Saint Louis College

City of San Fernando, La Union

GE 3 SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SO

Mr. Harry B. Andrad

Course Facilitator

Short Term 2021

GE 3 – SCIE
MODULE 2 HISTORY OF SCIENCE TECHNOLG
(South American Civilization to Medieval Science)

ENGAGE:
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 This part will be set to Google Classroom Assignment:

EXPLORE:
SOUTH AMERICAN CIVILIZATION

8. Aztec Empire - Native American state that ruled much of what is now Mexico from about 1428
until 1521, when the empire was conquered by the Spaniards. The empire represented the highest
point in the development of the rich Aztec civilization that had begun more than a century earlier. At
the height of their power, the Aztec controlled a region stretching from the Valley of Mexico in central
Mexico east to the Gulf of Mexico and south to Guatemala.

Aztec society was highly structured, based on agriculture, and guided by a religion that pervaded
every aspect of life. The Aztec worshiped gods that represented natural forces that were vital to their
agricultural economy. Aztec cities were dominated by giant stone pyramids topped by temples where
human sacrifices were dedicated to the gods. Aztec art was primarily an expression of religion, and
even warfare, which increased the empire’s wealth and power, served the religious purpose of
providing captives to be sacrificed.

The Aztecs also employed a 365-day calendar, corresponding to the solar year, the time it takes for
the earth to revolve once around the sun. Known as the xiuhpohualli (for counting days and months)
or xihuitl (for counting years), this 365-day calendar dictated the timing of important religious rites and
agricultural tasks, such as planting and harvesting.

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9. Maya Civilization, an ancient Native American culture that represented one of the most advanced
civilizations in the western hemisphere before the arrival of Europeans. The people known as the
Maya lived in the region that is now eastern and southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador,
and western Honduras. The Maya culture reached its highest development from about ad 300 to 900.
The Maya built massive stone pyramids, temples, and sculpture and accomplished complex
achievements in mathematics and astronomy, which were recorded in hieroglyphs (a pictorial form of
writing).

the most distinctive Maya achievements were in abstract mathematics and astronomy. One of their
greatest intellectual achievements was a pair of interlocking calendars, which was used for such
purposes as the scheduling of ceremonies. One calendar was based on the sun and contained 365
days. The second was a sacred 260-day almanac used for finding lucky and unlucky days. Maya
astronomers could make difficult calculations, such as finding the day of the week of a particular
calendar date many thousands of years in the past or in the future. They also used the concept of
zero, an extremely advanced mathematical concept.

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11. Inca Empire, The Inca, a South American people, built one of the largest and wealthiest empires
in the western hemisphere beginning in the mid-1400s. Located on the western coast of South
America, the empire extended more than 4000 km (more than 2500 mi) and included regions of
present-day Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina.

Inca Empire of the Early 1500s

The city of Cuzco, situated in southern Peru, served as the Inca capital. Inca Empire, vast
kingdom in the Andes Mountains of South America that was created by the Quechua, a Native
American people, in the 15th century ad. The Inca Empire was conquered by the Spanish in the early
16th century. The Incas built a wealthy and complex civilization that ruled between 5 million and 11
million people. The Inca system of government was among the most complex political organizations
of any Native American people. Although the Incas lacked both a written language and the concept of
the wheel, they accomplished feats of engineering that were unequalled elsewhere in the Americas.
They built large stone structures without mortar and constructed suspension bridges and roads that
crossed the steep mountain valleys of the Andes.

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MEDIEVAL SCIENCE
A. The Dark Ages (No new inventions or knowledge – they went back to their old beliefs)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sfdAcxRrq8

● Latter days of the Roman Empire, Christianity grew to be the dominant religion.
● The dominance of Christianity worked against the revival of science for many centuries. The Christian
viewpoint was quite opposed to that of the Ionian philosophers.
● The belief in the existence of a natural law that was unchanging and unchangeable gave way to the
belief in a world constantly subject to the miraculous interposition of God.
● “ THE LIGHT OF SCIENCE MAINTAINED A FEEBLE GLOW AMID THE SHADOW OF THE DARK
AGES”

1. Bede the Venerable, Saint (673?-735), English Benedictine monk and scholar, chiefly known for
his Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People), a history of
England from the Roman occupation to 731, the year it was completed. Bede preserved what he
could of the ancients which consisted largely of the scraps of Pliny.

2. The Arabs – “The light of science might have faded out had it not been for the arabs” (Arabs
were great scientific originators, they discovered the work of Aristotle and Galen, translated them into
Arabic, preserved, studied and wrote commentaries on them.
a. Avicenna (Arabic, Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abd Allah ibn Sina) (980-1037), Iranian Islamic
philosopher and physician. Avicenna's best-known philosophical work is Kitab ash-Shifa (Book of
Healing), a collection of treatises on Aristotelian logic, metaphysics, psychology, the natural sciences,
and other subjects. He wrote numerous books based on the medical theories of Hippocrates.
b. al-Khwārizmī, Muhammad ibn Mūsā (780?-850?), Arab mathematician, born in Khwārizm
(now Khiva, Uzbekistan). He was librarian at the court of Caliph al-Mamun and astronomer at the
Baghdād observatory. The Latin version, by the Italian translator Gerard of Cremona, of his treatise
on algebra (based on a Hindu work) was responsible for much of the mathematical knowledge of
medieval Europe. His work on algorithm, a term derived from his name, introduced the method of
calculating by use of Arabic numerals and decimal notation.
c. Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyyā al-Rāzī also known by his Latinized name Rhazes or Rasis)
(854–925 CE), was a Persian polymath, physician, alchemist, philosopher, and important figure in the history
of medicine. He also wrote on logic, astronomy and grammar. A comprehensive thinker, Razi made
fundamental and enduring contributions to various fields, which he recorded in over 200 manuscripts, and is
particularly remembered for numerous advances in medicine through his observations and discoveries.

3. Gerard of Cremona (Latin: Gerardus Cremonensis; c. 1114 – 1187) was an Italian translator of
scientific books from Arabic into Latin. Gerard of Cremona is the most important translator among
the Toledo School of Translators who invigorated medieval Europe in the twelfth century by
transmitting the Arab's and ancient Greek's knowledge in astronomy, medicine and other sciences, by
making the knowledge available in the Latin language. One of Gerard's most famous translations is
of Ptolemy's Almagest from Arabic texts found in Toledo. He translated the works of Aristotle,
Hippocrates and Galen into Latin.

Mr. Harry B. Andrada

GE 3 Course Facilitator – Short Tem 2021