LECTURE 1

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

I. 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.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN DIFFERENT PERIODS
How civilization has changed over the centuries displays the understanding of
humankind in the natural world (science) and the ability to control (technology) and
influence it (society).

Ancient Times
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 the 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.
a. Watermill - Powered by water used to grind with a waterwheel and toothed
gear to capacitate the grind.
b. Alarm Clock - Plato used a water clock to trigger a sound at a specific time
which became the start of how alarm clocks are used.
c. Central Heating - The Greeks invented a type of central heating to transfer hot
air from fires to empty spaces under the temple's floors.
d. Crane - The Greeks invented the crane to help lift heavy items such as blocks
for constructing buildings.
e. 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 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
● 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 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 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, 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
● 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