STS – LESSON 1
GONZALES, DEXTER O.
LESSON 1
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE
AND TECHNOLOGY
INTRODUCTION
What are Science, Technology, and society, and why
should people study and learn from it? Why should
learners, teachers, researchers, and other professionals
have an indulgence in the subject? Primarily, we need
some background and understanding of science and
technology in the living past and their importance in the
modern world (Mosteiro, 2004).
NATURE OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND
SOCIETY
SCIENCE
● from the Latin word Scientia which means knowledge.
● It is a systematic, organized knowledge that
investigates nature.
● It is also a process of diverse events shaped by social
forces and historical change, thus shaping culture.
TECHNOLOGY
● From the word Techne (art, craft, skill), Logos (word).
● It means a system of skills, techniques, processes, and
products of the scientific concept. Simply, it is the
scientific study of the practical or industrial arts.
● It is a complex combination of knowledge, materials,
and methods with the organization and manipulation of
materials for humanity's useful purposes.
● It is a process of inventing new or better tools and
materials for a better way of living, resulting in a total
societal enterprise.
SOCIETY
● It is an ethnic or racial network, based on gender, or
due to shared beliefs, values, and activities. Sociology
defines it as people who interact to share a common
culture.
● In geography, it refers to people who share a common
culture in a particular location. For example, people living
in arctic climates developed different cultures from those
living in desert cultures. In time, a large variety of human
cultures arose around the world.
ANCIENT TIMES
2023101939@bulsu.edu.ph
Accumulation and transfer of knowledge evolved from
the ancient to modern humans. The ability to make
weapons from simple to modern ones became efficient.
Hunters became farmers and fishers. Clothing became a
necessity from nakedness. hence, different elements
combined to reach the level of sophistication of our
civilization.
Sumerian Civilization
● Sumerian civilization emerged in 3,500 BC in the
southern region of Mesopotamia (corresponding to
modern-day Iraq and Kuwait).
● It is generally considered the cradle of civilization.
● They rely on agriculture as the primary source of
livelihood.
● They created irrigation systems by constructing dikes
and canals to control flooding.
● They built large structures from sun-dried bricks made
of clay.
● Invented the wheel, sail, and plow, improving trade and
farming.
● They forged bronze from copper and tin (around 3,000
BC), allowing for more robust tools and weapons.
● They developed the first formal writing system called
cuneiform.
● Introduced a 360-day calendar
● The basis for sixty minutes to an hour time duration
came from the sexagesimal number system and was used
to measure the circumference of a circle with 360 degrees.
Babylonian Civilization ( About 3,500 BC until 500 BC)
● Positioned on the border of the famous Euphrates and
Tigris rivers in Iraq
● They used a calendar with alternating 29 and 30-day
months. This system required an extra month three times
every eight years. As a further adjustment, the King would
periodically order an additional extra month into the
calendar.
● Likewise, they dug canals and developed earthen dikes
to irrigate their crops and provide water to their livestock.
● They adopted the Sumerian sexagesimal system.
● They showed a remarkable talent in Astronomy and
believed that the movement of the heavenly bodies
forecasted some terrestrial events like eclipses. They kept
complete lists of eclipses
● Babylonian astronomers compiled lists of planets and
stars.

Egyptian Civilization
● Historians noted that ancient Egypt began between
5,000 and 3,100 BC, geographically situated in Africa's
Northeastern part.
● The Nile River provided Egypt with the necessary
water requirements to support agricultural activities.
● They produced a variety of earthenware and pottery
items.
● They worked on metals to produce tools, weapons, and
agricultural implements.
● They constructed dwellings made of reeds and air-dried
mud bricks.
● Built great pyramids
● Ancient Egyptians devised a 365-day calendar.
● Hieroglyphics is an Ancient form of writing created by
the Egyptians. The use of symbols became part of reading
to understand letters. the ancient artifact that helps decode
and understand these meanings is the Rosetta Stone.
Greek Civilization
● Greek civilization emerged at around 1,100 BC.
● Had a stronger connection with philosophy, and
replaced the supernatural beliefs through the concept of a
universe governed by natural laws. Scientific works of
wise and gifted Greeks such as Thales, Socrates,
Hippocrates, Aristotle, Archimedes, and Ptolemy served
as foundations and pillars of Western civilization.
Pythagoras also studied geometry and discovered the
Pythagorean Theorem Euclid wrote the book entitled
Elements which is about geometry
Aristotle wrote the History of Animals and listed all his
observations about animals in this book.
Hippocrates who is the "Father of Western Medicine "
also introduced cartography.
Here are some of the inventions credited to the Ancient
Greeks.
1. Watermill - Powered by water used to grind with
a waterwheel and toothed
gear to capacitate the grind.
2. Alarm Clock - Plato used a water clock to trigger
a sound at a specific time
STS – LESSON 1
GONZALES, DEXTER O.
2023101939@bulsu.edu.ph
which became the start of how alarm clocks are
used.
3. Central Heating - The Greeks invented a type of
central heating to transfer hot air from fires to
empty spaces under the temple's floors.
4. Crane- The Greeks invented the crane to help lift
heavy items such as blocks for constructing
buildings.
5. Archimedes' Screw - Invented by Archimedes,
the Archimedes' screw was an efficient way to
move water up a hill.
Roman Civilization Spanned from 102 – 44 B.C.
● It established a sophisticated system to circulate written
news published on Acta diurnal, which translates to
"Daily events," and published the Acta Senatus that
recorded the proceedings in the Roman senate.
● They were incredibly skillful in building
infrastructures with good integrity and built.
● The Romans developed infrastructure networks and
constructed roads from Rome to other places in Italy.
● They have constructed immense permanent structures
such as domes, theaters, and stadiums.
Indian Civilization (1500 and 1000 BCE)
● Adequate knowledge of geometry developed in India
due to strict religious rules for the construction of altars.
● The Shula Sutras is a work that explains how to
perform all the geometrical operations to support the
religious procedures regarding altars. The concept of
square roots and squaring the circle is also rooted in this
book.
● Developed the numbers and decimal notation that the
world uses today, thus the most influential Hindu science
achievement.
Chinese Civilization
● Displayed an exceptional talent in making inventions
like Gunpowder, paper, woodblock printing, and the
compass (known as the "south-pointing needle")
● The creation of the plow and the development of the
lunar calendar in China.
● Chinese doctors started the use of acupuncture.
● Astronomers were able to record solar eclipses.
● They used bamboo strips or paper made from bark to
write on.

● They developed the technology of papermaking and the
invention of the printing press.
● They invented an "earthquake weather clock" or what
is now known as the seismograph.
MEDIEVAL ERA
It began just before 500 A.D and is often called The
Middle Ages or the Dark Ages. Due to a significant loss
of power throughout Europe by the Roman Emperor. The
Middle Ages dated roughly 1,000 years, ending around
1450 A.D. This era founded today's modern European
countries involved great political turmoil and violence
and considered human growth and development.
Life in The Middle Ages
● People formed small communities with their Lord or
Master. It consists of the Castle, the Church, the Village,
and the surrounding farmland. Most lived in the Manors,
which were isolated, and with only occasional visits from
merchants or pilgrims.
● Feudalism is a form of government
King - (awarded land grants to his most essential nobles)
Barons and Bishops - (provide soldiers for the King's
armies)
Lords/Earls/Marquis/Viscount - (act as local justice and
held court for local matters and provide land)
Vassals or tenants - (serve as guard duty, and later they
paid a fee to acquire mercenaries (soldiers-for-hire)
Peasants/serfs/villeins - (lowest class of society, provides
the Lord with labor, share the products yielded from his
land in exchange for protection, land to work, and a place
to live)
Every village had a Lord, and people were almost entirely
farmers. After the 1100s, castles often dominated village
landscapes, and some towns continued to exist for
centuries.
The Village People
Peasants
● The poorest people in the medieval era lived in cottages
● using wood, reeds, twigs, mud, and straw.
● They could be educated and married if they could
afford it.
Serfs
STS – LESSON 1
GONZALES, DEXTER O.
2023101939@bulsu.edu.ph
● The peasant class is the poorest and treated as slaves.
● Serfs serve the Lords to have a place to live.
● They could do neither and were not permitted to
relocate without the Lord's approval.
Farmers
● They were better off than peasants, owned their farms,
and also lived in cottages.
Carpenters
● highly skilled (knowledge of math, woodworking, and
tools) and were elite tradesmen. One had to gain the skills
to join a guild as an apprentice and learn the craft to
become a carpenter.
● Kings and nobles employed them as specialists. A
master carpenter was always in demand to build
decoratively furnished castles and estates and earn high
wages.
Metalsmiths sometimes called blacksmith (‘smith’ who
worked in the “black” metal, namely iron)
- The "white" metals used were tin, silver, or gold.
- The Medieval Blacksmith made a wide variety of items
and objects which included:
- Medieval Weapons, including swords, daggers, lances,
arrowheads, etc.
- Siege Weapons
- Medieval Armor and shields
- Tools
- Nails
- Church and Castle Doors - hinges, locks, and keys
- Instruments of torture and chains
- Ornaments, Jewelry & Decorative Objects
The technology used in everyday Medieval life
- The Medieval period involved significant
technological advancement.
Below is a list of some inventions from the Middle
Ages.
1. Mechanical Artillery/Weaponry
Counterweight trebuchet (12th). use of counterweights
allowing to throw large stones to very long distances.
Missile weapons.
Longbow with massed, disciplined archery (13th) Steel
crossbow (14th, late)

2. Agriculture
The heavy plow (5th - 8th) is used to cultivate rich, fatty,
often wet North Europe soils. It first appeared in Slavic
lands before it came to Northern Italy (the Po Valley).
Horse collar (6th - 9th) - It went through multiple
evolutions from the 6th to 9th centuries and pulled heavy
plows.
Horseshoes (9th) - As early as 50 BC, Romans and Celts
were known to use these for horses to adapt to rocky
terrain, and mountains and carry heavier loads.
3. Architecture and construction
Artesian well (1126) - It was coined for Artois in France,
where Carthusian monks drilled the first in 1126.
Wheelbarrow (the 1170s) –It is for construction, mining,
and farming, and its first illustration is in the 13th
Century, although it appeared in stories and pictures
between 1170 and 1250 in North-western Europe.
4. Clocks
Hourglass (1338), documented in Siena, Italy; is a
dependable, affordable, and accurate time measurement.
5. Vertical windmills (the 1180s) - Invented in Europe
and was first mentioned In Yorkshire, England 1185; a
pivotable post mill efficient at grinding grain or draining
water.
6. Spectacles (the 1280s) -It developed in Florence, Italy,
and made up of convex lenses to help far-sighted people.
7. Spinning wheel (13th) - probably the Hindu brought
to Europe this apparatus.
8. Chess (1450) - This game spread through Persia and
the Muslim world to Europe from India where it
originated in the 6th century AD.
9. Mirrors (1180) – It was made in 1180 by Alexander
Beckham, who said, "Take away the lead behind the glass,
and there will be no image of the one looking in."
10. Oil paint (ca. 1410) - Flemish painter Jan van Eyck
around 1410, introduced a stable oil mixture and is used
to add details to tempera paintings.
11. Quarantine (1377) – It was introduced by the
Republic of Ragusa, a 40-day-period Quarantine. Venice
began quarantines, and then the practice spread around
Europe.
ALCHEMY: One crucial stimulus was the monarchs'
growing demand for valuable elements. New pumping
STS – LESSON 1
GONZALES, DEXTER O.
2023101939@bulsu.edu.ph
devices, new types of equipment for lifting heavy loads,
and further finding and extracting metals were developed.
Metallurgy and metalworking became famous during the
16th Century. Alchemists laid the foundation of Modern
Chemistry and solved the problem of shortage of gold in
laboratories.
FIREARMS, ARCHITECTURE, FORTIFICATION:
The creation of Gunpowder and firearms made
mathematical knowledge indispensable; artillery without
ballistic competence would have been inefficient. The
knowledge of geometry and statics enabled the Middle
Ages architects to construct such wonderworks like
Gothic cathedrals. The sophisticated fortifications built in
Italy, France, and England during the 15th and 16th
centuries would not have been useful if their architects
had not applied mathematical principles.
VISUAL ARTS: Progress in visual arts made via the
study of light and pigments. The new principles of
perspective and portion required careful analysis of the
mathematical principles upon which they were
established.
ANATOMY: Painters and sculptors in the 15th and 16th
centuries, made deep studies of the human body. By
drawing upon discoveries made by anatomists in despite
of a Church law, started dissecting human cadavers to
study in detail the structure of the human body and it
improved the knowledge of human anatomy.
EXPLORATION OF THE EARTH: Western
merchants traveled as far as China from the 14th Century
onwards with information on the hitherto countries in the
East. Based upon new and more precise maps, the Earth's
view became shattered. When Nicolaus Copernicus
rejected the geocentric conception of the universe the
culmination point began to spread out.
BOOK PRINTING: One of the greatest inventions in the
history of humankind was seen in the 15th century. In
1450, Johannes Gutenberg a citizen of Mainz in Germany
printed books with his printing press prototype, which
made it possible for humanity to spread and give access
to the knowledge of the world to everybody, and to
accumulate and store it in libraries, the ever-growing
treasure houses of human experience.

THE CALENDAR: The Church rarely intervenes in the
progress of technology and science. Clergyies tried to
resolve problems posed by the Bible about the exact date
of Easter which even science mathematics and astronomy
could not answer which led to the publication of a
reformed Christian calendar and chronology.
The Gregorian Calendar became accepted as the
established civil calendar when the reformation in the
Christian calendar happened.
SCIENCE IN THE MEDIEVAL ERA
Alchemy
● Medieval people believed that they could change or
transmute metals.
● The Philosophers' Stone was the most sought-after goal
for a long time; even Sir Isaac Newton and Nicolas Flamel
sought it. It is a legendary alchemical substance, which is
capable of turning metals into precious ores.
● Some people believed it to be an elixir of life, to achieve
rejuvenation and immortality.
The Philosopher's Stone was the main symbol of the
mystical terminology of alchemy. It symbolizes
perfection, enlightenment, and heavenly bliss; thus, the
philosopher's Stone's discovery is the Great Work. It has
been the object of interest in artistic works in novels,
comics, movies, animations, video games, and even in
music from the medieval days and still today.
THE PROMINENT MINDS OF THE MIDDLE
AGES AND THEIR CONTRIBUTION
● Al-Battani improved the measurement of the Earth's
axis to be precise.
● Physicist Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), a Muslim, is
considered the father of modern optics.
● Al-Kindi establishes the application of quantifying and
mathematics in medicine and pharmacology in his work
"De Gradibus." He used mathematics to measure the
potency of drugs and determine in advance the most
critical days of a patient's illness.
● Al-Khwarizmi gave his name to the algorithm's
concept, while the term algebra derived from his written
work Al-Jabr and recognized algebra as a distinct field of
mathematics.
Also, the birth of more advanced mathematics arose from
replacing Roman numerals with the decimal system and
STS – LESSON 1
GONZALES, DEXTER O.
2023101939@bulsu.edu.ph
the invention of algebra. Furthermore, the improvements
or refinements of civilization in and before the Middle
Ages, such as street lamps, window panes, fireworks,
stringed instruments, cultivated fruits, perfumes, spices,
and so forth, originated from the Saracens (Muslims)
However, a series of events that came to be known as the
Crisis of the Late Middle Ages ensued. The massive
scientific change ended due to The Black Death of 1348.
In Europe- the heart of the innovations, the plague
occurred in crowded towns. It killed a third of Europe's
people, and recurrences of the epidemic and experienced
other disasters. Thus, it caused a continuing decline in
population for a century.
RENAISSANCE PERIOD (15th – 17th Century)
The term renaissance refers to the rebirth period as an age
of preparation for the seventeenth century for
developments and achievements in science.
● It was Johannes Gutenberg introduced the metal
movable type printing press.
● The first reflecting telescope was made by Isaac
Newton.
● The development of the musket was in Spain in the
1500s.
● Nicolaus Copernicus, a Polish mathematician and
astronomer presented the heliocentric theory and said that
the Earth is not the center of the solar system but the sun.
● Galileo Galilei improved the telescope and invented the
thermometer in 1593, discovered new celestial bodies,
and found support for a heliocentric solar system.
MODERN TIMES
Industrial Revolution
In the 18th Century
The Industrial Revolution was the transformation to new
machine processes which included going from manual
production methods to machines, the use of the steam
engine, the development of machine tools, and the factory
system's rise.
● James Watt a Scottish inventor, began the revolution
when the steam engine was refined.
● Robert Fulton created the steamboat using one of the
engines of Watt.
● Thomas Edison invented the light bulb.

● George Stephenson developed the first steam-powered
locomotive.
In the 19th Century
The rise of modern industry was witnessed in the 19th
Century. The evidence of the development of science and
technology is seen in communications, transportation, and
electricity.
● Samuel Morse the telegraph and the Morse Code.
● Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.
● Alexander Bain invented facsimile.
● Charles Wheatstone created the microphone.
● The typewriter and typographer were invented by
William Burt.
● The principles of fiber optics were demonstrated by
John Tyndall.
● Guglielmo Marconi proved the feasibility of radio
communication.
● Jean Lenoir invented the internal combustion engine.
● Count Alessandro Volta invented the battery.
● William Sturgeon invented the electromagnet.
● Michael Faraday invented the dynamo.
● Charles Babbage invented the mechanical calculator.
● John Walker invented modern matches.
● Hamilton-Smith patented the rotary washing machine.
● Nikola Tesla invented the A.C. motor and transformer.
● Louis Pasteur invented the process of pasteurization.
● Alfred Nobel invented the dynamite.
● Elisha Otis introduced the first safety elevator.
● Jesse Reno invented the escalator.
In the 20th Century
Technology has become more scientific and natural
science has become more technological in the face of
ever-growing complexity. In this context, scientific
research laboratories were established to cope with the
demands of the times.
● Willis Carrier invented the air conditioner.
● The Wright brothers created the first gas motored and
manned the airplane.
● Albert Einstein wrote and published the Theory of
Relativity made known for his equation E=mc2
STS – LESSON 1
GONZALES, DEXTER O.
2023101939@bulsu.edu.ph
● Paul Cornu invented the very first piloted helicopter.
But it was Igor Sikorsky who created the first successful
helicopter.
● Henry Ford revolutionized automobile manufacturing.
● Thomas Edison demonstrated the first talking motion
picture.
● Scottish biologist Alexander Fleming discovered
penicillin.
● German inventors invented the electron microscope.
● Chester Carlson invented the photocopier.
● There have been many claims on who invented the
television, but in 1940, Peter Goldmark invented the
modern color T.V. system.
● Nuclear fission research began in the 1930s resulting
in the development of the atomic bomb used in the
Second World War. Post-war investigations by the
superpowers to develop nuclear industries led to the
generation of electricity for the first Russian nuclear
reactor in 1951.
● It was in 1942 that the making of the first electronic
digital computer was done.
● Personal computer resulted in the development of a
microprocessor in 1971 that made the computer smaller,
easier to use, and more affordable
● The invention mobile phone was in 1947, and not sold
until 1983.
● 1989 saw the advent of the World Wide Web.
● The field of artificial intelligence research was born at
Dartmouth College in 1956