# kb

id: history-of-aviation-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation-0.md
category: reference
title: History of aviation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:18.099578+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-aviation-20260505-0
summary:
The history of aviation spans over two millennia, from the earliest innovations like kites and attempts at tower jumping to supersonic and hypersonic flight in powered, heavier-than-air jet aircraft. Kite flying in China, dating back several hundred years BC, is considered the earliest example of man-made flight. In the 15th-century Leonardo da Vinci designed several flying machines incorporating aeronautical concepts, but they were unworkable due to the limitations of contemporary knowledge. In the late 18th century, the Montgolfier brothers invented the hot-air balloon which soon led to manned flights. At almost the same time, the discovery of hydrogen gas led to the invention of the hydrogen balloon. Various theories in mechanics by physicists during the same period, such as fluid dynamics and Newton's laws of motion, led to the development of modern aerodynamics; most notably by Sir George Cayley. Balloons, both free-flying and tethered, began to be used for military purposes from the end of the 18th century, with France establishing balloon companies during the French Revolution. In the 19th century, especially the second half, experiments with gliders provided the basis for learning the dynamics of winged aircraft; most notably by Cayley, Otto Lilienthal, and Octave Chanute. By the early


id: history-of-aviation-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation-1.md
category: reference
title: History of aviation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:18.099578+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-aviation-20260505-0
summary:
=== Rotor wings === The use of a rotor for vertical flight has existed since 400 BC in the form of the bamboo-copter, an ancient Chinese toy. The similar "moulinet à noix" (rotor on a nut) appeared in Europe in the 14th century AD. === Hot air balloons === Since ancient times, the Chinese understood that hot air rises and applied the principle to a type of small hot air balloon called a sky lantern. A sky lantern consists of a paper balloon under or just inside which a small lamp is placed. Sky lanterns are traditionally launched for recreation and during festivals. According to Joseph Needham, such lanterns were found in China since the 3rd century BC. Their military use is attributed to the general Zhuge Liang (180–234 AD), who is said to have used them to scare the enemy troops. There is evidence that the Chinese also "solved the problem of aerial navigation" using balloons, hundreds of years before the 18th century. === Renaissance === Eventually, some investigators began to discover and define some of the basics of rational aircraft design. Most notable of these was Leonardo da Vinci, although his work remained unknown until 1797, and so


id: history-of-aviation-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation-2.md
category: reference
title: History of aviation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:18.099578+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-aviation-20260505-0
summary:
On 4 June, a crowd gathered in Annonay, France, to witness the unmanned hot air balloon display by the Montgolfier brothers. Their 500-pound balloon ascended to nearly 3,000 feet and traveled over a mile and a half. It stayed in the air for ten minutes before tipping over and catching fire. On 27 August, Jacques Charles and the Robert brothers unveiled the first unmanned hydrogen balloon from Paris' Champ de Mars. It landed almost an hour later in Gonesse, where terrified farmers mistook it for a monster and destroyed it. On 19 October, in front of 2,000 spectators, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes boarded the Montgolfier aircraft as the first people. Later that day, Giroud de Villette, another pilot, took to the skies much higher. On 21 November, the Montgolfiers launched the first free flight with human passengers. King Louis XVI had originally decreed that condemned criminals would be the first pilots, but Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, along with the Marquis François d'Arlandes, successfully petitioned for the honour. They drifted 8 km (5.0 mi) in a balloon powered by a wood fire. On 1 December, Jacques Charles and the Nicolas-Louis Robert launched their manned hydrogen balloon from


id: history-of-aviation-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation-3.md
category: reference
title: History of aviation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:18.099578+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-aviation-20260505-0
summary:
=== 17th and 18th centuries === Traveller Evliya Çelebi reported that in 1633, Ottoman scientist and engineer Lagari Hasan Çelebi blasted off from Sarayburnu in a 7-winged rocket propelled by 50 okka (140 lbs) of gunpowder. The flight was said to have been undertaken at the time of the birth of Sultan Murad IV's daughter. As Evliya Celebi wrote, Lagari proclaimed before launching his craft "O my sultan! Be blessed, I am going to talk to Jesus!"; after ascending in the rocket, he landed in the sea, swimming ashore and joking "O my sultan! Jesus sends his regards to you!"; he was rewarded by the Sultan with silver and the rank of sipahi in the Ottoman army. Evliya Çelebi also wrote of Lagari's brother, Hezârfen Ahmed Çelebi, making a flight by glider a year earlier. Italian inventor Tito Livio Burattini, invited by the Polish King Władysław IV to his court in Warsaw, built a model aircraft with four fixed glider wings in 1647. Described as "four pairs of wings attached to an elaborate 'dragon'", it was said to have successfully lifted a cat in 1648 but not Burattini himself. He promised that "only the most minor injuries" would result from


id: history-of-aviation-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation-4.md
category: reference
title: History of aviation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:18.099578+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-aviation-20260505-0
summary:
Clarifying our ideas and laying down the principles of heavier-than-air flight. Reaching a scientific understanding of the principles of bird flight. Scientific aerodynamic experiments were conducted to demonstrate drag and streamlining, movement of the center of pressure, and the increase in lift from curving the wing surface. Defining the modern aeroplane configuration comprising a fixed-wing, fuselage and tail assembly. Demonstrations of manned, gliding flight. Identified the crucial understanding that a lightweight, powerful engine would be necessary for sustained heavier-than-air flight, now known as the power-to-weight ratio Recognized for establishing the theoretical foundation for engine use in airplanes and modern aircraft design by identifying and explaining the four fundamental forces of flight: lift, thrust, drag, and weight. Cayley's research on the aeroplane aimed to address the four fundamental areas that are essential to aeronautics: propulsion, structural design, aerodynamics, and stability and control. His work laid the groundwork for a comprehensive understanding of these critical components, which continue to be vital in the field today. Cayley's first innovation was to study the basic science of lift by adopting the whirling arm test rig for use in aircraft research and using simple aerodynamic models on the arm, rather than attempting to fly a


id: history-of-aviation-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation-5.md
category: reference
title: History of aviation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:18.099578+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-aviation-20260505-0
summary:
Alphonse Pénaud, a Frenchman, advanced the theory of wing contours and aerodynamics. He also constructed successful models of aeroplanes, helicopters and ornithopters. In 1871 he flew the first aerodynamically stable fixed-wing aeroplane, a model monoplane he called the "Planophore", a distance of 40 m (130 ft). Pénaud's model incorporated several of Cayley's discoveries, including the use of a tail, wing dihedral for inherent stability, and rubber power. The planophore also had longitudinal stability, being trimmed such that the tailplane was set at a smaller angle of incidence than the wings, an original and important contribution to the theory of aeronautics. Pénaud's later project for an amphibian aeroplane, although never built, incorporated other modern features. A tailless monoplane with a single vertical fin and twin tractor propellers, it also featured hinged rear elevator and rudder surfaces, retractable undercarriage and a fully enclosed, instrumented cockpit. Another theorist was Frenchman Victor Tatin. In 1879, he flew a model which, like Pénaud's project, was a monoplane with twin tractor propellers but also had a separate horizontal tail. It was powered by compressed air. Flown tethered to a pole, this was the first model to take off under its own power. In 1884, Alexandre Goupil


id: history-of-aviation-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation-6.md
category: reference
title: History of aviation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:18.099578+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-aviation-20260505-0
summary:
Otto Lilienthal became known as the "Glider King" or "Flying Man" of Germany. He duplicated Wenham's work and greatly expanded on it in 1884, publishing his research in 1889 as Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation (Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegekunst), which is seen as one of the most important works in aviation history. He also produced a series of hang gliders, including bat-wing, monoplane, and biplane forms, such as the Derwitzer Glider and Normal soaring apparatus, which is considered to be the first airplane in series production, making the "Maschinenfabrik Otto Lilienthal" the first airplane production company in the world. Starting in 1891, he became the first person to make controlled untethered glides routinely, and the first to be photographed flying a heavier-than-air machine, stimulating interest around the world. Lilienthal's work led to him developing the concept of the modern wing. His flights in the year 1891 are seen as the beginning of human flight and because of that he is often referred to as either the "father of aviation" or "father of flight". He rigorously documented his work, including photographs, and for this reason is one of the best known of the early pioneers. Lilienthal made over


id: history-of-aviation-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation-7.md
category: reference
title: History of aviation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:18.099578+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-aviation-20260505-0
summary:
Gustave Weißkopf was a German who emigrated to the U.S., where he soon changed his name to Whitehead. From 1897 to 1915, he designed and built early flying machines and engines. On 14 August 1901, two and a half years before the Wright Brothers' flight, he claimed to have carried out a controlled, powered flight in his Number 21 monoplane at Fairfield, Connecticut. The flight was reported in the Bridgeport Sunday Herald local newspaper. About 30 years later, several people questioned by a researcher claimed to have seen that or other Whitehead flights. In March 2013, Jane's All the World's Aircraft, an authoritative source for contemporary aviation, published an editorial which accepted Whitehead's flight as the first manned, powered, controlled flight of a heavier-than-air craft. The Smithsonian Institution (custodians of the original Wright Flyer) and many aviation historians continue to maintain that Whitehead did not fly as suggested. The historians of the Royal Aeronautical Society noted that: "All available evidence fails to support the claim that Gustave Whitehead made sustained, powered, controlled flights predating those of the Wright brothers." The editors of Scientific American agree: "The data show that not only was Whitehead not first in flight, but that he


id: history-of-aviation-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation-8.md
category: reference
title: History of aviation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:18.099578+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-aviation-20260505-0
summary:
The Wrights appear to be the first to make serious studied attempts to simultaneously solve the power and control problems. Both problems proved difficult, but they never lost interest. They solved the control problem by inventing wing warping for roll control, combined with simultaneous yaw control with a steerable rear rudder. Almost as an afterthought, they designed and built a low-powered internal combustion engine. They also designed and carved wooden propellers that were more efficient than any before, enabling them to gain adequate performance from their low engine power. Although wing-warping as a means of lateral control was used only briefly during the early history of aviation, the principle of combining lateral control in combination with a rudder was a key advance in aircraft control. While many aviation pioneers appeared to leave safety largely to chance, the Wrights' design was greatly influenced by the need to teach themselves to fly without unreasonable risk to life and limb, by surviving crashes. This emphasis, as well as low engine power, was the reason for low flying speed and for taking off in a headwind. Performance, rather than safety, was the reason for the rear-heavy design because the canard could not be highly


id: history-of-aviation-20260505-9
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation-9.md
category: reference
title: History of aviation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:18.099578+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-aviation-20260505-0
summary:
Although the full details of the Wright Brothers' system of flight control had been published in l'Aerophile in January 1906, the importance of this advance was not recognised, and European experimenters generally concentrated on attempting to produce inherently stable machines. Short powered flights were performed in France by Romanian engineer Traian Vuia on 18 March and 19 August 1906 when he flew 12 and 24 metres, respectively, in a self-designed, fully self-propelled, fixed-wing aircraft, that possessed a fully wheeled undercarriage. He was followed by Jacob Ellehammer who built a monoplane which he tested with a tether in Denmark on 12 September 1906, flying 42 metres. On 13 September 1906, the Brazilian Alberto Santos-Dumont made a public flight in Paris with the 14-bis, also known as Oiseau de proie (French for "bird of prey"). This was canard configured with a pronounced wing dihedral, and covered a distance of 60 m (200 ft) on the grounds of the Chateau de Bagatelle in Paris' Bois de Boulogne before a large crowd of witnesses. This well-documented event was the first flight verified by the Aéro-Club de France of a powered heavier-than-air machine in Europe and won the Deutsch-Archdeacon Prize for the first officially observed


id: history-of-aviation-20260505-10
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation-10.md
category: reference
title: History of aviation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:18.099578+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-aviation-20260505-0
summary:
Almost as soon as they were invented, aeroplanes were used for military purposes. The first country to use them for military purposes was Italy, whose aircraft made reconnaissance, bombing and artillery correction flights in Libya during the Italian-Turkish war (September 1911 – October 1912). This war also saw Ottoman soldiers shoot down a warplane for the first time in history. The first warplane reconnaissance mission flown on 23 October 1911 by the Italian air force's Captain Carlo Piazza, and the first bombing mission was flown on 1 November 1911 by Italy's Second Lieutenant Giolio Gavotti. Bulgaria later followed this example. Its planes attacked and reconnoitred Ottoman positions during the First Balkan War 1912–13. The first war to see major use of aeroplanes in offensive, defensive and reconnaissance capabilities was World War I. The Allies and Central Powers both used aeroplanes and airships extensively. While the concept of using the aeroplane as an offensive weapon was generally discounted before World War I, the idea of using it for photography was one that was not lost on any of the major forces. All of the major forces in Europe had light aircraft, typically derived from pre-war sporting designs, attached to their reconnaissance


id: history-of-aviation-20260505-11
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation-11.md
category: reference
title: History of aviation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:18.099578+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-aviation-20260505-0
summary:
The years between World War I and World War II saw great advancements in aircraft technology. Airplanes evolved from low-powered biplanes made from wood and fabric to sleek, high-powered monoplanes made of aluminum, based primarily on the founding work of Hugo Junkers during the World War I period and its adoption by American designer William Bushnell Stout and Soviet designer Andrei Tupolev. After World War I, experienced fighter pilots were eager to show off their skills. Many American pilots became barnstormers, flying into small towns across the country and showing off their flying abilities, as well as taking paying passengers for rides. Eventually, the barnstormers grouped into more organized displays. Air shows sprang up around the country, with air races, acrobatic stunts, and feats of air superiority. The air races drove engine and airframe development—the Schneider Trophy, for example, led to a series of ever faster and sleeker monoplane designs culminating in the Supermarine S.6B. With pilots competing for cash prizes, there was an incentive to go faster. Amelia Earhart was perhaps the most famous of those on the barnstorming/air show circuit. She was also the first female pilot to achieve records such as the crossing of the Atlantic and


id: history-of-aviation-20260505-12
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation-12.md
category: reference
title: History of aviation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:18.099578+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-aviation-20260505-0
summary:
In 1929, Jimmy Doolittle developed flight instruments . 1929 also saw the first flight of by far the largest plane ever built until then: the Dornier Do X with a wingspan of 48 m. On its 70th test flight on 21 October 1929, there were 169 people on board, a record that was not broken for 20 years. In 1923, The first successful rotorcraft appeared in the form of the autogyro, invented by Spanish engineer Juan de la Cierva and first flown in 1919. In this design, the rotor is not powered but spins freely as it moves through the air, while a separate engine powers the aircraft to move forward. This was the basis of further development and prototypes that led to the creation of the helicopter. In 1930 Corradino D'Ascanio, an Italian engineer, developed a coaxial helicopter with the important inclusion of three small propellers on the craft, which controlled the pitch, roll, and yaw of the aircraft. Later helicopters saw several adjustments to their rotors but the first modern helicopter was not constructed until 1947 by Igor Sikorsky Only five years after the German Dornier Do-X had flown, Tupolev designed the largest aircraft of the 1930s era,


id: history-of-aviation-20260505-13
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation-13.md
category: reference
title: History of aviation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:18.099578+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-aviation-20260505-0
summary:
The British de Havilland Comet became the first commercial jet airliner and was introduced into scheduled service by 1952. The aircraft was a breakthrough in technical achievements, but had several intense failures. The square design of the windows caused stress cracks from metal fatigue, caused by cycles of cabin pressurization and depressurization. This eventually led to severe structural failures in the fuel area. These issues were resolved too late, since competing jet airliners were already flying. On 15 September 1956, the USSR's airline Aeroflot became the first to offer continuous, regular jet services using the Tupolev Tu-104. Soon after, Boeing 707 and DC-8 also set new standards in comfort, safety, and passenger experience. This was the beginning of the Jet Age, the introduction of large-scale commercial air travel. Jet airliners were able to fly higher, faster, and farther than older piston‑powered propliners, making transcontinental and intercontinental travel considerably faster and easier. Aircraft leaving North America and crossing the Atlantic Ocean (and later, the Pacific Ocean) could now fly to their destinations non-stop, making much of the world accessible within a single day's travel for the first time. Large jetliners could carry more passengers than piston-powered airliners, which caused air fares


id: history-of-aviation-20260505-14
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation-14.md
category: reference
title: History of aviation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:18.099578+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-aviation-20260505-0
summary:
== 21st century == 21st-century aviation has seen increasing interest in fuel savings and fuel diversification, as well as low cost airlines and facilities. Additionally, much of the developing world that did not have good access to air transport has been steadily adding aircraft and facilities; though severe congestion remains a problem in many up and coming nations. Around 20,000 city pairs are served by commercial aviation, up from less than 10,000 as recently as 1996. There appears to be newfound interest in returning to the supersonic era whereby waning demand in the turn of the 20th century made flights unprofitable, as well as the final commercial stoppage of the Concorde due to reduced demand following a fatal accident and rising costs. At the beginning of the 21st century, digital technology allowed subsonic military aviation to begin eliminating the pilot in favour of remotely operated or completely autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In April 2001, the unmanned aircraft Global Hawk flew from Edwards AFB in the US to Australia non-stop and un-refuelled. This is the longest point-to-point flight ever undertaken by an unmanned aircraft and took 23 hours and 23 minutes. In October 2003, the first totally autonomous flight across


id: history-of-biochemistry-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_biochemistry-0.md
category: reference
title: History of biochemistry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_biochemistry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:19.261593+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-biochemistry-20260505-0
summary:
The history of biochemistry can be said to have started with the ancient Greeks who were interested in the composition and processes of life, although biochemistry as a specific scientific discipline has its beginning around the early 19th century. Some argued that the beginning of biochemistry may have been the discovery of the first enzyme, diastase (today called amylase), in 1833 by Anselme Payen, while others considered Eduard Buchner's first demonstration of a complex biochemical process alcoholic fermentation in cell-free extracts to be the birth of biochemistry. Some might also point to the influential work of Justus von Liebig from 1842, Animal chemistry, or, Organic chemistry in its applications to physiology and pathology, which presented a chemical theory of metabolism, or even earlier to the 18th century studies on fermentation and respiration by Antoine Lavoisier. The term biochemistry itself is derived from the combining form bio-, meaning 'life', and chemistry. The word is first recorded in English in 1848, while in 1877, Felix Hoppe-Seyler used the term (Biochemie in German) in the foreword to the first issue of Zeitschrift für Physiologische Chemie (Journal of Physiological Chemistry) as a synonym for physiological chemistry and argued for the setting up of institutes


id: history-of-biochemistry-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_biochemistry-1.md
category: reference
title: History of biochemistry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_biochemistry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:19.261593+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-biochemistry-20260505-0
summary:
As early as the late 18th century and early 19th century, the digestion of meat by stomach secretions and the conversion of starch to sugars by plant extracts and saliva were known. However, the mechanism by which this occurred had not been identified. In the 19th century, when studying the fermentation of sugar to alcohol by yeast, Louis Pasteur concluded that this fermentation was catalyzed by a vital force contained within the yeast cells called ferments, which he thought functioned only within living organisms. He wrote that "alcoholic fermentation is an act correlated with the life and organization of the yeast cells, not with the death or putrefaction of the cells." In 1833 Anselme Payen discovered the first enzyme, diastase, and in 1878 German physiologist Wilhelm Kühne (1837–1900) coined the term enzyme, which comes from Greek ενζυμον 'in leaven', to describe this process. The word enzyme was used later to refer to nonliving substances such as pepsin, and the word ferment was used to refer to chemical activity produced by living organisms. In 1897 Eduard Buchner began to study the ability of yeast extracts to ferment sugar despite the absence of living yeast cells. In a series of experiments at


id: history-of-biochemistry-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_biochemistry-2.md
category: reference
title: History of biochemistry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_biochemistry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:19.261593+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-biochemistry-20260505-0
summary:
Since metabolism focuses on the breaking down (catabolic processes) of molecules and the building of larger molecules from these particles (anabolic processes), the use of glucose and its involvement in the formation of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is fundamental to this understanding. The most frequent type of glycolysis found in the body is the type that follows the Embden-Meyerhof-Parnas (EMP) Pathway, which was discovered by Gustav Embden, Otto Meyerhof, and Jakob Karol Parnas. These three men discovered that glycolysis is a strongly determinant process for the efficiency and production of the human body. The significance of the pathway shown in the adjacent image is that by identifying the individual steps in this process doctors and researchers are able to pinpoint sites of metabolic malfunctions such as pyruvate kinase deficiency that can lead to severe anemia. This is most important because cells, and therefore organisms, are not capable of surviving without proper functioning metabolic pathways. == Instrumental advancements (20th century) == Since then, biochemistry has advanced, especially since the mid-20th century, with the development of new techniques such as chromatography, X-ray diffraction, NMR spectroscopy, radioisotopic labelling, electron microscopy and molecular dynamics simulations. These techniques allowed for the discovery and detailed analysis of


id: history-of-botany-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_botany-0.md
category: reference
title: History of botany
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_botany
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:20.683361+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-botany-20260505-0
summary:
The history of botany examines the human effort to understand life on Earth by tracing the historical development of the discipline of botany, the part of natural science dealing with organisms traditionally treated as plants. Rudimentary botanical science began with empirically based plant lore passed from generation to generation in the oral traditions of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers. The first writings that show human curiosity about plants themselves, rather than the uses that could be made of them, appear in ancient Greece and ancient India. In Ancient Greece, the teachings of Aristotle's student Theophrastus at the Lyceum in ancient Athens in about 350 BC are considered the starting point for Western botany. In ancient India, the Vṛkṣāyurveda, attributed to Parashara, is also considered one of the earliest texts to describe various branches of botany. In Europe, botanical science was soon overshadowed by a medieval preoccupation with the medicinal properties of plants that lasted more than 1000 years. During this time, the medicinal works of classical antiquity were reproduced in manuscripts and books called herbals. In China and the Arab world, the Greco-Roman work on medicinal plants was preserved and extended. In Europe, the Renaissance of the 14th–17th centuries heralded a scientific revival


id: history-of-botany-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_botany-1.md
category: reference
title: History of botany
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_botany
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:20.683361+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-botany-20260505-0
summary:
==== Ancient India ==== Early Indian texts, like the Vedas mention plants with magical properties. The Sushruta Samhita, describes over 700 plants used for medicinal purposes. This text reflects a level of medical knowledge and practice comparable to ancient Egypt. Notably, the Sushruta Samhita categorizes food plants based on their parts used, taste, and dietary effects. While lacking detailed botanical descriptions beyond occasional habitat or foliage references, the text demonstrates close observation of plants. This is evident in the classification of sugarcane varieties and the listing of fungi based on their growth medium. The Charaka Samhitā, foundational Ayurvedic text, presents the earliest known plant classification system in India, using habitat, presence of flowers/fruits, and reproduction as criteria. === Classical antiquity === ==== Classical Greece ==== Ancient Athens, of the 6th century BC, was the busy trade centre at the confluence of Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Minoan cultures at the height of Greek colonisation of the Mediterranean. The philosophical thought of this period ranged freely through many subjects. Empedocles (490–430 BC) foreshadowed Darwinian evolutionary theory in a crude formulation of the mutability of species and natural selection. The physician Hippocrates (460–370 BC) avoided the prevailing superstition of his day and approached healing


id: history-of-botany-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_botany-2.md
category: reference
title: History of botany
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_botany
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:20.683361+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-botany-20260505-0
summary:
=== Ancient China === In ancient China, lists of different plants and herb concoctions for pharmaceutical purposes date back to at least the time of the Warring States (481 BC-221 BC). Many Chinese writers over the centuries contributed to the written knowledge of herbal pharmaceutics. The Chinese dictionary-encyclopaedia Erh Ya probably dates from about 300 BC and describes about 334 plants classed as trees or shrubs, each with a common name and illustration. The Han Dynasty (202 BC-220 AD) includes the notable work of the Huangdi Neijing and the famous pharmacologist Zhang Zhongjing. == Medieval knowledge == === Medicinal plants of the early Middle Ages === In Western Europe, after Theophrastus, botany passed through a bleak period of 1800 years when little progress was made and, indeed, many of the early insights were lost. As Europe entered the Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries), China, India and the Arab world enjoyed a golden age. ==== Medieval China ==== Chinese philosophy had followed a similar path to that of the ancient Greeks. Between 100 and 1700 AD, many new works on pharmaceutical botany were produced. The 11th century scientists and statesmen Su Song and Shen Kuo compiled learned treatises on natural


id: history-of-botany-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_botany-3.md
category: reference
title: History of botany
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_botany
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:20.683361+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-botany-20260505-0
summary:
A great advance was made by the first German composers of herbals, who went straight to nature, described the wild plants growing around them and had figures of them carefully executed in wood. Thus was made the first beginning of a really scientific examination of plants, though the aims pursued were not yet truly scientific, for no questions were proposed as to the nature of plants, their organisation or mutual relations; the only point of interest was the knowledge of individual forms and of their medicinal virtues. German Otto Brunfels's (1464–1534) Herbarum Vivae Icones (1530) contained descriptions of about 47 species new to science combined with accurate illustrations. His fellow countryman Hieronymus Bock's (1498–1554) Kreutterbuch of 1539 described plants he found in nearby woods and fields and these were illustrated in the 1546 edition. However, it was Valerius Cordus (1515–1544) who pioneered the formal botanical description that detailed both flowers and fruits, some anatomy including the number of chambers in the ovary, and the type of ovule placentation. He also made observations on pollen and distinguished between inflorescence types. His five-volume Historia Plantarum was published about 18 years after his early death aged 29 in 1561–1563. In England, William Turner


id: history-of-botany-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_botany-4.md
category: reference
title: History of botany
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_botany
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:20.683361+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-botany-20260505-0
summary:
Public and private gardens have always been strongly associated with the historical unfolding of botanical science. Early botanical gardens were physic gardens, repositories for the medicinal plants described in the herbals. As they were generally associated with universities or other academic institutions, the plants were also used for study. The directors of these gardens were eminent physicians with an educational role as "scientific gardeners" and it was staff of these institutions that produced many of the published herbals. The botanical gardens of the modern tradition were established in northern Italy, the first being at Pisa (1544), founded by Luca Ghini (1490–1556). Although part of a medical faculty, the first chair of materia medica, essentially a chair in botany, was established in Padua in 1533. Then in 1534, Ghini became Reader in materia medica at Bologna University, where Ulisse Aldrovandi established a similar garden in 1568 (see below). Collections of pressed and dried specimens were called a hortus siccus (garden of dry plants) and the first accumulation of plants in this way (including the use of a plant press) is attributed to Ghini. Buildings called herbaria housed these specimens mounted on card with descriptive labels. Stored in cupboards in systematic order,


id: history-of-botany-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_botany-5.md
category: reference
title: History of botany
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_botany
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:20.683361+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-botany-20260505-0
summary:
By the middle of the 18th century, the botanical booty resulting from the era of exploration was accumulating in gardens and herbaria – and it needed to be systematically catalogued. This was the task of the taxonomists, the plant classifiers. Plant classifications have changed over time from "artificial" systems based on general habit and form, to pre-evolutionary "natural" systems expressing similarity using one to many characters, leading to post-evolutionary "natural" systems that use characters to infer evolutionary relationships. Italian physician Andrea Caesalpino (1519–1603) studied medicine and taught botany at the University of Pisa for about 40 years eventually becoming Director of the Botanic Garden of Pisa from 1554 to 1558. His sixteen-volume De Plantis (1583) described 1500 plants and his herbarium of 260 pages and 768 mounted specimens still remains. Caesalpino proposed classes based largely on the detailed structure of the flowers and fruit; he also applied the concept of the genus. He was the first to try and derive principles of natural classification reflecting the overall similarities between plants and he produced a classification scheme well in advance of its day. Gaspard Bauhin (1560–1624) produced two influential publications Prodromus Theatrici Botanici (1620) and Pinax (1623). These brought order to


id: history-of-botany-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_botany-6.md
category: reference
title: History of botany
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_botany
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:20.683361+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-botany-20260505-0
summary:
In plant physiology, research interest was focused on the movement of sap and the absorption of substances through the roots. Jan Helmont (1577–1644) by experimental observation and calculation, noted that the increase in weight of a growing plant cannot be derived purely from the soil, and concluded it must relate to water uptake. Englishman Stephen Hales (1677–1761) established by quantitative experiment that there is uptake of water by plants and a loss of water by transpiration and that this is influenced by environmental conditions: he distinguished "root pressure", "leaf suction" and "imbibition" and also noted that the major direction of sap flow in woody tissue is upward. His results were published in Vegetable Staticks (1727) He also noted that "air makes a very considerable part of the substance of vegetables". English chemist Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) is noted for his discovery of oxygen (as now called) and its production by plants. Later, Jan Ingenhousz (1730–1799) observed that only in sunlight do the green parts of plants absorb air and release oxygen, this being more rapid in bright sunlight while, at night, the air (CO2) is released from all parts. His results were published in Experiments upon vegetables (1779) and with this


id: history-of-botany-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_botany-7.md
category: reference
title: History of botany
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_botany
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:20.683361+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-botany-20260505-0
summary:
The opening of the 19th century was marked by an increase in interest in the connection between climate and plant distribution. Carl Willdenow (1765–1812) examined the connection between seed dispersal and distribution, the nature of plant associations and the impact of geological history. He noticed the similarities between the floras of N America and N Asia, the Cape and Australia, and he explored the ideas of "centre of diversity" and "centre of origin". German Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) and Frenchman Aime Bonpland (1773–1858) published a massive and highly influential 30 volume work on their travels; Robert Brown (1773–1852) noted the similarities between the floras of S Africa, Australia and India, while Joakim Schouw (1789–1852) explored more deeply than anyone else the influence on plant distribution of temperature, soil factors, especially soil water, and light, work that was continued by Alphonse de Candolle (1806–1893). Joseph Hooker (1817–1911) pushed the boundaries of floristic studies with his work on Antarctica, India and the Middle East with special attention to endemism. August Grisebach (1814–1879) in Die Vegetation der Erde (1872) examined physiognomy in relation to climate and in America geographic studies were pioneered by Asa Gray (1810–1888). Physiological plant geography, or ecology, emerged from


id: history-of-botany-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_botany-8.md
category: reference
title: History of botany
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_botany
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:20.683361+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-botany-20260505-0
summary:
Until the 1860s, it was believed that species had remained unchanged through time: each biological form was the result of an independent act of creation and therefore absolutely distinct and immutable. But the hard reality of geological formations and strange fossils needed scientific explanation. Charles Darwin's Origin of Species (1859) replaced the assumption of constancy with the theory of descent with modification. Phylogeny became a new principle as "natural" classifications became classifications reflecting, not just similarities, but evolutionary relationships. Wilhelm Hofmeister established that there was a similar pattern of organisation in all plants expressed through the alternation of generations and extensive homology of structures. German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), a polymath, had interests and influence that extended into botany. In Die Metamorphose der Pflanzen (1790), he provided a theory of plant morphology (he coined the word "morphology") and he included within his concept of "metamorphosis" modification during evolution, thus linking comparative morphology with phylogeny. Though the botanical basis of his work has been challenged, there is no doubt that he prompted discussion and research on the origin and function of floral parts. His theory probably stimulated the opposing views of German botanists Alexander Braun (1805–1877) and Matthias Schleiden


id: history-of-botany-20260505-9
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_botany-9.md
category: reference
title: History of botany
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_botany
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:59:20.683361+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-botany-20260505-0
summary:
Increased experimental precision combined with vastly improved scientific instrumentation was opening up exciting new fields. In 1936, Alexander Oparin (1894–1980) demonstrated a possible mechanism for the synthesis of organic matter from inorganic molecules. In the 1960s, it was determined that the Earth's earliest life-forms treated as plants, the cyanobacteria known as stromatolites, dated back some 3.5 billion years. Mid-century transmission and scanning electron microscopy presented another level of resolution to the structure of matter, taking anatomy into the new world of "ultrastructure". New and revised "phylogenetic" classification systems of the plant kingdom were produced by several botanists, including August Eichler. A massive 23 volume Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien was published by Adolf Engler & Karl Prantl over the period 1887 to 1915. Taxonomy based on gross morphology was now being supplemented by using characters revealed by pollen morphology, embryology, anatomy, cytology, serology, macromolecules and more. The introduction of computers facilitated the rapid analysis of large data sets used for numerical taxonomy (also called taximetrics or phenetics). The emphasis on truly natural phylogenies spawned the disciplines of cladistics and phylogenetic systematics. The grand taxonomic synthesis An Integrated System of Classification of Flowering Plants (1981) of American Arthur Cronquist (1919–1992) was superseded when,


