist Van Helmont

experimented on the role of water in the growth of plants, claiming that plants drew all of their substance from water. He also demonstrated that gases, though they commonly appeared similar, could be quite different in character. 

Astrology

pseudoscience that claims to divine information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the movements and relative positions of celestial objects. This has been shown to have no scientific validity. 

Leonardo of Pisa

although best known for the Fibonacci Sequence of numbers, his most important contribution to European mathematics was his role in spreading the use of the Hindu-arabic numeral system. 

Nicole Oresme

he used a system of rectangular coordinates centuries before his countryman Rene Descartes, popularized the idea, as well as perhaps the firs time-speed distance graph. 

Nicholas of Cusa

15th century german philospher, mathematician, and astronomer. 

Renaissance

marked the transition of Europe from the Middle Ages to modernity. Here scholars studied the cultural literary and historical texts resulting to the flowering of Latin and vernacular literature. Its intellectual basis was its versin of humanism and the rediscovery of classicl Greek philosophy.

compass

ancient method of navigation based on sightings of the sun and stars.Invented by the Chinese.

Spanish and Portuges explorers

created the world’s first nautical maps, delienating not just the geography of the lands they found but also the seaward routes and ocean currents that led them there. 

Abraham Darby

the first person to succeed in using coal instead of charcoal to smelt iron ore and to process cast iron into worught iron and steel.

Jethro Tull

an English agricultural pioneer from Berkshire who perfected a horse-drawn seed drill in 1700 that economically sowed the seeds in neat rows.

Johannes Gutenberg

made the first version ot the printing press with mvable metal type in Mainz, Germany in 1455 producing a sufficient quantity of accurate type to print a Vulgate Bible.

Scientific Revolution

intellectual movement that accompanied the Renaissance.

Leonard Fuchs

produced a guide to collecting medical plants that is considered a landmark in the history of natural observation.

Andrea Vesalius

the founder of modern anatomy

Nicolas Copernicus

polygot and polymath and obtained doctorate in canon law and proposed the heliocentric theory of the universe.

Tycho Brahe

Danish nobleman, astronomer and writer. He differed from Copernicus in that he was foremost, a practical astronomer who spent his time observing the heavens.

Giordano Bruno

argued that not only does the Earth move, but so does the sun, and that there is no such thing as a point absolutely at rest in the universe.

Johannes Kepler

discovered that the orbit of Mars and the other plants were elipses and not perfect circles as what the ancients claimed. 

Galileo Galilei

has been called the “father of observational astronomy”, the “the father of modern physics,” the father of scientific method,” and the “father of modern science

telescope and microscope

the two inventions of Galileo Galilei that allowed for magnification and better resolution of objesta at ag reat distance, and allowed scientists to observe the complexity of nature on a smaller scalethatn ever before. 

Sir Isaac Newton

he discovered that white light was not one and pure, but rather mixed and heterogenous made up of a spectrum of colors (the rainbow), which are refracted by different angles in glass prism. He also built his first reflecting telescope, which includes an eyepiece and a concave mirror.

Principia

by Isaac Newton, states that the universe can now be explained using mechanics and mathematics, with no need for mysticism or spirituality. 

Francois Viete

used letters as symbols to represent unknown quantities and applying this algebraic method to geometry. 

John Napier

invented logarithms.

Rene Descartes

presented the modern Cartesian coordinate system, he was able to unit mathematics and physics. paved the way for the explanation of the motions of heavenly bodies.

John Wallis

published the stage for the invention and development of differential calculus.

Johannes Kepler

founder of modern optics

Christian Huygens

he was the first to derive the now standard formula for the centripetal force and the first to formulate the correct laws of elastic collision. Optics, wave theory of light.

Robert Boyle

father of chemistry, responsible for modern chemistry and one of the pioneers of modern experimental scientific method.

Evangelista Torecceli

inventedthe barometer, to measure air pressure.

Otto von Guericke

invented the air pump, and demonstrates the porperties of a vaccum by using his air pump to take the ari from withtin his famous “Magdeberg hemispheres”.

Santorio Santorio

first introduced the quantitative approach into medicine.

William Harvey

first to demonstrate by dissection and in detail, the continuous systemic criculaion and properties of blood being pumped to the brain and the body by the heart.

Giovanni Alfonso Borelli

applied mehcanics to the human organism.

Franciscus Sylvius

introduced the idea of chemical affinity to explain the human body’s use of salts.

Marcello Malpighi

founder of microscopical anatomy and histology and father of physiology and embryology. one of the earliest people to observe red blood cells.

Edme Mariotte

explained sap pressure in plants by describing a mechanism by which plants permit the entrance but not the exit of liquid.

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

father of microbiology, best known for his pioneering work in microscopy

Industrial Revolution

a period during which predominantly agrarian, rural societies in Europe and America became industrial and urban as workers began to flock in cities and work in factories. 

Steam engine

integral to industrialization

William Murdock

experimented in lighting the buildings in Cornwall by gas, and use of gas.

prime mover

any machine that converst energy from an energy source into mechanical energy, usually as a motive power source providing fraction to move a vehicle.

Internal combustion engine

a heat engine where the burning of a fuel and air mixture occurs in a combustion chamber. 

Eitenne Lenoir

made the first successful gas engine in Paris. It was patterned after the horizontal steam engine, win an air-gas mixture ignited by an electric spark and introduced on both sides of the piston.

Chinese

the first to discover crude oil and used bamboo pipelines to transport.