Antiquity of Science (History of Science)

the first ever science originated in Egypt and Mesopotamia (3500BC)

• writing

• wheel

• mathematical systems

• astronomy

• came up with time system based on 60 minutes

all had practical implications - not knowledge for knowledge sake, eg time for plant harvesting not just to know

Pre-Socratics (600BC)

• knowledge for knowledge is sake here

• where science began - where does everything come from, what is it made of → principles of nature

• do it through reasoned arguments not through observations or experiments

  • questioning was scientific

• Thales of Miletus → denounced the idea that natural phenomena are based on the whims of Gods

• DENOUCED MYSTICISM

  • nature has a set of rules - first person who started looking at the underlying principles of nature

  • everything is made of water - not true but its shocking, he was trying to find this common essence

• Pythagoras

  • nature as harmonious and dependent on number (everything had a mathematical well, the world is orderly can be seen in terms of number’

  • ‘cosmos’; the universe is ordered - purest form of knowledge was mathematic and geometry

  • influenced Plato - ‘world of forms’ (everything we see in this world is an imperfect representation of its true form)

    • allegory of the cave - when you’re in a cave and someone passed by you think the shadow is the true form of the object, only when you exit the cave into the other realm do you realize its not the true form.

• Aristotle

  • true knowledge can be found in this world

  • can be obtained through observation - foundation of science, empirical approach

  • advocated for the GEOCENTRIC MODEL, if you’re sitting and observing the earth seems to be the center and the sun rotates around it

• Aristarchus of Samos

  • heliocentric model - earth rotates on its axis around the sun

  • was rejected as the geocentric model fit in with the religious concept that we are God’s special creation

• Fall of the roman empire - Dark Ages in Europe

  • Greek values of free inquiry and curiosity were replaced dogmatism - not questioning but following the bible

  • 1000AD - golden age of Islam as they preserved Greek tradition and made very advanced observations in maths and astronomy - algebra

ancient science is mostly applications

basic principles which governed nature alluded them (couldnt get to them)

Renaissance - 16th Century - SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

• rebirth of enquiry and thought

• resurfacing of Greek and roman art

• CONTINUES WITH MODULE 5