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 that existed 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.

The earliest roots of scientific thinking and practice can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia during the 3rd and 2nd millennia BCE. These civilizations' contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine influenced later Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity, wherein formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, knowledge of Greek conceptions of the world deteriorated in Latin-speaking Western Europe during the early centuries (400 to 1000 CE) of the Middle Ages, but continued to thrive in the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire. Aided by translations of Greek texts, the Hellenistic worldview was preserved and absorbed into the Arabic-speaking Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age. The recovery and assimilation of Greek works and Islamic inquiries into Western Europe from the 10th to 13th century revived the learning of natural philosophy in the West. Traditions of early science were also developed in ancient India and separately in ancient China, the Chinese model having influenced Vietnam, Korea and Japan before Western exploration. Among the 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.

Natural philosophy was transformed by the Scientific Revolution that transpired during the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe, as new ideas and discoveries departed from previous Greek conceptions and traditions. The New Science that emerged was more 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...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Selected article - show another

The history of artificial intelligence (AI) began in antiquity, with myths, stories, and rumors of artificial beings endowed with intelligence or consciousness by master craftsmen. The study of logic and formal reasoning from antiquity to the present led directly to the invention of the programmable digital computer in the 1940s, a machine based on abstract mathematical reasoning. This device and the ideas behind it inspired scientists to begin discussing the possibility of building an electronic brain.

The field of AI research was founded at a workshop held on the campus of Dartmouth College in 1956. Attendees of the workshop became the leaders of AI research for decades. Many of them predicted that machines as intelligent as humans would exist within a generation. The U.S. government provided millions of dollars with the hope of making this vision come true. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

Selected image

An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump is a 1768 oil-on-canvas painting by Joseph Wright of Derby which depicts a recreation of one of Robert Boyle's air pump experiments. It shows the reactions of a group of onlookers to an experiment performed by a natural philosopher in which a bird is deprived of oxygen. Scientific curiosity overcomes concern for the bird. The central figure looks out of the picture as if inviting the viewers participation in the outcome.

edit

Did you know

...that the word scientist was coined in 1833 by philosopher and historian of science William Whewell?

...that biogeography has its roots in investigations of the story of Noah's Ark?

...that the idea of the "Scientific Revolution" dates only to 1939, with the work of Alexandre Koyré?

Selected Biography - show another

Portrait by Gerard Soest between 1657 and 1660

Francis Willughby (sometimes spelt Willoughby, Latin: Franciscus Willughbeius) FRS (22 November 1635 – 3 July 1672) was an English ornithologist, ichthyologist and mathematician, and an early student of linguistics and games.

He was born and raised at Middleton Hall, Warwickshire, the only son of an affluent country family. He was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was tutored by the mathematician and naturalist John Ray, who became a lifetime friend and colleague, and lived with Willughby after 1662 when Ray lost his livelihood through his refusal to sign the Act of Uniformity. Willughby was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1661, then aged 27. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies

Selected anniversaries

May 21

1670 - Death of Niccolo Zucchi, Italian astronomer and physicist (b. 1586)
1786 - Death of Carl Wilhelm Scheele, Swedish chemist (b. 1742)
1792 - Birth of Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis, French scientist (d. 1843)
1799 - Birth of Mary Anning, British paleontologist (d. 1847)
1850 - Birth of Giuseppe Mercalli, Italian volcanologist (d. 1914)
1860 - Birth of Willem Einthoven, Dutch inventor and Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1927)
1873 - Birth of Hans Berger, German neuroscientist (d. 1941)
1894 - Death of August Kundt, German physicist (b. 1839)
1911 - Death of Williamina Fleming, Scottish-born astronomer (b. 1857)
1921 - Birth of Andrei Sakharov, Soviet physicist and activist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (was not allowed to leave the Soviet Union to collect the prize) (d. 1989)
1923 - Birth of Armand Borel, Swiss mathematician (d. 2003)
1945 - Birth of Ernst Messerschmid, German physicist and astronaut
1956 - In the Pacific Ocean, Bikini Atoll is nearly obliterated by the first airborne explosion of a hydrogen bomb, part of Operation Redwing.
1964 - Death of James Franck, German-born physicist and Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1882)

Related portals

Topics

General images

The following are images from various history of science-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Plato and Aristotle (The School of Athens, 1511) (from Science in the ancient world)
Image 2A page from al-Khwarizmi's Algebra (from Science in the medieval Islamic world)
Image 3Ibn 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)
Image 4The Abbasid Caliphate, 750–1261 (and later in Egypt) at its height, c. 850 (from Science in the medieval Islamic world)
Image 5Francis Bacon was a pivotal figure in establishing the scientific method of investigation. Portrait by Frans Pourbus the Younger (1617). (from Scientific Revolution)
Image 6An early Western Han (202 BC – AD 9) silk map found in tomb 3 of Mawangdui, depicting the Kingdom of Changsha and Kingdom of Nanyue in southern China (note: the south direction is oriented at the top) (from Science in the ancient world)
Image 7Matteo Ricci (left) and Xu Guangqi (right) in Athanasius Kircher, La Chine ... Illustrée, Amsterdam, 1670 (from Scientific Revolution)
Image 8Detail showing columns of glyphs from a portion of the 2nd century AD La Mojarra Stela 1 (found near La Mojarra, Veracruz, Mexico); the left column gives a Long Count calendar date of 8.5.16.9.7, or 156 AD. The other columns visible are glyphs from the Epi-Olmec script. (from Science in the ancient world)
Image 9Ancient India was an early leader in metallurgy, as evidenced by the wrought iron Pillar of Delhi. (from Science in the ancient world)
Image 10Islamic expansion:
  under Muhammad, 622–632
  under Rashidun caliphs, 632–661
  under Umayyad caliphs, 661–750
(from Science in the medieval Islamic world)
Image 11 Modern copy of al-Idrisi's 1154 Tabula Rogeriana, upside-down, north at top (from Science in the medieval Islamic world)
Image 12Portrait of Galileo Galilei by Leoni (from Scientific Revolution)
Image 13Scholar Nersi with Anahita in Persia (from Science in the ancient world)
$Image 14Isaac Newton's 1704 Opticks: or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light (from Scientific Revolution)$

Image 14Isaac Newton's 1704 Opticks: or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light (from Scientific Revolution)
Image 15An ivory set of Napier's Bones, an early calculating device invented by John Napier (from Scientific Revolution)
Image 16The 1698 Savery Engine was the first successful steam engine. (from Scientific Revolution)
Image 17Surviving fragment of the first World Map of Piri Reis (1513) (from Science in the medieval Islamic world)
Image 18Quince, cypress, and sumac trees, in Zakariya al-Qazwini's 13th century Wonders of Creation (from Science in the medieval Islamic world)
Image 19Isaac Newton's Principia developed the first set of unified scientific laws. (from Scientific Revolution)
Image 20Title page from The Sceptical Chymist, a foundational text of chemistry, written by Robert Boyle in 1661 (from Scientific Revolution)
Image 21George Trebizond's Latin translation of Ptolemy's Almagest (c. 1451) (from Science in classical antiquity)
Image 22The physician Hippocrates, known as the "Father of Modern Medicine" (from Science in classical antiquity)
Image 23A mosaic depicting Plato's Academy, from the Villa of T. Siminius Stephanus in Pompeii (1st century AD) (from Science in classical antiquity)
Image 24al-Biruni's explanation of the phases of the moon (from Science in the medieval Islamic world)
Image 25The eye according to Hunayn ibn Ishaq, c. 1200 (from Science in the medieval Islamic world)
Image 26Schematics of the Antikythera mechanism (from Science in the ancient world)
Image 27Isaac Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller (from Scientific Revolution)
Image 28The French Academy of Sciences was established in 1666. (from Scientific Revolution)
Image 29The 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)
Image 30Otto von Guericke's experiments on electrostatics, published 1672 (from Scientific Revolution)
Image 31Portrait of Johannes Kepler, one of the founders and fathers of modern astronomy, the scientific method, natural and modern science (from Scientific Revolution)
Image 32An Egyptian practice of treating migraine in ancient Egypt (from Science in the ancient world)
Image 33Page from the Kitāb al-Hayawān (Book of Animals) by Al-Jahiz. Ninth century (from Science in the medieval Islamic world)
Image 34Ptolemaic model of the spheres for Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Georg von Peuerbach, Theoricae novae planetarum, 1474. (from Scientific Revolution)
Image 35Diagram of the Antikythera mechanism, an analog astronomical calculator (from Science in classical antiquity)
Image 36Astronomia Nova by Johannes Kepler (1609) (from Scientific Revolution)
Image 37Vesalius's intricately detailed drawings of human dissections in Fabrica helped to overturn the medical theories of Galen. (from Scientific Revolution)
Image 38The Tusi couple, a mathematical device invented by the Persian polymath Nasir al-Din Tusi to model the not perfectly circular motions of the planets (from Science in the medieval Islamic world)
Image 39Pliny the Elder: an imaginative 19th-century portrait (from Science in the ancient world)
Image 40Apollonius wrote a comprehensive study of conic sections in the Conics. (from Science in classical antiquity)
Image 41The first treatise about optics by Johannes Kepler, Ad Vitellionem paralipomena quibus astronomiae pars optica traditur (1604) (from Scientific Revolution)
Image 42Self trimming lamp in Ahmad ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir's treatise on mechanical devices, c. 850 (from Science in the medieval Islamic world)
Image 43Omar Khayyam's "Cubic equation and intersection of conic sections" (from Science in the medieval Islamic world)
Image 44Air 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)
Image 45A 19th-century portrait of Pliny the Elder (from Science in classical antiquity)
Image 46A coloured illustration from Mansur's Anatomy, c. 1450 (from Science in the medieval Islamic world)
Image 47The physical exercise chart; a painting on silk depicting calisthenics; unearthed in 1973 in Hunan, China, from the 2nd-century BC Western Han burial site of Mawangdui, Tomb Number 3 (from Science in the ancient world)
Image 48Ibn Sina teaching the use of drugs. 15th-century Great Canon of Avicenna (from Science in the medieval Islamic world)
Image 49Diagram from William Gilbert's De Magnete, a pioneering 1600 work of experimental science (from Scientific Revolution)
Image 50Mesopotamian clay tablet-letter from 2400 BC, Louvre (from King of Lagash, found at Girsu) (from Science in the ancient world)
Image 51Image 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)
Image 52The 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)

Subcategories

Category puzzle

Select [►] to view subcategories

Things you can do

Help out by participating in the History of Science Wikiproject (which also coordinates the histories of medicine, technology and philosophy of science) or join the discussion.

→ Here are some Open Tasks :

Article requests: History of earth science - Book of Nature - History of virology - History of environmental science - History of public health - History of endocrinology - History of the microscope - PaJaMo experiment - Technological sublime
Missing Scientist Articles: Normal Louis Allinger - Stanley H. Autler - John William Baker - Samuel Jackson Barnett - Manson Benedicks - Frank Leverett - Willy Rozenbaum - Ellie Wollman - Emory Ellis
Copyedit: Gottfried Leibniz - Nuclear arms race - Scientific Revolution - Galileo affair - Genealogy of theoretical physicists - John Harrison - Islamic science - Galileo's Daughter
History of science stubs: Prout's hypothesis - Neptunism - Chemical Revolution - Birth cries of atoms - Faraday Society - Plum pudding model - Nature study - Accademia del Cimento
Scientist stubs: Jean-Baptiste Biot - Robert S. Dietz - Hippolyte Fizeau - G. Evelyn Hutchinson - Auguste Laurent - Ida Noddack - Erasmus Reinhold - Franz Tengnagel - Sergei Winogradsky
Science book stubs: The Chemical History of a Candle - Genetics and the Origin of Species - Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man - La Géométrie - Historia Plantarum (Ray) - History of Animals - Method of Fluxions - Mysterium Cosmographicum - The Physiologus - Rudolphine Tables - The World (Descartes)
More pages needing attention

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Commons
Free media repository
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals
Wikidata
Free knowledge base
Wikinews
Free-content news
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations
Wikisource
Free-content library
Wikiversity
Free learning tools
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus

Discover Wikipedia using portals

Purge server cache

v t e History of science
Background	Theories and sociology Historiography Pseudoscience History and philosophy of science
By era	Ancient world Classical Antiquity Medieval European Renaissance Scientific Revolution Age of Enlightenment Romanticism 19th century in science 20th century in science
By culture	African Argentine Brazilian Byzantine Chinese French Indian Japanese Korean Medieval Islamic Mexican Russian Spanish
Natural sciences	Astronomy Biology Chemistry Earth science Physics
Mathematics	Algebra Calculus Combinatorics Geometry Logic Probability Statistics Trigonometry
Social sciences	Anthropology Archaeology Economics History Political science Psychology Sociology
Technology	Agricultural science Computer science Materials science Engineering
Medicine	Human medicine Veterinary medicine Anatomy Neuroscience Neurology and neurosurgery Nutrition Pathology Pharmacy
Timelines Portal Category