SCIENCE – a way of learning about the natural world.
It GREEK TECHNOLOGISTS
includes all the knowledge gained from exploring the
natural world.
TECHNOLOGY – a term that refers to a body of knowledge
that is employed to generate tools, creates skills, and
chooses materials for human use. It is the application of
knowledge to the practical aims of human life or to
changing and manipulating the human environment
SOCIETY – a community of people living in a particular
region and having a shared customs, laws, and
organizations
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY (STS)
- the study of the relationships between society, politics
and culture.
- an interdisciplinary program of study that focuses
on understanding the relationship between scientific
developments and the everyday lives of people.
THE ADVENT OF SCIENCE (600 BC to 1400 AD)
ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA - place where man’s
bewilderment and scientific view of the globe started
MESOPOTAMIA (from the Greek, meaning 'between two
rivers') - an ancient region located in the eastern
Mediterranean bounded in the northeast by the Zagros
Mountains and in the southeast by the Arabian Plateau,
corresponding to today's Iraq, mostly, but also parts of
modern-day Iran, Syria and Turkey.
EARLY SCIENTIFIC STUDIES- brought about by man’s
fascination with objects of the night.
4,000 BC - high priest of Sumeria scrutinized the stars, and
vast records of such endeavors were inscribed on tablets
that were made of clay
THALES OF MILETUS - Enamored with the stars
- (585 BC) foresaw the occurrence of a rare solar
eclipse which showed the tremendous knowledge
with approaches relating to science with the aid of
early findings from Babylonians
ANCIENT GREECE – could not be considered a single state
consisting of many territories but could be termed as a
variety of city-states just bound together by race
ATHENS – center of learning
ARISTOTLE - Greek Philosopher
– keen learner but he did not engage in the conduct of
experiments
ARCHIMEDES – an engineer who detected the
characteristics of liquids such as fluids
ERATOSTHENES - tinkered with the Earth’s breadth and
width
CTESIBIUS – constructed precise clocks
PRODIGIOUS LIBRARIANS OF ALEXANDRIA- made a
collection of the most precious books to be found at the
time
DIFFERENT PACE OF CHINA – development of science
happened;
Invented: gunpowder
Made: fireworks, rockets, metals, guns
First to invent: seismograph, compass
CHINESE ASTRONOMERS IN 1054 AD - observed the
passage of a supernova
SPINNING WHEEL - first used by Indians
INDIAN FARMING TECHNIQUES - superior even to
Chinese
BRILLIANT INDIAN MATHEMATICIANS - responsible for
the development of the Arabic Number System
USHERING IN THE GOLDEN AGE OF ISLAM
750 AD - the capital of the Islamic Caliphate was moved
from Damascus to Baghdad – City of Iraq
CALIPH – founded the House of Wisdom abiding with the
Islamic saying “The ink of a scholar is more holy than the
blood of a martyr.’’
HOUSE OF WISDOM – main purpose is to be a great
library and formidable center of research
Year 850- the great library founded in Baghdad became a
fine rival to the Alexandrian library
GREAT ARAB SCIENTISTS
ALHAZEN – wrote the book about optics (comparable
with the work of Newton)
AL-RAZI- a physician who formulated soap and made
distinctions between smallpox and measles
AL-KHWARIZMI- introduced Algebra and algorithms
AL-JAZARI – an engineer who was the first to use rod
systems still found in cars today
AL-SUFI – lover of astronomy who was a fan of Ptolemy
ARAB CHEMISTS - discovered distillation, and formulated
words, such as alkali and alcohol
PTOLEMY - Latin in full Claudius Ptolemaeus
- ancient astronomer, geographer, and mathematician
who considered the Earth the center of the universe,
the Ptolemaic System.
- Virtually nothing is known about his life.
SCIENCE OF ASTRONOMY - great use to Arabic nomads
who used such knowledge of the heavenly bodies to
navigate their tireless camels across the Arabian desert
esp. in the middle of the night.
GOLDEN AGE OF ISLAMIC PERIOD – allowed the
blossoming of the sciences in the 750s, lasted for almost 5
centuries.
- provided the basis for experiments to flourish and
allowed the used of modern scientific ways
THE DANGERS OF THE TIMES
NICOLAUS COPERNICUS - doctor from Poland, had an idea
in 1532 that it was the SUN which was the center of the
solar system
COPERNICAN MODEL – had a great impact on succeeding
men of science
JOHANNES KEPLER – German astrologer who observed
the elliptical orbits of Mars
GALILEO GALILEI - an Italian who identified around the
four moons of the planet Jupiter, which marked the dawn
of a new age in cosmology with the use of more powerful
telescopes
- showed the utilization of scientific data by
conducting the experiments
COSMOLOGY - a branch of astronomy concerned with the
studies of the origin and evolution of the universe, from
the Big Bang to today and on into the future.
- the scientific study of the origin, evolution, and
eventual fate of the universe
CHRISTIAAN HUYGENS – Dutchman, took advantage of
Galileo’s ideas with the pendulum and soon built the first
pendulum clock in 1657
FRANCIS BACON - European, an English Philosopher,
made a pitch for the use of scientific method
- laid a strong foundation for a wooden science that is
grounded on observation and experiment
ACCELERATION OF NEW DISCOVERIES
ROBERT BOYLE – air pump
ISAAC NEWTON – English physicist, theories of light travel
OLE ROMER - Danish astronomer, calculations on the
approximate speed of light
BISHOP NICOLAS STENO – made inroads into modern
science and developed his own thinking in the fields of
anatomy and geology
- studied rock layers, which established a new
scientific ground for the emerging science of geology
THE AGE OF MICRO-BEINGS
MICRO-ORGANISM OR MICROBE - a creature that is too
small to be seen with the naked eye
BACTERIA- one of the smallest microbes could fit over
one million times on the point of a needle.
1600 - the year when the growth of new technological
developments that drove scientists to study subjects in
their smallest state and become obsessed with anything
minute was shown
VERY FIRST MICROSCOPES - produced by the Dutch
makers of eyeglass
ROBERT HOOKE - revealed for the very first time to the
scientific community, his findings on the complex
structure of small insects, such as fleas and bugs
ANTONIE VAN LEEUWENHOEK - the store owner of fabric
who started making his own microscope and was able to
find small life forms in places where scientists had not
thought of conducting their research before, such as
water
- discovered the life forms with the single cells, like
bacteria; Father of Microbiology
JAN SWAMMERDAM - Dutchman, by using a microscope
showed that the different stages in the development of
insects were not separate animals
JOHN RAY - Englishman biologist who made the great
collection of plants species
ASTRONOMY, CHEMISTRY, PHYSICS & BIOLOGY – four
modern scientific disciplines
PHILOSOPHIAE NATURALIS PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICAL -
the magnificent treatise of Isaac Newton
ISAAC NEWTON - English physicist and mathematician
who was for his law of gravitation, was instrumental in
the scientific revolution of the 17th century and
developed laws of motion
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ - German philosopher,
mathematician, and logician who invented the differential
and integral calculus
THE EXPANSION OF SCIENTIFIC HORIZONS
STEPHEN HALES - Englishman who was able to discover
root pressure (rising of sap within plants) and invented a
trough for collecting gases
DANIEL BERNOULLI - Swiss mathematician, who was
primarily responsible for the Bernoulli principle
BERNOULLI PRINCIPLE - the pressure of the fluid falls
when it is moving.
- allowed the Swiss wizard to keep tabs on blood pressure
- utilized in the principles governing the flying of an
aircraft
JOSEPH BLACK - Scottish Chemist who was able to
produce an amazing doctoral thesis about the calcium
carbonate degeneration and the extraction of carbon
dioxide
HENRY CAVENDISH - made an important contribution to
the field by illustrating that water was made of two parts
of hydrogen to one of oxygen
JAN INGENHOUSZ - Dutchman who demonstrated how
green plants emitted oxygen under the sun and carbon
dioxide in the dark
ANTOINE LAVOISER - explained that many elements
including carbon and phosphorus, could burn by
combining with oxygen to form what is now termed as
oxides
th
JOSEPH PROUST - French chemist in late 18 century who
made another discovery by figuring out that chemical
elements, most of the time, merged in exact shares
THE FIELD OF EARTH SCIENCES
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN - showed how big-scale ocean
currents flowed at the bottom of the sea with his inquiries
of the Gulf Stream
GEORGE HADLEY - English amateur meteorologist, who
expounded in a paper the impact of the trade winds in
relation to the rotation of the globe
NEVIL MASKELYNE - took advantage of Newton’s idea, by
taking measurements of the gravitational pull of
mountain in Scotland, and in the process was able to find
out the density of the earth
JAMES HUTTON - became engrossed in geology and soon
made the conclusion that the earth was a little bit older
than anyone had previously believed
THE BASIS OF LIFE
GEORGES—LOUIS LECLERC - French naturalist and
mathematician who was one of those who pioneered the
creation of a theory of evolution
CHRISTIAN SPRENGEL - German Theologian who spent
most of his time delving into the complex relationships
between plants and insects, and later made the
conclusion that bisexual flowers did not have the ability to
fertilize themselves because they produced male and
female flowers at the different periods
THOMAS MALTHUS - Englishman who focused on
specifics about demography and predicted the end of the
world if population growth was left unchecked
“The Principle of Population”
CHARLES DARWIN - a naturalist and biologist known for
his theory of evolution and the process of natural
selection.
DARWINISM - a theory of biological evolution developed
by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and
others, stating that all species of organisms arise and
develop through the natural selection of small, inherited
variations that increase the individual's ability to
compete, survive, and reproduce.
ALESSANDRO VOLTA - Italian physicist who made big
strides with the iconic invention of the electric battery
WILLIAM WHEWELL - English philosopher who
introduced the creation of a new profession separate
from that of philosophy known as scientist
A HUNDRED YEARS OF DEVELOPMENT
INVENTION OF THE ELECTRIC BATTERY - created a whole
new field of scientific ideas in 1799
DANISH HANS CHRISTIAN ORSTED - established a
connection between electricity and magnetism
MICHAEL FARADAY - invented the world‘s first electric
motor
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL – Scottish who made some
calculations and in the process, solved the complex
mathematics of electromagnetism
INVISIBILITY MATTERS
WILLIAM HERSCHEL - German astronomer who realized
that his thermometer showed a higher temperature over
the red end of the visible spectrum
WILHELM RONTGEN - discovered the soon- to-be famous
X-rays in his experiments in Germany
THOMAS YOUNG - British physician who put to rest the
argument of whether light was wave of a particle by
discovering wavelike interference in his studies
CHRISTIAN DOPPLER - Austrian physicist, who made
famous the “Doppler effect” by expounding on the color
of binary stars
HIPPOLYTE FIZEAU & LEON FOUCAULT - two French
physicists who measured the speed of light and concluded
that light traveled faster in air than in water
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
JOHN DALTON - British meteorologist who focused on the
potential use of atomic weights for veteran chemists
JONS JAKOB BERZELIUS – Swedish who also contributed
to the growing knowledge of this field by making a full list
of atomic weights
LOUIS PASTEUR - illustrated in Paris that spontaneous
generation of life could not be done
AUGUST KEKULE - German chemist who discovered the
structure of the benzene molecule
DMITRI MENDELEEV - Russian chemist who was able to
solve the problem of the periodic table of the elements
MARIE CURIE - a twice Nobel—Prize winner, who in her
laboratory was able to separate the polonium from
radium
RELICS FROM THE PAST
MARY ANNING - presented a substantial collection of
fossils of extinct animals from England
RICHARD OWEN - English biologist who also pioneered
the use of the word “dinosaurs” to describe the “terrible
lizards” that once were kings on this earth
LOUIS AGASSIZ - geologist from Switzerland who also
forwarded the view that big parts of the planet were once
covered with impregnable ice
ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT - was able to uncover the
connections inherent in nature and founded the study of
ecology
ALFRED RUSSEL and CHARLES DARWIN - two British
naturalists in the mid 19th, who came up with the idea on
the process of evolution by means of natural selection
THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY - Darwin follower who
illustrated that birds could have evolved from the now –
extinct dinosaurs
A NEW-LOOK PHYSICS
MAX PLANCK – discovery of electromagnetism travelled
in distinct packets and not in continuous waves
ALBERT EINSTEIN – speed of light was always constant
and independent of the movement of the observer
- later found out that the idea of absolute time & space
had to be discarded in favor of a single space-time

WAVE-PARTICLE DILEMMA
POLONIUM - a chemical element with symbol Po and
JOSEPH JOHN THOMSON – first to discover electron,
atomic number 84
unearthing its negative charge and the wave-like
- a rare and highly radioactive metal with no stable
characteristics of its particles
isotopes
ERWIN SCHRODINGER – made an array of questions that
- chemically similar to selenium and tellurium, though
fully described the probability of finding a particle in a
its metallic character resembles that of its horizontal
specific place and state
neighbors in the periodic table: thallium, lead, and
WERNER HEISENBERG – illustrated that there was a
bismuth.
probable uncertainty to the values of place and
- used on brushes that remove accumulated dust from
momentum
photographic films.
RADIUM - a chemical element with symbol Ra and atomic
HARNESSING ATHE ATOM
number 88.
ERNEST RUTHERFORD – first illustrated that an atom was
- all isotopes of radium are highly radioactive, with the
made basically of space, comprising of a small, dense
most stable isotope being radium-226, which has a
nucleus and electrons orbiting around it
half-life of 1600 years and decays into radon gas
LINUS PAULING – took advantage of the picture of an
(specifically the isotope radon-222).
atom and was able to explain how atoms bonded to each
- formerly used as a source of radiation for
other with the use of quantum physics
radiotherapy
JOHN ROBERT OPPENHEIMER – tasked to lead the
Manhattan Project, an undertaking to produce the first
nuclear weapons ever made

NEW CONCEPT OF THE UNIVERSE

EDWIN HUBBLE – found out that the nebulae were in
reality, distant galaxies
- observed that the universe was expanding in all
directions
GEORGES LEMAITRE – suggest that the universe came
into being from a “primeval atom”
FRITZ ZWICKY – invented that term “dark matter”

THE ORIGIN OF LIFE

HAROLD UREY & STANLEY MILLER – conducted an
experiment to know whether life on earth started when
chemical reactions were sparked by lightning
JAMES WATSON & BRITON FRANCIS –dissect the
molecular structure of DNA, resulted in the unlocking of
the genetic code – mapping of human genome
LYNN MARGULIS – organism absorbed each other and
continued with their existence, resulting in the production
of complex cells of all multicellular life forms
MICHAEL SYVANEN – illustrated how genes could have
the ability to transfer from one species to another,
acquired characteristics could be passed
CRAIG VENTER – created artificial life by carefully
outlining its DNA on his computer
IAN WILMUT – succeed in the cloning of a sheep – Dolly

THE NATURE OF PARTICLES

RICHARD FEYNMAN – quantum interactions happened in
terms of exchange of virtual particles
PAUL DIRAC – able to correctly predict the existence of
anti-matter
SHELDON GASLOW – merged electromagnetism with the
weak nuclear force and transformed it into one “electro-
weak” theory
HUGH EVERETT III – made a proposal that there might be
a mathematical basis for concluding that there could be
real existence of more than one universe