principe1

Principe intro and ch. 1

See discussion boards 1.1 to 1.4 for what we did in the online class meeting
notice that there are a wide range of ideas about what science is--I blame Magic Schoolbus for people having such broad ideas

a course in the history of science needs to narrow its topic, not try to cover all knowledge about the natural world, so we will differentiate:

the systematic study of the physical world based on experiment (formal science)

craft knowledge: from experience and rules of thumb but not systematic

philosophy based on logic and assumed connections, not careful observation or experiment

formal or narrow science

systematic knowledge

based on the scientific method

explanations of why things happen based on natural processes

based on experiment--more systematic than trial and error

where possible science describes things mathematically

invented in the scientific revolution (some historians reject this, but you should understand the argument for it)

people gathered around a telescope in venice

what changed in the scientific revolution?

This author's approach:

what hadn't changed yet as well as what changed

"a noisy marketplace of competing systems and concepts" (p. 4)
religion and science were not enemies

Some chronology:

Pre-socratics	500-350 BCE	Greece & Turkey	Pythagoras laid out the basics of geometry, Democritus said the world must be made up of atoms
Aristotle	384-322 BCE	northern Greece	wrote a series of volumes trying to gather all of human knowledge, including physics and natural history (biology and zoology)
Hellenistic period	275-120 BCE	Alexandria, Egypt	Archimedes prepared a map of the known world, Euclid gathered together the elements of geometry, Ptolemy systematized astronomy
Roman Empire	100 BCE-200 CE	Rome, Italy	Pliny tried to organize and explain natural knowledge, Galen systematized medicine
Early middle ages	400-1000 CE	Europe	learning nearly disappeared in Europe but writing about the natural world continued in the near east (in Greek and Arabic). The Carolingian Renaissance in the 9th century brought more stability and the founding of cathedral schools
High middle ages	1000-1300 CE	Europe	rediscovery of ancient Greek science (mostly texts preserved in Arabic translation in the Muslim world), reconciliation of Aristotle with the Bible, development of the first universities teaching the logical method of scholasticism. This is the Renaissance of the 12th century.
Renaissance	1300-1500 CE	first Italy then spread	Leonardo da Vinci, humanism
Scientific Revolution	1500-1700	Europe	Copernicus put the sun in the center of the solar system, Galileo provided experimental evidence and the beginning of a new physics, Kepler showed that planets move in ellipses, Newton completed the new physics (and invented calculus to do so)

medieval lecture

In the middle ages, there were books that were the authorities and had the definitive answer to any question--Bible, Aristotle, Euclid, Galen for medicine.

Medieval universities

taught by the scholastic method: authority plus logic

taught in Latin, the common language of the church

subjects taught were: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music theory, grammar, logic, and rhetoric

after finishing a degree you could go on to study: law, medicine, or theology

theology had the most prestige, prepared you for a career in government as well as in the church (because the two overlapped a great deal)

Humanism:

new method of teaching and learning

rebellion against medieval ideas

new scholarly community outside the universities, supported by wealthy patrons

discovery of a wider range of Greek texts, more emphasis on Plato instead of Aristotle, emphasis on finding accurate texts

much influence from the Arab world, which had preserved many of the texts during the dark ages in Europe

emphasis on comparing texts and facing contradictions, look at sources more critically

a new world view

people can come up with better answers than the traditional authorities

belief in human achievement

belief in progress

not against religion (that is secular humanism), but criticized corruption, wanted to make religion more intellectual

<big>Medieval Technological Revolution</big> printing
press

The printing press:

medieval books cost $2000-10,000 in today's money

the first universities developed in the middle ages, and the demand for books was so high that some workshops had a kind of mass production with one person reading and a number writing

paper was already mass produced, the screw press and oil-based inks used for wooden block prints

Gutenberg's key innovation (in 1452) was moveable type (more history )

by 1483 the same amount of money would produce 3 hand copies of 1025 printed copies

the cost of a book dropped to a few hundred dollars in today's money

by 1500 8 million books published--equal to total previous world output

<big>Medieval Technological Revolution</big> impact:

students didn't have to spend all their time memorizing the books

more books available meant it was easier to compare books and notice contradictions

more accurate and faster transmission of knowledge, particularly images and diagrams

woodblock prints were known in Europe from the early 15th century but not very accurate

engraving was invented in the 1430s: various ways of gouging an image on a copper plate, allowing much more accurate illustrations (for example of maps and different kinds of plants)

people read the Bible for themselves, leading to the reformation

Luther takes his stand in 1517--argues that we are saved by God's grace not by good works and that everyone has the right to interpret the Bible for themselves

with the help of the printing press this catches on as a political movement as well

Protestant universities in Germany threw out many of the traditional medieval methods

in 1531 Henry VIII breaks England away from the Catholic church

the Catholic church responds with a counter-reformation fighting corruption and stressing education

the new Jesuit order (organization for training Catholic priests and scholars) had as its motto "to find God in all things," founded many new schools

Martin
Luther

Exploration: Medieval Technological Revolution

the problem of navigation was not solved during the age of exploration

magnetic compass introduced in 13th century, but knowing which way you are going doesn't help much if you don't know where you are

more careful mapmaking was the main improvement of the 14th and 15th centuries, particularly knowledge of the winds

minor improvements in methods for measuring latitude in 15th century

the problem of measuring longitude was not solved until the mid to late 1700s ( story)

in 1340 the Muslims cut off overland trade to Asia and Europeans start exploring outside the Mediterranean

slow exploration down the coast of Africa until Bartholomew Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1487

the Portuguese controlled the route around Africa so the Spanish looked for an alternative route

Columbus underestimated the circumference of the earth and reached America in 1492

in 1519 Magellan set out on a 3 year voyage around the world

Magellan's ships

Magellan rounds the southern tip of South America

the full rigged ship (about 1500--only one of Columbus's ships was the new design)

multiple masts and more than one sail on each mast

rudder permanently attached to a stern post instead of a steering oar

rounded shape

military technology was also critical, because of the fighting to control sea routes

primitive cannon about 1325 used carved stone balls and exploded a lot

iron cannonballs introduced 1350, corned gunpowder for more even explosion about 1420

cannon became safe enough to use on a ship about 1500

very quickly warships began carrying large numbers of cannon--England rose to power partly because they were more successful in making iron cannon (because they happened to have high-phosphorous ore)

very
primitive cannon

Early gunpowder weapons

Impact: Medieval Technological Revolution

sophisticated business practices developed in trading centers in the late middle ages--eg. banking and insurance in Venice

war was expensive so the way to be powerful was to get rich--kings encouraged trade and the search for gold

England in particular became rich off trade in slaves, sugar, tea, tobacco, and rum

trade encouraged the economy to gradually become more based on a free market rather than on customary prices and made opportunities for people to get rich--capitalism was emerging. It wasn't quite what we think of today as capitalism but rather it was mercantile capitalism based on competition between nations.

Europeans gained pride from discovering a new world--they no longer believed that the ancient Greeks knew more than they did

New World: everything the Romans didn't know. North and South America, Australia, East Asia, south Africa

exploration brought a flood of data about plants, animals, geography..., so much that new ways of organizing information were needed