History of science
Around 9,000 years ago in southern Mexico, people domesticated maize for agriculture, and they did it before any writing system existed to record what they knew. This is the history of science, the long development of knowledge from ancient times to the present. It spans three major branches: natural, social, and formal. Long before laboratories, knowledge passed from one generation to the next through oral tradition. There were no archives, no reports, and explanations flowed and shifted to fit the needs of the moment.
That fluid, oral world eventually gave way to writing, then to philosophy, then to formal attempts to explain the physical world through natural causes. Why did certain civilizations build calendars and others build proofs? How did Greek ideas survive the fall of an empire only to return centuries later? Why, despite inventing gunpowder and the compass, did one of the world's oldest cultures not arrive at modern science? And what exactly changed during the 16th and 17th centuries that made knowledge suddenly more reliable, more mathematical, and more open than anything before it? The answers wind through Egypt, Babylon, India, China, the Islamic world, and the medieval universities of Europe.
Starting around 3000 BCE, the ancient Egyptians built a numbering system that was decimal in character, and they bent geometry toward practical problems faced by surveyors and builders. Their geometry grew from the need to re-survey farmland flooded each year by the Nile. The 3-4-5 right triangle and other rules let them raise rectilinear structures and the post and lintel architecture of Egypt.
The Ebers Papyrus, written around 1600 BCE, held recipes for ailments of the eyes, mouth, skin, and internal organs, along with treatments for abscesses, wounds, burns, ulcers, tumors, headaches, and bad breath. The Edwin Smith Papyrus, written at about the same time, was a surgical manual for wounds, fractures, and dislocations. Both texts moved through examination, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis. According to G. E. R. Lloyd, that sequence shows strong parallels to the basic empirical method of science.
The Egyptians also kept an official calendar of twelve months, thirty days each, plus five days at the end of the year. Unlike the Babylonian calendar or those of the Greek city-states, it was fixed and ignored lunar and solar cycles entirely. In Mesopotamia, by contrast, scribes recorded the motions of stars, planets, and the moon on thousands of clay tablets. From that data they computed the changing length of daylight and predicted the appearances of the Moon and planets, along with eclipses of the Sun and Moon.
The Babylonians wove astronomy and astrology together inseparably. They believed omens hid in all natural phenomena, from animal entrails to dreams to the color of a dog urinating on a person. The historian A. Aaboe judged Babylonian astronomy the first highly successful attempt at a refined mathematical description of astronomical phenomena. He argued that all later exact sciences, in the Hellenistic world, in India, in Islam, and in the West, depend on it in fundamental ways. One named figure stands out: Kidinnu, a Chaldean astronomer whose value for the solar year is still used in today's calendars.
The Indus Valley Civilisation made bricks in the proportion 4:2:1, a ratio that favors the stability of a brick structure. Its people designed the Mohenjo-daro ruler, roughly 1.32 inch long and divided into ten equal parts, and their bricks often measured integral multiples of that unit. Centuries later, in 628, Brahmagupta suggested that gravity was a force of attraction. He also explained the use of zero as both a placeholder and a decimal digit, part of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system now used everywhere on Earth.
Between the 14th and 16th centuries, the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics advanced trigonometry and analysis. Madhava of Sangamagrama led the way with infinite and Taylor series expansions of trigonometric functions and an approximation of pi. In the Tantrasangraha, Nilakantha Somayaji updated the model for the interior planets Mercury and Venus, and his equation for their center was more accurate than any in European or Islamic astronomy until Johannes Kepler in the 17th century.
China produced the longest continuous sequence of astronomical observations of any civilization, including 112 records of sunspots from 364 BCE and a supernova in 1054. By 635 Chinese astronomers had noticed that the tails of comets always point away from the sun. In 132 CE Zhang Heng invented a seismometer that alerted authorities in the capital Luoyang to an earthquake and its direction. When he told the court an earthquake had struck the northwest, word soon arrived that one had hit 400 to 500 km away, in what is now Gansu.
Shen Kuo, who lived from 1031 to 1095, was a Song polymath and statesman. He was the first to describe the magnetic-needle compass used for navigation and discovered the concept of true north. After finding marine fossils in the Taihang Mountains, hundreds of miles from the Pacific, he devised a theory of land formation. His contemporary Su Song erected a large astronomical clocktower in Kaifeng in 1088, fitted with an escapement mechanism and the world's oldest known endless power-transmitting chain drive. Joseph Needham later asked why such achievements did not become modern science, and pointed to a framework in which nature held order but no order ordained by a rational personal lawgiver.
Thales of Miletus, who lived from 640 to 546 BCE, claimed that land floats on water and that earthquakes come from the agitation of that water, not from the god Poseidon. Later writers such as Aristotle named him the first of the Ionian philosophers. His student Pythagoras of Samos founded a school that studied mathematics for its own sake and first proposed that the Earth is spherical. Leucippus, in the 5th century BCE, introduced atomism, the idea that all matter is made of indivisible, imperishable units called atoms.
Plato founded the Platonic Academy in 387 BCE, whose motto warned that none unversed in geometry should enter. His student Aristotle introduced empiricism, the notion that universal truths can be reached through observation and induction. Aristotle classified more than 540 animal species and dissected at least 50, much of this work done on Lesbos. He also held that everything derived from the elements earth, water, air, fire, and the celestial Aether, and that an unmoved mover set the celestial bodies in motion.
Aristarchus of Samos was the first known person to propose a heliocentric model of the Solar System, while Eratosthenes accurately calculated the circumference of the Earth. Hipparchus, who lived around 190 to 120 BCE, produced the first systematic star catalog. The Antikythera mechanism, dated to 150 to 100 BCE, was an analog computer for calculating planetary positions, and nothing of similar complexity reappeared until mechanical astronomical clocks in the 14th century.
Hippocrates, who lived around 460 to 370 BCE, introduced the first healthcare system based on science and clinical protocols, and gave his name to the Hippocratic Oath still in use today. Herophilos, from 335 to 280 BCE, was the first to base conclusions on dissection of the human body and to describe the nervous system. Galen, from 129 to around 200 CE, performed brain and eye surgeries that were not attempted again for almost two millennia. In Hellenistic Egypt, Euclid laid the foundations of mathematical rigor in his Elements, called the most influential textbook ever written.
Cicero, who lived from 106 to 43 BCE, studied under Greek teachers in Rome, then in Athens and Rhodes, and he stands as a prime example of how Rome absorbed Greek learning. He mastered large portions of Greek philosophy and even wrote Greek commentaries on Plato's Timaeus, along with a Latin translation that has not survived. Roman scholars who aspired to the highest level worked in Greek, despite the translation of a few texts into Latin.
Support for Greek knowledge came almost entirely from the Roman upper class. Arrangements ranged from a talented scholar attached to a wealthy household to owning educated Greek-speaking slaves. Roman patrons wanted practical material such as medicine or logic for courts and politics, so the subtle details of Greek metaphysics and epistemology were trimmed away. Beyond the basics, Romans did not value natural philosophy and treated it as an amusement for leisure time.
Marcus Terentius Varro, who lived from 116 to 27 BCE, wrote the encyclopedia Nine Books of Disciplines, covering grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, musical theory, medicine, and architecture. The first seven of those arts would later define the seven liberal arts of medieval schools. Pliny the Elder, who lived from 23 or 24 to 79 CE and came from northern Italy, wrote the voluminous Natural History.
After the death of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius in 180 CE, civil war, urban decay, and economic crisis upended the conditions that scholarship needed. Around 250 CE barbarians began attacking the Roman frontiers, and the upper class lost the leisure that had funded learning. During the 3rd and 4th centuries CE the Empire split administratively into a Greek East and a Latin West, weakening contact between them, with the Greek East eventually becoming the Byzantine Empire.
Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch remained centers of learning in the Byzantine Empire while Western Europe's knowledge huddled in monasteries until medieval universities appeared. In the sixth century, Isidore of Miletus collected Archimedes' mathematical works in the Archimedes Palimpsest. John Philoponus became the first to question Aristotle's physics, introducing the theory of impetus, an idea that inspired Galileo Galilei ten centuries later. During the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, Greek scholars fled to north Italy carrying classical learning in botany, medicine, and zoology.
The Islamic Golden Age, running from the 8th to the 14th century, thrived on commerce and on papermaking imported from China, which made copying manuscripts cheap. Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, who lived around 780 to 850, gave his name to the algorithm, and the word algebra comes from al-jabr in the title of one of his works. Ibn al-Haytham, known in the West as Alhazen, built a complete system of geometrical optics in his Book of Optics, a principal source on optics in Europe until the 17th century.
Ibn Sina, called Avicenna in the West and living around 980 to 1037, wrote the Kitab al-shifa and The Canon of Medicine, both standard texts in the Muslim world and Europe into the 17th century. He described the contagious nature of infectious diseases and introduced clinical pharmacology. The discovery of the pulmonary transit of blood by Ibn al-Nafis happened in a hospital setting, part of an extensive model of institutionalized medicine for all social classes.
Madrasas blended religious and scientific study, and a student learned from one specific teacher who issued a certificate called an Ijazah. That Ijazah licensed the holder to teach a particular set of texts rather than declaring broad competence. Women attended madrasas as both students and teachers, something not seen in high Western education until the 1800s. Islamic science began to decline in the 12th and 13th centuries, and in 1258 the Mongols sacked Baghdad, ending the Abbasid empire, though conquerors like Hulagu Khan became patrons, supporting the Maragheh observatory.
Bologna received the first university charter in 1088, followed by Paris in 1150, Oxford in 1167, and Cambridge in 1231. These urban institutions grew from brotherhoods of scholars, or collegia, that gathered around a well-known friar. A charter made a university partially sovereign, free to judge its own members by its own rules, and as religious institutions their faculties and students were protected even from capital punishment.
Discussions there proceeded in a formalized way, marked as ex cathedra or ex hypothesi, so that controversial claims could be examined as intellectual exercises without committing anyone to their truth. Modern ideas like academic freedom and freedom of inquiry are remnants of these medieval privileges. The curriculum centered on the seven liberal arts, beginning with the Trivium of grammar, rhetoric, and logic, then the Quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music.
Contact with the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic world during the Reconquista and the Crusades opened Latin Europe to Greek and Arabic texts. Raymond of Toledo sponsored the 12th century Toledo School of Translators from Arabic to Latin, and translators like Michael Scotus learned Arabic to study the works directly. The medieval university placed the natural world at the center of its curriculum, laying, in one assessment, far greater emphasis on science than its modern descendant.
In the 13th century Stephen Tempier, the Bishop of Paris, issued the Condemnation of 1277 against the study of Aristotle. Many scholars argue this loosened the grip of Aristotelian dogma, freeing thinkers to explore what-if scenarios Aristotle had declared impossible, such as a vacuum, a plurality of worlds, or the rotation of the Earth. Jean Buridan developed the theory that impetus caused the motion of projectiles, a first step toward inertia, and the Oxford Calculators began to analyze the kinematics of motion mathematically. In 1348, the Black Death abruptly interrupted this scholarship.
Alfred Edward Taylor described the lean stretches of discovery as periodical bankruptcies of science, a reminder that the field is often seen as a linear story of progress when historians now find it far more complex. Many people in modern history, typically women and persons of color, were excluded from elite scientific communities and labeled inferior by the establishment. In the 1980s and 1990s historians mapped those structural barriers and began recovering the contributions of overlooked individuals.
The Galileo affair of the early 17th century led John William Draper to postulate, around 1874, a conflict thesis holding that religion and science have clashed methodologically, factually, and politically. That conflict thesis has since lost favor among most scientists and historians, though some, such as Richard Dawkins, still hold it. Historians stress that trust is necessary for agreement about nature, which is why the 1660 establishment of the Royal Society and its code of witnessed experiment became an important chapter.
Natural philosophy was transformed by the Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe, when new ideas departed from Greek conceptions. The New Science was more mechanistic, more integrated with mathematics, and more open, its knowledge resting on a newly defined scientific method. The chemical revolution of the 18th century brought quantitative methods to chemistry, and the 19th century reframed the conservation of energy, the age of Earth, and evolution. In the 20th century, discoveries in genetics and physics seeded molecular biology and particle physics, while industrial and military demands ushered in the era of big science, particularly after World War II.
Common questions
What is the history of science?
The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural, social, and formal. The earliest roots of scientific thinking trace to Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia during the 3rd and 2nd millennia BCE.
When did the Scientific Revolution happen in the history of science?
The Scientific Revolution transpired during the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe. It produced a New Science that was more mechanistic, more integrated with mathematics, and more reliable and open, with knowledge based on a newly defined scientific method.
Who were the key Greek figures in the history of science?
Thales of Miletus, who lived from 640 to 546 BCE, was named the first Ionian philosopher and offered non-supernatural explanations for natural events. Aristotle introduced empiricism and classified more than 540 animal species, while Aristarchus of Samos first proposed a heliocentric model of the Solar System.
What did Islamic scholars contribute to the history of science?
During the Islamic Golden Age from the 8th to the 14th century, al-Khwarizmi gave his name to the algorithm and the term algebra came from al-jabr in his work. Ibn al-Haytham built a complete system of geometrical optics in his Book of Optics, and Ibn Sina wrote The Canon of Medicine, used as a standard text into the 17th century.
How did Greek knowledge survive in the Middle Ages?
Classical learning continued in three major linguistic cultures: Greek in the Byzantine Empire, Arabic in the Islamic world, and Latin in Western Europe. Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch remained Byzantine learning centers, and Greek texts were translated from Arabic and Greek into Latin, reviving scientific discussion in Western Europe.
What were the contributions of China to the history of science?
China produced the longest continuous sequence of astronomical observations of any civilization, including 112 sunspot records from 364 BCE. Zhang Heng invented a seismometer in 132 CE, and Shen Kuo, who lived from 1031 to 1095, first described the magnetic-needle compass for navigation and discovered the concept of true north.
When were the first medieval universities founded in the history of science?
The first medieval university was chartered in Bologna in 1088, followed by Paris in 1150, Oxford in 1167, and Cambridge in 1231. A charter made these universities partially sovereign and independent from local authorities, with a curriculum centered on the seven liberal arts.
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