A BRIEF HISTORY OF SCIENCE Ancient Greek Science The Ancient Greeks were the first scientists.

Greek philosophers tried to explain what the world is made of and how it works. Empedocles (c. 494-434 BC) said that the world is made of four elements, earth, fire, water and air. Aristotle (384-322 BC) accepted the theory of the four elements. However he also believed that the Sun, Moon and planets are made of a fifth element and are unchanging. Aristotle also studied zoology and attempted to classify animals. Aristotle also believed the body was made up of four humours or liquids (corresponding to the four elements). They were phlegm, blood, yellow bile and black bile. If a person had too much of one humour they fell ill. Although some of their ideas were wrong the Greeks did make some scientific discoveries. A Greek named Aristarchros believed the Earth revolved around the Sun. Unfortunately his theory was not accepted. However Eratosthenes (c.276-194 BC) calculated the circumference of the Earth. Arab Science Science flourished among the Arabs. Among their greatest scientists was a mathematician called al-Khwarizmi (790-850), the philosopher al-Kindi (801-866) and the astronomer al-Farghani. Their two greatest doctors were al-Razi (824-925) and Ibn-Sina (980-1037). Another great Arab scientist was the astronomer al-Sufi (903-986). Another scholar named alHaytham (965-1040) realised that light is reflected off objects into the eye. He also discovered that light travels in straight lines. The Scientific Revolution In the 2nd century AD an astronomer called Ptolemy stated that the Earth is the centre of the universe. The sun and the other planets orbit the Earth. In the 16th century a Polish clergyman called Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) realized this is untrue. The Earth and the other planets orbit the Sun. However his theory was not published until just before his death. Another great astronomer of the 16th century was Tycho Brahe (1546-1601). He made accurate observations of the positions of stars. However Brahe did not accept the Copernican theory. Instead he believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth and the other planets revolved around the Sun. Moreover in 1572 Brahe saw a new star (a nova). The Greek philosopher Aristotle said the heavens were unchanging. Change and decay, he said, only happened on Earth. Obviously Aristotle was wrong.

He was followed by Johannes Kepler (1571-1630). In the 16th century people believed that the planets move in circles. Kepler showed they orbit the Sun in ellipses and they move faster as they approach the Sun. Kepler published two laws of planetary motion in 1609. He published a third in 1619. Furthermore in 1604 Kepler published a book on Optics. Galileo One of the most famous scientists of all time was Galileo. In 1589 Galileo became a lecturer in mathematics at Pisa University. At that time the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle was held in very high esteem and many people accepted his ideas without question. However Galileo did not. Aristotle said that if two objects, a heavy one and light one both fall from a height the large one will reach the ground first. According to legend Galileo tested the theory by dropping two different weights from the leaning Tower of Pisa. Both hit the ground at the same time. However many people now believe this famous experiment is a myth. it never actually took place. In any case other scholars had already reached the conclusion that Aristotle was wrong. Then in 1509 Galileo heard of a new invention from Holland. A man named Hans Lippershey had invented the telescope. Galileo made his own telescope and soon improved it. Using a telescope Galileo was able to see several things invisible to the naked eye. Firstly he could see many stars not visible without a telescope. Secondly the ancient Greeks believed that the Moon was smooth. Looking through a telescope Galileo could see the Moon's surface is actually rough, with mountains and craters. He also discovered 4 small 'moons' orbiting the planet Jupiter. At the time these were astonishing discoveries. Until then nobody knew that any of the other planets, apart from Earth, had 'moons'. In 1610 Galileo wrote a book called Siderius Nuncius or the Sidereal Messenger. At that time astronomers were debating sunspots. A German named Christoph Scheiner claimed that they were satellites of the sun. In 1613 Galileo argued that sunspots are actually on the surface of the sun. Copernicus also argued that the earth and the other planets orbit the sun. At first the church did not have a problem with his theory. However opinion gradually hardened and in 1616 the Copernican theory was declared heretical. There is a passage in the Old Testament where a prophet named Joshua commanded the sun to stand still in the sky (Joshua 10:12-13). Some scholars said this meant the sun must move. Of course, Joshua knew nothing about Astronomy. To him the sun appeared to move across the sky. Naturally he would command the sun to stand still and to him it would have appeared to stand still. The church's objection to the Copernican theory was based on a misinterpretation of the Bible. However Galileo was a resolute supporter of the Copernican theory. In 1632 he published a book called Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. As a result he was summoned to
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Rome to be examined by the inquisition. He arrived in January 1633. Galileo was threatened with torture unless he renounced the Copernican theory. Not surprisingly he agreed to do so. Nevertheless he was put under house arrest for the rest of his life. In 1634 Galileo published a book about mechanics called Dialogue Concerning Two New Sciences. Then in 1637 he noticed that the moon moves slightly from side to side. Galileo died on 8 January 1642 aged 77. The Advance of Medicine At this time doctors made great progress in understanding how the human body works. In 1628 William Harvey published his discovery of how blood circulates around the body. The Roman writer Galen said that blood passes from one side of the heart to the other through the septum. However by 1555 the great surgeon Vesalius had reached the conclusion that no such holes exist and that blood cannot pass from one side of the heart to the other in that way. In 1559 a man named Realdo Colombo demonstrated that blood actually travels from one side of the heart to the other through the lungs. Eventually William Harvey realised that the heart is a pump. Each time it contracts it pumps out blood. Harvey then estimated how much blood was being pumped each time. The Roman writer Galen believed that the body constantly makes new blood and uses up the old (rather like an engine using up petrol). However Harvey realised this is not true. Instead the blood circulates around the body. In the 17th century medicine was still handicapped by wrong ideas about the human body. Most doctors still thought that there were four fluids or 'humours' in the body, blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. Illness resulted when you had too much of one humour. Nevertheless during the 17th century a more scientific approach to medicine emerged and some doctors began to question traditional ideas. In the 17th century medicine was helped by the microscope (invented at the end of the 16th century). In 1658 Jan Swammerdan first observed red blood corpuscles. In 1661 Marcello Malpighi discovered capilliaries. Then in 1665 Robert Hooke was the first person to describe cells in his book Micrographia. Isaac Newton Isaac Newton is Britain's greatest scientist. Britain's oldest scientific society began in 1645 a when group of philosophers and mathematicians began holding meetings to discuss science or natural philosophy as it was called. Charles II was interested in science and in 1662 he granted them a charter and they became the Royal Society. In 1667 Isaac Newton was elected a fellow of Trinity College. The same year he was elected a member of the Royal Society. In February 1672 a paper he wrote about light and colours was
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read to the society. In 1669 Newton became Lucasian professor of mathematics. In the meantime, in 1668, he invented a reflecting telescope. Newton published his masterpiece Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1687. It set out his theory of gravity and his laws of motion. Newton realised that there is a universal force (gravity) that attracts all objects in the universe to each other. His theory of gravity explained the movements of the planets. In 1704 Newton also published a book on light called Opticks. Newton showed that white light is made up of several colours. Meanwhile in 1704 he published another great work about light. Isaac Newton died at the age of 84 on 20 March 1727. Many other scientists worked in the late 17th century. Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695) discovered Titan, the moon of Saturn. In 1656 he made the first pendulum clock, which made accurate measurement of time possible. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) made his own microscopes and through them he made many observations. Meanwhile in 1661 Robert Boyle (1627-1691) published the Sceptical Chemist, which laid the foundations of modern chemistry. Boyle rejected the Greek thinker Aristotle's idea that the world is made up of four elements, water, earth, fire and air. Boyle is also famous for Boyle's law (The volume of a gas kept at constant temperature is inversely proportional to its pressure). 18th Century Science During the 18th century chemistry made great advances. In 1751 Axel Cronstedt discovered nickel. In 1766 Henry Cavendish (1731-1810) isolated hydrogen and studied its properties. (He also calculated the density of the Earth). In 1772 Daniel Rutherford (1749-1819) discovered Nitrogen. Two men, Joseph Priestly (1733-1804) and Karl Scheele (1742-1786) discovered oxygen. In 1756 Joseph Black (1728-1799) discovered carbon dioxide. Perhaps the greatest chemist of the 18th century was Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794). He discovered that during combustion oxygen combines with substances. He also discovered the role of oxygen in respiration and corrosion of metals. Meanwhile during the 18th century people began to realised that the Earth is very old. A landmark in geology came in 1785 when James Hutton (1726-1797) published his book Theory of the Earth. In 1781 the astronomer William Herschel (1738-1822) discovered the planet Uranus. In 1784 John Goodricke (1764-1786) discovered variable stars. Two great biologists of the 18th century were Georges Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707-1788) and Karl Linnaeus (1707-1778). Linnaeus invented a method classifying living things.
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Meanwhile people began to investigate electricity. In 1746 Petrus van Musschenbroek (16921761) invented a way of storing electricity called a leiden Jar. In 1752 Benjamin Franklin (17061790) proved that lighting is a form of electricity. Then in 1800 Allessandro Volta (1745-1827) invented the first battery. However during the 18th century medicine made slow progress. Doctors still did not know what caused disease. Some continued to believe in the four humours (although this theory declined during the 18th century). Other doctors thought disease was caused by 'miasmas' (odourless gases in the air). Science in the 19th Century During the 19th century science made great progress. John Dalton (1766-1844) published his atomic theory in 1803. According to the theory matter is made of tiny, indivisible particles. Dalton also said that atoms of different elements had different weight. Dalton also studied colour blindness. In 1827 the German chemist Friedrich Wohler (1800-1882) isolated aluminium. In 1828 he produced urea, an organic compound from inorganic chemicals. A Russian, Dmitri Mendeleev (1834-1907) formulated the Periodic Table, which arranged all the known elements according to their atomic weight. Meanwhile people continued to master electricity. In 1819 a Dane, Hans Christian Oersted discovered that electric current in a wire caused a nearby compass needle to move. The Englishman Michael Faraday (1791-1867) showed that a magnet can produce electricity. In 1847 the German Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894) formulated the law of the Conservation of Energy, which states that energy is never lost but just changes from one form to another. In 1851 he invented the ophthalmoscope. Meanwhile geology made huge strides. Charles Lyell (1797-1875) saw that rocks were formed by processes we see today. In 1830 he published his book Principles of Geology. In 1837 a Swiss, Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) realised that a vast sheet of ice had once covered northern Europe. Furthermore scientists discovered more and more fossils and the word Dinosaur was coined in 1842. Charles Darwin Charles Darwin left Cambridge University in 1831. The same year he signed up to sail as a naturalist on a ship called the Beagle. Its captain was Robert Fitzroy and it sailed on 27 December 1831.

In February 1832 the Beagle reached Brazil. Darwin spent three years in different parts of South America collecting specimens. Then in September 1835 the Beagle sailed to the Galapagos Islands. Darwin was surprised to learn the local people could tell by looking at a tortoise which island it came from. Darwin also studied finches. Each island had a different species of finch. Later Darwin came to the conclusion that all were descended from a single species of finch. On each island the finches had diverged and become slightly different. By 1836 Darwin believed that species of animals could change. In July 1837 Darwin began to write notes about his theory. He called his notes The Transmutation of Species. In October 1838 Darwin thought of a way in which one species could change into another. He noticed that individual members of a species vary. Furthermore all animals are competing with each other to survive. If the environment changed in some way, say if a new, faster predator appeared then any herbivores that could run slightly faster then other members of its species would be more likely to survive and reproduce. Any herbivores that ran slightly slower than most would be more likely to be eaten. Slowly a new, faster herbivore would evolve. This was later called the survival of the fittest. Then in 1858 Darwin received a letter from Alfred Russell Wallace. It turned out that Wallace had independently devised a theory of evolution by natural selection. Therefore Wallace's work and Darwin's theory were both presented to a scientific society called the Linnaean Society on 1 July 1858. The two men's work was also published in the society's journal. Darwin was now galvanised into publishing his theory. So his monumental work The Origin of Species was published in 1859. It proved to be a bestseller. However Darwin's book also caused controversy. Darwin died of a heart attack on 19 April 1882. He was 73. In 1866 an Austrian monk named Gregor Mendel discovered the laws of hereditary by breeding peas. Furthermore medicine and surgery made great advances in the 19th century. During the 19th century there were several outbreaks of cholera in Britain. It struck in 1832, 1848, 1854 and 1866. During the 1854 epidemic John Snow (1813-1858) showed that cholera was transmitted by water. However doctors were not certain how. Later Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) proved that microscopic organisms caused disease. In the early 19th century many scientists believed in spontaneous generation i.e. that some living things spontaneously grew from non-living matter. In a series of experiments between 1857 and 1863

Pasteur proved this was not so. Once doctors what caused disease they made rapid headway in finding cures or preventions. In the late 19th century physics made great strides. In 1873 James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) showed that light is an electromagnetic wave. He also predicted there were other electromagnetic waves with longer and shorter wavelengths than light. Then in 1888 Heinrich Hertz (1857-1894) proved the electromagnetic waves predicted by Maxwell exist. In 1896 Henri Becquerel (1852-1908) discovered radioactivity. Then in 1898 Marie Curie (18671934) and Pierre Curie (1859-1906) discovered radium. Finally at the end of the century scientists began to investigate the atom. In 1897 Joseph Thomson discovered the electron. In astronomy Giuseppe Piazzi discovered the first asteroid, Ceres in 1801. In 1838 Friedrich Bessel (1784-1846) measured the distance to a star (61 Cygni) for the first time. The planet Neptune was discovered in 1846. Science in the 20th Century During the 20th century science continued to go forward at fantastic speed. During the 20th century scientists came to understand the atom. In 1910 Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937) discovered the atomic nucleus. He realised that almost all the mass of an atom is in the nucleus with electrons orbiting it. In 1932 James Chadwick (1891-1974) discovered the neutron. Physics was revolutionized by two men, Max Planck (1858-1947) and Albert Einstein (18791955). In 1900 Planck proposed quantum theory, which states that energy is exchanged in discrete packets he called quanta. Einstein published his theory of Special Relativity in 1905 and his General Theory of Relativity in 1915. In 1927 Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976) published his uncertainty principle, which states that is impossible to determine the position and speed of a subatomic particle. In 1915 Alfred Wegener proposed continental drift. He said that all continents were once joined and they have drifted apart. In 1926 Arthur Eddington (1882-1944) suggested that stars are powered by nuclear fusion. Also in the 1920s Edwin Hubble (1889-1953) showed that our galaxy is only one of many galaxies. He also proved that the universe is expanding. In 1930 Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto. The first radio telescope was built in 1937.

Meanwhile medicine was making great advances. In 1928 Alexander Fleming (1881-1955) discovered penicillin. The most famous physicist of the late 20th century is Stephen Hawking (1942-). Hawking is known for his research into black holes, relativity and cosmology. Meanwhile genetics was making great strides. In 1953 Francis Crick and James Watson discovered the double-helix structure of DNA. At the end of the 20th century genetic engineering became possible. In astronomy quasars were discovered in 1963 and pulsars were discovered in 1968. The Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990. At the end of the 20th century the first extrasolar planets were discovered. At the other end of the scale scientists discovered many new sub-atomic particles. In 1964 Murray Gell-Mann (1929-) suggested that quarks exist. A Brief History of Science Humankind has always been inquisitive, needing to understand why things behave in a certain way, and trying to link observation with prediction. For example, since prehistoric times we have observed the heavens and tried to make sense of the seasonal changes in the position of the sun, moon and stars. In about 4000 BC, the Mesopotamians tried to explain their observations by suggesting that the Earth was at the center of the Universe, and that the other heavenly bodies moved around it. Humans have always been interested in the nature and origins of this Universe. Metallurgy But they weren't only interested in astronomy. The extraction of iron, which led to the Iron Age, is a chemical process which early metallurgists developed without understanding any of the science involved. Nevertheless, they were still able to optimise the extraction by trial and error. Before this, copper and tin were extracted (which led to the Bronze Age) and later, zinc. Exactly how each of these processes was discovered is lost in the mists of time, but it is likely that they were developed using observation and experiment in a similar way to that used by today's scientists. Medicine Early humankind also observed that certain plants could be used to treat sickness and disease, and herbal medicines were developed, some of which are still used by modern pharmaceutical companies to provide leads for new synthetic drugs. The Greeks The first people to try and develop the theory behind their observations were the Greeks: people such as Pythagoras, who concentrated on a mathematical view of the world. Similarly, Aristotle and Plato developed logical methods for examining the world around them. It was the Greeks

who first suggested that matter was made up of atoms fundamental particles that could not be broken down further. But it wasn't only the Greeks who moved science on. Science was also being developed in India, China, the Middle East and South America. Despite having their own cultural view of the world, they each independently developed materials such as gunpowder, soap and paper. However, it wasn't until the 13th century that much of this scientific work was brought together in European universities, and that it started to look more like science as we know it today. Progress was relatively slow at first. For example, it took until the 16th century for Copernicus to revolutionise (literally) the way that we look at the Universe, and for Harvey to put forward his ideas on how blood circulated round the human body. This slow progress was sometimes the result of religious dogma, but it was also a product of troubled times! The Birth of Modern Science It was in the 17th century that modern science was really born, and the world began to be examined more closely, using instruments such as the telescope, microscope, clock and barometer. It was also at this time that scientific laws started to be put forward for such phenomena as gravity and the way that the volume, pressure and temperature of a gas are related. In the 18th century much of basic biology and chemistry was developed as part of the Age of Enlightenment. The 19th century saw some of the great names of science: people like the chemist John Dalton, who developed the atomic theory of matter, Michael Faraday and James Maxwell who both put forward theories concerning electricity and magnetism, and Charles Darwin, who proposed the (still) controversial theory of evolution. Each of these developments forced scientists radically to re-examine their views of the way in which the world worked. The last century brought discoveries such as relativity and quantum mechanics, which, again, required scientists to look at things in a completely different way. It makes you wonder what the iconoclastic discoveries of this century will be.