# kb

id: christianity-and-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_science-0.md
category: reference
title: Christianity and science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:43.006189+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: christianity-and-science-20260505-0
summary:
Most scientific and technical innovations prior to the Scientific Revolution were achieved by societies organized by religious traditions. Ancient Christian scholars pioneered individual elements of the scientific method. Historically, Christianity has been and still is a patron of sciences. It has been prolific in the foundation of schools, universities and hospitals, and many Christian clergy have been active in the sciences and have made significant contributions to the development of science. Historians of science such as Pierre Duhem credit medieval Catholic mathematicians and philosophers such as John Buridan, Nicole Oresme and Roger Bacon as the founders of modern science. Duhem concluded that "the mechanics and physics of which modern times are justifiably proud to proceed, by an uninterrupted series of scarcely perceptible improvements, from doctrines professed in the heart of the medieval schools". Many of the most distinguished classical scholars in the Byzantine Empire held high office in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Protestantism has had an important influence on science, according to the Merton Thesis, there was a positive correlation between the rise of English Puritanism and German Pietism on the one hand, and early experimental science on the other. Christian scholars and scientists have made noted contributions to science


id: christianity-and-science-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_science-1.md
category: reference
title: Christianity and science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:43.006189+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: christianity-and-science-20260505-0
summary:
Christian philosophers Augustine of Hippo (354–430) and Thomas Aquinas held that scriptures can have multiple interpretations on certain areas where the matters were far beyond their reach, therefore one should leave room for future findings to shed light on the meanings. Augustine argued:Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars ... Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men.The "Handmaiden" tradition, which saw secular studies of the universe as a very important and helpful part of arriving at a better understanding of scripture, was


id: christianity-and-science-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_science-2.md
category: reference
title: Christianity and science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:43.006189+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: christianity-and-science-20260505-0
summary:
Physics teacher David Hutchings and intellectual historian James C. Ungureanu credit the central tenets of traditional Christianity for having been the greatest benefit to scientific thinking, while at the same time noting the irony of the conflict thesis:And yet, as impossible as it might seem, both Conflict and Warfare are plagued by an even greater irony than that. It turns out that when they went after Christian doctrine for being the ultimate enemy of science, they were engaging in friendly fire. For, in actual fact, no other body of thought has ever been of greater benefit to scientific thinking than the central tenets of traditional Christianity have—in the whole of human history.David C. Lindberg states that the widespread popular belief that the Middle Ages was a time of ignorance and superstition due to the Christian church is a "caricature". According to Lindberg, while there are some portions of the classical tradition which suggest this view, these were exceptional cases. It was common to tolerate and encourage critical thinking about the nature of the world. The relation between Christianity and science is complex and cannot be simplified to either harmony or conflict, according to Lindberg. Lindberg reports that "the late medieval


id: christianity-and-science-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_science-3.md
category: reference
title: Christianity and science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:43.006189+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: christianity-and-science-20260505-0
summary:
=== Influence of biblical worldviews on early modern science === At first, according to Andrew Dickson White's 1896 book A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, a biblical worldview affected negatively the progress of science through time. Dickinson also argues that immediately following the Reformation matters were even worse. The interpretations of Scripture by Luther and Calvin became as sacred to their followers as the Scripture itself. For instance, when Georg Calixtus ventured, in interpreting the Psalms, to question the accepted belief that "the waters above the heavens" were contained in a vast receptacle upheld by a solid vault, he was bitterly denounced as heretical. Today, much of the scholarship in which the conflict thesis was originally based is considered to be inaccurate. For instance, the claim that early Christians rejected scientific findings by the Greco-Romans is false, since the "handmaiden" view of secular studies was seen to shed light on theology. This view was widely adapted throughout the early medieval period and afterwards by theologians (such as Augustine) and ultimately resulted in fostering interest in knowledge about nature through time. Also, the claim that people of the Middle Ages widely believed that the Earth was


id: christianity-and-science-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_science-4.md
category: reference
title: Christianity and science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:43.006189+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: christianity-and-science-20260505-0
summary:
=== Catholicism === While refined and clarified over the centuries, the Catholic position on the relationship between science and religion is one of harmony and has maintained the teaching of natural law as set forth by Thomas Aquinas. For example, regarding scientific study such as that of evolution, the church's unofficial position is an example of theistic evolution, stating that faith and scientific findings regarding human evolution are not in conflict, though humans are regarded as a special creation, and that the existence of God is required to explain both monogenism and the spiritual component of human origins. Catholic schools have included all manners of scientific study in their curriculum for many centuries. Historian John Heilbron says that "The Roman Catholic Church gave more financial and social support to the study of astronomy for over six centuries, from the recovery of ancient learning during the late Middle Ages into the Enlightenment, then any other, and probably all, other Institutions." The first universities in Europe were established by Catholic Church monks. The first Western European institutions generally considered to be universities were established in present-day Italy (including the Kingdom of Sicily, the Kingdom of Naples, and the Kingdom of Italy), the


id: christianity-and-science-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_science-5.md
category: reference
title: Christianity and science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:43.006189+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: christianity-and-science-20260505-0
summary:
The Catholic Cistercian order used its own numbering system, which could express numbers from 0 to 9999 in a single sign. According to one modern Cistercian, "enterprise and entrepreneurial spirit" have always been a part of the order's identity, and the Cistercians "were catalysts for development of a market economy" in twelfth-century Europe. Until the Industrial Revolution, most of the technological advances in Europe were made in the monasteries. According to the medievalist Jean Gimpel, their high level of industrial technology facilitated the diffusion of new techniques: "Every monastery had a model factory, often as large as the church and only several feet away, and waterpower drove the machinery of the various industries located on its floor." Waterpower was used for crushing wheat, sieving flour, fulling cloth and tanning – a "level of technological achievement [that] could have been observed in practically all" of the Cistercian monasteries. The English science historian James Burke examines the impact of Cistercian waterpower, derived from Roman watermill technology such as that of Barbegal aqueduct and mill near Arles in the fourth of his ten-part Connections TV series, called "Faith in Numbers". The Cistercians made major contributions to culture and technology in medieval Europe: Cistercian


id: christianity-and-science-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_science-6.md
category: reference
title: Christianity and science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:43.006189+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: christianity-and-science-20260505-0
summary:
The Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers, encouraged some values which may have been conducive to encouraging scientific talents. A theory suggested by David Hackett Fischer in his book Albion's Seed indicated early Quakers in the US preferred "practical study" to the more traditional studies of Greek or Latin popular with the elite. Another theory suggests their avoidance of dogma or clergy gave them a greater flexibility in response to science. Despite those arguments a major factor is agreed to be that the Quakers were initially discouraged or forbidden to go to the major law or humanities schools in Britain due to the Test Act. They also at times faced similar discriminations in the United States, as many of the colonial universities had a Puritan or Anglican orientation. This led them to attend "Godless" institutions or forced them to rely on hands-on scientific experimentation rather than academia. Because of these issues it has been stated Quakers are better represented in science than most religions. There are sources, Pendlehill (Thomas 2000) and Encyclopædia Britannica, that indicate that for over two centuries they were overrepresented in the Royal Society. Mention is made of this possibility in studies referenced in religiosity


id: christianity-and-science-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_science-7.md
category: reference
title: Christianity and science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:43.006189+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: christianity-and-science-20260505-0
summary:
In the field of Optics, Nestorian Christian Hunayn ibn-Ishaq's textbook on ophthalmology called the Ten Treatises on the Eye, which was written in 950 A.D., remained the authoritative source on the subject in the western world until the 1800s. It was a Christian scholar and Bishop from Nisibis named Severus Sebokht who was the first to describe and incorporate Indian mathematical symbols in the mid 7th century, which were then adopted into Islamic culture and are now known as the Arabic numerals. During the fourth through the seventh centuries, scholarly work in the Syriac and Greek languages was either newly initiated, or carried on from the Hellenistic period. Centers of learning and of transmission of classical wisdom included colleges such as the School of Nisibis, and later the School of Edessa, and the renowned hospital and medical academy of Jundishapur; libraries included the Library of Alexandria and the Imperial Library of Constantinople; other centers of translation and learning functioned at Merv, Salonika, Nishapur and Ctesiphon, situated just south of what later became Baghdad. The House of Wisdom was a library, translation institute, and academy established in Abbasid-era Baghdad, Iraq. Nestorians played a prominent role in the formation of Arab culture,


id: christianity-and-science-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_science-8.md
category: reference
title: Christianity and science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:43.006189+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: christianity-and-science-20260505-0
summary:
== Perspectives on evolution == In recent history, the theory of evolution has been at the centre of controversy between Christianity and science, largely in America. Christians who accept a literal interpretation of the biblical account of creation find incompatibility between Darwinian evolution and their interpretation of the Christian faith. Creation science or scientific creationism is a branch of creationism that attempts to provide scientific support for the Genesis creation narrative in the Book of Genesis and attempts to disprove generally accepted scientific facts, theories and scientific paradigms about the geological history of Earth, formation of the Solar System, Big Bang cosmology, the chemical origins of life and evolution. It began in the 1960s as a fundamentalist Christian effort in the United States to prove Biblical inerrancy and falsify the scientific evidence for evolution. It has since developed a sizable religious following in the United States, with creation science ministries branching worldwide. In 1925, The State of Tennessee passed the Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of the theory of evolution in all schools in the state. Later that year, a similar law was passed in Mississippi, and likewise, Arkansas in 1927. In 1968, these "anti-monkey" laws were struck down


id: christianity-and-science-20260505-9
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_science-9.md
category: reference
title: Christianity and science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:43.006189+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: christianity-and-science-20260505-0
summary:
According to 100 Years of Nobel Prizes a review of Nobel prizes award between 1901 and 2000 reveals that (65.4%) of Nobel Prizes Laureates, have identified Christianity in its various forms as their religious preference (427 prizes). Overall, Christians are considered a total of 72.5% in Chemistry between 1901 and 2000, 65.3% in Physics, 62% in Medicine, 54% in Economics. Between 1901 and 2000 it was revealed that among 654 Laureates 31.9% have identified as Protestant in its various forms (208 prize), 20.3% were Christians (no information about their denominations; 133 prize), 11.6% have identified as Catholic and 1.6% have identified as Eastern Orthodox. Although Christians make up over 33.2% of the world's population, they have won a total of 65.4% of all Nobel prizes between 1901 and 2000. In an estimate by scholar Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, between 1901 and 2001, about 57.1% of Nobel Prize winners were either Christians or with a Christian background. Between 1901 and 2001, about 56.5% of laureates in scientific fields were Christians. According to scholar Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, Protestants were overrepresented in scientific categories and Catholics were well-represented in the Literature and Peace categories. In an estimate made by Weijia Zhang from Arizona State University and


id: christianity-and-science-20260505-10
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_science-10.md
category: reference
title: Christianity and science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:43.006189+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: christianity-and-science-20260505-0
summary:
=== Works cited === Numbers, Ronald L. (2006). The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-02339-0. Shalev, Baruch A. (2003). 100 Years of Nobel Prizes. Atlantic Publishers & Dist. ISBN 978-81-269-0278-1. Thomas, Anne (24 April 2000), This I Know Experimentally, Spring 2000 Monday Night Lecture Series: Science and Religion, Pendle Hill (published 6 October 2003), archived from the original on 1 May 2006, retrieved 29 June 2009 == Further reading == Buxhoeveden, Daniel; Woloschak, Gayle, eds. (2011). Science and the Eastern Orthodox Church (1. ed.). Farnham: Ashgate. ISBN 9781409481614. Spierer, Eugen. God-of-the-Gaps Arguments in Light of Luther's Theology of the Cross. Archived 19 August 2019 at the Wayback Machine Matthews, Roy T.; Platt, F. DeWitt (1991). The Western Humanities. Mayfield Publishing Co. ISBN 0874847850. == External links == Christianity And The Scientist by Ian G. Barbour Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine Cambridge Christians in Science (CiS) group Archived 3 July 2019 at the Wayback Machine Christians in Science website Ian Ramsey Centre, Oxford The Society of Ordained Scientists-Mostly Church of England "Science in Christian Perspective" The (ASA) Canadian Scientific and Christian Affiliation (CSCA) The International Society for Science & Religion's founding members.(Of


id: science-in-classical-antiquity-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_classical_antiquity-0.md
category: reference
title: Science in classical antiquity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_classical_antiquity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:44.265759+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-in-classical-antiquity-20260505-0
summary:
Science in classical antiquity encompasses inquiries into the workings of the world or universe aimed at both practical goals (e.g., establishing a reliable calendar or determining how to cure a variety of illnesses) as well as more abstract investigations belonging to natural philosophy. Classical antiquity is traditionally defined as the period between the 8th century BC (beginning of Archaic Greece) and the 6th century AD (after which there was medieval science). It is typically limited geographically to the Greco-Roman West, Mediterranean basin, and Ancient Near East, thus excluding traditions of science in the ancient world in regions such as China and the Indian subcontinent. Ideas regarding nature that were theorized during classical antiquity were not limited to science but included myths as well as religion. Those who are now considered as the first scientists may have thought of themselves as natural philosophers, as practitioners of a skilled profession (e.g., physicians), or as followers of a religious tradition (e.g., temple healers). Some of the more widely known figures active in this period include Hippocrates, Aristotle, Euclid, Archimedes, Hipparchus, Galen, and Ptolemy. Their contributions and commentaries spread throughout the Eastern, Islamic, and Latin worlds and contributed to the birth of modern science.


id: science-in-classical-antiquity-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_classical_antiquity-1.md
category: reference
title: Science in classical antiquity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_classical_antiquity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:44.265759+00:00
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parent: science-in-classical-antiquity-20260505-0
summary:
The earliest Greek philosophers, known as the pre-Socratics, were materialists who provided alternative answers to the same question found in the myths of their neighbors: "How did the ordered cosmos in which we live come to be?" Although the question is much the same, their answers and their attitude towards the answers is markedly different. As reported by such later writers as Aristotle, their explanations tended to center on the material source of things. Thales of Miletus (624–546 BC) considered that all things came to be from and find their sustenance in water. Anaximander (610–546 BC) then suggested that things could not come from a specific substance like water, but rather from something he called the "boundless". Exactly what he meant is uncertain but it has been suggested that it was boundless in its quantity, so that creation would not fail; in its qualities, so that it would not be overpowered by its contrary; in time, as it has no beginning or end; and in space, as it encompasses all things. Anaximenes (585–525 BC) returned to a concrete material substance, air, which could be altered by rarefaction and condensation. He adduced common observations (the wine stealer) to demonstrate that air


id: science-in-classical-antiquity-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_classical_antiquity-2.md
category: reference
title: Science in classical antiquity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_classical_antiquity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:44.265759+00:00
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parent: science-in-classical-antiquity-20260505-0
summary:
The first institution of higher learning in Ancient Greece was founded by Plato (c. 427 – c. 347 BC), an Athenian who—perhaps under Pythagorean influence—appears to have identified the ordering principle of the universe as one based on number and geometry. A later account has it that Plato had inscribed at the entrance to the academy the words "Let no man ignorant of geometry enter." Although the story is most likely a myth, it nonetheless testifies to Plato's interest in mathematics, which is alluded to in several of his dialogues. Plato's philosophy maintained that all material things are imperfect reflections of eternal unchanging ideas, just as all mathematical diagrams are reflections of eternal unchanging mathematical truths. Since Plato believed that material things had an inferior kind of reality, he considered that demonstrative knowledge cannot be achieved by looking at the imperfect material world. Truth is to be found through rational argumentation, analogous to the demonstrations of mathematicians. For instance, Plato recommended that astronomy be studied in terms of abstract geometrical models rather than empirical observations, and proposed that leaders be trained in mathematics in preparation for philosophy. Aristotle (384–322 BC) studied at the academy and nonetheless disagreed with Plato in


id: science-in-classical-antiquity-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_classical_antiquity-3.md
category: reference
title: Science in classical antiquity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_classical_antiquity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:44.265759+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-in-classical-antiquity-20260505-0
summary:
The military campaigns of Alexander the Great spread Greek thought to Egypt, Asia Minor, Persia, up to the Indus River. The resulting migration of many Greek speaking populations across these territories provided the impetus for the foundation of several seats of learning, such as those in Alexandria, Antioch, and Pergamum. Hellenistic science differed from Greek science in at least two respects: first, it benefited from the cross-fertilization of Greek ideas with those that had developed in other non-Hellenic civilizations; secondly, to some extent, it was supported by royal patrons in the kingdoms founded by Alexander's successors. The city of Alexandria, in particular, became a major center of scientific research in the 3rd century BC. Two institutions established there during the reigns of Ptolemy I Soter (367–282 BC) and Ptolemy II Philadelphus (309–246 BC) were the Library and the Museum. Unlike Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum, these institutions were officially supported by the Ptolemies, although the extent of patronage could be precarious depending on the policies of the current ruler. Hellenistic scholars often employed the principles developed in earlier Greek thought in their scientific investigations, such as the application of mathematics to phenomena or the deliberate collection of empirical data. The


id: science-in-classical-antiquity-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_classical_antiquity-4.md
category: reference
title: Science in classical antiquity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_classical_antiquity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:44.265759+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-in-classical-antiquity-20260505-0
summary:
Advances in mathematical astronomy also took place during the Hellenistic age. Aristarchus of Samos (310–230 BC) was an ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician who presented the first known heliocentric model that placed the Sun at the center of the known universe, with the Earth revolving around the Sun once a year and rotating about its axis once a day. Aristarchus also estimated the sizes of the Sun and Moon as compared to Earth's size, and the distances to the Sun and Moon. His heliocentric model did not find many adherents in antiquity but did influence some early modern astronomers, such as Nicolaus Copernicus, who was aware of the heliocentric theory of Aristarchus. In the 2nd century BC, Hipparchus discovered precession, calculated the size and distance of the Moon and invented the earliest known astronomical devices such as the astrolabe. Hipparchus also created a comprehensive catalog of 1020 stars, and most of the constellations of the northern hemisphere derive from Greek astronomy. It has recently been claimed that a celestial globe based on Hipparchus's star catalog sits atop the broad shoulders of a large 2nd-century Roman statue known as the Farnese Atlas. == Roman era == Science during the Roman Empire


id: science-in-classical-antiquity-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_classical_antiquity-5.md
category: reference
title: Science in classical antiquity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_classical_antiquity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:44.265759+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-in-classical-antiquity-20260505-0
summary:
Claudius Ptolemy (c. 100–170 AD), living in or around Alexandria, carried out a scientific program centered on the writing of about a dozen books on astronomy, astrology, cartography, harmonics, and optics. Despite their severe style and high technicality, a great deal of them have survived, in some cases the sole remnants of their kind of writing from antiquity. Two major themes that run through Ptolemy's works are mathematical modelling of physical phenomena and methods of visual representation of physical reality. Ptolemy's research program involved a combination of theoretical analysis with empirical considerations seen, for instance, in his systematized study of astronomy. Ptolemy's Mathēmatikē Syntaxis (Ancient Greek: Μαθηματικὴ Σύνταξις), better known as the Almagest, sought to improve on the work of his predecessors by building astronomy not only upon a secure mathematical basis but also by demonstrating the relationship between astronomical observations and the resulting astronomical theory. In his Planetary Hypotheses, Ptolemy describes in detail physical representations of his mathematical models found in the Almagest, presumably for didactic purposes. Likewise, the Geography was concerned with the drawing of accurate maps using astronomical information, at least in principle. Apart from astronomy, both the Harmonics and the Optics contain (in addition to mathematical


id: darwin-s-ghosts-the-secret-history-of-evolution-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin's_Ghosts:_The_Secret_History_of_Evolution-0.md
category: reference
title: Darwin's Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin's_Ghosts:_The_Secret_History_of_Evolution
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:46.568267+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: darwin-s-ghosts-the-secret-history-of-evolution-20260505-0
summary:
Darwin's Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution is a nonfiction history of science book by British author Rebecca Stott. It was published in the United States in 2012 by Spiegel & Grau, the international version is subtitled differently: Darwin's Ghosts: In Search of the First Evolutionists. It is written in 12 distinct chapters that highlight persons that contributed to the pre-history of evolution by natural selection, published by Charles Darwin in On the Origin of Species in 1859. The book contains biographical sketches of 12 persons spanning from 344 BC to 19th century contemporaries of Darwin. The book has received reviews from notable reviewers and was included on the New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Books 2012 list. == Synopsis == Tho focus of each chapter is summarized in the table below. == References ==


id: department-of-history-and-philosophy-of-science-university-of-cambridge-20260505-0
category: reference
title: Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge
tags: science, encyclopedia
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:47.701211+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: department-of-history-and-philosophy-of-science-university-of-cambridge-20260505-0
file:
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_History_and_Philosophy_of_Science,_University_of_Cambridge-0.md

summary:
The Department of History and Philosophy of Science (HPS), of the University of Cambridge is the largest department of history and philosophy of science in the United Kingdom. A majority of its submissions received maximum ratings of 4* and 3* in the 2014 REF (Research Excellence Framework). Located in the historic buildings of the Old Physical Chemistry Laboratories on Free School Lane, Cambridge, the department teaches undergraduate courses towards the Cambridge Tripos and graduate courses including a taught Masters and PhD supervision in the field of HPS. The department shares its premises with the Whipple Museum and Whipple Library which provide important resources for its teaching and research. == Academic staff == The Department of HPS at Cambridge employs fifteen full-time teaching staff, approximately thirty research staff, numerous supervisors and research associates from departments and colleges across the University of Cambridge, in addition to external supervisors and examiners. A long-standing head of department was the noted Professor Peter Lipton, who served until his unexpected death in 2007. He was followed as head of department by the late Professor John Forrester, an international authority in the History of Mind, and a leading figure on Sigmund Freud and the history of psychoanalysis.

source_url:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_History_and_Philosophy_of_Science,_University_of_Cambridge


id: dibner-institute-for-the-history-of-science-and-technology-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dibner_Institute_for_the_History_of_Science_and_Technology-0.md
category: reference
title: Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dibner_Institute_for_the_History_of_Science_and_Technology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:48.831513+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: dibner-institute-for-the-history-of-science-and-technology-20260505-0
summary:
The Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology (1992–2006) was a research institute established at MIT, and housed in a renovated building (E56) on campus at 38 Memorial Drive, overlooking the Charles River. == Description == At the heart of the Institute was the Burndy Library on the ground floor, initially containing 37,000 volumes on the history of science and technology collected by the Dibner Fund. The Library also possessed a large collection of antique scientific instruments, such as astrolabes, telescopes, microscopes, early spectrometers, and a Wimshurst machine, which were on public display in a dedicated gallery outside the library. Also on display was a large collection of antique incandescent light bulbs, gas discharge tubes, electronic vacuum tubes, and other early examples of electrical and electronic technology. The Library would mount occasional special exhibits, such as The Afterlife of Immortality: Obelisks Outside Egypt. The building was a modest Art Deco structure, fronting on Memorial Drive and the Charles River. Above the Library and display space, on the second and third floor were offices and lecture and seminar rooms. The Institute held regular lectures, seminars, study programs, and an annual symposium in the history of science and technology. Over


id: discovery-of-human-antiquity-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_of_human_antiquity-0.md
category: reference
title: Discovery of human antiquity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_of_human_antiquity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:51.332676+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: discovery-of-human-antiquity-20260505-0
summary:
The discovery of human antiquity was a major achievement of science in the middle of the 19th century, and the foundation of scientific paleoanthropology. The antiquity of man, human antiquity, or in simpler language the age of the human race, are names given to the series of scientific debates it involved, which with modifications continue in the 21st century. These debates have clarified and given scientific evidence, from a number of disciplines, towards solving the basic question of dating the first human being. Controversy was very active in this area in parts of the 19th century, with some dormant periods also. A key date was the 1859 re-evaluation of archaeological evidence that had been published 12 years earlier by Boucher de Perthes. It was then widely accepted, as validating the suggestion that man was much older than had previously been believed, for example than the 6,000 years implied by some traditional chronologies. In 1863 T. H. Huxley argued that man was an evolved species; and in 1864 Alfred Russel Wallace combined natural selection with the issue of antiquity. The arguments from science for what was then called the "great antiquity of man" became convincing to most scientists, over the following


id: discovery-of-human-antiquity-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_of_human_antiquity-1.md
category: reference
title: Discovery of human antiquity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_of_human_antiquity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:51.332676+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: discovery-of-human-antiquity-20260505-0
summary:
==== Human origins and the "universal deluge" debated ==== The Flood could explain extinctions of species at that date, on the hypothesis that the Ark had not contained all species of animal. A Flood that was not universal, on the other hand, had implications for the biblical theory of races and Noah's sons. The theory of catastrophism, which was as much secular as theological in attitude, could be used in analogous ways. There was interest in matters arising from modification of the biblical narrative, therefore, and it was fuelled by the new knowledge of the world in early modern Europe, and then by the growth of the sciences. One hypothesis was of people not descended from Adam. This hypothesis of polygenism (no unique origin of humans) implied nothing on the antiquity of man, but the issue was implicated in counter-arguments, for monogenism. ==== La Peyrère and the completeness of the Biblical account ==== Isaac La Peyrère appealed in formulating his Preadamite theory of polygenism to Jewish tradition; it was intended to be compatible with the biblical creation of man. It was rejected by many contemporary theologians. This idea of humans before Adam had been current in earlier Christian scholars and


id: discovery-of-human-antiquity-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_of_human_antiquity-2.md
category: reference
title: Discovery of human antiquity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_of_human_antiquity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:51.332676+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: discovery-of-human-antiquity-20260505-0
summary:
The three-age system was in place from about 1820, in the form given to it by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen in his work on the collections that became the National Museum of Denmark. He published his ideas in 1836. Postulating cultural change, in itself and without explaining a rate of change, did not generate reasons to revise traditional chronology. But the concept of Stone Age artifacts became current. Thomsen's book in Danish, Ledetraad til Nordisk Oldkyndighed, was translated into German (Leitfaden zur Nordischen Alterthumskunde, 1837), and English (Guide to Northern Archæology, 1848). John Frere's 1797 discovery of the Hoxne handaxe helped to initiate the 19th century debate, but it started in earnest around 1810. There were then a number of false starts relating to different European sites. William Buckland misjudged what he had found in 1823 with the misnamed Red Lady of Paviland, and explained away the mammoth remains with the find. He also was dismissive of the Kent's Cavern findings of John MacEnery in the later 1820s. In 1829 Philippe-Charles Schmerling discovered a Neanderthal fossil skull (at Engis). At that point, however, its significance was not recognised, and Rudolf Virchow consistently opposed the theory that it was very old. The


id: discovery-of-human-antiquity-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_of_human_antiquity-3.md
category: reference
title: Discovery of human antiquity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_of_human_antiquity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:51.332676+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: discovery-of-human-antiquity-20260505-0
summary:
=== Acceptance of human association with extinct animal species === Boucher de Perthes had written up discoveries in the Somme valley in 1847. Joseph Prestwich and John Evans in April 1859, and Charles Lyell with others also in 1859, made field trips to the sites, and returned convinced that humans had coexisted with extinct mammals. In general and qualitative terms, Lyell felt the evidence established the "antiquity of man": that humans were much older than the traditional assumptions had made them. His conclusions were shared by the Royal Society and other British learned institutions, as well as in France. It was this recognition of the early date of Acheulean handaxes that first established the scientific credibility of the deep antiquity of humans. This debate was concurrent with that over the book On the Origin of Species, published in 1859, and was evidently related; but was not one in which Charles Darwin initially made his own views public. Consolidation of the "antiquity of man" required more work, with stricter methods; and this proved possible over the next two decades. The discoveries of Boucher de Perthes therefore motivated further researches to try to repeat and confirm the findings at other sites. Significant


id: doctrine-of-signatures-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_signatures-0.md
category: reference
title: Doctrine of signatures
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_signatures
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:52.473646+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: doctrine-of-signatures-20260505-0
summary:
The doctrine of signatures, also known as the doctrine of correspondences, is a biomedicinal theory of pseudoscience. It states that herbs or animals have physical or behavioral traits that mirror the ailment it can successfully treat. Theological justifications, such as that of botanist William Cole, were that God would want to show men what plants would be useful for. The doctrine of signatures has a debated origin. Many historians believe it begins with primitive thinking methods, while other historians believe it originated with Dioscorides and was popularized in the 16th and 17th centuries after Jakob Böhme coined the doctrine of signatures in his book The Signature of All Things. This theory is a possible explanation for the ancient discovery of medicinal properties; however, there is no definitive proof as to whether the medicinal property or the connection in physical/behavioral traits was realized first. The theory later became a scientific basis for trying new remedies solely based upon their qualities in an attempt to find new medicines. While there are some homeopathic remedies that are still used today which have been connected to this theory, there are also remedies from this theory which have been found harmful. For instance, birthwort (so-called


id: doctrine-of-signatures-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_signatures-1.md
category: reference
title: Doctrine of signatures
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_signatures
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:52.473646+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: doctrine-of-signatures-20260505-0
summary:
It is worth noting that it is possible that these are post hoc attributions—the appearance and treatment linked after the medicinal property was discovered. Depending on the article, remedies connected to the doctrine vary in number and consistency. == Scientific, spiritual, and social context == Signatures are often described as post hoc attributions and mnemonics used to remember the properties of a plant rather than the reason it was originally used. There is no scientific or historical evidence that plant shapes and colors have aided in the discovery of their medical uses. In Europe, the idea of doctrine of signatures was linked with Christian beliefs. However, similar theories were created within black magic with sympathetic magic. Similar theories have been observed all over the world in ancient Egypt, China, pre-Columbian America, and the Middle East. This can also explain how varied, and at times contradictory, applications of the doctrine can be because traditional botany is subject to optimal foraging theory. Remedies would, in many cases, be based on the environmental availability of that resource rather than its objective effectiveness. Some sociologists frame the doctrine of signatures as a type of "enchantment", the idea that it is not just what one


id: dyson-sphere-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere-0.md
category: reference
title: Dyson sphere
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:53.646045+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: dyson-sphere-20260505-0
summary:
A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure that encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its power output. The concept is a thought experiment that attempts to imagine how a spacefaring civilization would meet its energy requirements once those requirements exceed what can be generated from the home planet's resources alone. Because only a tiny fraction of a star's energy emissions reaches the surface of any orbiting planet, building structures encircling a star would enable a civilization to harvest far more energy. The earliest modern imagining of such a structure was by Olaf Stapledon in his science fiction novel Star Maker (1937). The same concept was later used by physicist Freeman Dyson in his 1960 paper "Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infrared Radiation". Dyson speculated that such structures would be the logical consequence of the escalating energy needs of a technological civilization and would be a necessity for its long-term survival. A signature of such spheres detected in astronomical searches would be an indicator of extraterrestrial intelligence. Since Dyson's paper, many variant designs involving an artificial structure or series of structures to encompass a star have been proposed in exploratory engineering or described in science fiction, often


id: dyson-sphere-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere-1.md
category: reference
title: Dyson sphere
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:53.646045+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: dyson-sphere-20260505-0
summary:
== Feasibility and science-based speculation == Although Dyson spheres in the form of a swarm are theoretically possible, building a stable megastructure around the Sun is currently far beyond humanity's engineering capacity. The number of craft required to obtain, transmit, and maintain a complete Dyson sphere exceeds present-day industrial capabilities. Dyson spheres have prompted speculation into the feasibility of a class of proposed stellar engines, hypothetical megastructures whose purpose is to extract useful energy from a star, sometimes for specific purposes. For example, Matrioshka brains have been proposed to use energy extracted by Dyson spheres for computation, while Shkadov thrusters would extract energy for propulsion. Some proposed stellar engine designs are based on the Dyson sphere. Futurist George Dvorsky has advocated the use of self-replicating robots to overcome the limitation of humanity's engineering capacity in the relatively near term. Some have suggested that Dyson sphere habitats could be built around white dwarfs or pulsars. In 2022 it was suggested that a Dyson swarm around the Sun could be launched from either Mercury or Mars. In order to transmit the energy back, far-field radiative wireless power transfer was proposed, a technology that is not yet fully developed. == Fictional examples ==


id: the-eclipse-of-darwinism-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_eclipse_of_Darwinism-0.md
category: reference
title: The eclipse of Darwinism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_eclipse_of_Darwinism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:58.221063+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-eclipse-of-darwinism-20260505-0
summary:
Julian Huxley used the phrase "the eclipse of Darwinism" to describe the state of affairs prior to what he called the "modern synthesis". During the "eclipse", evolution was widely accepted in scientific circles but relatively few biologists believed that natural selection was its primary mechanism. Historians of science such as Peter J. Bowler have used the same phrase as a label for the period within the history of evolutionary thought from the 1880s to around 1920, when alternatives to natural selection were developed and explored—as many biologists considered natural selection to have been a wrong guess on Charles Darwin's part, or at least to be of relatively minor importance. Four major alternatives to natural selection were in play in the 19th century: Theistic evolution, the belief that God directly guided evolution Neo-Lamarckism, the idea that evolution was driven by the inheritance of characteristics acquired during the life of the organism Orthogenesis, the belief that organisms were affected by internal forces or laws of development that drove evolution in particular directions Mutationism, the idea that evolution was largely the product of mutations that created new forms or species in a single step. Theistic evolution had largely disappeared from the scientific literature


id: the-eclipse-of-darwinism-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_eclipse_of_Darwinism-1.md
category: reference
title: The eclipse of Darwinism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_eclipse_of_Darwinism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:58.221063+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-eclipse-of-darwinism-20260505-0
summary:
British science developed in the early 19th century on a basis of natural theology which saw the adaptation of fixed species as evidence that they had been specially created to a purposeful divine design. The philosophical concepts of German idealism inspired concepts of an ordered plan of harmonious creation, which Richard Owen reconciled with natural theology as a pattern of homology showing evidence of design. Similarly, Louis Agassiz saw Ernest Haeckel's recapitulation theory, which held that the embryological development of an organism repeats its evolutionary history, as symbolising a pattern of the sequence of creations in which humanity was the goal of a divine plan. In 1844 Vestiges adapted Agassiz's concept into theistic evolutionism. Its anonymous author Robert Chambers proposed a "law" of divinely ordered progressive development, with transmutation of species as an extension of recapitulation theory. This popularised the idea, but it was strongly condemned by the scientific establishment. Agassiz remained forcefully opposed to evolution, and after he moved to America in 1846 his idealist argument from design of orderly development became very influential. In 1858 Owen cautiously proposed that this development could be a real expression of a continuing creative law, but distanced himself from transmutationists. Two years


id: the-eclipse-of-darwinism-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_eclipse_of_Darwinism-2.md
category: reference
title: The eclipse of Darwinism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_eclipse_of_Darwinism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:58.221063+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-eclipse-of-darwinism-20260505-0
summary:
In the late 19th century the term neo-Lamarckism came to be associated with the position of naturalists who viewed the inheritance of acquired characteristics as the most important evolutionary mechanism. Advocates of this position included the British writer and Darwin critic Samuel Butler, the German biologist Ernst Haeckel, the American paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Alpheus Hyatt, and the American entomologist Alpheus Packard. They considered Lamarckism to be more progressive and thus philosophically superior to Darwin's idea of natural selection acting on random variation. Butler and Cope both believed that this allowed organisms to effectively drive their own evolution, since organisms that developed new behaviors would change the patterns of use of their organs and thus kick-start the evolutionary process. In addition, Cope and Haeckel both believed that evolution was a progressive process. The idea of linear progress was an important part of Haeckel's recapitulation theory. Cope and Hyatt looked for, and thought they found, patterns of linear progression in the fossil record. Packard argued that the loss of vision in the blind cave insects he studied was best explained through a Lamarckian process of atrophy through disuse combined with inheritance of acquired characteristics. Many American proponents of neo-Lamarckism were


id: the-eclipse-of-darwinism-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_eclipse_of_Darwinism-3.md
category: reference
title: The eclipse of Darwinism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_eclipse_of_Darwinism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:58.221063+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-eclipse-of-darwinism-20260505-0
summary:
Mutationism was the idea that new forms and species arose in a single step as a result of large mutations. It was seen as a much faster alternative to the Darwinian concept of a gradual process of small random variations being acted on by natural selection. It was popular with early geneticists such as Hugo de Vries, who along with Carl Correns helped rediscover Gregor Mendel's laws of inheritance in 1900, William Bateson a British zoologist who switched to genetics, and early in his career, Thomas Hunt Morgan. The 1901 mutation theory of evolution held that species went through periods of rapid mutation, possibly as a result of environmental stress, that could produce multiple mutations, and in some cases completely new species, in a single generation. Its originator was the Dutch botanist Hugo de Vries. De Vries looked for evidence of mutation extensive enough to produce a new species in a single generation and thought he found it with his work breeding the evening primrose of the genus Oenothera, which he started in 1886. The plants that de Vries worked with seemed to be constantly producing new varieties with striking variations in form and color, some of which appeared to


id: the-eclipse-of-darwinism-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_eclipse_of_Darwinism-4.md
category: reference
title: The eclipse of Darwinism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_eclipse_of_Darwinism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:58.221063+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-eclipse-of-darwinism-20260505-0
summary:
== Historiography == The concept of eclipse suggests that Darwinian research paused, implying in turn that there had been a preceding period of vigorously Darwinian activity among biologists. However, historians of science such as Mark Largent have argued that while biologists broadly accepted the extensive evidence for evolution presented in The Origin of Species, there was less enthusiasm for natural selection as a mechanism. Biologists instead looked for alternative explanations more in keeping with their worldviews, which included the beliefs that evolution must be directed and that it constituted a form of progress. Further, the idea of a dark eclipse period was convenient to scientists such as Julian Huxley, who wished to paint the modern synthesis as a bright new achievement, and accordingly to depict the preceding period as dark and confused. Huxley's 1942 book Evolution: The Modern Synthesis therefore, argued Largent, suggested that the so-called modern synthesis began after a long period of eclipse lasting until the 1930s, in which Mendelians, neo-Lamarckians, mutationists, and Weismannians, not to mention experimental embryologists and Haeckelian recapitulationists fought running battles with each other. The idea of an eclipse also allowed Huxley to step aside from what was to him the inconvenient association of


id: eddington-experiment-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddington_experiment-0.md
category: reference
title: Eddington experiment
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddington_experiment
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:59.485048+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: eddington-experiment-20260505-0
summary:
The Eddington experiment was an observational test of general relativity, organised by the British astronomers Frank Watson Dyson and Arthur Stanley Eddington in 1919. Observations of the total solar eclipse of 29 May 1919 were carried out by two expeditions, one to the West African island of Príncipe, and the other to the Brazilian town of Sobral. The aim of the expeditions was to measure the gravitational deflection of starlight passing near the Sun. The amount of deflection was predicted by Albert Einstein in a 1911 paper; however, his initial prediction proved inaccurate because it was based on an incomplete theory of general relativity. Einstein improved his prediction after finalizing his theory in 1915 and obtaining the solution to his equations by Karl Schwarzschild. Following the return of the expeditions, the results were presented by Eddington to a joint meeting of the Royal Society and Royal Astronomical Society in London and, after some deliberation, were accepted. Widespread newspaper coverage of the results led to worldwide fame for Einstein and his theories. == Background == One of the first considerations of gravitational deflection of light was published in 1801, when Johann Georg von Soldner pointed out that Newtonian gravity predicts that


id: eddington-experiment-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddington_experiment-1.md
category: reference
title: Eddington experiment
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddington_experiment
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:59.485048+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: eddington-experiment-20260505-0
summary:
== Theory == The theory behind the experiment concerns the predicted deflection of light by the Sun. The first observation of light deflection was performed by noting the change in position of stars as they passed near the Sun on the celestial sphere. The approximate angular deflection δφ for a massless particle coming in from infinity and going back out to infinity is given by the following formula: δ φ ≈ 2 r s b = 4 G M c 2 b . {\displaystyle \delta \varphi \approx {\frac {2r_{s}}{b}}={\frac {4GM}{c^{2}b}}.} Here, b can be interpreted as the distance of closest approach. Although this formula is approximate, it is accurate for most measurements of gravitational lensing, due to the smallness of the ratio rs/b. For light grazing the surface of the Sun, the approximate angular deflection is roughly 1.75 arcseconds. This is twice the value predicted by calculations using the Newtonian theory of gravity. It was this difference in the deflection between the two theories that Eddington's expedition and other later eclipse observers would attempt to observe. == Expeditions and observations == The aim of the expeditions was to take advantage of the shielding effect of the Moon during a total


id: eddington-experiment-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddington_experiment-2.md
category: reference
title: Eddington experiment
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddington_experiment
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:59.485048+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: eddington-experiment-20260505-0
summary:
=== Príncipe === The equipment used for the expedition to Príncipe, an island in the Gulf of Guinea off the coast of West Africa, was an astrographic lens borrowed from the Radcliffe Observatory in Oxford. Eddington sailed from England in March 1919. By mid-May he had his equipment set up on Príncipe near what was then Spanish Guinea. The eclipse was due to take place in the early afternoon of 29 May, at 2 pm, but that morning there was a storm with heavy rain. Eddington wrote: The rain stopped about noon and about 1.30 ... we began to get a glimpse of the sun. We had to carry out our photographs in faith. I did not see the eclipse, being too busy changing plates, except for one glance to make sure that it had begun and another half-way through to see how much cloud there was. We took sixteen photographs. They are all good of the sun, showing a very remarkable prominence; but the cloud has interfered with the star images. The last few photographs show a few images which I hope will give us what we need ... Eddington developed the photographs on Príncipe, and attempted to measure


id: eddington-experiment-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddington_experiment-3.md
category: reference
title: Eddington experiment
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddington_experiment
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:59.485048+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: eddington-experiment-20260505-0
summary:
The presentation of the results at the joint 6 November 1919 session of Royal Society and Royal Astronomical Society led to intensive press coverage first in Great Britain and a few days later in the US press, notably in The New York Times, and some days later still in the German press. While Einstein had been a moderately famous public figure in Germany for a few years by that time, the articles in question marked the beginning of his international celebrity status. A notable exception was Belgium, where the Eddington results were given the cold shoulder – partly because Einstein was seen as representing Germany, with the suffering of Belgium in World War I still very present in the country. The sudden popularity of Einstein's theories led to an "Einstein boom" of popular science books. While there is a later anecdote describing Einstein as unimpressed about the experimental results, and sure of his theory even in the absence of evidence (stating, when asked what he would have said if the results had been otherwise, "Then I would feel sorry for the dear Lord. The theory is correct anyway.") the evidence of Einstein's letters to other scientists indicates, on the contrary,


id: eddington-experiment-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddington_experiment-4.md
category: reference
title: Eddington experiment
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddington_experiment
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:10:59.485048+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: eddington-experiment-20260505-0
summary:
== Sources and further reading == Collins, Harry; Pinch, Trevor (1993). The Golem: What everyone should know about science. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521477360. Cowen, Ron (May 2019). Gravity's Century: From Einstein's Eclipse to Images of Black Holes (Illustrated ed.). Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-97496-8. Crelinsten, Jeffrey (May 2006). Einstein's Jury: The Race to Test Relativity. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-12310-3. Gates, Sylvester J. Jr; Pelletier, Cathie (2019). Proving Einstein right: The daring expeditions that changed how we look at the universe (First ed.). New York: PublicAffairs. ISBN 978-1541762251. Kennefick, Daniel (2019). No Shadow of a Doubt: The 1919 Eclipse That Confirmed Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691183862. Popper, Karl (2002) [1935]. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Routledge. ISBN 0-203-99462-0. Stanley, Matthew (2019). Einstein's War: How Relativity Triumphed Amid the Vicious Nationalism of World War I. Dutton. ISBN 978-1-5247-4541-7. == External links == Eclipse 1919, website about the eclipse, the expeditions and centenary events "Eddington's Eclipse and Einstein's Celebrity" Discovery (audio) episode (from BBC World Service) "The man who made Einstein world-famous" (BBC News, 24 May 2019) "Matthew Stanley and Einstein's War". Archived 2020-07-30 at the Wayback Machine (Clarke Center for Human Imagination, UCSD podcast) "100


id: empiricism-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism-0.md
category: reference
title: Empiricism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:00.706456+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: empiricism-20260505-0
summary:
In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological view which holds that true knowledge or justification comes either only or primarily from sensory experience and empirical evidence. It is one of several competing views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empiricists argue that empiricism is a more reliable method of finding the truth than relying purely on logical reasoning, because humans have cognitive biases and limitations which lead to errors of judgement. Empiricism emphasizes the central role of empirical evidence in the formation of ideas, rather than innate ideas or traditions. Empiricists may argue that traditions (or customs) arise due to relations of previous sensory experiences. Historically, empiricism was associated with the "blank slate" concept (tabula rasa), according to which the human mind is "blank" at birth and develops its thoughts only through later experience. Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence, especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation. Empiricism, often used by natural scientists, holds that "knowledge is based on experience" and that "knowledge is tentative and


id: empiricism-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism-1.md
category: reference
title: Empiricism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:00.706456+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: empiricism-20260505-0
summary:
During the Middle Ages (from the 5th to the 15th century CE) Aristotle's theory of tabula rasa was developed by Islamic philosophers starting with Al Farabi (c. 872 – c. 951 CE), developing into an elaborate theory by Avicenna (c. 980 – 1037 CE) and demonstrated as a thought experiment by Ibn Tufail. For Avicenna (Ibn Sina), for example, the tabula rasa is a pure potentiality that is actualized through education, and knowledge is attained through "empirical familiarity with objects in this world from which one abstracts universal concepts" developed through a "syllogistic method of reasoning in which observations lead to propositional statements which when compounded lead to further abstract concepts". The intellect itself develops from a material intellect (al-'aql al-hayulani), which is a potentiality "that can acquire knowledge to the active intellect (al-'aql al-fa'il), the state of the human intellect in conjunction with the perfect source of knowledge". So the immaterial "active intellect", separate from any individual person, is still essential for understanding to occur. In the 12th century CE, the Andalusian Muslim philosopher and novelist Abu Bakr Ibn Tufail (known as "Abubacer" or "Ebu Tophail" in the West) included the theory of tabula rasa as a thought experiment


id: empiricism-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism-2.md
category: reference
title: Empiricism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:00.706456+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: empiricism-20260505-0
summary:
British empiricism, a retrospective characterization, emerged during the 17th century as an approach to early modern philosophy and modern science. Although both integral to this overarching transition, Francis Bacon, in England, first advocated for empiricism in 1620, whereas René Descartes, in France, laid the main groundwork upholding rationalism around 1640. (Bacon's natural philosophy was influenced by Italian philosopher Bernardino Telesio and by Swiss physician Paracelsus.) Contributing later in the 17th century, Thomas Hobbes and Baruch Spinoza are retrospectively identified likewise as an empiricist and a rationalist, respectively. In the Enlightenment of the late 17th century, John Locke in England, and in the 18th century, both George Berkeley in Ireland and David Hume in Scotland, all became leading exponents of empiricism, hence the dominance of empiricism in British philosophy. The distinction between rationalism and empiricism was not formally made until Immanuel Kant, in Germany, around 1780, who sought to merge the two views. In response to the early-to-mid-17th-century "continental rationalism", John Locke (1632–1704) proposed in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) a very influential view wherein the only knowledge humans can have is a posteriori, i.e., based upon experience. Locke is famously attributed with holding the proposition that the human mind


id: empiricism-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism-3.md
category: reference
title: Empiricism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:00.706456+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: empiricism-20260505-0
summary:
Hume maintained that no knowledge, even the most basic beliefs about the natural world, can be conclusively established by reason. Rather, he maintained, our beliefs are more a result of accumulated habits, developed in response to accumulated sense experiences. Among his many arguments Hume also added another important slant to the debate about scientific method—that of the problem of induction. Hume argued that it requires inductive reasoning to arrive at the premises for the principle of inductive reasoning, and therefore the justification for inductive reasoning is a circular argument. Among Hume's conclusions regarding the problem of induction is that there is no certainty that the future will resemble the past. Thus, as a simple instance posed by Hume, we cannot know with certainty by inductive reasoning that the sun will continue to rise in the East, but instead come to expect it to do so because it has repeatedly done so in the past. Hume concluded that such things as belief in an external world and belief in the existence of the self were not rationally justifiable. According to Hume these beliefs were to be accepted nonetheless because of their profound basis in instinct and custom. Hume's lasting legacy, however,


id: empiricism-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism-4.md
category: reference
title: Empiricism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:00.706456+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: empiricism-20260505-0
summary:
[Mill] claimed that mathematical truths were merely very highly confirmed generalizations from experience; mathematical inference, generally conceived as deductive [and a priori] in nature, Mill set down as founded on induction. Thus, in Mill's philosophy there was no real place for knowledge based on relations of ideas. In his view logical and mathematical necessity is psychological; we are merely unable to conceive any other possibilities than those that logical and mathematical propositions assert. This is perhaps the most extreme version of empiricism known, but it has not found many defenders. Mill's empiricism thus held that knowledge of any kind is not from direct experience but an inductive inference from direct experience. The problems other philosophers have had with Mill's position center around the following issues: Firstly, Mill's formulation encounters difficulty when it describes what direct experience is by differentiating only between actual and possible sensations. This misses some key discussion concerning conditions under which such "groups of permanent possibilities of sensation" might exist in the first place. Berkeley put God in that gap; the phenomenalists, including Mill, essentially left the question unanswered. In the end, lacking an acknowledgement of an aspect of "reality" that goes beyond mere "possibilities of sensation",


id: empiricism-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism-5.md
category: reference
title: Empiricism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:00.706456+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: empiricism-20260505-0
summary:
Logical empiricism (also logical positivism or neopositivism) was an early 20th-century attempt to synthesize the essential ideas of British empiricism (e.g. a strong emphasis on sensory experience as the basis for knowledge) with certain insights from mathematical logic that had been developed by Gottlob Frege and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Some of the key figures in this movement were Otto Neurath, Moritz Schlick and the rest of the Vienna Circle, along with A. J. Ayer, Rudolf Carnap and Hans Reichenbach. The neopositivists subscribed to a notion of philosophy as the conceptual clarification of the methods, insights and discoveries of the sciences. They saw in the logical symbolism elaborated by Frege (1848–1925) and Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) a powerful instrument that could rationally reconstruct all scientific discourse into an ideal, logically perfect, language that would be free of the ambiguities and deformations of natural language. This gave rise to what they saw as metaphysical pseudoproblems and other conceptual confusions. By combining Frege's thesis that all mathematical truths are logical with the early Wittgenstein's idea that all logical truths are mere linguistic tautologies, they arrived at a twofold classification of all propositions: the "analytic" (a priori) and the "synthetic" (a posteriori). On this basis, they


id: empiricism-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism-6.md
category: reference
title: Empiricism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:00.706456+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: empiricism-20260505-0
summary:
In his Harvard "Lectures on Pragmatism" (1903), Peirce enumerated what he called the "three cotary propositions of pragmatism" (L: cos, cotis whetstone), saying that they "put the edge on the maxim of pragmatism". First among these, he listed the peripatetic-thomist observation mentioned above, but he further observed that this link between sensory perception and intellectual conception is a two-way street. That is, it can be taken to say that whatever we find in the intellect is also incipiently in the senses. Hence, if theories are theory-laden then so are the senses, and perception itself can be seen as a species of abductive inference, its difference being that it is beyond control and hence beyond critique—in a word, incorrigible. This in no way conflicts with the fallibility and revisability of scientific concepts, since it is only the immediate percept in its unique individuality or "thisness"—what the Scholastics called its haecceity—that stands beyond control and correction. Scientific concepts, on the other hand, are general in nature, and transient sensations do in another sense find correction within them. This notion of perception as abduction has received periodic revivals in artificial intelligence and cognitive science research, most recently for instance with the work of


id: history-of-energy-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_energy-0.md
category: reference
title: History of energy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_energy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:01.906536+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-energy-20260505-0
summary:
In the history of physics, the history of energy examines the gradual development of energy as a central scientific concept. Classical mechanics was initially understood through the study of motion and force by thinkers like Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton, the importance of the concept of energy was made clear in the 19th century with the principles of thermodynamics, particularly the conservation of energy which established that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. In the 20th century Albert Einstein's mass–energy equivalence expanded this understanding by linking mass and energy, and quantum mechanics introduced quantized energy levels. Today, energy is recognized as a fundamental conserved quantity across all domains of physics, underlying both classical and quantum phenomena. == Antiquity == The word energy derives from Greek word "energeia" (Greek: ἐνέργεια) meaning actuality, which appears for the first time in the 4th century BCE in various works of Aristotle when discussing potentiality and actuality including Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics and On the Soul. == Kinetic energy == The modern concept of kinetic energy emerged from the idea of vis viva (living force), which Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz defined over the period 1676–1689 as the product of the mass of an object


id: epistemic-cultures-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemic_cultures-0.md
category: reference
title: Epistemic cultures
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemic_cultures
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:03.032436+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: epistemic-cultures-20260505-0
summary:
Epistemic cultures (often used in plural form) is a concept developed in the nineties by anthropologist Karin Knorr Cetina in her book Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge. Opposed to a monist vision of scientific activity (according to which, would exist a unique scientific method), Knorr Cetina defines the concept of epistemic cultures as a diversity of scientific activities according to different scientific fields, not only in methods and tools, but also in types of reasonings, ways to establish evidence, and relationships between theory and empiry. Knorr Cetina's work is seminal in questioning the so-called unity of science. == Knorr Cetina's anthropology == In practice, Knorr Cetina compares two contemporary important scientific fields: High energy physics and molecular biology. She worked as an anthropologist within two laboratories, along the line of the laboratory anthropology work by Latour and Woolgar. Her anthropological work is comparative and the two chosen scientific fields are highly mediaticized and easily distinguishable. Epistemic cultures as a philosophical concept has been perused by numerous philosophical, anthropological or historical studies of science. == Two distinct publication regimes == High energy physics and molecular biology are very different as scientific fields belonging to two different epistemic cultures. They


id: european-and-american-voyages-of-scientific-exploration-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration-0.md
category: reference
title: European and American voyages of scientific exploration
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:04.350296+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: european-and-american-voyages-of-scientific-exploration-20260505-0
summary:
The era of European and American voyages of scientific exploration followed the Age of Discovery and were inspired by a new confidence in science and reason that arose in the Age of Enlightenment. Maritime expeditions in the Age of Discovery were a means of expanding colonial empires, establishing new trade routes and extending diplomatic and trade relations to new territories, but with the Enlightenment scientific curiosity became a new motive for exploration to add to the commercial and political ambitions of the past. See also List of Arctic expeditions and List of Antarctic expeditions. == Maritime exploration in the Age of Discovery == From the early 15th century to the early 17th century the Age of Discovery had, through Portuguese seafarers, and later, Spanish, Dutch, French and English, opened up southern Africa, the Americas (New World), Asia and Oceania to European eyes: Bartholomew Dias had sailed around the Cape of southern Africa in search of a trade route to India; Christopher Columbus, on four journeys across the Atlantic, had prepared the way for European colonisation of the New World; Ferdinand Magellan had commanded the first expedition to sail across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to reach the Maluku Islands and


id: european-and-american-voyages-of-scientific-exploration-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration-1.md
category: reference
title: European and American voyages of scientific exploration
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:04.350296+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: european-and-american-voyages-of-scientific-exploration-20260505-0
summary:
== Maritime exploration in the Age of Enlightenment == By the 18th century maritime exploration had become safer and more efficient with technical innovations that vastly improved navigation and cartography: improvements were made to the theodolite, octant, precision clocks, as well as the compass, telescope, and general shipbuilding techniques. From the mid-18th century through the 19th century scientific missions mapped the newly discovered regions, brought back to Europe the newly discovered fauna and flora, made hydrological, astronomical and meteorological observations and improved the methods of navigation. This stimulated great advances in the scientific disciplines of natural history, botany, zoology, ichthyology, conchology, taxonomy, medicine, geography, geology, mineralogy, hydrology, oceanography, physics, meteorology etc. – all contributing to the sense of "improvement" and "progress" that characterized the Enlightenment. Often these missions brought together diverse researchers of different ethnic and regional background, thus creating a "transnational culture of expertise". Artists were used to record landscapes and indigenous peoples, while natural history illustrators captured the appearance of organisms before they deteriorated after collection. Some of the world's finest natural history illustrations were produced at this time and the illustrators changed from informed amateurs to fully trained professionals acutely aware of the need for scientific accuracy.


id: european-and-american-voyages-of-scientific-exploration-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration-2.md
category: reference
title: European and American voyages of scientific exploration
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:04.350296+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: european-and-american-voyages-of-scientific-exploration-20260505-0
summary:
Captain: Thomas Adams (?–1770) Also aboard: Joseph Banks (1743–1820) and Constantine Phipps. ==== 1766–69: La Boudeuse and L'Étoile ==== Ordered by Louis XV, it was the first trip around the world initiated by the French. The discovery and description of Tahiti by Louis Antoine de Bougainville in his trip influenced several Enlightenment philosophers including Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78). The expedition was organised by Louis Antoine de Bougainville and received the support of such prominent figures of the time as Charles de Brosses (1709–77), Comte de Buffon (1707–88), Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (1698–1759) and Jérôme Lalande (1732–1807). The expedition aimed to discover new territories available for settlement, to open a new route to reach China, to found new outlets for the French East India Company and, finally, discover acclimatable spices for the Isle de France (now Mauritius). Captains: Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1729–1811) Chief of expedition, Nicolas Pierre Duclos-Guyot (Captain of La Boudeuse), François Chenard de la Giraudais (1727–1775) (Captain of L'Étoile) Naturalists: Philibert Commerçon (1727–73), Jeanne Baré (1740–1807) Astronomer: Pierre-Antoine Véron (1736–70) Cartographer: Charles Routier de Romainville (1742–92?) Publication: Louis Antoine de Bougainville, Journey Around the World by the Commander of the La Boudeuse and L'Étoile, in 1766, 1767, 1768


id: european-and-american-voyages-of-scientific-exploration-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration-3.md
category: reference
title: European and American voyages of scientific exploration
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:04.350296+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: european-and-american-voyages-of-scientific-exploration-20260505-0
summary:
Captain: Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse (1741–1788) (on the Boussole) and Paul Antoine Fleuriot de Langle (1744–1787) (on the Astrolabe) Chief Engineer: Paul Mérault Monneron (1748–1788) Geologist: Robert de Lamanon (1752–1787) Artists: the uncle and nephew Prevost, Duché De Vancy Naturalists: Jean-André Mongez (1751 – c. 1788) Interpreter of Russian: Barthélemy de Lesseps (1766–1834) landed at Petropavlovsk, and in charge of bringing to France the log, maps and drawings of the trip. ==== 1785–88: King George ==== Global circumnavigation. Captain: Nathaniel Portlock ==== 1785–94: Slava Rossii ==== A Russian expedition commanded by the British Captain Joseph Billings, astronomer on Cook's third voyage. This expedition lasted more than ten years attempting, unsuccessfully, to find the Northwest Passage that had remained undiscovered after Cook's explorations. Captain: Joseph Billings (c. 1758 – 1806) Naturalists: Carl Heinrich Merck and Carl Krebs Surgeons-naturalists: Michael Robeck and Peter Allegretti Cartographer: Gavriil Sarytchev Publications: J. Billings, An Account of a Geographical and Astronomical expedition to the Northern parts of Russia. (1802), translated into French the same year under the title of Voyage made by order of Empress Catherine II Russia, in the North of the Asian Russian the icy sea, in the sea on the coasts


id: european-and-american-voyages-of-scientific-exploration-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration-4.md
category: reference
title: European and American voyages of scientific exploration
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:04.350296+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: european-and-american-voyages-of-scientific-exploration-20260505-0
summary:
This expedition was organised to establish a permanent colonial presence in the South Seas before the British, concentrating on the mapping of the coast of the Australia and New Guinea. Nicolas Baudin died in Mauritius in 1803, another naturalist on the island of Timor, two other naturalists chose to stay on the island and two astronomers died of dysentery. Péron, assisted by his friend Lesueur, managed to gather a vast zoological collection. Naturaliste returned to France in 1803 with a part of the collections. Captain Baudin bought a schooner, the Casuarina, at the British settlement of Port Jackson in Australia. Baudin was replaced by Pierre Bernard Milius (1773–1829). Commanders: Nicolas Baudin (1754–1803) (Le Géographe) and Jacques Hamelin (1768–1839) (Le Naturaliste). Physician, surgeon (first doctor in the Navy) and biologist: Pierre François Keraudren (1769–1858) (Le Géographe). Naturalists: Jean Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour (1773–1826), René Maugé Cely, Stanislas Levillain (1774–1801), François Péron (1775–1810), Jean-Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent (1778–1846) (left the expedition to Mauritius), Désiré Dumont, André Michaux (1746–1803) Artist: Charles-Alexandre Lesueur (1778–1846) assisted by Nicolas-Martin Petit (1777–1804) Astronomers: Pierre-François Bernier (1779–1803) and Frédéric de Bissy (1768–1803) Cartographer: Charles-Pierre Boullanger Geographer: Pierre Faure (1777–1855) Mineralogist: Louis Depuch, Joseph Charles Bailly Publications: F.


id: european-and-american-voyages-of-scientific-exploration-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration-5.md
category: reference
title: European and American voyages of scientific exploration
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:04.350296+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: european-and-american-voyages-of-scientific-exploration-20260505-0
summary:
Commander: lieutenant Louis Isidore Duperrey (1786–1865) Second: lieutenant Jules Dumont d'Urville, botanist (1790–1842) Physician-naturalist: the surgeon, pharmacist and zoologist René Primevère Lesson (1794–1849) and surgeon-major Prosper Garnot (1794–1838) Astronomer: Charles Hector Jacquinot (1796–1879) Illustrators: Jules Louis Lejeune (1804–1851), Jacques Arago (1790–1855) Hydrographer: Victor Charles Lottin (1795–1858) Publications: Lesson and Garnot, Voyage autour du monde exécuté par ordre du roi sur la corvette La Coquille (1828–32)/Journey around the world on the corvette La Coquille (Paris, six volumes, 1826–1830). ==== 1823–26: Predpriyatiye ==== An expedition of two ships of war, the main object of which was to take reinforcements to Kamchatka. There was, however, a staff of scientists on board the Russian sailing sloop Predpriyatiye (Russian: "Enterprise"), who collected much valuable information and material on geography, ethnography and natural history. The expedition, proceeding by Cape Horn, visited the Radak and Society Islands, and reached Petropavlovsk in July 1824. Many positions along the coast were mapped more accurately, the Navigator islands visited, and several discoveries made. The expedition returned by the Marianas, Philippines, New Caledonia and the Hawaiian Islands, reaching Kronstadt on 10 July 1826. Captain: Otto von Kotzebue (1787–1846) Physician-naturalist: Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz (1793–1831) and Dr. Lenz Publication: O. von Kotzebue,


id: european-and-american-voyages-of-scientific-exploration-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration-6.md
category: reference
title: European and American voyages of scientific exploration
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:04.350296+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: european-and-american-voyages-of-scientific-exploration-20260505-0
summary:
==== 1826–29: Senyavin and Moller ==== A Russian circumnavigation on the ship Senyavin, sailing from Kronstadt and rounding Cape Horn, accompanied by Captain Mikhail Nikolaievich Staniukovich in command of the sloop Moller. During the voyage Litke and his team described the western coastline of the Bering Sea, the Bonin Islands off Japan, and the Carolines, and discovered 12 new islands. The expedition strengthened the Russian presence near Alaska. A large collection of natural history specimens was made including 1,000 new species of insects, fish, birds and other animals, and 2,500 plant specimens including algae and minerals. Captain: Fyodor Litke (1797–1882) Botanist-naturalist: Karl Heinrich Mertens (1796–1830) Naturalist: Heinrich von Kittlitz (1799–1874) Mineralogist: Alexander Philipov Postels (1801–1871) Published by: F. Litke, Trip around the world (1835–1836). ==== 1827–28: La Chevrette ==== The first French expedition to map the coast of India. Captain: Theodore Fabré (1795–1830) Surgeon-naturalist: Auguste Adolphe Marc Reynaud (1804–?) ==== 1828: Ms. Korvet Triton ==== Dutch exploration of New Guinea. The corvette Triton The brig Iris Expedition leader: Dr. H.C. Macklot Captain of Triton: J.J. Steenboom ==== 1829: La Cybèle ==== Scientific exploration was placed under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent (1778–1846). Captain: Marie Antoine Chevalier de Robillard


id: european-and-american-voyages-of-scientific-exploration-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration-7.md
category: reference
title: European and American voyages of scientific exploration
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:04.350296+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: european-and-american-voyages-of-scientific-exploration-20260505-0
summary:
The second voyage of L'Astrolabe, this time accompanied by La Zélée, sailed on 7 September 1837 and at the end of November, the ships reached the Strait of Magellan. Dumont thought there was sufficient time to explore the strait for three weeks, taking into account the precise maps drawn by Phillip Parker King between 1826 and 1830, before heading south again but two weeks after seeing their first iceberg, the ships were encased in pack ice for a while. After reaching the South Orkney Islands, the expedition headed directly to the South Shetland Islands and the Bransfield Strait. Then located some land which was named Terre de Louis-Philippe (now called Graham Land), the Joinville Island group and Rosamel Island (now called Andersson Island). In poor shape the two ships headed for Talcahuano in Chile. Turning south they led for the first time some experiments to determine the approximate position of the South Magnetic Pole, discovered the Terre Adélie on 20 January 1840, and landed two days later on an islet of the Géologie Archipelago (66°36′19″S 140°4′0″E) 4 km from the mainland to take mineral and animal samples. Captains: Jules Dumont d'Urville (1790–1842) (L'Astrolabe), Charles Hector Jacquinot (1796–1879) (La Zélée) Physician-naturalist:


id: european-and-american-voyages-of-scientific-exploration-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration-8.md
category: reference
title: European and American voyages of scientific exploration
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:04.350296+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: european-and-american-voyages-of-scientific-exploration-20260505-0
summary:
Captains: Sir James Clark Ross (1800–1862) (Erebus) and Francis Crozier (1796–1848) (Terror) Physician-naturalist: Robert McCormick (1800–1890), Joseph Hooker (1817–1911), John Robertson, David Lyall (1817–1895) Publications: J.C. Ross, A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions. (1847), J.E. Gray and John Richardson, The zoology of the Voyage of HM Ships Erebus and Terror (1844–1875). J.D. Hooker, The botany of the Antarctic voyage of HM discovery ships Erebus and Terror in the years 1839–1843 under the command of Captain Sir James Clark Ross. Three volumes: I. Flora Antarctica (1844), II. Flora Novae Zelandiae (1853–1855), III. Flora Tasmaniae (1860). ==== 1841–44: La Favorite ==== A French scientific exploration in the China Sea and Indian Ocean. Captain: Théogène François Page (1807–1867) Surgeon-naturalist: Charles René Augustin Léclancher (1804–1857) ==== 1842–46: HMS Fly ==== During the early to mid-1840s, Fly charted numerous trade and other routes between many locations, primarily off Australia's north-east coast and nearby islands. Such islands included Whitsunday Island and the Capricorn Islands. After being discovered during the survey of the Gulf of Papua, New Guinea, the Fly River was named after HMS Fly. For the most of its seaworthy existence, Fly was captained by Francis Price Blackwood. Captain:


id: european-and-american-voyages-of-scientific-exploration-20260505-9
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration-9.md
category: reference
title: European and American voyages of scientific exploration
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:04.350296+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: european-and-american-voyages-of-scientific-exploration-20260505-0
summary:
==== 1860: HMS Bulldog ==== An oceanographic survey in HMS Bulldog for the laying of a submarine telegraph cable in the North Atlantic. Captain: Francis Leopold McClintock (1819–1907) Naturalist: George Charles Wallich (1815–1899) Publication: The North Atlantic Sea – Bed; comprising a diary of the voyage on board H. M. S. Bulldog, in 1860, and observations on the presence of animal life, and the formation and nature of organic deposits, at great depths in the ocean. (1862). ==== 1862: Arctic expedition of Krusenstern ==== Arctic expedition of two ships, MV Iermak and MV Embrio in order to discover the Yenissei river delta, resulted in shipwreck in the Kara Sea. Captain: Paul Theodor von Krusenstern Publication: Naufrage du lieutenant Krusenstern dans les glaces de la mer de Kara (1863, in Le Tour du monde Volume 8 pp. 203–208) ==== 1865–68: Magenta ==== An Italian circumnavigation of the globe that made important scientific observations in South America. The purpose of the trip was also to establish diplomatic relations with China and Japan, but without success. De Filippi set out in 1866 on a government-sponsored scientific voyage to circumnavigate the globe. The ship, the Italian warship Magenta, sailed under the command of Vittorio


id: european-and-american-voyages-of-scientific-exploration-20260505-10
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration-10.md
category: reference
title: European and American voyages of scientific exploration
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:04.350296+00:00
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parent: european-and-american-voyages-of-scientific-exploration-20260505-0
summary:
Albatross belonged to the Committee on Fisheries of the United States and it carried out numerous scientific expeditions under the direction of Alexander Emanuel Agassiz (1835–1910). The primary goal was an inventory of the Pacific fishery reserves but many other observations are carried out by Townsend and other scientists. Captain: Zera Tanner (1835–1906) Naturalist: Charles Haskins Townsend (1859–1944) ==== 1897–98: Lila and Mattie ==== Zoologist Walter Rothschild commissioned the Webster-Harris Expedition to the Galápagos Islands from June 1897 to February 1898. This expedition on the schooner Lila & Mattie is well-described in the 1983 book titled Dear Lord Rothschild by Miriam Rothschild. In the 1936 book Oceanic Birds of South America by Robert Cushman Murphy, Rollo Beck describes the seminal telegram from C.M Harris that started his long and important association with the Galápagos Islands. The original of this telegram is in the Rollo Beck Collection in the California Academy of Sciences Archives. There is also a photo from Beck's Sierra Nevada collecting trip in the archives of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology on the University of California, Berkeley campus. The story of buried treasure on Tower Island connected with this trip was apparently known to Captain Lindbridge during this


id: history-of-experiments-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_experiments-0.md
category: reference
title: History of experiments
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_experiments
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:05.503097+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-experiments-20260505-0
summary:
The history of experimental research is long and varied. Indeed, the definition of an experiment itself has changed in responses to changing norms and practices within particular fields of study. This article documents the history and development of experimental research from its origins in Galileo's study of gravity into the diversely applied method in use today. == Ibn al-Haytham == The Arab physicist Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) used experimentation to obtain the results in his Book of Optics (1021). He combined observations, experiments and rational arguments to support his intromission theory of vision, in which rays of light are emitted from objects rather than from the eyes. He used similar arguments to show that the ancient emission theory of vision supported by Ptolemy and Euclid (in which the eyes emit the rays of light used for seeing), and the ancient intromission theory supported by Aristotle (where objects emit physical particles to the eyes), were both wrong. Experimental evidence supported most of the propositions in his Book of Optics and grounded his theories of vision, light and colour, as well as his research in catoptrics and dioptrics. His legacy was elaborated through the 'reforming' of his Optics by Kamal al-Din al-Farisi (d.


id: history-of-experiments-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_experiments-1.md
category: reference
title: History of experiments
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_experiments
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:05.503097+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-experiments-20260505-0
summary:
The experiments of Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794), a French chemist regarded as the founder of modern chemistry, were among the first to be truly quantitative. Lavoisier showed that although matter changes its state in a chemical reaction, the quantity of matter is the same at the end as at the beginning of every chemical reaction. In one experiment, he burned phosphorus and sulfur in air to see whether the results further supported his previous conclusion (Law of Conservation of Mass). In this experiment, however, he determined that the products weighed more than the original phosphorus and sulfur. He decided to do the experiment again. This time he measured the mass of the air surrounding the experiment as well. He discovered that the mass gained in the product was lost from the air. These experiments provided further support for his Law of Conservation of Mass. One of Lavoisier's experiments connected the worlds of respiration and combustion. Lavoisier's hypothesis was that combustion and respiration were one and the same, and combustion occurs with every instance of respiration. Working with Pierre-Simon Laplace, Lavoisier designed an ice calorimeter apparatus for measuring the amount of heat given off during combustion or respiration. This machine consisted of


id: history-of-experiments-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_experiments-2.md
category: reference
title: History of experiments
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_experiments
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:05.503097+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-experiments-20260505-0
summary:
The French biologist Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), regarded as the "Father of microbiological sciences and immunology", worked during the 19th century. He postulated - and supported with experimental results - the idea that disease-causing agents do not spontaneously appear but are alive and need the right environment to prosper and multiply. Stemming from this discovery, he used experimentation to develop vaccines for chicken cholera, anthrax and rabies, and developed methods for reducing bacteria in some food products by heating them (pasteurization). Pasteur's work also led him to advocate (along with the English physician Dr. Joseph Lister) antiseptic surgical techniques. Most scientists of that day believed that microscopic life sprang into existence from spontaneous generation in non-living matter. Pasteur's observations of tiny organisms under the microscope caused him to doubt spontaneous generation. He designed an experiment to test his hypothesis that life could not arise from where there is no life. He took care to control possible confounding factors. For example, he needed to make sure there was no life, even microscopic, in the flasks of broth he used as a test medium. He decided to kill any microscopic organisms already present by boiling the broth until he was confident that any


id: fermentation-theory-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermentation_theory-0.md
category: reference
title: Fermentation theory
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermentation_theory
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:07.762853+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: fermentation-theory-20260505-0
summary:
In biochemistry, fermentation theory refers to the historical study of models of natural fermentation processes, especially alcoholic and lactic acid fermentation. Notable contributors to the theory include Justus Von Liebig and Louis Pasteur, the latter of whom developed a purely microbial basis for the fermentation process based on his experiments. Pasteur's work on fermentation later led to his development of the germ theory of disease, which put the concept of spontaneous generation to rest. Although the fermentation process had been used extensively throughout history prior to the origin of Pasteur's prevailing theories, the underlying biological and chemical processes were not fully understood. In the contemporary, fermentation is used in the production of various alcoholic beverages, foodstuffs, and medications. == Overview of fermentation == Fermentation is the anaerobic metabolic process that converts sugar into acids, gases, or alcohols in oxygen starved environments. Yeast and many other microbes commonly use fermentation to carry out anaerobic respiration necessary for survival. Even the human body carries out fermentation processes from time to time, such as during long-distance running; lactic acid will build up in muscles over the course of long-term exertion. Within the human body, lactic acid is the by-product of ATP-producing fermentation, which


id: fermentation-theory-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermentation_theory-1.md
category: reference
title: Fermentation theory
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermentation_theory
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:07.762853+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: fermentation-theory-20260505-0
summary:
Pasteur also experimented with the mechanisms of brewer's yeast in the absence of organic nitrogen. By adding pure brewer's yeast to a solution of cane sugar, ammonium salt, and yeast ash, Pasteur was able to observe the alcoholic fermentation process with all of its usual byproducts: glycerin, succinic acid, and small amounts of cellulose and fatty matters. However, if any of the ingredients were removed from the solution, no fermentation would occur. To Pasteur, this was proof that yeast required the nitrogen, minerals, and carbon from the medium for its metabolic processes, releasing carbonic acid and ethyl alcohol as byproducts. This also disproved Liebig's theory, since there was no albuminous matter present in the medium; the decomposition of the yeast was not the driving force for the observed fermentation. == Pasteur on spontaneous generation == Before the 1860s and 1870s—when Pasteur published his work on this theory—it was believed that microorganisms and even some small animals such as frogs would spontaneously generate. Spontaneous generation was historically explained in a variety of ways. Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher, theorized that creatures appeared out of certain concoctions of earthly elements, such as clay or mud mixing with water and sunlight. Later on,


id: golden-age-of-cosmology-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_age_of_cosmology-0.md
category: reference
title: Golden age of cosmology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_age_of_cosmology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:08.935846+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: golden-age-of-cosmology-20260505-0
summary:
The golden age of cosmology is a term often used to describe the period from 1992 to the present in which important advances in observational cosmology have been made. Prior to the golden age of cosmology, the understanding of the universe was limited to what scientists could observe through telescopes and other instruments. Theories and models were developed based on limited data and observations, and there was much speculation and debate regarding the true nature of the universe. The golden age of cosmology has also seen the development of new observational techniques and technologies. For example, the use of telescopes in space has revolutionized our ability to observe the universe. Space-based observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope (launched in 1990) and the James Webb Space Telescope (launched in 2021) have provided stunning images and data that have expanded our understanding of the universe. In addition, ground-based telescopes have also undergone significant improvements in recent years. For example, the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile is a revolutionary new telescope that is able to observe the universe in unprecedented detail. It has already made significant contributions to our understanding of star formation and the early universe. == Lambda-CDM model


id: hagiopolitan-octoechos-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagiopolitan_Octoechos-0.md
category: reference
title: Hagiopolitan Octoechos
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagiopolitan_Octoechos
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:13.278479+00:00
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parent: hagiopolitan-octoechos-20260505-0
summary:
Oktōēchos or Octoechos (Greek: ὁ Ὀκτώηχος pronounced in koine: okˈtóixos; from ὀκτώ 'eight' and ἦχος 'sound, mode' called echos; Slavonic: Осмогласие, Osmoglasie from о́смь 'eight' and гласъ 'voice, sound') is the name of the eight mode system used for the composition of religious chant in most Christian churches during the Middle Ages. In a modified form, the octoechos is still regarded as the foundation of the tradition of monodic Orthodox chant today (Neobyzantine Octoechos). The octoechos as a liturgical concept which established an organization of the calendar into eight-week cycles, was the invention of monastic hymnographers at Mar Saba in Palestine, at the Patriarchates of Antiochia and of Constantinople. It was officially announced as the modal system of hymnography at the Quinisext Council in 692. A similar eight-mode system was established in Western Europe during the Carolingian reform, and particularly at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 AD which decanonised the former iconoclastic council in 754 and confirmed earlier ones. Quite possibly this was an attempt to follow the example of the Eastern Church by an octoechos reform, even if it was rather a transfer of knowledge with an introduction of a new book called "tonary" which introduced into


id: hagiopolitan-octoechos-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagiopolitan_Octoechos-1.md
category: reference
title: Hagiopolitan Octoechos
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagiopolitan_Octoechos
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:13.278479+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hagiopolitan-octoechos-20260505-0
summary:
==== 8 diatonic echoi of the Hagiopolitan Octoechos ==== Despite the late copies of the Greek Hagiopolites treatise, the earliest Latin description of the Greek system of eight echoi is an eleventh-century treatise compilation called Alia musica. Echos was translated as sonus by the anonymous compilator who commented with a comparison of the Byzantine octoechos: This Latin description about the octoechos used by Greek singers (psaltes) is very precise, when it says that each kyrios and plagios pair used the same octave, divided into a fifth (pentachord) and a fourth (tetrachord): D—a—d in protos, E—b—e in devteros, F—c—f in tritos, and C—G—c in tetartos. While the kyrioi had the finalis (final, and usually also base note) on the top, the plagioi had the finalis on the bottom of the pentachord. The intonation formulas, called enechema (gr. ἐνήχημα), for the authentic modes or kyrioi echoi, usually descend within the pentachord and turn back to the finalis at the end, while the plagal modes or plagioi echoi just move to the upper third. The later dialogue treatises (Gr. ἐρωταποκρίσεις, erotapokriseis) refer to the Hagiopolitan diatonic eight modes, when they use the kyrioi intonations to find those of the plagioi: Περὶ πλαγίων Ἀπο


id: hagiopolitan-octoechos-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagiopolitan_Octoechos-2.md
category: reference
title: Hagiopolitan Octoechos
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagiopolitan_Octoechos
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:13.278479+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hagiopolitan-octoechos-20260505-0
summary:
In the edition of the treatise by Otto Gombosi, the four "elements" (α', β', γ', δ') were associated with certain colours—πρῶτος with black (all colours together), δεύτερος with white (no colour at all), τρίτος with yellow (an elementary colour), and τέταρτος with purple (a combination of elementary colours). These passages could be easily compiled with Zosimos of Panopolis' treatise about the process of bleaching. The system favoured 3 four tetrachord sets (either modes by themselves or simply degree of the modes with different functions), called κέντροι, ἷσοι, and πλάγιοι. Kέντρος would be probably an early name for μέσος, if it lay between the ἶσος and πλάγιος, it could be as well used as an early name for κύριος ἦχος, because it is mentioned here first, while ἶσος could mean "equivalent", or just basis notes. The exact point of reference concerning this 24 mode system was not clarified in the treatise, but it is evident, that there was a canonised wisdom which was connected with an ethical doctrine excluding certain passions (πάθη, pathe) as corruptions. Inside this wisdom, there was a Neoplatonic concept of an ideal and divine existence, which can be found and classified according to a modal scheme based


id: hagiopolitan-octoechos-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagiopolitan_Octoechos-3.md
category: reference
title: Hagiopolitan Octoechos
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagiopolitan_Octoechos
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:13.278479+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hagiopolitan-octoechos-20260505-0
summary:
According to the Latin synthesis the plagal and authentic tones of protus, deuterus, tritus, and tetrardus did not use the same ambitus as in the Hagiopolitan octoechos, but authentic and plagal tones used both the finalis of the plagios, so that the finalis of the kyrios, the fifth degree of the mode, was no longer used as finalis, but as repercussa: the recitation tone of the authentic tone used in a simple form of psalmody which was another genuine invention by the Carolingian reformers. The ambitus of the authentic tones was made up the same way as used in the Greek octoechos, while the plagal tones used a lower ambitus: not the tetrachord above the pentachord, but below it. Hence, the hypodorian octave referred the tonus secundus and was constructed A—D—a, and the dorian as "tonus primus" D—a—d, both tones of the protus used D as finalis, the hypophrygian octave species was B—E—b and was the ambitus of the tonus quartus, and the phrygian octave species E—b—e was related to the tonus tertius and its finalis E belonged to the deuterus, the hypolydian octave species C—F—c was connected with the tonus sixtus, the lydian octave F—c—f with the tonus quintus


id: hagiopolitan-octoechos-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagiopolitan_Octoechos-4.md
category: reference
title: Hagiopolitan Octoechos
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagiopolitan_Octoechos
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:13.278479+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hagiopolitan-octoechos-20260505-0
summary:
The earliest chant theory connected with the Carolingian octoechos was related to the book tonary. It played a key role in memorising chant and the earliest tonaries referred to the Greek names as elements of a tetrachord: πρῶτος, δεύτερος, τρίτος, and τέταρτος. They were translated into Latin as "protus", "deuterus", "tritus", and "tetrardus", but only the tetrachord D—E—F—G was supposed to contain the finales ("final notes") for the eight tones used in the Latin octoechos. Since the 10th century the eight tones were applied to eight simplified models of psalmody, which soon adopted in their terminations the melodic beginnings of the antiphons, which were sung as refrains during psalm recitation. This practice made the transitions smoother, and in the list of the antiphons which can be found since the earliest tonaries, it was enough to refer to the melodic beginnings or incipits of the text. In the earliest tonaries no models of psalmody had been given and incipits from all chant genres were listed, probably just for a modal classification (see the section for the Autentus protus of the Saint Riquier tonary). According to Michel Huglo, there was a prototype tonary which initiated the Carolingian reform. But in a later


id: hagiopolitan-octoechos-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagiopolitan_Octoechos-5.md
category: reference
title: Hagiopolitan Octoechos
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagiopolitan_Octoechos
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:13.278479+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hagiopolitan-octoechos-20260505-0
summary:
== Question of intervals and their transposition == The exact proportions which divided a tetrachord, had never been a subject of Greek medieval treatises concerned about Byzantine chant. The separation between the mathematical science harmonikai ("harmonics") and chant theory gave space to various speculations, even to the assumption that the same division was used as described in Latin music theory, operating with two diatonic intervals like tonus (9:8) and semitonium (256:243). Nevertheless, some treatises referred the tetrachord division into three intervals called the "major tone" (ὁ μείζων τόνος) which often corresponded to the prominent position of the whole tone (9:8), the "middle tone" (ὁ ἐλάσσων τόνος) between α and β, and the "small tone" (ὁ ἐλάχιστος τόνος) between β and γ which was usually a much larger interval than the half tone, and this division was common among most divisions by different ancient Greek theorists that were mentioned by Ptolemy in his Harmonics. Before Chrysanthos' Theoretika (the Eisagoge was simply an extract, while the Theoretikon mega was published by his student Panagiotes Pelopides), exact proportions were never mentioned in Greek chant theory. His system of 68 commata which is based on a corrupt use of arithmetics, can be traced back


id: hagiopolitan-octoechos-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagiopolitan_Octoechos-6.md
category: reference
title: Hagiopolitan Octoechos
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagiopolitan_Octoechos
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:13.278479+00:00
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parent: hagiopolitan-octoechos-20260505-0
summary:
=== Pitches and their tonal system === Although Chrysanthos did not mention his name, the first who mentioned precisely these proportions starting from the open string of the third or middle chord of the oud, was the Arab theorist Al-Farabi in his Kitab al-Musiqa al-Kabir which was written during the first half of the 10th century. His explicit references to Persian and Ancient Greek music theory were possible, because they had been recently translated into Arabic and Persian dialects in the library of Baghdad. Thanks to them Al-Farabi had also an excellent knowledge of Ancient Greek music theory. The method of demonstrating the intervals by the frets of the oud keyboard was probably taken from Al-Kindi. Here the intervals are not referred to the Byzantine phthongoi, but to the name of the frets. And the fret corresponding to β was called "ring finger fret of Zalzal" (wuṣtā Zalzal), named after the famous Baghdadi oud player Zalzal. It seems that the proportion of the Zalzal fret was a refined one in Bagdad using a large middle tone that came very close to the interval of the small tone, while the Mawsili school used 13:12 instead of 12:11. There is no indication


id: hagiopolitan-octoechos-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagiopolitan_Octoechos-7.md
category: reference
title: Hagiopolitan Octoechos
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagiopolitan_Octoechos
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:13.278479+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hagiopolitan-octoechos-20260505-0
summary:
=== Medieval use of transposition (μεταβολὴ κατὰ τόνον) === Latin cantors knew about the theoretical concept of the practice of transposition since Boethius' translation of Ptolemy. Very few can be said, if they ever understood the practical use of it. Nevertheless, there was a rudimentary knowledge which can be found in the Carolingian treatises Musica and Scolica enchiriadis. The Musica enchiriadis was also the only Latin treatise which documented a second tone system beside the systẽma teleion, but it does not explain at all, how these both systems worked together in practice. The Hagiopolites did neither explain it nor did it mention any tone system nor the metabolē kata tonon, but this was probably because the hymn reform of Jerusalem was mainly concerned with simple models exemplified by heirmoi or troparia. Greek protopsaltai used the transposition only in very few compositions of the stichẽrarion, for instance the compositions passing through all the modes of the octoechos, or certain melismatic elaborations of troparia in the psaltic style, the soloistic style of the Constantinopolitan cathedral rite. This might explain that Charles Atkinson discussed Carolingian theory in comparison with the later Papadikai, in which all possible transpositions were represented by the Koukouzelian wheel


id: hagiopolitan-octoechos-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagiopolitan_Octoechos-8.md
category: reference
title: Hagiopolitan Octoechos
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagiopolitan_Octoechos
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:13.278479+00:00
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parent: hagiopolitan-octoechos-20260505-0
summary:
=== Latin treatises and tonaries (6th–12th century) === Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus. "Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 358, pp. 144-270". «Institutionis musicae id est armonicae» with glossae maior copied at the scriptorium of Einsiedeln (10th century). Edition: Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus (1844–1904). "De institutione musica, liber IV". In Migne, Jacques-Paul (ed.). Patrologia cursus completus, series latina. Vol. 63. Paris: Garnier. pp. [col.1245–1286]. "Valenciennes, Bibliothèque municipale (F-VAL) Ms. 337 (olim 325, 359), fol. 42v-79v". Musica and Scolica enchiriadis in the treatise collection of the Abbey Saint-Amand (10th century). Retrieved 14 April 2012. Edition: Gerbert, Martin, ed. (1784). "Musica enchiriadis & Scholia enchiriadis de arte musica". Scriptores Ecclesiastici de Musica Sacra Potissimum. Vol. 1 (Hildesheim 1963 reprint ed.). St Blaise. pp. 152–212. Hucbald. "Prague, Národní knihovna (dríve Universitní knihovna), Ms. 273 olim XIX.C.26, fol. 19-28". Tonary "De harmonica institutione" with Lorrain neumes and Greek terminology in a treatise collection (ca. 1100). Retrieved 3 June 2019. Edition: Gerbert, Martin, ed. (1784). "Ubaldi seu Hucbaldi Monachi Elnonensis opuscula de musica". Scriptores Ecclesiastici de Musica Sacra Potissimum. Vol. 1 (Hildesheim 1963 reprint ed.). St Blaise. pp. 103–125. Aurelian of Réôme. "Valenciennes, Bibliothèque municipale, Ms. 148, fol. 57-89". "Musica disciplina" with intonations in later added Paleofrankish neumes, Abbey


id: hagiopolitan-octoechos-20260505-9
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagiopolitan_Octoechos-9.md
category: reference
title: Hagiopolitan Octoechos
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagiopolitan_Octoechos
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:13.278479+00:00
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parent: hagiopolitan-octoechos-20260505-0
summary:
== Studies == Alexandru, Maria (2000). Studie über die 'großen Zeichen' der byzantinischen musikalischen Notation unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Periode vom Ende des 12. bis Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts. University Copenhagen. Amargianakis, George (1977). "An Analysis of Stichera in the Deuteros Modes: The Stichera idiomela for the Month of September in the Modes Deuteros, Plagal Deuteros, and Nenano; transcribed from the Manuscript Sinai 1230 <A.D. 1365>" (PDF). Cahiers de l'Institut du Moyen-Âge Grec et Latin. 22–23: 1–269. Atkinson, Charles M. (2001). "Tonus in the Carolingian Era: A Terminal Spannungsfeld.". In Bernhard, Michael (ed.). Quellen und Studien zur Musiktheorie des Mittelalters (PDF). Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. pp. 19–46. ISBN 978-3-76-966008-1. Atkinson, Charles M. (2008). The critical nexus: Tone-System, Mode, and Notation in Early Medieval Music. Oxford, New York [etc.]: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-514888-6. Busse Berger, Anna Maria (2005), Medieval Music and the Art of Memory, Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, ISBN 978-0-19-514888-6. Chrysanthos of Madytos (1832), Θεωρητικὸν μεγὰ τῆς Μουσικῆς, Triest: Michele Weis, retrieved 11 April 2012. Floros, Constantin; Neil K. Moran (2009). The Origins of Russian Music - Introduction to the Kondakarian Notation. Frankfurt/Main etc.: Lang. ISBN 978-3-631-59553-4. Frøyshov, Stig Simeon R. (2007). "The


id: hagiopolitan-octoechos-20260505-10
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagiopolitan_Octoechos-10.md
category: reference
title: Hagiopolitan Octoechos
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagiopolitan_Octoechos
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:13.278479+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hagiopolitan-octoechos-20260505-0
summary:
== External links == Jeffery, Peter (4 December 2010). "At the Origins of the Byzantine Musical Tradition: The Eight Modes". White Plains: Axion Estin Foundation. Retrieved 29 January 2013. "Hesperinos psalm with the sticheron anastasimon «Νίκην ἔχον Χριστὲ» in echos plagios devteros". Music School «Ὁ ἅγιος Ἀχίλλιος» of Larissa. 2 October 2021. Retrieved 17 May 2024. Father Nektarios of the Skete Hagia Anna on Mount Athos. "Sticheron idiomelon «Σὲ τὸν ἐπὶ ὑδάτων» (Holy Saturday) in echos plagios devteros". YouTube. Retrieved 17 May 2024. Petros Peloponnesios (February 2018). "Katavasies (heirmologion argon) «Σταυρὸν χαράξας Μωσῆς» (odes 1, 7 and 9 of the canon) for the feast of the elevation of the cross (14 September) in echos plagios tetartos". Archon Protopsaltes Demosthenis Païkopoulos. Retrieved 17 May 2024. Meyer, Christian; et al. "Sources of Medieval Music Theory". Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften online. Retrieved 16 January 2012. "Thesaurus Musicarum Latinarum". Index for the 9th-11th century. Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University Bloomington, IN 47405. Retrieved 19 December 2025. Ibn al-Munadjdjim (French)


id: jennifer-michael-hecht-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Michael_Hecht-0.md
category: reference
title: Jennifer Michael Hecht
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Michael_Hecht
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:14.489664+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: jennifer-michael-hecht-20260505-0
summary:
Jennifer Michael Hecht (born November 23, 1965) is a teacher, author, poet, historian, and philosopher. She was an associate professor of history at Nassau Community College (1994–2007) and most recently taught at The New School in New York City. Hecht has seven published books, her scholarly articles have been published in many journals and magazines, and her poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, The New Republic, Ms. Magazine, and Poetry Magazine, among others. She has also written essays and book reviews for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The American Scholar, The Boston Globe and other publications. She has written several columns for The New York Times online "Times Select." In 2010 Hecht was one of the five nonfiction judges for the National Book Award. Hecht is a longtime blogger for The Best American Poetry series web site and maintains a personal blog on her website. She resides in Brooklyn, New York. == Background == Born in Glen Cove, New York on Long Island, Hecht attended Adelphi University, where she earned a BA in history, for a time studying at the Université de Caen, and the Université d'Angers. She earned her PhD in the history


id: jennifer-michael-hecht-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Michael_Hecht-1.md
category: reference
title: Jennifer Michael Hecht
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Michael_Hecht
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:14.489664+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: jennifer-michael-hecht-20260505-0
summary:
Hecht believes that, "the basic modern assumptions about how to be happy are nonsense." In a review of her book, The Happiness Myth for The New York Times, Alison McCulloch summed it up, "What you think you should do to be happy, like getting fitter and thinner, is part of a 'cultural code' — 'an unscientific web of symbolic cultural fantasies' — and once you realize this, you will perhaps feel a little more free to be a lot more happy." Similarly, in an interview on the Point of Inquiry podcast in 2007, she said "I'm not trying really to get somebody out of depression, but I sure am trying to get people to not be so worried, so anxious over things that really don't matter." She has written against agnosticism, calling "philosophically silly" the argument that because you can't prove a negative we have to allow for the possibility of God. "Either you doubt everything to the point where you can't speak, or you make reasoned decisions." Hecht is an anti-suicide advocate, writing an entire book (Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It) arguing against it. She believes not only that "Suicide is delayed homicide", but


id: jennifer-michael-hecht-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Michael_Hecht-2.md
category: reference
title: Jennifer Michael Hecht
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Michael_Hecht
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:14.489664+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: jennifer-michael-hecht-20260505-0
summary:
== Published works == Her debut poetry collection, The Next Ancient World, artfully mixes contemporary and ancient world views, histories, and myths. In 2002 it received the Tupelo Press Judge's Prize in Poetry, the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America, as well as ForeWord Magazine's award for Poetry Book of the Year. Her second collection, Funny, explores the implications of the human love of humor and jokes. It won the 2005 Felix Pollak Prize from the University of Wisconsin Press. Her most recent collection, Who Said (Copper Canyon Press, 2013), playfully asks the title question of some of the most iconic English language poems. In 2003 Hecht published two books of history and philosophy with two different publishers. The first, Doubt: A History, is an epic, worldwide study of religious doubt throughout history. The other, The End of the Soul, is a profile of an unusual group of nineteenth-century French anthropologists who formed the Society of Mutual Autopsy to discover links between personality, ability and brain morphology. It received the prestigious Ralph Waldo Emerson Award for 2004 from Phi Beta Kappa society "for scholarly studies that contribute significantly to interpretations of the intellectual and cultural


id: hellenophilia-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenophilia-0.md
category: reference
title: Hellenophilia
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenophilia
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:15.775753+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hellenophilia-20260505-0
summary:
Hellenophilia is the idea that all western science began in Greek tradition. This is discussed in length by David Pingree in his address to colleagues. Hellenophilia is a way of thought that allows those who look into the history of science to be blinded to science born in other cultures. Pingree states, in explanation of the term that "a Hellenophile suffers from a form of madness that blinds him or her to historical truth" He continues by explaining the main symptoms of Hellenophilia "the first of these is that the Greeks invented science; the second is that they discovered a way to truth, the scientific method, that we are now successfully following; the third is that the only real sciences are those that began in Greece; and the fourth (and last?) is that the true definition of science is just that which scientists happen to be doing now, following a method or methods adumbrated by the Greeks, but never fully understood or utilized by them". An anthropological etiology of Greek innovation in natural science is advanced by sociologist Michael G. Horowitz in "The Scientific Dialectic of Ancient Greece and the Cultural Tradition of Indo-European Speakers". Although Hellenophilia relates directly to


id: history-of-geology-and-mining-information-system-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Geology_and_Mining_(Information_System)-0.md
category: reference
title: History of Geology and Mining (Information System)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Geology_and_Mining_(Information_System)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:16.877164+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-geology-and-mining-information-system-20260505-0
summary:
Information System "History of Geology and Mining" (Russian: Информационная система «История геологии и горного дела») is a scientific information system (knowledge base, bibliographic database and non-commercial website) containing biographical, bibliographical data and documents about scientists, scientific organizations, and publications related to geological and mining sciences. It is a joint project of the Geological Institute and the Library for Natural Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It represents the first attempt to systematize and provide access to a large array of data in the field of the history of geology and mining. It was created to support and facilitate scientific research in the history of science. == History == The information system is a continuation of the printed publications in the series “Materials on the History of Geology in the USSR”. Versions of the "History of Geology and Mining" information system: Test version on the Library for Natural Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences website (2011—2015 — scirus.benran.ru/higeo. At the Geological Institute RAS: 2015–2025 at higeo.ginras.ru. New test version at https://higeo.ru == Description and structure == The system was created based on the customizable network software complex "SciRus" developed at the Library for Natural Sciences of the Russian Academy


id: history-of-geology-and-mining-information-system-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Geology_and_Mining_(Information_System)-1.md
category: reference
title: History of Geology and Mining (Information System)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Geology_and_Mining_(Information_System)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:16.877164+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-geology-and-mining-information-system-20260505-0
summary:
1961—1992 — Materials of the Commission for the Geological Study of the USSR. 1965—1973 — Biographies and bibliographies of scientists in the form of bibliographic dictionaries, edited for the first 7 issues by V. V. Tikhomirov. In 1991, the Department for the history of geology moved to the newly established Vernadsky State Geological Museum. Data collection began using Microsoft Access; by 2007, brief information on 1,700 scientists whose works were significant for the development of Earth sciences had been entered. The system was then planned to be integrated into the standard software complex "Scientific Institute of the RAS", in cooperation with the Dorodnitsyn Computing Centre of the RAS. In 2008, the history of geology group began work under the Program of the RAS Presidium — the Electronic Library "Scientific Heritage of Russia", which united information resources of scientific institutes, archives, and libraries of the RAS. The library hosted publications of naturalists and geologists (up to 1945), their biographical essays, and portraits. A section "Natural History Collections" was created with descriptions of museum items from historical and monographic collections related to scientists. Therefore, the modern information system is integrated (links to scientific works, information about authors, etc.) with the "Scientific Heritage


id: history-of-scholarship-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scholarship-0.md
category: reference
title: History of scholarship
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scholarship
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:17.982038+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-scholarship-20260505-0
summary:
The history of scholarship is the historical study of fields of study which are not covered by the English term "science" (cf., history of science), but are covered by, for example, the German term "Wissenschaft" (i.e., all kinds of academic studies). Examples include the history of classical studies, philosophy, religion, biblical studies, historiography, music, art, and literature. It is a field which has recently undergone a complete renewal and is now a major branch of research. In 2015, the Society for the History of the Humanities was established, coinciding with the launch of the journal History of Humanities in 2016. Both developments reflect the field’s growing institutional presence and international scholarly collaboration. == Classical scholarship == Rudolph Pfeiffer (1968) describes the history of classical scholarship from its revival inspired by Petrarch to the achievements of the Italian humanists and the independent movement in Holland (including Erasmus) and the German scholar-reformers. Pfeiffer traces the development of classical scholarship in the countries of Western Europe through the next two centuries, with particular attention to sixteenth-century France and eighteenth-century England. Finally he provides an account of the new approach made by Winckelmann and his successors in Germany. == Philosophers, scholars, polymaths, and scientists


id: history-of-beliefs-about-the-human-body-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_beliefs_about_the_human_body-0.md
category: reference
title: History of beliefs about the human body
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_beliefs_about_the_human_body
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:20.435646+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-beliefs-about-the-human-body-20260505-0
summary:
The human body has been subject of much debate. How people are defined, and what defined them – be it their anatomy or their energy or both – depends on culture and time. Culture not only defines how sex is perceived but also how gender is defined. Today gender, sex, and identity continue to be of much debate and change based on what place and people are being examined. The early modern idea of the body was a cultural ideal, an understanding and approach to how the body works and what place that body has in the world. All cultural ideals of the body in the early modern period deal with deficiencies and disorders within a body, commonly told through a male ideal. Ideas of the body in the early modern period form the history of how bodies should be and how to correct the body when something has gone wrong. Therefore, early modern conceptions of the body were not biological as there was not a restrictive biological view of the human body as established by modern science. Conceptions of the body are primarily either eastern, based in China and involving practices such as Traditional chinese medicine, or western, which


id: history-of-beliefs-about-the-human-body-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_beliefs_about_the_human_body-1.md
category: reference
title: History of beliefs about the human body
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_beliefs_about_the_human_body
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:20.435646+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-beliefs-about-the-human-body-20260505-0
summary:
Greek philosophers separated the body and the energy of the body into separate but equal and interacting categories. Aristotle defined the energy which gives the body its movement as the soul. The soul and the body are therefore linked but can remain separate entities. This is in refutation of Dualists who view the body and mind as separate states and should be treated and examined differently and Materialists who view all parts of the body, even the soul as having a physical manifestation in the body. Aristotle finds the middle ground and accepts both of these views, that the soul has aspects that cannot be felt by normal methods, and physical manifestations that can be felt. "For even if one and being are spoken of in several ways, what is properly so spoken of is the actuality" — Aristotle in De Anima Aristotle forms the idea of Hylomorphism, that the soul and the body are not capable of being split apart without destroying both in the process. Despite this idea of the body and the soul Aristotle viewed disorder in what could be seen and felt. He was a proponent of the humoral theory that classified disorder as imbalances of


id: history-of-beliefs-about-the-human-body-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_beliefs_about_the_human_body-2.md
category: reference
title: History of beliefs about the human body
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_beliefs_about_the_human_body
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:20.435646+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-beliefs-about-the-human-body-20260505-0
summary:
=== Yellow Emperors body === The Yellow Emperor's Body is a term derived from the references to the Yellow Emperor within the Ancient Chinese book, the "book of change". The Term describes the references to both the physical body that can be touched, felt, and interact with the physical world, but also the sense of person and self that the body. The dualism of the body as both the physical self and the subjective consciousness is how Chinese defined the body. The Yellow Emperor's body is a metaphor to describe a body that focuses on the individual and not the general, focusing on disorder as not just a physical malady. The yellow emperor is revered in China and was the founder of acupuncture. The yellow emperor is said to of derived his medical practices from a conversation with a community physician. The manuscript is recorded in the Yellow Emperors Inner Cannon, and it being recorded in this way represents the attention to the individuals perspective in creating therapies like acupuncture to treat body ailments. The Inner Cannon was revised by natural Philosophers of the time and the approved version of the Han Court and became a foundational text for the


id: ice-age-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age-0.md
category: reference
title: Ice age
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:21.570677+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ice-age-20260505-0
summary:
An ice age is a period of time when the lower temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere results in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. The term is applied in several different senses to very long and comparatively short periods of cooling. Colder periods are called glacials or ice ages, and warmer periods are called interglacials. Earth's climate alternates between icehouse and greenhouse periods based on whether there are glaciers on the planet, and for most of Earth's history it has been in a greenhouse period with little or no permanent ice. Over the very long term, Earth is currently in an icehouse period called the Late Cenozoic Ice Age, which started 34 million years ago. There have been colder and warmer periods within this ice age, and the term is also applied to the Quaternary glaciation, which started 2.58 million years ago. Within this period, the Last Interglacial ended 115,000 years ago, and was followed by the Last Glacial Period (LGP), which gave way to the current warm Holocene, which started 11,700 years ago. The most severe cold period of the LGP was the Last Glacial Maximum, which reached its maximum between


id: ice-age-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age-1.md
category: reference
title: Ice age
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:21.570677+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ice-age-20260505-0
summary:
Only a few years later, the Danish-Norwegian geologist Jens Esmark (1762–1839) argued for a sequence of worldwide ice ages. In a paper published in 1824, Esmark proposed changes in climate as the cause of those glaciations. He attempted to show that they originated from changes in Earth's orbit. Esmark discovered the similarity between moraines near Haukalivatnet lake near sea level in Rogaland and moraines at branches of Jostedalsbreen. Esmark's discovery were later attributed to or appropriated by Theodor Kjerulf and Louis Agassiz. During the following years, Esmark's ideas were discussed and taken over in parts by Swedish, Scottish and German scientists. At the University of Edinburgh Robert Jameson (1774–1854) seemed to be relatively open to Esmark's ideas, as reviewed by Norwegian professor of glaciology Bjørn G. Andersen (1992). Jameson's remarks about ancient glaciers in Scotland were most probably prompted by Esmark. In Germany, Albrecht Reinhard Bernhardi (1797–1849), a geologist and professor of forestry at an academy in Dreissigacker (since incorporated in the southern Thuringian city of Meiningen), adopted Esmark's theory. In a paper published in 1832, Bernhardi speculated about the polar ice caps once reaching as far as the temperate zones of the globe. In Val de Bagnes, a valley


id: ice-age-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age-2.md
category: reference
title: Ice age
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:21.570677+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ice-age-20260505-0
summary:
== Evidence == There are three main types of evidence for ice ages: geological, chemical, and paleontological. Geological evidence for ice ages comes in various forms, including rock scouring and scratching, glacial moraines, drumlins, valley cutting, and the deposition of till or tillites and glacial erratics. Successive glaciations tend to distort and erase the geological evidence for earlier glaciations, making it difficult to interpret. Furthermore, this evidence was difficult to date exactly; early theories assumed that the glacials were short compared to the long interglacials. The advent of sediment and ice cores revealed the true situation: glacials are long, interglacials short. It took some time for the current theory to be worked out. The chemical evidence mainly consists of variations in the ratios of isotopes in fossils present in sediments and sedimentary rocks and ocean sediment cores. For the most recent glacial periods, ice cores provide climate proxies, both from the ice itself and from atmospheric samples provided by included bubbles of air. Because water containing lighter isotopes has a lower heat of evaporation, its proportion decreases with warmer conditions. This allows a temperature record to be constructed. This evidence can be confounded, however, by other factors recorded by isotope


id: ice-age-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age-3.md
category: reference
title: Ice age
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:21.570677+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ice-age-20260505-0
summary:
The evolution of land plants at the onset of the Devonian period caused a long term increase in planetary oxygen levels and reduction of CO2 levels, which resulted in the late Paleozoic icehouse. Its former name, the Karoo glaciation, was named after the glacial tills found in the Karoo region of South Africa. There were extensive polar ice caps at intervals from 360 to 260 million years ago in South Africa during the Carboniferous and early Permian periods. Correlatives are known from Argentina, also in the center of the ancient supercontinent Gondwanaland. Although the Mesozoic Era retained a greenhouse climate over its timespan and was previously assumed to have been entirely glaciation-free, more recent studies suggest that brief periods of glaciation occurred in both hemispheres during the Early Cretaceous. Geologic and palaeoclimatological records suggest the existence of glacial periods during the Valanginian, Hauterivian, and Aptian stages of the Early Cretaceous. Ice-rafted glacial dropstones indicate that in the Northern Hemisphere, ice sheets may have extended as far south as the Iberian Peninsula during the Hauterivian and Aptian. Although ice sheets largely disappeared from Earth for the rest of the period (potential reports from the Turonian, otherwise the warmest period of the


id: ice-age-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age-4.md
category: reference
title: Ice age
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:21.570677+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ice-age-20260505-0
summary:
=== Positive === An important form of feedback is provided by Earth's albedo, which is how much of the sun's energy is reflected rather than absorbed by Earth. Ice and snow increase Earth's albedo, while forests reduce its albedo. When the air temperature decreases, ice and snow fields grow, and they reduce forest cover. This continues until competition with a negative feedback mechanism forces the system to an equilibrium. One theory is that when glaciers form, two things happen: the ice grinds rocks into dust, and the land becomes dry and arid. This allows winds to transport iron rich dust into the open ocean, where it acts as a fertilizer that causes massive algal blooms that pulls large amounts of CO2 out of the atmosphere. This in turn makes it even colder and causes the glaciers to grow more. In 1956, Ewing and Donn hypothesized that an ice-free Arctic Ocean leads to increased snowfall at high latitudes. When low-temperature ice covers the Arctic Ocean there is little evaporation or sublimation and the polar regions are quite dry in terms of precipitation, comparable to the amount found in mid-latitude deserts. This low precipitation allows high-latitude snowfalls to melt during the summer.


id: ice-age-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age-5.md
category: reference
title: Ice age
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:21.570677+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ice-age-20260505-0
summary:
=== Position of the continents === The geological record appears to show that ice ages start when the continents are in positions which block or reduce the flow of warm water from the equator to the poles and thus allow ice sheets to form. The ice sheets increase Earth's reflectivity and thus reduce the absorption of solar radiation. With less radiation absorbed the atmosphere cools; the cooling allows the ice sheets to grow, which further increases reflectivity in a positive feedback loop. The ice age continues until the reduction in weathering causes an increase in the greenhouse effect. There are three main contributors from the layout of the continents that obstruct the movement of warm water to the poles: A continent sits on top of a pole, as Antarctica does today. A polar sea is almost land-locked, as the Arctic Ocean is today. A supercontinent covers most of the equator, as Rodinia did during the Cryogenian period. Since today's Earth has a continent over the South Pole and an almost land-locked ocean over the North Pole, geologists believe that Earth will continue to experience glacial periods in the geologically near future. Some scientists believe that the Himalayas are a major


id: ice-age-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age-6.md
category: reference
title: Ice age
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:21.570677+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ice-age-20260505-0
summary:
The Milankovitch cycles are a set of cyclic variations in characteristics of Earth's orbit around the Sun. Each cycle has a different length, so at some times their effects reinforce each other and at other times they (partially) cancel each other. There is strong evidence that the Milankovitch cycles affect the occurrence of glacial and interglacial periods within an ice age. The present ice age is the most studied and best understood, particularly the last 400,000 years, since this is the period covered by ice cores that record atmospheric composition and proxies for temperature and ice volume. Within this period, the match of glacial/interglacial frequencies to the Milanković orbital forcing periods is so close that orbital forcing is generally accepted. The combined effects of the changing distance to the Sun, the precession of Earth's axis, and the changing tilt of Earth's axis redistribute the sunlight received by Earth. Of particular importance are changes in the tilt of Earth's axis, which affect the intensity of seasons. For example, the amount of solar influx in July at 65 degrees north latitude varies by as much as 22% (from 450 W/m2 to 550 W/m2). It is widely believed that ice sheets advance when


id: ice-age-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age-7.md
category: reference
title: Ice age
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:21.570677+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ice-age-20260505-0
summary:
The major glacial stages of the current ice age in North America are the Illinoian, Eemian, and Wisconsin glaciation. The use of the Nebraskan, Afton, Kansan, and Yarmouthian stages to subdivide the ice age in North America has been discontinued by Quaternary geologists and geomorphologists. These stages have all been merged into the Pre-Illinoian in the 1980s. During the most recent North American glaciation, during the latter part of the Last Glacial Maximum (26,000 to 13,300 years ago), ice sheets extended to about 45th parallel north. These sheets were 3 to 4 kilometres (1.9 to 2.5 mi) thick. This Wisconsin glaciation left widespread impacts on the North American landscape. The Great Lakes and the Finger Lakes were carved by ice deepening old valleys. Most of the lakes in Minnesota and Wisconsin were gouged out by glaciers and later filled with glacial meltwaters. The old Teays River drainage system was radically altered and largely reshaped into the Ohio River drainage system. Other rivers were dammed and diverted to new channels, such as Niagara Falls, which formed a dramatic waterfall and gorge, when the waterflow encountered a limestone escarpment. Another similar waterfall, at the present Clark Reservation State Park near Syracuse, New


id: ice-age-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age-8.md
category: reference
title: Ice age
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:21.570677+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ice-age-20260505-0
summary:
Based on past estimates for interglacial durations of about 10,000 years, there was some concern in the 1970s that the next glacial period would be imminent. Human impact is now seen as possibly extending what would already be an unusually long warm period. Ice ages go through cycles of about 100,000 years, but the next one may well be avoided due to human carbon dioxide emissions. According to Stephen Barker of Cardiff University, without human interference, the next glaciation of the Earth would "occur within the next 11,000 years, and it would end in 66,000 years' time." A 2015 report by the Past Global Changes Project says simulations show that a new glaciation is unlikely to happen within the next approximately 50,000 years, before the next strong drop in Northern Hemisphere summer insolation occurs "if either atmospheric CO2 concentration remains above 300 ppm or cumulative carbon emissions exceed 1000 Pg C" (i.e. 1,000 gigatonnes carbon). "Only for an atmospheric CO2 content below the preindustrial level may a glaciation occur within the next 10 ka. ... Given the continued anthropogenic CO2 emissions, glacial inception is very unlikely to occur in the next 50 ka, because the timescale for CO2 and temperature


id: indigenous-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_science-0.md
category: reference
title: Indigenous science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:23.915803+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: indigenous-science-20260505-0
summary:
Indigenous science is the application and intersection of Indigenous knowledge and science. This field is based on careful observation of the environment, and through experimentation. It is a holistic field, informed by physical, social, mental and cultural knowledge. When applied to ecology and the environment, it can be sometimes termed traditional ecological knowledge. Indigenous science involves the knowledge systems and practices of Indigenous peoples, which are rooted in their cultural traditions and relationships to their indigenous context. There are some similar methods of Western science including (but not limited to): observation, prediction, interpretation, and questioning. There are also some areas in which Western science and Indigenous science differ. Indigenous knowledge is place and case-specific and does not attempt to label or generalize natural processes. Western science strives to find commonalities and theories that can be applied to all areas, such as Newton's Laws of Physics. This is because most Indigenous knowledge stems from the relationship humans have with their environment, which is passed down through stories or is discovered through observation. Western knowledge takes a different approach by isolating targets to study, splitting them from their surroundings and making sets of assumptions and theories. Community is a larger aspect of


id: indigenous-science-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_science-1.md
category: reference
title: Indigenous science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:23.915803+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: indigenous-science-20260505-0
summary:
== Place based sciences == Indigenous science may offer a different perspective from what is traditionally thought of as "science". In particular, Indigenous science is tied to territory, cultural practices, and experiences/teachings in explicit ways that are often absent in normal scientific discourse. Place based Indigenous science also is common outside of the academic sphere. Climatology scientists in Alaska and the Artic commonly work with traditional knowledge (Qaujimajatuqangit) among the Inuit when studying long-term changes in sea ice, along with studying other aspects of biology. In the Canadian Arctic, large data organizations like the Inuvialuit Settlement Region Online Platform, Marxan, and Nunaliit Atlas Framework inform marine and coastal management practices by using Inuit knowledge. Many times, this information is passed down in Inuit communities by generation using oral tradition and informs the communities on harvesting, hunting, traveling, and living on the land. This information may apply to decisions on conservation of harvesting sties and mating sites of various animals in the Artic. Inuit knowledge of these areas includes seasonal variations, ecological dynamics, wind direction, and ice dynamics. This knowledge has been gained through historical memories, family and community relations, place names, and open water or sea ice routes. Place names


id: indigenous-science-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_science-2.md
category: reference
title: Indigenous science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:23.915803+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: indigenous-science-20260505-0
summary:
=== Engineering === Many different Indigenous tribes in America have built homes from natural resources. One example can be found at Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde, or Anasazi, in Northwestern New Mexico and Southwestern Colorado. Ancestral Puebloans built houses on the ground near the cliffs of the Colorado Plateau, and carved others into the face of the cliff, ultimately spanning almost 10,000 square miles across Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon both have more than 600 rooms each, many of which were made from sandstone that was carved into rectangular blocks, and glued together with a mix of mud and water. In addition to physically building these homes, the Ancestral Puebloans used mathematical knowledge like the golden ratio - which has been used to make the Egyptian pyramids, Ancient Greek architecture and the Notre Dame - to construct a Sun Temple. Water management was critical as well in this area, and ancestral Pueblo people had early knowledge of hydrological theory, water transport and storage. This allowed them to create four main reservoirs that helped sustain the population. The Hohokam tribe in Arizona also managed their water resources up until 1450, and created irrigation networks that were


id: institute-for-the-history-of-natural-sciences-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_the_History_of_Natural_Sciences-0.md
category: reference
title: Institute for the History of Natural Sciences
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_the_History_of_Natural_Sciences
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:25.034617+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: institute-for-the-history-of-natural-sciences-20260505-0
summary:
The Institute for the History of Natural Sciences (IHNS CAS; Chinese: 中国科学院自然科学史研究所; pinyin: Zhōngguó Kēxuéyuàn Zìrán Kēxuéshǐ Yánjiūsuǒ) is a leading research institution in China dedicated to the study of the history of science, technology, and medicine. It is affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). == History == The Institute for the History of Natural Sciences was founded in 1957 with the active involvement of the renowned British biochemist and historian of science Joseph Needham (Chinese: 李约瑟, Lǐ Yuēsè) and a group of Chinese scholars. Its establishment was initiated to systematically research China's rich scientific and technological heritage and its place in world history. Initially, the institute was located in the Gulou district of Beijing. == Research Focus == The institute's primary mission is to conduct fundamental and applied research on the history of science and technology in China and the world, and to promote the development of this discipline. Key research areas include: History of Science and Technology in China: Studying traditional Chinese science, technology, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, and their interaction with society and culture. History of World Science: Comparative studies, history of scientific exchanges, study of the Scientific Revolution and the development of modern science. Theoretical


id: international-conference-on-cold-fusion-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Conference_on_Cold_Fusion-0.md
category: reference
title: International Conference on Cold Fusion
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Conference_on_Cold_Fusion
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:29.133352+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: international-conference-on-cold-fusion-20260505-0
summary:
The International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF) (also referred to as Annual Conference on Cold Fusion in 1990-1991 and mostly as International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science since 2007) is an annual or biennial conference on the topic of cold fusion. An international conference on cold fusion was held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA in 1989. However, the first ICCF conference (ICCF1) took place in 1990 in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, under the title "First Annual Conference on Cold Fusion". Its location has since rotated between Russia, the USA, Europe, and Asia. It was held in India for the first time in 2011. The conferences have been criticized as events which attract "crackpots" and "pseudo-scientists". == Reception == The First Annual Conference on Cold Fusion was held in March 1990 in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. Robert L. Park of the American Physical Society derisively referred to it as a "seance of true believers." The conference was attended by more than 200 researchers from the United States, Italy, Japan, India and Taiwan and dozens of reporters from all over the U.S. and abroad. The Third International Conference on Cold Fusion was held in 1992 in Nagoya,


id: international-scientific-committee-on-price-history-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_scientific_committee_on_price_history-0.md
category: reference
title: International scientific committee on price history
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_scientific_committee_on_price_history
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:30.355302+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: international-scientific-committee-on-price-history-20260505-0
summary:
The International Scientific Committee on Price History was created in 1929 by William Beveridge and Edwin Francis Gay after receiving a five-year grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. The national representatives were William Beveridge for Great Britain, Moritz John Elsas for Germany, Edwin Francis Gay for the United States, Earl J. Hamilton for Spain, Henri Hauser for France and Alfred Francis Pribram for Austria; later, Franciszek Bujak for Poland and Nicolaas Wilhelmus Posthumus for the Netherlands also joined; Arthur H. Cole was in charge of finances for the whole project. == Books by the committee == Hamilton (Earl J.), American Treasure and the Price Revolution in Spain (1501–1650), 1934. Hamilton (Earl J.), Money, Prices and Wages in Valencia, Aragon and Navarre (1351–1500), 1936. Hauser (Henri), Recherches et documents sur l’histoire des prix en France de 1500 à 1800, 1936. Elsas (Moritz John), Umriß einer Geschichte der Preise und Löhne in Deutschland vom ausgehenden Mittelalter bis zum Beginn des 19. Jarhunderts, 3 vol., 1936–1949. Přibram (Alfred Francis), Materialien zur Geschichte der Preise und Löhne in Österreich, 1938. Cole (Arthur Harrison), Wholesale Commodity Prices in the United States 1700–1861, 1938. Beveridge (William H.), Prices and Wages in England from the 12th to the


id: isis-journal-1816-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis_(journal,_1816)-0.md
category: reference
title: Isis (journal, 1816)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis_(journal,_1816)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:31.596695+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: isis-journal-1816-20260505-0
summary:
Isis was an encyclopedic journal that focused on articles on natural science, medicine, technology, economics as well as art and history. It also published important articles on science policy and the organization of science. Edited by Lorenz Oken and published by Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus, Isis was the first interdisciplinary journal in the German-speaking world. The 41 volumes of the journal named after the Egyptian goddess Isis were nominally published from 1817 to 1848. However, the first issue appeared on August 1, 1816, while the printing of the last issue was delayed until February 1850. Until 1832, Isis bore the title Encyclopädische Zeitung. After the focus of the articles published in it had changed, Oken changed the title to Encyclopädische Zeitschrift, vorzüglich für Naturgeschichte, vergleichende Anatomie und Physiologie in 1833. Initially printed in Jena, the journal was banned in the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and from the summer of 1819 was produced in nearby Rudolstadt in the court printing works of the Principality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt. The magazine's original print run of 1,500 copies fell rapidly in the first few years of its existence and amounted to around 200 copies in the last few years. Originally conceived as a non-political journal, Oken


id: isis-journal-1816-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis_(journal,_1816)-1.md
category: reference
title: Isis (journal, 1816)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis_(journal,_1816)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:31.596695+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: isis-journal-1816-20260505-0
summary:
Even before Isis was published, the classical philologist Abraham Eichstädt from Jena learned of the planned new journal. Eichstädt, who published the Jenaische allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, had held an exclusive right to publish reviews in Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach since 1803. As he feared for the financial security of his paper, Eichstädt turned to the President of the State Ministry in Weimar, Christian Gottlob Voigt, and obtained a renewal of this privilege on July 17, 1816. Oken saw this as a violation of the freedom of the press guaranteed in the Weimar Constitution of May 15, 1816 and sneered in the second issue of Isis: "Whether we really have freedom of the press, or whether it is to be mocked as a grimace through literary privileges and arbitrary interpretation and extension of the same, will be taught by the progress of Isis." Eichstädt filed a lawsuit against Oken and Isis on August 1, 1816. In a judgment dated August 23, Oken was ordered to refrain from publishing reviews and political articles. In the event of non-compliance, he was threatened with a fine of 50 thalers and a ban on Isis. Oken, who became aware of the verdict eight days later, protested against it to


id: isis-journal-1816-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis_(journal,_1816)-2.md
category: reference
title: Isis (journal, 1816)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis_(journal,_1816)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:31.596695+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: isis-journal-1816-20260505-0
summary:
Before the end of 1816, Isis was banned in Austria. Meanwhile, Oken continued to campaign for freedom of the press and, for example, published a report on the meeting of the Dutch estates under the title "Against the Restriction of Freedom of the Press". In June 1817, the Prussian Minister of Police, Wilhelm Ludwig Georg Fürst zu Wittgenstein, complained to Carl August about a derogatory criticism of a Prussian decree of 1811 that had appeared in the Oppositions-Blatt and a small note in Isis, in which Oken complained about Prussia's presumption in wanting to interfere even in insignificant matters such as those of the Vienna Agricultural Society. Six days later, a serious warning was issued to the editor of the opposition journal Friedrich Justin Bertuch and Oken, stating "that in the event of further disregard of the sovereign's or authorities' orders, the suppression of this journal will be pursued". During the Wartburg Festival, which Oken and other professors from Jena attended, an auto-da-fé took place on the evening of October 18, 1817, during which parts of a Prussian Uhlan uniform, a Hessian soldier's braid and an Austrian corporal's baton, as well as several books by authors considered reactionary, including Karl


id: isis-journal-1816-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis_(journal,_1816)-3.md
category: reference
title: Isis (journal, 1816)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis_(journal,_1816)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:31.596695+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: isis-journal-1816-20260505-0
summary:
=== Oken's dismissal === The attacks against Oken's Isis from the states of the Holy Alliance continued relentlessly. On January 29, 1819, Karl August von Hardenberg submitted a complaint to Grand Duke Karl August because of a derisive remark about the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III, which was printed in the twelfth issue of 1818, but this time without consequences for Oken and Isis. At the Aachen Congress in the fall of 1818, the Russian Tsar Alexander I distributed an anonymously written memorandum by Alexander Scarlatovich Sturdsa (1791–1854) entitled Memoire sur l'état actuel de l'Allemagne, in which Sturdsa commented on the dangerous activities at German universities. Oken's replies again caused a sensation. Under pressure from the Russian envoy to the Saxon court, Vasily Vasilyevich Chanykov (1759–1829), the Weimar state treasurer Carl August Constantin Schnauss (1782–1832) was forced to file charges against Oken on April 20, 1819. On May 11, Grand Duke Carl August of Weimar and Duke August of Gotha instructed the Senate of the University of Jena to give Oken the choice of either discontinuing Isis or resigning his professorship. The Senate tried to give in, but had to present Oken with this choice eleven days later. After three


id: isis-journal-1816-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis_(journal,_1816)-4.md
category: reference
title: Isis (journal, 1816)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis_(journal,_1816)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:31.596695+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: isis-journal-1816-20260505-0
summary:
== Circulation == In the initial period from August 1816 to February 1817, the circulation of Isis, which cost eight thalers a year, was 1500 copies. On March 4, 1817, Brockhaus reduced the print run to 1100 copies due to a lack of sales and reduced it by a further 100 copies a week later. When the actual sales figures were known in June 1817, there was a further drastic reduction of 650 copies. In 1825/1826, only 400 copies were printed. This was followed by a slight increase to up to 500 copies for the next few years until 1830. After that, the circulation fell continuously and was around 200 copies in the last ten years of Isis' existence. This relatively low circulation was nothing unusual. For example, the circulation of the Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, one of the most important journals for scientific reviews, was around 500 copies in the years from 1827 to 1846 and that of the Medizinische Annalen, edited by Johann Friedrich Pierer, was 500 to 700 copies. == Research == In 2001, the German historian of science Dietrich von Engelhardt characterized Isis as "a first-rate scientific and cultural-historical document from that transitional epoch from idealism


id: islamic-scientific-manuscripts-initiative-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Scientific_Manuscripts_Initiative-0.md
category: reference
title: Islamic Scientific Manuscripts Initiative
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Scientific_Manuscripts_Initiative
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:32.769080+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: islamic-scientific-manuscripts-initiative-20260505-0
summary:
The Islamic Scientific Manuscripts Initiative (ISMI) (Arabic: مبادرة المخطوطات العلمية الإسلامية) is an online database that supports research on mathematics history in the Islamic world to 1350 CE. The initiative aims to provide accessible information on all Islamic manuscripts in the exact sciences, including astronomy, mathematics, theories, mathematical geography, music, mechanics, and related subjects. It is an initiative of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG), which is dedicated to advancing scientific knowledge and research. == References ==


id: languages-of-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science-0.md
category: reference
title: Languages of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:33.946594+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: languages-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
Languages of science are vehicular languages used by one or several scientific communities for international communication. According to the science historian Michael Gordin, scientific languages are "either specific forms of a given language that are used in conducting science, or they are the set of distinct languages in which science is done." These two meanings are different, since the first describes a distinct prose in a given language (i.e., scientific writing), while the second describes which languages are used in mainstream science. Until the 19th century, classical languages—such as Latin, Classical Arabic, Sanskrit, Classical Malay and Classical Chinese—were commonly used across Afro-Eurasia for international scientific communication. A combination of structural factors, the emergence of nation-states in Europe, the Industrial Revolution, and the expansion of colonization entailed the global use of three European national languages: French, German, and English. Yet new languages of science, such as Russian and Italian, had started to emerge by the end of the 19th century—to the point that international scientific organizations began promoting the use of constructed languages such as Esperanto as a non-national global standard. After the First World War, English gradually outpaced French and German; it became the leading language of science, but not


id: languages-of-science-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science-1.md
category: reference
title: Languages of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:33.946594+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: languages-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
=== European and auxiliary languages (1800–1920) === The gradual disuse of Latin opened an uneasy transition period, as more and more works were accessible only in local languages. Many national European languages held the potential to become a language of science within a specific research field: some scholars "took measures to learn Swedish so they could follow the work of [the Swedish chemist] Bergman and his compatriots." Language preferences and use across scientific communities were gradually consolidated into a triumvirate or triad of dominant languages of science: French, English, and German. While each language could be expected to be understood for international scientific communication, each also followed "different functional distributions evident in various scientific fields". French had been almost acknowledged as the international standard for European science in the late 18th century, and it remained "essential" throughout the 19th century. German became a major scientific language during the 19th century, since it "covered portions of the physical sciences, particularly physics and chemistry, in addition to mathematics and medicine." English was used largely by researchers and engineers because of the seminal contribution of English technology to the Industrial Revolution. In the years preceding the First World War, the linguistic diversity of


id: languages-of-science-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science-2.md
category: reference
title: Languages of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:33.946594+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: languages-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
=== English, competitors, and machine translation (1920–1965) === The two world wars had a lasting impact on scientific languages. A combination of political, economic, and social factors durably weakened the triumvirate of the three main languages of science in the 19th century; this combination paved the way for the predominance of English in the latter part of the 20th century. There is ongoing debate about whether the world wars accelerated a structural tendency toward English predominance or merely created the conditions for it. Ulrich Ammon wrote that "even without the World Wars the English language community would have gained economic and, consequently, scientific superiority and, thus, preference of its language for international scientific communication." By contrast, Michael Gordin emphasizes that the privileged status of English was far from settled until the 1960s. The First World War had an immediate impact on the global use of German in academic settings. For nearly a decade after this war, international scientific events boycotted German researchers. The German scientific communities had been compromised by nationalistic propaganda in favor of German science during the war, in addition to the exploitation of scientific research for war crimes. German was no longer acknowledged as a global scientific


id: languages-of-science-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science-3.md
category: reference
title: Languages of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:33.946594+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: languages-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
It seems wise to assume that in the long run the number of significant contributions to scientific knowledge by different countries will be roughly proportional to their populations, and that except where populations are very small contributions will normally be published in native languages. The expansion of Russian scientific publishing became a source of recurring tension in the United States during the decade of the Cold War. Very few American researchers were able to read Russian, which contrasted with a remaining widespread familiarity with the two oldest languages of science, French and German. "In a 1958 survey, 49% of American scientific and technical personnel claimed they could read at least one foreign language, yet only 1.2% could handle Russian." Science administrators and funders had recurring concerns about their ability to efficiently track the progress of academic research in the USSR. This ongoing anxiety became an overt crisis after the successful launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite in 1958, as the decentralized American research system seemed for a time outpaced by the efficiency of Soviet planning. Although the Sputnik crisis was relatively brief, it had far-reaching consequences for linguistic practices in science—in particular, the development of machine translation. Research in this


id: languages-of-science-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science-4.md
category: reference
title: Languages of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:33.946594+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: languages-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
During the 1960s and 1970s, English was no longer a majority language of science, but a scientific lingua franca instead. The transformation had more wide-ranging consequences than the replacement of two or three main languages of science by a single language: it marked "the transition from a triumvirate that valued, at least in a limited way, the expression of identity within science, to an overwhelming emphasis on communication and thus a single vehicular language." Ulrich Ammon characterizes English as an "asymmetrical lingua franca", since it is "the native tongue and the national language of the most influential segment of the global scientific community, but a foreign language for the rest of the world." This paradigm is usually associated with the globalization of American and English-speaking culture in the latter part of the 20th century. No specific event accounts for the full shift, though numerous transformations highlight an accelerated conversion to English science in the later part of the 1960s. On June 11, 1965, US President Lyndon B. Johnson stated that the English language had become a lingua franca that opened "doors to scientific and technical knowledge" and whose promotion should be a "major policy" of the United States. In 1969,


id: languages-of-science-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science-5.md
category: reference
title: Languages of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:33.946594+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: languages-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
=== English standardization === Nearly all the scientific publications indexed on the leading commercial academic search engines are in English. As of 2022, this observation covers 95.86% of the 28,142,849 references indexed on the Web of Science platform, in addition to 84.35% of the 20,600,733 references indexed in the Scopus system. The minimal coverage of non-English languages creates a feedback loop—non-English publications can be considered less valuable because they are not indexed in international rankings and fare poorly in evaluation metrics. As many as 75,000 articles, book titles, and book reviews from Germany were excluded from Biological Abstracts between 1970 and 1996. In 2009, at least 6555 journals were published in Spanish and Portuguese on a global scale, and "only a small fraction are included in the Scopus and Web of Science indices." Criteria for inclusion in commercial databases not only favor English journals but also incentivize non-English journals to discontinue their local journals. They "demand that articles be in English, have abstracts in English, or at least have their references in English". In 2012, the Web of Science was explicitly committed to the anglicization (and Romanization) of published knowledge: English is the universal language of science. For this reason,


id: languages-of-science-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science-6.md
category: reference
title: Languages of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:33.946594+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: languages-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
=== Persistence of linguistic diversity === Several languages have retained a secondary status as an international language of science, due to the extent of the local scientific production or to their continued use as a vehicular language in specific contexts. These languages generally include "Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish." Local languages have remained prevalent in major scientific countries: "most scientific publications are still published in Chinese in China". Empirical studies of the languages used in scientific publications have long been constrained by structural bias in the most readily accessible sources—commercial databases such as the Web of Science. Atypical access to a large corpus not covered by global indexes showed that multilingualism remains non-negligible, although little studied; as of 2022, there are "few examples of analyses at scale" for multilingualism in science. However, a 2026 study found that the proportion of English publications in Dimensions went down from 93.86% in 1990 to 85.52% in 2023, with Indonesian, Spanish and Portuguese expanding at a faster rate than English. In seven European countries with limited international reach for each local language, one third of researchers in social sciences and the humanities publish in two or more languages; "research is international,


id: languages-of-science-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science-7.md
category: reference
title: Languages of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:33.946594+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: languages-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
=== Machine translation === Scientific publication has been the first major use case for machine translation, with early experiments dating back to 1954. Development in this area slowed after 1965, because of the increasing predominance of English, limitations in computing infrastructure, and the shortcomings of the leading approach—rule-based machine translation. By design, rule-based methods favored translation between a few major languages (English, Russian, French, German, ...), since a "transfer module" needed to be developed for "each pair of languages"; this situation led to a combinatorial explosion when more languages were considered. After the 1980s, the field of machine translation was revived as it underwent a "full-scale paradigm shift": explicit rules were replaced by statistical and machine learning methods applied to a large aligned corpus. By that time, most of the demand no longer came from scientific publishing, but instead from commercial documents such as technical and engineering manuals. A second paradigm shift occurred in the 2010s, with the development of deep learning methods, which can be partially trained on a non-aligned corpus (i.e., "zero-shot translation"). Requiring few supervision inputs, deep learning models make it possible to incorporate a wider diversity of languages, but also a wider diversity of linguistic contexts


id: languages-of-science-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science-8.md
category: reference
title: Languages of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:33.946594+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: languages-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
=== Open science infrastructure === The development of open science infrastructure or "community-controlled infrastructure" has become a major policy issue in the open science movement. In the 2010s, the expansion of commercial scientific infrastructure led to major acknowledgment of the fragility of open scholarly publishing and open archives. The concept of open science infrastructure emerged in 2015 with the publication of the Principles for Open Scholarly Infrastructures. In November 2021, a UNESCO recommendation acknowledged open science infrastructure as one of the four pillars of open science, along with open science knowledge, open engagement of societal actors, and open dialogue with other knowledge systems. UNESCO called for sustained investment and funding: "open science infrastructures are often the result of community-building efforts, which are crucial for their long-term sustainability and therefore should be not-for-profit and guarantee permanent and unrestricted access to all public to the largest extent possible." Examples of open science infrastructure include indexes, publishing platforms, shared databases, and computer grids. Open infrastructures have supported linguistic diversity in science. The leading free software for scientific publishing, Open Journal Systems, is available in 50 languages; it is widespread among non-commercial open-access journals. A landscape study was conducted by the SPARC alliance in


id: languages-of-science-20260505-9
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science-9.md
category: reference
title: Languages of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:33.946594+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: languages-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
=== Policies in favor of multilingualism === A new scientific and policy debate over linguistic diversity emerged after 2015: "in recent years, policies for Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and Open Science call for increasing access to research, interaction between science and society and public understanding of science". The debate initially stemmed from wider discussions about the evaluation of open science and the limitations of commercial metrics. In 2015, the Leiden Manifesto included ten principles to "guide research evaluation", which included a call to "protect excellence in locally relevant research". Building on empirical data showing the persistence of non-English research communities in Europe, Gunnar Sivertsen (in 2018) theorized the need for a balanced multilingualism "to consider all the communication purposes in all different areas of research, and all the languages needed to fulfil these purposes, in a holistic manner without exclusions or priorities." In 2016, Sivertsen contributed to the "Norwegian model" of scientific evaluation: he proposed a flat hierarchy among a few large international journals, along with a wide selection of journals that would not discriminate against local publications, and he encouraged journals in the social sciences and the humanities to favor Norwegian publications. These local initiatives developed into a


id: languages-of-science-20260505-10
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science-10.md
category: reference
title: Languages of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:33.946594+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: languages-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
=== Articles & chapters === "Rapport de l'Académie des sciences sur la langue française et le rayonnement de la science française" [Report from the Academy of Sciences on the French language and the influence of French science]. Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Sciences [Reports of the sessions of the Academy of Sciences] (in French). 295: 131–146. 8 November 1982. Ammon, Ulrich (2012-10-10). "Linguistic inequality and its effects on participation in scientific discourse and on global knowledge accumulation – With a closer look at the problems of the second-rank language communities". Applied Linguistics Review. 3 (2): 333–355. doi:10.1515/applirev-2012-0016. ISSN 1868-6311. Anglaret, Anne-Sophie; Sofio, Séverine (2021-12-27). "Écrire en langues. Entre traduction automatique et hégémonie globish, le multilinguisme comme horizon réaliste pour les revues de sciences humaines et sociales". Biens Symboliques / Symbolic Goods. Revue de sciences sociales sur les arts, la culture et les idées. 9 (9). doi:10.4000/bssg.832. ISSN 2490-9424. S2CID 245925363. Retrieved 2022-01-17. Aronova, Elena (September 2017). "Russian and the Making of World Languages during the Cold War". Isis. 108 (3): 643–650. doi:10.1086/694163. ISSN 0021-1753. S2CID 148831824. Cameron-Pesant, Sarah (2018). "Usage et diffusion des revues savantes québécoises en sciences sociales et humaines : analyse des téléchargements de la plateforme


id: languages-of-science-20260505-11
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science-11.md
category: reference
title: Languages of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:33.946594+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: languages-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
9 (1): 168–174. doi:10.1002/nop2.1115. ISSN 2054-1058. PMC 8685880. PMID 34725950. Zhang, Lin; Sivertsen, Gunnar (2020-05-12). "The New Research Assessment Reform in China and Its Implementation". Scholarly Assessment Reports. 2 (1): 3. doi:10.29024/sar.15. hdl:11250/2733873. ISSN 2689-5870. Retrieved 2023-09-10.


id: languages-of-science-20260505-12
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science-12.md
category: reference
title: Languages of science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:33.946594+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: languages-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
=== Conferences === Shearer, Kathleen; Chan, Leslie; Kuchma, Iryna; Mounier, Pierre (2020-04-15). Fostering Bibliodiversity in Scholarly Communications: A Call for Action. Retrieved 2020-06-17. Beigel, Fernanda (2022). Research evaluation in the southern road to open science (PDF). OSEC 2022. Paris. === Other articles === Garfield, Eugene (1967). "English – An international language for science?" (PDF). Current Contents. Huttner-Koros, Adam (2015-08-21). "Why Science's Universal Language Is a Problem for Research". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2020-09-24. van Weijen, Daphne (November 2012). "The Language of (Future) Scientific Communication". Research Trends. No. 31. Archived from the original on 2020-09-20. Retrieved 2020-09-24. Gordin, Michael D. "How did science come to speak only English? – Michael D Gordin | Aeon Essays". Aeon. Retrieved 2020-09-24. Taşkın, Zehra; Dogan, Guleda; Kulczycki, Emanuel; Zuccala, Alesia Ann (2020-06-18). "Science needs to inform the public. That can't be done solely in English". LSE COVID-19. Retrieved 2022-01-21. Pölönen, Janne; Kulczycki, Emanuel; Mustajoki, Henriikka; Røeggen, Vidar (2021-12-07). "Multilingualism is integral to accessibility and should be part of European research assessment reform". Impact of Social Sciences. Retrieved 2022-01-20. === Declaration === Bundy, McGeorge. "Memorandum # 332, U.S. Government Policy on English Language Teaching Abroad, 6/11/1965" (June 11, 1965). National Security Files, Series: National Security Action Memorandums,


id: leith-agcm-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leith_AGCM-0.md
category: reference
title: Leith AGCM
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leith_AGCM
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:35.166225+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: leith-agcm-20260505-0
summary:
Leith AGCM is a climate model that was developed by Cecil Leith beginning in 1958; it is likely the oldest atmospheric general circulation model. Leith published videos of its model output, inspiring other scientists to do the same. Today it has been superseded by climate models developed from different base codes; as such, it is little known. == History and development == Efforts to calculate the behaviour of the weather system commenced in the 1920s with a seminal paper by Lewis Fry Richardson. By the 1950s and 1960s several groups were involved in making climate models, with major efforts taking place at several US universities that eventually gave rise to the well-known GFDL, UCLA, and NCAR models. Today climate models are an important enterprise with significant impact on public policy, where hundreds of scientists and institutions participate worldwide. The researcher Cecil E. “Chuck” Leith (1923–2016) is well-known for his research on fluid mechanics. After an initial career on the Manhattan Project, which resulted in the invention of nuclear bombs, he joined the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory after 1946 and in 1968 the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Beginning in 1958, he began to work on a climate model that was later


id: logical-positivism-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism-0.md
category: reference
title: Logical positivism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:36.284431+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: logical-positivism-20260505-0
summary:
Logical positivism, also known as logical empiricism or neo-positivism, was a philosophical movement, in the empiricist tradition, that sought to formulate a scientific philosophy in which philosophical discourse would be, in the perception of its proponents, as authoritative and meaningful as empirical science. Logical positivism's central thesis was the verification principle, also known as the "verifiability criterion of meaning", according to which a statement is cognitively meaningful only if it can be verified through empirical observation or if it is a tautology (true by virtue of its own meaning or its own logical form). The verifiability criterion thus rejected statements of metaphysics, theology, ethics and aesthetics as cognitively meaningless in terms of truth value or factual content. Despite its ambition to overhaul philosophy by mimicking the structure and process of empirical science, logical positivism became erroneously stereotyped as an agenda to regulate the scientific process and to place strict standards on it. The movement emerged in the late 1920s among philosophers, scientists and mathematicians congregated within the Vienna Circle and Berlin Circle and flourished in several European centres through the 1930s. By the end of World War II, many of its members had settled in the English-speaking world and the


id: logical-positivism-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism-1.md
category: reference
title: Logical positivism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:36.284431+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: logical-positivism-20260505-0
summary:
=== Anglosphere === As the movement's first emissary to the New World, Moritz Schlick visited Stanford University in 1929, yet otherwise remained in Vienna and was murdered in 1936 at the University by a former student, Johann Nelböck, who was reportedly deranged. That year, A. J. Ayer, a British attendee at various Vienna Circle meetings since 1933, published Language, Truth and Logic, which imported logical positivism to the English-speaking world. In 1933, the Nazi Party's rise to power in Germany had triggered flight of intellectuals, which accelerated upon Germany's annexation of Austria in 1938. The logical positivists, many of whom were Jewish, were targeted and continued flight throughout the pre-war period. Their philosophy thus became dominant in the English-speaking world. By the late 1930s, many in the movement had replaced phenomenalism with Neurath's physicalism, whereby material objects are not reducible to sensory stimuli but exist as publicly observable entities in the real world. Neurath settled in England, where he died in 1945. Carnap, Reichenbach and Hempel settled permanently in America. === Post-war period === Following the Second World War, logical positivism—now referred to by some as logical empiricism—turned to less radical objectives in the philosophy of science. Led by Carl


id: logical-positivism-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism-2.md
category: reference
title: Logical positivism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:36.284431+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: logical-positivism-20260505-0
summary:
In theories of justification, a priori statements are those that can be known independently of observation, contrasting with a posteriori statements, which are dependent on observation. Statements may also be categorised into analytic and synthetic: Analytic statements are true by virtue of their own meaning or their own logical form, therefore are tautologies that are true by necessity but uninformative about the world. Synthetic statements, in comparison, are contingent propositions that refer to a state of facts concerning the world. David Hume proposed an unambiguous distinction between analytic and synthetic, categorising knowledge exclusively as either "relations of ideas" (which are a priori, analytic and abstract) or "matters of fact and real existence" (a posteriori, synthetic and concrete), a classification referred to as Hume's fork. Immanuel Kant identified a further category of knowledge: Synthetic a priori statements, which are informative about the world, but known without observation. This principle is encapsulated in Kant's transcendental idealism, which attributes the mind a constructive role in phenomena whereby intuitive truths—including synthetic a priori conceptions of space and time—function as an interpretative filter for an observer's experience of the world. His thesis would serve to rescue Newton's law of universal gravitation from Hume's problem of


id: logical-positivism-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism-3.md
category: reference
title: Logical positivism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:36.284431+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: logical-positivism-20260505-0
summary:
Carl Hempel was prominent in the development of the deductive-nomological (DN) model, then the foremost model of scientific explanation defended even among critics of neo-positivism such as Popper. According to the DN model, a scientific explanation is valid only if it takes the form of a deductive inference from a set of explanatory premises (explanans) to the observation or theory to be explained (explanandum). The model stipulates that the premises must refer to at least one law, which it defines as an unrestricted generalization of the conditional form: "If A, then B". Laws therefore differ from mere regularities ("George always carries only $1 bills in his wallet") which do not necessarily support counterfactual claims. Furthermore, laws must be empirically verifiable in compliance with the verification principle. The DN model ignores causal mechanisms beyond the principle of constant conjunction ("first event A and then always event B") in accordance with the Humean empiricist postulate that, though sequences of events are observable, the underpinning causal principles are not. Hempel stated that well-formulated natural laws (empirically confirmed regularities) are satisfactory in approximating causal explanation. Hempel later proposed a probabilistic model of scientific explanation: The inductive-statistical (IS) model. Derivation of statistical laws from other


id: logical-positivism-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism-4.md
category: reference
title: Logical positivism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:36.284431+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: logical-positivism-20260505-0
summary:
=== Norwood Hanson === In 1958, Norwood Hanson's Patterns of Discovery characterised the concept of theory-ladenness. Hanson and Thomas Kuhn held that even direct observations are never truly neutral in that they are laden with theory, i.e. influenced by a system of theoretical presuppositions that function as an interpretative framework for the senses. Accordingly, individuals subscribed to different theories might report radically different observations even as they investigate the same phenomena. Hanson's thesis attacked the observation-theory distinction, which draws a dividing line between observational and non-observational (theoretical) language. More broadly, its findings challenged the central-most tenets of empiricism in questioning the infallibility and objectivity of empirical observation. === Thomas Kuhn === Thomas Kuhn's landmark book of 1962, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions—which discussed paradigm shifts in fundamental physics—critically undermined confidence in scientific foundationalism. Kuhn proposed in its place a coherentist model of science, whereby scientific progress revolves around cores of established, coherent ideas which periodically undergo abrupt revolutionary changes. Though foundationalism was often considered a constituent doctrine of logical positivism (and Kuhn's thesis an epistemological criticism of the movement) such views were simplistic: In the 1930s, Neurath had argued for the adoption of coherentism, famously comparing the progress of science


id: materialism-controversy-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy-0.md
category: reference
title: Materialism controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:37.526414+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: materialism-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
The materialism controversy (German: Materialismusstreit) was a public debate in the mid-19th century about how new developments in the natural sciences might affect existing worldviews. During the 1840s, a new form of materialism emerged, shaped by advances in biology and the decline of idealistic philosophy. This form of materialism sought to explain human beings and their behavior through scientific methods. The central question of the debate was whether scientific discoveries were compatible with traditional ideas such as the existence of an immaterial soul, a personal God, and human free will. The discussion also touched on deeper philosophical issues, such as what kind of knowledge a materialist or mechanical view of the world could offer. In his Physiologische Briefe from 1846, zoologist Carl Vogt argued that mental processes were entirely physical, famously stating that "thoughts stand in the same relation to the brain as bile does to the liver or urine to the kidneys." In 1854, the physiologist Rudolf Wagner criticized this view in a speech to the Göttingen Naturalists' Assembly. He argued that religious belief and science belonged to separate areas of understanding, and that natural science could not answer questions about God, the soul, or free will. Wagner’s comments


id: materialism-controversy-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy-1.md
category: reference
title: Materialism controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:37.526414+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: materialism-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
The materialism controversy was sparked in part by the writings of physiologist Carl Vogt, beginning in 1847. His commitment to materialism was shaped by the scientific and political reform movements of the time, as well as his own personal and political development. Vogt was born in Giessen in 1817, into a family with both scientific and revolutionary traditions. His father, Philipp Friedrich Wilhelm Vogt, was a professor of medicine who moved to Bern in 1834 after facing political persecution. On his mother’s side, political activism was also a strong influence: Louise Follen’s three brothers—Adolf, Karl, and Paul Follen—were all involved in nationalist and democratic causes and eventually went into exile. In 1817 Adolf Follen drafted a proposal for a future German constitution and was later arrested for his political activities. He avoided a 10-year prison sentence by fleeing to Switzerland. Karl Follen was suspected of encouraging the assassination of conservative writer August von Kotzebue and escaped to the United States, where he became a professor at Harvard University. The youngest brother, Paul Follen, helped found the Gießener Auswanderungsgesellschaft in 1833, which aimed to establish a German republic in the U.S. Though the plan failed, Paul settled in Missouri as a


id: materialism-controversy-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy-2.md
category: reference
title: Materialism controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:37.526414+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: materialism-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
During the summer of 1854, the 31st Naturalists' Meeting was held in Göttingen. A major topic of discussion was the existence of the soul and its compatibility with emerging materialist views in science. During the event, physiologist Rudolf Wagner gave a prominent lecture on human creation and the nature of the soul, in which he sharply criticized materialism. He argued that denying the existence of a soul created by God—and especially the rejection of free will—would undermine the moral foundations of society. Wagner claimed that materialist theories, such as those proposed by Carl Vogt, reduced human beings to passive machines without responsibility, which conflicted with the ethical duties of scientists. Later that year, Wagner published a second paper that expanded on his criticisms. He argued that science and faith occupy separate domains, and that science alone could neither prove nor disprove religious beliefs. He explained that while physiologists can describe the structure and function of physical organs, their findings can be interpreted in different ways. Materialists use these observations to argue that mental functions are based on physical processes, while dualists believe the body interacts with an immaterial soul. Wagner maintained that physiology cannot determine which interpretation is correct. He


id: materialism-controversy-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy-3.md
category: reference
title: Materialism controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:37.526414+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: materialism-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
== Reactions in the 19th century == === Philosophy of neo-Kantianism === Materialism, as promoted by scientists like Carl Vogt, Jakob Moleschott, and Ludwig Büchner, was presented as a direct consequence of empirical scientific research. Following the decline of German idealism, many saw academic philosophy—especially as taught in universities—as disconnected from reality and reduced to speculative thought. Even philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach, once aligned with idealist traditions, placed his trust in the natural sciences to answer longstanding philosophical questions such as the relationship between body and soul. However, a strong philosophical critique of materialism did not emerge until the 1860s, with the rise of Neo-Kantianism. In 1865, Otto Liebmann published Kant und die Epigonen (Kant and His Followers), a work that sharply criticized major post-Kantian thinkers—from German idealists to Arthur Schopenhauer. Liebmann famously ended each chapter with the refrain: "So we must go back to Kant!". The following year,Friedrich Albert Lange published Geschichte des Materialismus (History of Materialism), in which he aligned himself with the Neo-Kantian position. Lange accused the scientific materialists of “philosophical dilettantism”, claiming that they overlooked central insights of Kantian thought. At the core of Kant’s philosophy, particularly in the Critique of Pure Reason, is the question: What


id: materialism-controversy-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy-4.md
category: reference
title: Materialism controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:37.526414+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: materialism-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
Even Ludwig Büchner, initially one of the most prominent advocates of materialism, eventually distanced himself from the term. In a letter to Haeckel dated 1875, he wrote:I ... have therefore never used the term 'materialism', which evokes a completely one-sided idea, for my school of thought and only accepted it here and there later out of necessity because the general public knew no other word for the whole movement ... . The term 'monism' that you suggest is very good in itself, but it is very doubtful whether it will be accepted by the general public. === Political and ideological impact === Although scientific materialism gained considerable popularity among the general public in 19th-century Germany, its proponents—Carl Vogt, Jakob Moleschott, and Ludwig Büchner—faced significant political opposition. All three lost their academic positions largely because of their outspoken advocacy of materialism. Vogt’s revolutionary materialism, in particular, failed to gain traction in the reactionary political climate following the revolutions of 1848. Scientific materialism also struggled to influence broader political movements, in part due to ideological conflicts with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marx disparaged Vogt as a “small-university beer bouncer and misguided Barrot of the Reich", and personal denunciations escalated between the


id: materialism-controversy-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy-5.md
category: reference
title: Materialism controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:37.526414+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: materialism-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
=== Primary literature === Beiser, Frederick C. (2014). After Hegel: German philosophy 1840-1900. Princeton, NJ Oxford: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-17371-9. Büchner, Ludwig (1932). Kraft und Stoff (in German) (Pocket ed.). Leipzig: Kröner Verlag. Du Bois-Reymond, Emil; Wollgast, Siegfried (1974). Vorträge über Philosophie und Gesellschaft. Philosophische Bibliothek. Hamburg: F. Meiner. ISBN 978-3-7873-0320-5. Daum, Andreas W. (2002). Wissenschaftspopularisierung im 19. Jahrhundert. Bürgerliche Kultur, naturwissenschaftliche Bildung und die deutsche Öffentlichkeit 1848–1914 (in German) (2 ed.). Munich: Oldenbourg. Feuerbach, Ludwig (1967). Gesammelte Werke (in German). Vol. 3. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Haeckel, Ernst (1908). Die Welträthsel (in German). Leipzig: Kröner. Helmholtz, Hermann (2003). "Ueber das Sehen des Menschen". Gesammelte Schriften (in German). Vol. 1. Hildesheim: Olms. Lange, Friedrich Albert (1920) [1866]. Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der Gegenwart (in German). J. Baedeker. Marx, Karl (1961). Herr Vogt. Marx-Engels-Werke (in German). Vol. 14. Berlin: Dietz. Vogt, Carl (1856). Köhlerglaube und Wissenschaft. Eine Streitschrift gegen Hofrasth Rudolph Wagner in Göttingen (in German) (4th ed.). Gießen: Rickersche Buchhandlung. Vogt, Carl (1874). Physiologische Briefe (in German) (14 ed.). Gießen: Rickersche Buchhandlung. Wagner, Rudolf (1854a). Menschenschöpfung und Seelensubstanz. Ein anthropologischer Vortrag (in German). Göttingen: G.H. Wigand. Wagner, Rudolf (1854b). Ueber Wissen und Glauben. Mit besonderer Beziehung


id: history-of-metamaterials-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_metamaterials-0.md
category: reference
title: History of metamaterials
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_metamaterials
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:38.756621+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-metamaterials-20260505-0
summary:
The history of metamaterials begins with artificial dielectrics in microwave engineering as it developed just after World War II. Yet, there are seminal explorations of artificial materials for manipulating electromagnetic waves at the end of the 19th century. Hence, the history of metamaterials is essentially a history of developing certain types of manufactured materials, which interact at radio frequency, microwave, and later optical frequencies. As the science of materials has advanced, photonic materials have been developed which use the photon of light as the fundamental carrier of information. This has led to photonic crystals, and at the beginning of the new millennium, the proof of principle for functioning metamaterials with a negative index of refraction in the microwave- (at 10.5 Gigahertz) and optical range. This was followed by the first proof of principle for metamaterial cloaking (shielding an object from view), also in the microwave range, about six years later. However, a cloak that can conceal objects across the entire electromagnetic spectrum is still decades away. Many physics and engineering problems need to be solved. Nevertheless, negative refractive materials have led to the development of metamaterial antennas and metamaterial microwave lenses for miniature wireless system antennas which are more efficient


id: history-of-metamaterials-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_metamaterials-1.md
category: reference
title: History of metamaterials
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_metamaterials
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:38.756621+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-metamaterials-20260505-0
summary:
=== Jagadish Chandra Bose === Jagadish Chandra Bose was a scientist involved in original microwave research during the 1890s. As officiating professor of physics at Presidency College he involved himself with laboratory experiments and studies involving refraction, diffraction and polarization, as well as transmitters, receivers and various microwave components. He connected receivers to a sensitive galvanometer, and developed crystals to be used as a receiver. The crystals operated in the shortwave radio range. Crystals were also developed to detect both white and ultraviolet light. These crystals were patented in 1904 for their capability to detect electromagnetic radiation. Furthermore, it appears that his work also anticipated the existence of p-type and n-type semiconductors by 60 years. For the general public in 1895, Bose was able to remotely ring a bell and explode gunpowder with the use of electromagnetic waves. In 1896, it was reported that Bose had transmitted electromagnetic signals over almost a mile. In 1897, Bose reported on his microwave research (experiments) at the Royal Institution in London. There he demonstrated his apparatus at wavelengths that ranged from 2.5 centimeters to 5 millimeters. == Early chiral media == In 1898, Jagadish Chandra Bose conducted the first microwave experiment on twisted


id: history-of-metamaterials-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_metamaterials-2.md
category: reference
title: History of metamaterials
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_metamaterials
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:38.756621+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-metamaterials-20260505-0
summary:
Much of the historic research related to metamaterials is weighted from the view of antenna beam shaping within microwave engineering just after World War II. Furthermore, metamaterials appear to be historically linked to the body of research pertaining to artificial dielectrics throughout the late 1940s, the 1950s and the 1960s. The most common use for artificial dielectrics throughout prior decades has been in the microwave regime for antenna beam shaping. The artificial dielectrics had been proposed as a low cost and lightweight "tool". Research on artificial dielectrics, other than metamaterials, is still ongoing for pertinent parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. Pioneering works in microwave engineering on artificial dielectrics in microwave were produced by Winston E. Kock, Seymour Cohn, John Brown, and Walter Rotman. Periodic artificial structures were proposed by Kock, Rotman, and Sergei Schelkunoff. There is also an extensive reference list that is focused on the properties of artificial dielectrics in the 1991 book, Field Theory of Guided Waves by Robert E. Collin. Schelkunoff achieved notice for contributions to antenna theory and electromagnetic wave propagation. "Magnetic particles made of capacitively loaded loops were also suggested by Sergei Schelkunoff in 1952 (who was a senior colleague of Winston Kock at Bell


id: history-of-metamaterials-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_metamaterials-3.md
category: reference
title: History of metamaterials
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_metamaterials
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:38.756621+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-metamaterials-20260505-0
summary:
=== Invention of the metamaterial === Historically, and conventionally, the function or behavior of materials can be altered through their chemistry. This has long been known. For example, adding lead changes the color or hardness of glass. However, at the end of the 20th century this description was expanded by John Pendry, a physicist from Imperial College in London. In the 1990s he was consulting for a British company, Marconi Materials Technology, as a condensed matter physics expert. The company manufactured a stealth technology made of a radiation-absorbing carbon that was for naval vessels. However, the company did not understand the physics of the material. The company asked Pendry if he could understand how the material worked. Pendry discovered that the radiation absorption property did not come from the molecular or chemical structure of the material, i.e. the carbon per se. This property came from the long and thin, physical shape of the carbon fibers. He realized rather than conventionally altering a material through its chemistry, as lead does with glass, the behavior of a material can be altered by changing a material's internal structure on a very fine scale. The very fine scale was less than the wavelength of


id: history-of-metamaterials-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_metamaterials-4.md
category: reference
title: History of metamaterials
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_metamaterials
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:38.756621+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-metamaterials-20260505-0
summary:
=== The super lens === The super lens or superlens is a practical structure based on John Pendry's work describing a perfect lens that can go beyond the diffraction limit by focusing all four fourier components. Pendry's paper described a theoretical novel lens that could capture images below the diffraction limit by employing the negative refractive index behavior. The super lens is a practical realization of this theory. It is a working lens that can capture images below the diffraction limit even though limitations occur due to the inefficiencies of conventional materials. This means that although there are losses, enough of an image is returned to show this work was a successful demonstration. === Invisibility cloak === Ulf Leonhardt was born in East Germany, and presently occupies the theoretical physics chair at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, and is considered one the leaders in the science of creating an invisibility cloak. Around 1999, Leonhardt began work on how to build a cloaking device with a few other colleagues. Leonhardt stated that at the time invisibility was not considered fashionable. He then wrote a theoretical study entitled "Optical Conformal Mapping". The first sentence sums up the objective: "An invisibility


id: history-of-the-metric-system-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system-0.md
category: reference
title: History of the metric system
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:40.036698+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-the-metric-system-20260505-0
summary:
The history of the metric system began during the Age of Enlightenment with measures of length and weight derived from nature, along with their decimal multiples and fractions. The system became the standard of France and Europe within half a century. Other measures with unity ratios were added, and the system went on to be adopted across the world. The first practical realisation of the metric system came in 1799, during the French Revolution, after the existing system of measures had become impractical for trade, and was replaced by a decimal system based on the kilogram and the metre. The basic units were taken from the natural world. The unit of length, the metre, was based on the dimensions of the Earth, and the unit of mass, the kilogram, was based on the mass of a volume of water of one litre (a cubic decimetre). Reference copies for both units were manufactured in platinum and remained the standards of measure for the next 90 years. After a period of reversion to the mesures usuelles due to unpopularity of the metric system, the metrication of France and much of Europe was complete by the 1850s. In the middle of the 19th


id: history-of-the-metric-system-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system-1.md
category: reference
title: History of the metric system
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:40.036698+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-the-metric-system-20260505-0
summary:
=== Clocks and pendulums === In 1656, Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens invented the pendulum clock, with its pendulum marking the seconds. This gave rise to proposals to use its length as a standard unit. But it became apparent that the pendulum lengths of calibrated clocks in different locations varied (due to local variations in the acceleration due to gravity), and this was not a good solution. A more uniform standard was needed. In 1670, Gabriel Mouton, a French abbot and astronomer, published the book Observationes diametrorum solis et lunae apparentium ("Observations of the apparent diameters of the Sun and Moon") in which he proposed a decimal system of measurement of length for use by scientists in international communication, to be based on the dimensions of the Earth. The milliare would be defined as a minute of arc along a meridian (such as the Paris meridian) and would be divided into 10 centuria, the centuria into 10 decuria and so on, successive units being the virga, virgula, decima, centesima, and the millesima. Mouton used Riccioli's estimate that one degree of arc was 321,185 Bolognese feet. Mouton's experiments showed that a pendulum of length one virgula would beat 3959.2 times in half


id: history-of-the-metric-system-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system-2.md
category: reference
title: History of the metric system
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:40.036698+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-the-metric-system-20260505-0
summary:
In 1790, a panel of five leading French scientists was appointed by the Académie des sciences to investigate weights and measures. They were Jean-Charles de Borda, Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Pierre-Simon Laplace, Gaspard Monge, and Nicolas de Condorcet. Over the following year, the panel, after studying various alternatives, made a series of recommendations regarding a new system of weights and measures, including that it should have a decimal radix, that the unit of length should be based on a fractional arc of a quadrant of the Earth's meridian, and that the unit of weight should be that of a cube of water whose dimension was a decimal fraction of the unit of length. The proposals were accepted by the French Assembly on 30 March 1791. Following acceptance, the Académie des sciences was instructed to implement the proposals. The Académie broke the tasks into five operations, allocating each part to a separate working group: Measuring the difference in latitude between Dunkirk and Barcelona and triangulating between them Measuring the baselines used for the survey Verifying the length of the second pendulum at 45° latitude. Verifying the weight in a vacuum of a given volume of distilled water. Publishing conversion tables relating the new


id: history-of-the-metric-system-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system-3.md
category: reference
title: History of the metric system
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:40.036698+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-the-metric-system-20260505-0
summary:
Delambre used a baseline of about 10 km in length along a straight road, located close to Melun. In an operation taking six weeks, the baseline was accurately measured using four platinum rods, each of length two toises (about 3.9 m). Thereafter he used, where possible, the triangulation points used by Cassini in his 1744 survey of France. Méchain's baseline, of a similar length, and also on a straight section of road was in the Perpignan area. Although Méchain's sector was half the length of Delambre, it included the Pyrenees and hitherto unsurveyed parts of Spain. After the two surveyors met, each computed the other's baseline in order to cross-check their results and they then recomputed the metre as 443.296 lignes, notably shorter than the 1795 provisional value of 443.44 lignes. On 15 November 1798, Delambre and Méchain returned to Paris with their data, having completed the survey. The final value of the mètre was defined in 1799 as the computed value from the survey. Historical note: It soon became apparent that Méchain and Delambre's result (443.296 lignes) was slightly too short for the meridional definition of the metre. Méchain had made a small error measuring the latitude of Barcelona,


id: history-of-the-metric-system-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system-4.md
category: reference
title: History of the metric system
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:40.036698+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-the-metric-system-20260505-0
summary:
=== The first structured metric system: CGS === In 1861, a committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) including William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin), James Clerk Maxwell, and James Prescott Joule among its members was tasked with investigating the "Standards of Electrical Resistance". In their first report (1862), they laid the ground rules for their work—the metric system was to be used, measures of electrical energy must have the same units as measures of mechanical energy, and two sets of electromagnetic units would have to be derived—an electromagnetic system and an electrostatic system. In the second report (1863), they introduced the concept of a coherent system of units whereby units of length, mass, and time were identified as "fundamental units" (now known as base units). All other units of measure could be derived (hence derived units) from these base units. The metre, gram, and second were chosen as base units. In 1861, before a meeting of the BAAS, Charles Bright and Latimer Clark proposed the names of ohm, volt, and farad in honour of Georg Ohm, Alessandro Volta, and Michael Faraday respectively for the practical units based on the CGS absolute system. This was supported by


id: history-of-the-metric-system-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system-5.md
category: reference
title: History of the metric system
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:40.036698+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-the-metric-system-20260505-0
summary:
==== Quadrant–eleventhgram–second (QES) or International System of Electrical and Magnetic Units ==== The CGS units of measure used in scientific work were not practical for engineering, leading to the development of a more applicable system of electric units especially for telegraphy. The unit of length was 107 m (the hebdometre, nominally the Earth quadrant), the unit of mass was an unnamed unit equal to 10−11 g and the unit of time was the second. The units of mass and length were scaled incongruously to yield more consistent and usable electric units in terms of mechanical measures. Informally called the "practical" system, it was properly termed the quadrant–eleventhgram–second (QES) system of units according to convention. The definitions of electrical units incorporated the magnetic constant like the EMU system, and the names of the units were carried over from that system, but scaled according to the defined mechanical units. The system was formalised as the International system late in the 19th century and its units later designated the "international ampere", "international volt", etc. ==== Heaviside–Lorentz system of units ==== The factor 4 π {\displaystyle 4\pi } that occurs in Maxwell's equations in the gaussian system (and the other CGS systems) comes from


id: history-of-the-metric-system-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system-6.md
category: reference
title: History of the metric system
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:40.036698+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-the-metric-system-20260505-0
summary:
Conférence générale des poids et mesures (CGPM or General Conference on Weights and Measures), an intergovernmental conference of official delegates of member nations and the supreme authority for all actions; Comité international des poids et mesures (CIPM or International Committee for Weights and Measures), consisting of selected scientists and metrologists, which prepares and executes the decisions of the CGPM and is responsible for the supervision of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures; Bureau international des poids et mesures (BIPM or International Bureau of Weights and Measures), a permanent laboratory and world centre of scientific metrology, the activities of which include the establishment of the basic standards and scales of the principal physical quantities, maintenance of the international prototype standards, and oversight of regular comparisons between the international prototype and the various national standards. The international prototype of the metre and international prototype of the kilogram were both made from a 90% platinum, 10% iridium alloy which is exceptionally hard and which has good electrical and thermal conductivity properties. The prototype had a special X-shaped (Tresca) cross section to minimise the effects of torsional strain during length comparisons and the prototype kilograms were cylindrical in shape. The London firm Johnson


id: history-of-the-metric-system-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system-7.md
category: reference
title: History of the metric system
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:40.036698+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-the-metric-system-20260505-0
summary:
== Working draft of SI: Practical system of units == The 9th CGPM met in 1948, fifteen years after the 8th CGPM. In response to formal requests made by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics and by the French government to establish a practical system of units of measure, the CGPM requested the CIPM to prepare recommendations for a single practical system of units of measurement, suitable for adoption by all countries adhering to the Metre Convention. The CIPM's draft proposal was an extensive revision and simplification of the metric unit definitions, symbols, and terminology based on the MKS system of units. Following astronomical observations, the second was set as a fraction of the year 1900. The electromagnetic base unit, as required by Giorgi, was accepted as the ampere. After negotiations with the CIS and IUPAP, two additional units—the degree kelvin and the candela—were also proposed as base units. For the first time, the CGPM made recommendations concerning derived units. At the same time, the CGPM adopted conventions for the writing and printing of unit symbols and numbers and catalogued the symbols for the most important MKS and CGS units of measure. === Time === Until the advent


id: history-of-the-metric-system-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system-8.md
category: reference
title: History of the metric system
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:40.036698+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-the-metric-system-20260505-0
summary:
=== New base and derived units === Over the ensuing years, the BIPM developed and maintained cross-correlations relating various measuring devices such as thermocouples, light spectra, and the like to the equivalent temperatures. The mole was originally known as a gram-atom or a gram-molecule—the amount of a substance measured in grams divided by its atomic weight. Originally chemists and physicists had differing views regarding the definition of the atomic weight—both assigned a value of 16 atomic mass units (amu) to oxygen, but physicists defined oxygen in terms of the 16O isotope whereas chemists assigned 16 amu to 16O, 17O and 18O isotopes mixed in the proportion that they occur in nature. Finally, an agreement between the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) and the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) brought this duality to an end in 1959/60, both parties agreeing to define the atomic weight of 12C as being exactly 12 amu. This agreement was confirmed by ISO and in 1969 the CIPM recommended its inclusion in SI as a base unit. This was done in 1971 at the 14th CGPM. === Start of migration to constant definitions === The second major trend in the


id: history-of-the-metric-system-20260505-9
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system-9.md
category: reference
title: History of the metric system
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:11:40.036698+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-the-metric-system-20260505-0
summary:
At its 23rd meeting (2007), the CGPM mandated the CIPM to investigate the use of natural constants as the basis for all units of measure rather than the artefacts that were then in use. The following year, this was endorsed by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP). At a meeting of the CCU held in Reading, United Kingdom, in September 2010, a resolution and draft changes to the SI brochure that were to be presented to the next meeting of the CIPM in October 2010 were agreed in principle. The CIPM meeting of October 2010 found that "the conditions set by the General Conference at its 23rd meeting have not yet been fully met. For this reason the CIPM does not propose a revision of the SI at the present time". The CIPM, however, presented a resolution for consideration at the 24th CGPM (17–21 October 2011) to agree to the new definitions in principle, but not to implement them until the details had been finalised. In the revision, four of the seven SI base units—the kilogram, ampere, kelvin, and mole—were redefined by setting exact numerical values for the Planck constant (h), the elementary electric charge (e), the


id: mihi-itch-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihi_itch-0.md
category: reference
title: Mihi itch
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihi_itch
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:04.995529+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: mihi-itch-20260505-0
summary:
Mihi itch or Mihisucht is the ambition to describe new species (or other taxa: subspecies, hybrids, genera, etc.) as a means to immortalize one's name. Mihi is the dative form of the Latin word ego, thus "mihi itch" means to satisfy one's egotistical impulses. The expression appeared in print as early as 1884. A consequence of the Mihi itch may be the unwarranted description of new taxa, differing only slightly from already established taxa, leading to taxonomic inflation. A more extreme case may be termed taxonomic vandalism when a large number of species are described with limited scientific evidence. == Examples == La "nouvelle école" in malacology, led by Jules René Bourguignat, was responsible for the description of hundreds of new species of molluscs in Europe at the end of the nineteen century. Harold St. John published 440 names in the genus Pandanus, which encompasses c. 600 accepted species, and 283 names in the genus Cyrtandra, which encompasses c. 700 accepted species. Between 2000 and 2011, Raymond Hoser published 582 species names, and 340 generic names of animals (mostly reptiles). == See also == Taxonomic vandalism Taxonomic inflation == References ==


id: natural-magic-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_magic-0.md
category: reference
title: Natural magic
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_magic
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:07.371711+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: natural-magic-20260505-0
summary:
Natural magic is a tradition concerning the manipulation and development of the occult, or hidden, mechanisms within nature. Unlike ceremonial magic, it does not rely on a relationship with summoning spirits. Natural magic sometimes makes use of physical substances from the natural world such as stones or herbs. In the Medieval era, many theologians utilized the term natural magic when referring to the properties of the natural world that would operate within the realm of divinity. Natural magic worked to expose underlying mechanisms occurring in nature that cannot be explained through rational knowledge. The lack of concrete evidence results in these mechanisms being referred to as "occult properties". Natural magic so defined includes astrology, alchemy, and certain disciplines that would today be considered fields of natural science, such as astronomy and chemistry (divergently evolved from astrology and alchemy, respectively) or botany (from herbology). Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher wrote that "there are as many types of natural magic as there are subjects of applied sciences". Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa discusses natural magic in his Three Books of Occult Philosophy (1533), where he calls it "nothing else but the highest power of natural sciences". The Italian Renaissance philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, who


id: natural-magic-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_magic-1.md
category: reference
title: Natural magic
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_magic
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:07.371711+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: natural-magic-20260505-0
summary:
During the Scientific Revolution in the seventeenth century, the way science was viewed started to drastically change. The role of natural magic began to shift, but it did not disappear. Specifically, the idea of “occult properties” had an important role in the developing scientific worldview. The invisible forces in nature, which were previously thought of as magical concepts, came to be known as more rational and mathematical ones. For example, phenomena such as gravity and light were once thought to be mysterious, unknown forces, but during the Scientific Revolution, scientists began to explain them as rays or forces acting across a space. This transformation of thought is shown through figures like Isaac Newton, whose theory of gravity relied on a force at a distance, similar to earlier beliefs related to natural magic. While Newton and other scientists moved away from magical explanations, theories of natural magic helped to inspire their work. Despite beliefs and reasonings changing, “occult qualities” helped to establish ideas such as force interactions, which remain a central part of modern physics today. == See also == Kitāb al-nawāmīs – Arabic book of magic Giambattista della Porta – Italian polymath (1535–1615) Magia Naturalis – Book by Giambattista della


id: natural-philosophy-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_philosophy-0.md
category: reference
title: Natural philosophy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_philosophy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:08.564857+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: natural-philosophy-20260505-0
summary:
Natural philosophy, philosophy of nature (from Latin philosophia naturalis), or experimental philosophy, until the late modern period, was the systematic and research-based study of nature and the physical universe, while ignoring any supernatural influence. Used since at least Aristotle (classical antiquity) until the 19th century, the term natural philosophy referred to a branch of philosophy—a broader term then, meaning all rational fields of study and contemplation—that explored topics now considered to fall under the purview of science, such as physics, biology, chemistry, and astronomy. Thus, natural philosophy served as the precursor to, and has been mostly supplanted by, modern science. The 19th century established the term science as distinct from philosophy in its rigorously empirical and experimental approach, along with its many modern sub-disciplines, plus the founding of various institutions and communities devoted to them. Isaac Newton's book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687) (English: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) reflects the use of the term natural philosophy in the 17th century. Even in the 19th century, the work that helped define much of modern physics bore the title Treatise on Natural Philosophy (1867), authored by Lord Kelvin and Tait. In the German tradition, Naturphilosophie (philosophy of nature) persisted into the


id: natural-philosophy-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_philosophy-1.md
category: reference
title: Natural philosophy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_philosophy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:08.564857+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: natural-philosophy-20260505-0
summary:
Humankind's mental engagement with nature certainly predates civilization and the record of history. Philosophical, and specifically non-religious, thought about the natural world goes back to ancient Greece. These lines of thought began before Socrates, who turned his philosophical studies from speculations about nature to a consideration of man, or in other words, political philosophy. The thought of early philosophers such as Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Democritus centered on the natural world. In addition, three Presocratic philosophers who lived in the Ionian town of Miletus (hence the Milesian School of philosophy), Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, attempted to explain natural phenomena without recourse to creation myths involving the Greek gods. They were called the physikoi ("natural philosophers") or, as Aristotle referred to them, the physiologoi. Plato followed Socrates in concentrating on man. It was Plato's student, Aristotle, who, in basing his thought on the natural world, returned empiricism to its primary place, while leaving room in the world for man. Martin Heidegger observes that Aristotle was the originator of conception of nature that prevailed in the Middle Ages into the modern era: The Physics is a lecture in which he seeks to determine beings that arise on their own, τὰ φύσει ὄντα (ta


id: natural-philosophy-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_philosophy-2.md
category: reference
title: Natural philosophy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_philosophy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:08.564857+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: natural-philosophy-20260505-0
summary:
=== In ancient Greece === Early Greek philosophers studied motion and the cosmos. Figures like Hesiod regarded the natural world as offspring of the gods, whereas others like Leucippus and Democritus regarded the world as lifeless atoms in a vortex. Anaximander deduced that eclipses happen because of apertures in rings of celestial fire. Heraclitus believed that the heavenly bodies were made of fire that were contained within bowls. He thought that eclipses happen when the bowl turned away from the earth. Anaximenes is believed to have stated that an underlying element was air, and by manipulating air someone could change its thickness to create fire, water, dirt, and stones. Empedocles identified the elements that make up the world, which he termed the roots of all things, as fire, air, earth, and water. Parmenides argued that all change is a logical impossibility. He gives the example that nothing can go from nonexistence to existence. Plato argues that the world is an imperfect replica of an idea that a divine craftsman once held. He also believed that the only way to truly know something was through reason and logic. Not the study of the object itself, but that changeable matter is a


id: natural-philosophy-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_philosophy-3.md
category: reference
title: Natural philosophy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_philosophy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:08.564857+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: natural-philosophy-20260505-0
summary:
=== Natural philosophy in the early modern period === The scientific method has ancient precedents, and Galileo exemplifies a mathematical understanding of nature, which is a hallmark of modern natural scientists. Galileo proposed that objects falling regardless of their mass would fall at the same rate, as long as the medium they fall in is identical. The 19th-century distinction of a scientific enterprise apart from traditional natural philosophy has its roots in prior centuries. Proposals for a more "inquisitive" and practical approach to the study of nature are notable in Francis Bacon, whose ardent convictions did much to popularize his insightful Baconian method. The Baconian method is employed throughout Thomas Browne's encyclopaedia Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646–1672), which debunks a wide range of common fallacies through empirical investigation of nature. The late-17th-century natural philosopher Robert Boyle wrote a seminal work on the distinction between physics and metaphysics called, A Free Enquiry into the Vulgarly Received Notion of Nature, as well as The Skeptical Chymist, after which the modern science of chemistry is named, (as distinct from proto-scientific studies of alchemy). These works of natural philosophy are representative of a departure from the medieval scholasticism taught in European universities, and anticipate in many


id: natural-philosophy-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_philosophy-4.md
category: reference
title: Natural philosophy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_philosophy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:08.564857+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: natural-philosophy-20260505-0
summary:
Environmental philosophy – Branch of philosophy Gentleman scientist – Financially independent scientistPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets History of science Natural environment – Living and non-living things on Earth Natural theology – Theology reliant on rational and empirical arguments Naturalism (philosophy) – Belief that only natural laws and forces operate in the universe Nature (philosophy) – Philosophical term Protoscience – Research field that may become a science == References == == Further reading == Adler, Mortimer J. (1993). The Four Dimensions of Philosophy: Metaphysical, Moral, Objective, Categorical. Macmillan. ISBN 0-02-500574-X. E.A. Burtt, Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1954). Philip Kitcher, Science, Truth, and Democracy. Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Science. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. LCCN:2001036144 ISBN 0-19-514583-6 Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy and Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (1945) Simon & Schuster, 1972. Santayana, George (1923). Scepticism and Animal Faith. Dover Publications. pp. 27–41. ISBN 0-486-20236-4. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help) David Snoke, Natural Philosophy: A Survey of Physics and Western Thought. Access Research Network, 2003. ISBN 1-931796-25-4.Natural Philosophy: A Survey of Physics and Western Thought


id: one-sex-and-two-sex-theories-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-sex_and_two-sex_theories-0.md
category: reference
title: One-sex and two-sex theories
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-sex_and_two-sex_theories
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:09.694090+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: one-sex-and-two-sex-theories-20260505-0
summary:
The one-sex and two-sex theories (also referred to as the one-sex and two-sex models) are historiographical concepts introduced by historian Thomas Laqueur in his 1990 book Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Laqueur proposed that Western medical and philosophical thought underwent a fundamental shift in the 18th century: from a "one-sex model," in which female anatomy was understood as an inverted, inferior version of male anatomy, to a "two-sex model" treating men and women as anatomically distinct and opposite. While Making Sex has been highly influential in gender studies, literary criticism, and cultural history, its thesis has attracted substantial criticism from historians of medicine and science. Critics including Helen King, Joan Cadden, Katharine Park, and Michael Stolberg have argued that Laqueur oversimplifies the historical record, misreads primary sources, and imposes an artificial chronological divide where one-sex and two-sex understandings in fact coexisted throughout Western history. The historian Monica H. Green has called on scholars to move beyond the framework entirely. == Laqueur's thesis == === The one-sex model === According to Laqueur, Western medicine from antiquity through the early modern period operated under a "one-sex model" in which women were understood as imperfect or inverted versions


id: one-sex-and-two-sex-theories-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-sex_and_two-sex_theories-1.md
category: reference
title: One-sex and two-sex theories
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-sex_and_two-sex_theories
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:09.694090+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: one-sex-and-two-sex-theories-20260505-0
summary:
=== Calls to move beyond the framework === Critics have noted that Making Sex achieved widespread influence partly because its binary framework offered a conveniently simple narrative for scholars across disciplines. As historiographical surveys have observed, the neatness of Laqueur's story—one era, one model, replaced by another era, another model—made it highly exportable, even as specialists in the history of medicine increasingly found it inadequate. Monica H. Green's 2018 article in Eugesta titled "Let Go of Laqueur" called for scholars to move beyond the one-sex/two-sex framework entirely and develop more nuanced histories of how bodies have been understood as sexed across different times and cultures. === Laqueur's response === In a 2003 response to Stolberg, Laqueur argued that isolated pieces of evidence for sexual dimorphism in Renaissance anatomy do not undermine his thesis, since individual observations do not discredit prevailing worldviews. He maintained that the fundamental epistemological shift he described—from sex as reflecting metaphysical truths to sex as biological foundation for gender—remained valid regardless of when specific anatomical differences were first noted. == Influence and legacy == Despite the scholarly criticisms described above, Making Sex has remained widely cited, particularly in gender studies, literary criticism, and cultural history. The book


id: oral-history-of-british-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_History_of_British_Science-0.md
category: reference
title: Oral History of British Science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_History_of_British_Science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:10.816601+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: oral-history-of-british-science-20260505-0
summary:
An Oral History of British Science is an oral history project conducted by National Life Stories at the British Library. The project began in 2009 with funding from the Arcadia Fund, the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 and a number of other private donors and focuses on audio interviews with British science and engineering figures. == Project background == The project focused on 200 video interviews lasting 8–15 hours, with four themes: Made in Britain, A Changing Planet, Cosmologies and Biomedicine. The project Advisory Committee included Jon Agar, Alec Broers, Tilly Blyth, Georgina Ferry, Dame Julia Higgins, Maja Kominko, Sir Harry Kroto, John Lynch, Chris Rapley and Simone Turchetti. An Oral History of British Science was conducted by National Life Stories (NLS) at the British Library, and formed part of a wider institutional initiative to better document contemporary history of science and technology through the addition of audio visual sources as well as written sources. == Methodology == The oral history of British science follows the biographical, or life story, oral history approach with each audio interview averaging 8 to 15 hours in length. The interviews cover the individual’s career history, education, background and family. == Access to


id: parable-of-the-sunfish-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Sunfish-0.md
category: reference
title: Parable of the Sunfish
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Sunfish
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:11.997351+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: parable-of-the-sunfish-20260505-0
summary:
"The Parable of the Sunfish" is an anecdote with which Ezra Pound opens ABC of Reading, a 1934 work of literary criticism. Pound uses this anecdote to emphasize an empirical approach for learning about art, in contrast to relying on commentary rooted in abstraction. While the parable is based on students' recollections of Louis Agassiz's teaching style, Pound's retelling diverges from these sources in several respects. The parable has been used to illustrate the benefits of scientific thinking, but more recent literary criticism has split on whether the parable accurately reflects the scientific process and calls into question Pound's empirical approach to literature. == The Parable == The text of the parable below is excerpted from Pound's ABC of Reading. == Context == === ABC of Reading === Pound opens ABC of Reading with the following pronouncement: The proper METHOD for studying poetry and good letters is the method of contemporary biologists, that is careful first-hand examination of the matter, and continual COMPARISON of one 'slide' or specimen with another. No man is equipped for modern thinking until he has understood the anecdote of Agassiz and the sunfish. In the parable, a graduate student is sent to noted biologist Louis


id: parable-of-the-sunfish-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Sunfish-1.md
category: reference
title: Parable of the Sunfish
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Sunfish
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:11.997351+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: parable-of-the-sunfish-20260505-0
summary:
At length on the seventh day, came the question "Well?" and my disgorge of learning to him as he sat on the edge of my table puffing his cigar. At the end of the hour's telling, he swung off and away, saying "That is not right." Shaler concluded Agassiz was testing him to see if he was capable of "doing hard, continuous work without the support of a teacher" and redoubled his efforts, starting from scratch and, over the course of seven ten-hour days, managed to describe the specimen to Agassiz's satisfaction. === Scudder's "Look at your fish!" === Samuel Hubbard Scudder recorded a similar experience, first published in 1874 as "Look at Your Fish" in Every Saturday magazine. Agassiz again starts his new student off with a fish preserved in alcohol and instructs the student to "look at it", and promises "by and by I will ask what you have seen". As opposed to Pound's decomposing sunfish, Scudder's account emphasizes the care taken to keep the specimen in good condition: I was to keep the fish before me in a tin tray, and occasionally moisten the surface with alcohol from the jar ... In ten minutes I had seen


id: parable-of-the-sunfish-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Sunfish-2.md
category: reference
title: Parable of the Sunfish
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Sunfish
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:11.997351+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: parable-of-the-sunfish-20260505-0
summary:
=== Pound === Pound, echoing Cooper, opens ABC of Reading by stating that the correct method for the study of poetry is "the method of contemporary biologists" and that "No man is equipped for modern thinking until he has understood the anecdote of Agassiz and the fish." Commentators have summarized Pound's position with the term empiricism, but have divided over whether the parable endorses or indicts the idea. The simplest interpretations in scientific writing, history of science, and literary criticism take the parable at face value, accepting empiricism and observation as legitimate techniques. For example, when writing about stellar atmospheres, Dimitri Mihalas states that "it is specimens, not facts, that are the ultimate empirical currency that we must use if we wish to purchase a valid theory" before beginning a discussion of Pound's sunfish. Moving from acceptance of empiricism to an understanding of its limitations, Christopher Tilley emphasizes in his comments on "scientific archeology" that Pound's student "was not simply learning about 'reality', the sunfish, but a way of approaching that reality – a discourse bound up in a particular thought tradition (empiricism)". Robert Scholes reaches a similar conclusion, noting that the student "seems to be reporting about a real


id: patterns-in-nature-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_in_nature-0.md
category: reference
title: Patterns in nature
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_in_nature
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:13.121366+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: patterns-in-nature-20260505-0
summary:
Patterns in nature are visible regularities of form found in the natural world. These patterns recur in different contexts and can sometimes be modelled mathematically. Natural patterns include symmetries, trees, spirals, meanders, waves, foams, tessellations, cracks and stripes. Early Greek philosophers studied pattern, with Plato, Pythagoras and Empedocles attempting to explain order in nature. The modern understanding of visible patterns developed gradually over time. In the 19th century, the Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau examined soap films, leading him to formulate the concept of a minimal surface. The German biologist and artist Ernst Haeckel painted hundreds of marine organisms to emphasise their symmetry. Scottish biologist D'Arcy Thompson pioneered the study of growth patterns in both plants and animals, showing that simple equations could explain spiral growth. In the 20th century, the English mathematician Alan Turing predicted mechanisms of morphogenesis which give rise to patterns of spots and stripes. The Hungarian biologist Aristid Lindenmayer and the French American mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot showed how the mathematics of fractals could create plant growth patterns. Mathematics, physics and chemistry can explain patterns in nature at different levels and scales. Patterns in living things are explained by the biological processes of natural selection and sexual selection.


id: patterns-in-nature-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_in_nature-1.md
category: reference
title: Patterns in nature
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_in_nature
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:13.121366+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: patterns-in-nature-20260505-0
summary:
Living things like orchids, hummingbirds, and the peacock's tail have abstract designs with a beauty of form, pattern and colour that artists struggle to match. The beauty that people perceive in nature has causes at different levels, notably in the mathematics that governs what patterns can physically form, and among living things in the effects of natural selection, that govern how patterns evolve. Mathematics seeks to discover and explain abstract patterns or regularities of all kinds. Visual patterns in nature find explanations in chaos theory, fractals, logarithmic spirals, topology and other mathematical patterns. For example, L-systems form convincing models of different patterns of tree growth. The laws of physics apply the abstractions of mathematics to the real world, often as if it were perfect. For example, a crystal is perfect when it has no structural defects such as dislocations and is fully symmetric. Exact mathematical perfection can only approximate real objects. Visible patterns in nature are governed by physical laws; for example, meanders can be explained using fluid dynamics. In biology, natural selection can cause the development of patterns in living things for several reasons, including camouflage, sexual selection, and different kinds of signalling, including mimicry and cleaning symbiosis. In


id: patterns-in-nature-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_in_nature-2.md
category: reference
title: Patterns in nature
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_in_nature
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:13.121366+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: patterns-in-nature-20260505-0
summary:
Spirals are common in plants and in some animals, notably molluscs. For example, in the nautilus, a cephalopod mollusc, each chamber of its shell is an approximate copy of the next one, scaled by a constant factor and arranged in a logarithmic spiral. Given a modern understanding of fractals, a growth spiral can be seen as a special case of self-similarity. Plant spirals can be seen in phyllotaxis, the arrangement of leaves on a stem, and in the arrangement (parastichy) of other parts as in composite flower heads and seed heads like the sunflower or fruit structures like the pineapple and snake fruit, as well as in the pattern of scales in pine cones, where multiple spirals run both clockwise and anticlockwise. These arrangements have explanations at different levels – mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology – each individually correct, but all necessary together. Phyllotaxis spirals can be generated from Fibonacci ratios: the Fibonacci sequence runs 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13... (each subsequent number being the sum of the two preceding ones). For example, when leaves alternate up a stem, one rotation of the spiral touches two leaves, so the pattern or ratio is 1/2. In hazel the ratio is


id: patterns-in-nature-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_in_nature-3.md
category: reference
title: Patterns in nature
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_in_nature
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:13.121366+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: patterns-in-nature-20260505-0
summary:
=== Bubbles, foam === A soap bubble forms a sphere, a surface with minimal area (minimal surface) — the smallest possible surface area for the volume enclosed. Two bubbles together form a more complex shape: the outer surfaces of both bubbles are spherical; these surfaces are joined by a third spherical surface as the smaller bubble bulges slightly into the larger one. A foam is a mass of bubbles; foams of different materials occur in nature. Foams composed of soap films obey Plateau's laws, which require three soap films to meet at each edge at 120° and four soap edges to meet at each vertex at the tetrahedral angle of about 109.5°. Plateau's laws further require films to be smooth and continuous, and to have a constant average curvature at every point. For example, a film may remain nearly flat on average by being curved up in one direction (say, left to right) while being curved downwards in another direction (say, front to back). Structures with minimal surfaces can be used as tents. At the scale of living cells, foam patterns are common; radiolarians, sponge spicules, silicoflagellate exoskeletons and the calcite skeleton of a sea urchin, Cidaris rugosa, all resemble


id: patterns-in-nature-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_in_nature-4.md
category: reference
title: Patterns in nature
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_in_nature
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:13.121366+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: patterns-in-nature-20260505-0
summary:
Alan Turing, and later the mathematical biologist James Murray, described a mechanism that spontaneously creates spotted or striped patterns: a reaction–diffusion system. The cells of a young organism have genes that can be switched on by a chemical signal, a morphogen, resulting in the growth of a certain type of structure, say a darkly pigmented patch of skin. If the morphogen is present everywhere, the result is an even pigmentation, as in a black leopard. But if it is unevenly distributed, spots or stripes can result. Turing suggested that there could be feedback control of the production of the morphogen itself. This could cause continuous fluctuations in the amount of morphogen as it diffused around the body. A second mechanism is needed to create standing wave patterns (to result in spots or stripes): an inhibitor chemical that switches off production of the morphogen, and that itself diffuses through the body more quickly than the morphogen, resulting in an activator-inhibitor scheme. The Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction is a non-biological example of this kind of scheme, a chemical oscillator. Later research has managed to create convincing models of patterns as diverse as zebra stripes, giraffe blotches, jaguar spots (medium-dark patches surrounded by dark broken


id: physica-speculatio-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physica_speculatio-0.md
category: reference
title: Physica speculatio
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physica_speculatio
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:14.303872+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: physica-speculatio-20260505-0
summary:
Physica speculatio is a text of scientific character written by Alonso de la Vera Cruz in 1557 in the capital of New Spain. It was the first published work in the American continent that specifically addressed the study of physics, and was written to teach the students of the Real University of Mexico. It introduced the main theoretical concepts of geocentric astronomy and references the heliocentric model. Fray Alonso de la Vera Cruz published in the capital of New Spain a Course of Arts, constituted in three volumes in Latin. The first form in 1553 under the title of Recognitio Summularum, that had like purpose help to the students of the Real University of Mexico to understand the philosophy by means of the understanding of the formal logic. A year afterwards appeared the second called Dialectica Resolutio, that was a continuation of the previous. The last was Physica speculatio. They did four editions, the last 3 of which were for use of the salmantino students and were abbreviated versions of the Mexican one. == Subjects == The Physica speculatio has by object the study or "investigation" -speculatio- and the exhibition, in general, of subjects of physics on the nature -Physica-,


id: physics-aristotle-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_(Aristotle)-0.md
category: reference
title: Physics (Aristotle)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_(Aristotle)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:15.422292+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: physics-aristotle-20260505-0
summary:
The Physics (Ancient Greek: Φυσικής ἀκρόασις, romanized: Physikḗs akróasis, or: Φυσικής ακροάσεως, Physikḗs akroáseōs; Latin: Physica or Naturales Auscultationes, possibly meaning "Lectures on nature") is a named text, written in ancient Greek, collated from a collection of surviving manuscripts known as the Corpus Aristotelicum, attributed to the 4th-century BC philosopher Aristotle. == The meaning of physics in Aristotle == It is a collection of treatises or lessons that deals with the most general (philosophical) principles of natural or moving things, both living and non-living, rather than physical theories (in the modern sense) or investigations of the particular contents of the universe. The chief purpose of the work is to discover the principles and causes of (and not merely to describe) change, or movement, or motion (κίνησις kinesis), especially that of natural wholes (mostly living things, but also inanimate wholes like the cosmos). In the conventional Andronicean ordering of Aristotle's works, it stands at the head of, as well as being foundational to, the long series of physical, cosmological and biological treatises, whose ancient Greek title, τὰ φυσικά, means "the [writings] on nature" or "natural philosophy". == Description of the content == The Physics is composed of eight books, which are


id: physics-aristotle-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_(Aristotle)-1.md
category: reference
title: Physics (Aristotle)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_(Aristotle)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:15.422292+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: physics-aristotle-20260505-0
summary:
The necessary in nature, then, is plainly what we call by the name of matter, and the changes in it. Both causes must be stated by the physicist, but especially the end; for that is the cause of the matter, not vice versa; and the end is 'that for the sake of which', and the beginning starts from the definition or essence… In chapter 3, Aristotle presents his theory of the four causes (material, efficient, formal, and final). Material cause explains what something is made of (for example, the wood of a house), formal cause explains the form which a thing follows to become that thing (the plans of an architect to build a house), efficient cause is the actual source of the change (the physical building of the house), and final cause is the intended purpose of the change (the final product of the house and its purpose as a shelter and home). Of particular importance is the final cause or purpose (telos). It is a common mistake to conceive of the four causes as additive or alternative forces pushing or pulling; in reality, all four are needed to explain (7.198a22-25). What we typically mean by cause in the


id: physics-aristotle-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_(Aristotle)-2.md
category: reference
title: Physics (Aristotle)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_(Aristotle)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:15.422292+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: physics-aristotle-20260505-0
summary:
=== Book VII (Η; 241a25–250b7) === Book VII briefly deals with the relationship of the moved to his mover, which Aristotle describes in substantial divergence with Plato's theory of the soul as capable of setting itself in motion (Laws book X, Phaedrus, Phaedo). Everything which moves is moved by another. He then tries to correlate the species of motion and their speeds, with the local change (locomotion, phorà) as the most fundamental to which the others can be reduced. Book VII.1-3 also exist in an alternative version, not included in the Bekker edition. === Book VIII (Θ; 250a14–267b26) === Book VIII (which occupies almost a fourth of the entire Physics, and probably constituted originally an independent course of lessons) discusses two main topics, though with a wide deployment of arguments: the time limits of the universe, and the existence of a Prime Mover — eternal, indivisible, without parts and without magnitude. Isn't the universe eternal, has it had a beginning, will it ever end? Aristotle's response, as a Greek, could hardly be affirmative, never having been told of a creatio ex nihilo, but he also has philosophical reasons for denying that motion had not always existed, on the grounds of


id: physics-aristotle-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_(Aristotle)-3.md
category: reference
title: Physics (Aristotle)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_(Aristotle)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:15.422292+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: physics-aristotle-20260505-0
summary:
=== Classical and medieval commentaries on the Physics === A commentary differs from a note in being a distinct work analyzing the language and subsumed concepts of some other work classically notable. A note appears within the annotated work on the same page or in a separate list. Commentaries are typically arranged by lemmas, or quotes from the notable work, followed by an analysis of the author of the commentary. The commentaries on every work of Aristotle are a vast and mainly unpublished topic. They extend continuously from the death of the philosopher, representing the entire history of Graeco-Roman philosophy. There are thousands of commentators and commentaries known wholly or more typically in fragments of manuscripts. The latter especially occupy the vaults of institutions formerly responsible for copying them, such as monasteries. The process of publishing them is slow and ongoing. Below is a brief representative bibliography of published commentaries on Aristotle's Physics available on or through the Internet. Like the topic itself, they are perforce multi-cultural, but English has been favored, as well as the original languages, ancient Greek and Latin. === Some modern commentaries, monographs and articles === == Further reading == Books Die Aristotelische Physik, W. Wieland,


id: pictet-s-experiment-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictet's_experiment-0.md
category: reference
title: Pictet's experiment
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictet's_experiment
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:19.688874+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: pictet-s-experiment-20260505-0
summary:
Pictet's experiment is the demonstration of the reflection of heat and the apparent reflection of cold in a series of experiments performed in 1790 (reported in English in 1791 in An Essay on Fire) by Marc-Auguste Pictet—ten years before the discovery of infrared heating of the Earth by the Sun. The apparatus for most of the experiments used two concave mirrors facing one another at a distance. An object placed at the focus of one mirror would have heat and light reflected by the mirror and focused. An object at the focus of the counterpart mirror would do the same. Placing a hot object at one focus and a thermometer at the other would register an increase in temperature on the thermometer. This was sometimes demonstrated with the explosion of a flammable mix of gasses in a blackened balloon, as described and depicted by John Tyndall in 1863. After "demonstrating that radiant heat, even when it was not accompanied by any light, could be reflected and focused like light", Pictet used the same apparatus to demonstrate the apparent reflection of cold in a similar manner. This demonstration was important to Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford who argued for the existence of


id: list-of-chemical-elements-named-after-places-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chemical_elements_named_after_places-0.md
category: reference
title: List of chemical elements named after places
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chemical_elements_named_after_places
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:20.813012+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: list-of-chemical-elements-named-after-places-20260505-0
summary:
Of the 118 chemical elements, 41 are named after, or have names associated with, places around the world or among astronomical objects. 32 of these have names tied to the Earth and the other 10 have names connected to bodies in the Solar System. The first table below lists terrestrial locations (excluding the entire Earth taken as a whole) and the last table lists astronomical objects which the chemical elements are named after. == Terrestrial locations == == Astronomical objects == * - The element mercury was named directly for the deity, with only indirect naming connection to the planet (see etymology of mercury). ** - Phosphorus was the Ancient Greek name for the planet Venus. (see history of phosphorus). == See also == List of chemical elements named after people List of chemical element name etymologies == References ==


id: history-of-science-policy-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_policy-0.md
category: reference
title: History of science policy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_policy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:21.965426+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-policy-20260505-0
summary:
Through history, the systems of economic support for scientists and their work have been important determinants of the character and pace of scientific research. The ancient foundations of the sciences were driven by practical and religious concerns and or the pursuit of philosophy more generally. From the Middle Ages until the Age of Enlightenment, scholars sought various forms of noble and religious patronage or funded their own work through medical practice. In the 18th and 19th centuries, many disciplines began to professionalize, and both government-sponsored "prizes" and the first research professorships at universities drove scientific investigation. In the 20th century, a variety of sources, including government organizations, military funding, patent profits, corporate sponsorship, and private philanthropies, have shaped scientific research. == Ancient science == Most early advances in mathematics, astronomy and engineering were byproducts of more immediate and practical goals. Surveying and accounting needs drove ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Chinese, and Indian mathematics, while calendars created for religious and agricultural purposes drove early astronomy. Modern science owes much of its heritage to ancient Greek philosophers; influential work in astronomy, mechanics, geometry, medicine, and natural history was part of the general pursuit of philosophy. Architectural knowledge, especially in ancient Greece and Rome,


id: history-of-science-policy-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_policy-1.md
category: reference
title: History of science policy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_policy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:21.965426+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-policy-20260505-0
summary:
=== Patronage === Most of the important astronomers and natural philosophers (as well as artists) in the 16th and 17th centuries depended on the patronage of powerful religious or political figures to fund their work. Patronage networks extended all the way from Emperors and Popes to regional nobles to artisans to peasants; even university positions were based to some extent on patronage. Scholarly careers in this period were driven by patronage, often starting in undistinguished universities or local schools or courts, and traveling closer or farther from centers of power as their fortunes rose and fell. Patronage, and the desire for more, also shaped the work and publications of scientists. Effusive dedications to current or potential patrons can be found in almost every scholarly publication, while the interests of a patron in a specific topic was a strong incentive to pursue said topic—or reframe one's work in terms of it. Galileo, for example, first presented the telescope as a naval instrument to military- and commerce-focused Republic of Venice; when he sought the more prestigious patronage of the Medici court in Florence, he instead promoted the astronomical potential of the device (by naming the moons of Jupiter after the Medicis). A


id: history-of-science-policy-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_policy-2.md
category: reference
title: History of science policy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_policy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:21.965426+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-policy-20260505-0
summary:
== 1900–1945 == In the twentieth century, scientific and technological research became increasingly systematised, as corporations developed, and discovered that continuous investment in research and development could be a key element of success in a competitive strategy. It remained the case, however, that imitation by competitors—circumventing or simply flouting patents, especially those registered abroad—was often just as successful a strategy for companies focused on innovation in matters of organisation and production technique, or even in marketing. A classic example is that of Wilkinson Sword and Gillette in the disposable razor market, where the former has typically had the technological edge, and the latter the commercial one. Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel's will directed that his vast fortune be utilized to establish prizes in the scientific fields of medicine, physics and chemistry as well as literature and peace. The Nobel Prize served to provide financial incentives for scientists, elevated leading scientists to unprecedented visibility, and provided an example for other philanthropists of the industrial era to provide private sources of funding for scientific research and education. Ironically, it was not an era of peace that followed, but rather wars fought on unprecedented international scale that led to expanded state interest in the


id: history-of-science-policy-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_policy-3.md
category: reference
title: History of science policy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_policy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:21.965426+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-policy-20260505-0
summary:
=== State funding cuts === Starting with the first Oil shock, an economic crisis hit the western world which made it more difficult for the states to maintain their uncritical funding of research and teaching. In the United Kingdom, the University Grants Committee started to lower their annual block grant for certain universities as soon as 1974. This was compounded by the access to power of the Thatcher government in 1979, who pledged a radical reduction of public spending. Between 1979 and 1981, more cuts in the block grant threatened universities and became opportunities seized by certain actors (heads of departments, vice-chancellors, etc.) for radical reorganisation and reorientation of the university's research. In 1970 in the United States, the Military Authorization Act forbade the DOD to support research unless it had "direct or apparent relationship to a specific military function." This cut the ability of the government to fund basic research. === Selectivity === In order to administer severely depleted resources in a (theoretically) transparent manner, several selectivity mechanisms were developed through the 1980s and 1990s. In the United Kingdom, the funding cuts of 1984–1986 were accompanied by an assessment of the quality of research. This was done by estimating


id: history-of-pseudoscience-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_pseudoscience-0.md
category: reference
title: History of pseudoscience
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_pseudoscience
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:24.281319+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-pseudoscience-20260505-0
summary:
The history of pseudoscience is the study of pseudoscientific theories over time. A pseudoscience is a set of ideas that presents itself as science, while it does not meet the criteria to properly be called such. Distinguishing between proper science and pseudoscience is sometimes difficult. One popular proposal for demarcation between the two is the falsification criterion, most notably contributed to by the philosopher Karl Popper. In the history of pseudoscience it can be especially hard to separate the two, because some sciences developed from pseudosciences. An example of this is the science chemistry, which traces its origins from the protoscience of alchemy. The vast diversity in pseudosciences further complicates the history of pseudoscience. Some pseudosciences originated in the pre-scientific era, such as astrology and acupuncture. Others developed as part of an ideology, such as Lysenkoism, or as a response to perceived threats to an ideology. An example of this is creationism, which was developed as a response to the scientific theory of evolution. Despite failing to meet proper scientific standards, many pseudosciences survive. This is usually due to a persistent core of devotees who refuse to accept scientific criticism of their beliefs, or due to popular misconceptions. Sheer popularity


id: history-of-pseudoscience-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_pseudoscience-1.md
category: reference
title: History of pseudoscience
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_pseudoscience
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:24.281319+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-pseudoscience-20260505-0
summary:
== 20th century == Among the most notable developments to pseudoscience in the 20th century are the rise of Creationism, the demise of Spiritualism, and the first formulation of ancient astronaut theories. Reflexology, the idea that an undetectable life force connects various parts of the body to the feet and sometimes the hands and ears, was introduced in the US in 1913 as 'zone therapy'. Creationism arose during the 20th century as a result of various other historical developments. When the modern evolutionary synthesis overcame the eclipse of Darwinism in the first half of the 20th century, American fundamentalist Christians began opposing the teaching of the theory of evolution in public schools. They introduced numerous laws to this effect, one of which was notoriously upheld by the Scopes Trial. In the second half of the century the Space Race caused a renewed interest in science and worry that the USA was falling behind on the Soviet Union. Stricter science standards were adopted and led to the re-introduction of the theory of evolution in the curriculum. The laws against teaching evolution were now ruled unconstitutional, because they violated the separation of church and state. Attempting to evade this ruling, the Christian


id: history-of-randomness-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_randomness-0.md
category: reference
title: History of randomness
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_randomness
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:25.408997+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-randomness-20260505-0
summary:
In ancient history, the concepts of chance and randomness were intertwined with that of fate. Many ancient peoples threw dice to determine fate, and this later evolved into games of chance. At the same time, most ancient cultures used various methods of divination to attempt to circumvent randomness and fate. Beyond religion and games of chance, randomness has been attested for sortition since at least ancient Athenian democracy in the form of a kleroterion. The formalization of odds and chance was perhaps earliest done by the Chinese 3,000 years ago. The Greek philosophers discussed randomness at length, but only in non-quantitative forms. It was only in the sixteenth century that Italian mathematicians began to formalize the odds associated with various games of chance. The invention of modern calculus had a positive impact on the formal study of randomness. In the 19th century the concept of entropy was introduced in physics. The early part of the twentieth century saw a rapid growth in the formal analysis of randomness, and mathematical foundations for probability were introduced, leading to its axiomatization in 1933. At the same time, the advent of quantum mechanics changed the scientific perspective on determinacy. In the mid to late


id: history-of-randomness-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_randomness-1.md
category: reference
title: History of randomness
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_randomness
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:25.408997+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-randomness-20260505-0
summary:
For several centuries thereafter, the idea of chance continued to be intertwined with fate. Divination was practiced in many cultures, using diverse methods. The Chinese analyzed the cracks in turtle shells, while the Germans, who according to Tacitus had the highest regards for lots and omens, utilized strips of bark. In the Roman Empire, chance was personified by the Goddess Fortuna. The Romans would partake in games of chance to simulate what Fortuna would have decided. In 49 BC, Julius Caesar allegedly decided on his fateful decision to cross the Rubicon after throwing dice. Aristotle's classification of events into the three classes: certain, probable and unknowable was adopted by Roman philosophers, but they had to reconcile it with deterministic Christian teachings in which even events unknowable to man were considered to be predetermined by God. About 960 Bishop Wibold of Cambrai correctly enumerated the 56 different outcomes (without permutations) of playing with three dice. No reference to playing cards has been found in Europe before 1350. The Church preached against card playing, and card games spread much more slowly than games based on dice. The Christian Church specifically forbade divination; and wherever Christianity went, divination lost most of its old-time


id: history-of-randomness-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_randomness-2.md
category: reference
title: History of randomness
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_randomness
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:25.408997+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-randomness-20260505-0
summary:
The words of Goethe proved prophetic, when in the 20th century randomized algorithms were discovered as powerful tools. By the end of the 19th century, Newton's model of a mechanical universe was fading away as the statistical view of the collision of molecules in gases was studied by Maxwell and Boltzmann. Boltzmann's equation S = k loge W (inscribed on his tombstone) first related entropy with logarithms. == 20th century == During the 20th century, the five main interpretations of probability theory (e.g., classical, logical, frequency, propensity and subjective) became better understood, were discussed, compared and contrasted. A significant number of application areas were developed in this century, from finance to physics. In 1900 Louis Bachelier applied Brownian motion to evaluate stock options, effectively launching the fields of financial mathematics and stochastic processes. Émile Borel was one of the first mathematicians to formally address randomness in 1909, and introduced normal numbers. In 1919 Richard von Mises gave the first definition of algorithmic randomness via the impossibility of a gambling system. He advanced the frequency theory of randomness in terms of what he called the collective, i.e. a random sequence. Von Mises regarded the randomness of a collective as an empirical


id: history-of-randomness-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_randomness-3.md
category: reference
title: History of randomness
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_randomness
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:25.408997+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-randomness-20260505-0
summary:
By the early 1940s, the frequency theory approach to probability was well accepted within the Vienna circle, but in the 1950s Karl Popper proposed the propensity theory. Given that the frequency approach cannot deal with "a single toss" of a coin, and can only address large ensembles or collectives, the single-case probabilities were treated as propensities or chances. The concept of propensity was also driven by the desire to handle single-case probability settings in quantum mechanics, e.g. the probability of decay of a specific atom at a specific moment. In more general terms, the frequency approach can not deal with the probability of the death of a specific person given that the death can not be repeated multiple times for that person. Karl Popper echoed the same sentiment as Aristotle in viewing randomness as subordinate to order when he wrote that "the concept of chance is not opposed to the concept of law" in nature, provided one considers the laws of chance. Claude Shannon's development of Information theory in 1948 gave rise to the entropy view of randomness. In this view, randomness is the opposite of determinism in a stochastic process. Hence if a stochastic system has entropy zero it


id: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion-0.md
category: reference
title: Relationship between science and religion
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:27.836352+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-0
summary:
The relationship between science and religion involves discussions that interconnect the study of the natural world, history, philosophy, and theology. Even though the ancient and medieval worlds did not have conceptions resembling the modern understandings of "science" or of "religion", certain elements of modern ideas on the subject recur throughout history. The pair-structured phrases "religion and science" and "science and religion" first emerged in the literature during the 19th century. This coincided with the refining of "science" (from the studies of "natural philosophy") and of "religion" as distinct concepts in the preceding few centuries—partly due to professionalization of the sciences, the Protestant Reformation, colonization, and globalization. Since then the relationship between science and religion has been characterized in terms of "conflict", "harmony", "complexity", and "mutual independence", among others. Both science and religion are complex social and cultural endeavors that may vary across cultures and change over time. Most scientific and technical innovations until the scientific revolution were achieved by societies organized by religious traditions. Ancient pagan, Islamic, and Christian scholars pioneered individual elements of the scientific method. Roger Bacon, often credited with formalizing the scientific method, was a Franciscan friar, and medieval Christians who studied nature emphasized natural explanations. Confucian


id: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion-1.md
category: reference
title: Relationship between science and religion
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:27.836352+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-0
summary:
=== Concepts of science and religion === The concepts of "science" and "religion" are a recent invention: "religion" emerged in the 17th century in the midst of colonization, globalization and as a consequence of the Protestant reformation. "Science" emerged in the 19th century in the midst of attempts to narrowly define those who studied nature. Originally what is now known as "science" was pioneered as "natural philosophy". It was in the 19th century that the terms "Buddhism", "Hinduism", "Taoism", "Confucianism" and "World Religions" first emerged. In the ancient and medieval world, the etymological Latin roots of both science (scientia) and religion (religio) were understood as inner qualities of the individual or virtues, never as doctrines, practices, or actual sources of knowledge. The 19th century also experienced the concept of "science" receiving its modern shape with new titles emerging such as "biology" and "biologist", "physics", and "physicist", among other technical fields and titles; institutions and communities were founded, and unprecedented applications to and interactions with other aspects of society and culture occurred. The term scientist was coined by the naturalist-theologian William Whewell in 1834 and it was applied to those who sought knowledge and understanding of nature. From the ancient world,


id: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion-2.md
category: reference
title: Relationship between science and religion
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:27.836352+00:00
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parent: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-0
summary:
"In matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision, even in such as we may find treated in Holy Scripture, different interpretations are sometimes possible without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such a case, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. That would be to battle not for the teaching of Holy Scripture but for our own, wishing its teaching to conform to ours, whereas we ought to wish ours to conform to that of Sacred Scripture." (Gen. ad lit. i, 18) In medieval universities, the faculty for natural philosophy and theology were separate, and discussions pertaining to theological issues were often not allowed to be undertaken by the faculty of philosophy. Natural philosophy, as taught in the arts faculties of the universities, was seen as an essential area of study in its own right and was considered necessary for almost every area of study. It was an independent field, separated from theology, and enjoyed a good deal of intellectual freedom as long as it was restricted to the natural


id: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion-3.md
category: reference
title: Relationship between science and religion
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:27.836352+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-0
summary:
According to Guillermo Paz-y-Miño-C and Avelina Espinosa, the historical conflict between evolution and religion is intrinsic to the incompatibility between scientific rationalism/empiricism and the belief in supernatural causation/faith. According to evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne, views on evolution and levels of religiosity in some countries, along with the existence of books explaining reconciliation between evolution and religion, indicate that people have trouble in believing both at the same time, thus implying incompatibility. According to physical chemist Peter Atkins, "whereas religion scorns the power of human comprehension, science respects it." Planetary scientist Carolyn Porco describes a hope that "the confrontation between science and formal religion will come to an end when the role played by science in the lives of all people is the same played by religion today." Geologist and paleontologist Donald Prothero has stated that religion is the reason "questions about evolution, the age of the earth, cosmology, and human evolution nearly always cause Americans to flunk science literacy tests compared to other nations." However, Jon Miller, who studies science literacy across nations, states that Americans in general are slightly more scientifically literate than Europeans and the Japanese. According to cosmologist and astrophysicist Lawrence Krauss, compatibility or incompatibility is a


id: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion-4.md
category: reference
title: Relationship between science and religion
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:27.836352+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-0
summary:
The conflict thesis, which holds that religion and science have been in conflict continuously throughout history, was popularized in the 19th century by John William Draper's and Andrew Dickson White's accounts. It was in the 19th century that relationship between science and religion became an actual formal topic of discourse, while before this no one had pitted science against religion or vice versa, though occasional complex interactions had been expressed before the 19th century. Most contemporary historians of science now reject the conflict thesis in its original form and no longer support it. Instead, it has been superseded by subsequent historical research which has resulted in a more nuanced understanding. Historian of science, Gary Ferngren, has stated: "Although popular images of controversy continue to exemplify the supposed hostility of Christianity to new scientific theories, studies have shown that Christianity has often nurtured and encouraged scientific endeavour, while at other times the two have co-existed without either tension or attempts at harmonization. If Galileo and the Scopes trial come to mind as examples of conflict, they were the exceptions rather than the rule." Most historians today have moved away from a conflict model, which is based mainly on two historical episodes


id: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion-5.md
category: reference
title: Relationship between science and religion
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:27.836352+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-0
summary:
Science and religion are based on different aspects of human experience. In science, explanations must be based on evidence drawn from examining the natural world. Scientifically based observations or experiments that conflict with an explanation eventually must lead to modification or even abandonment of that explanation. Religious faith, in contrast, does not depend on empirical evidence, is not necessarily modified in the face of conflicting evidence, and typically involves supernatural forces or entities. Because they are not a part of nature, supernatural entities cannot be investigated by science. In this sense, science and religion are separate and address aspects of human understanding in different ways. Attempts to put science and religion against each other create controversy where none needs to exist. According to Archbishop John Habgood, both science and religion represent distinct ways of approaching experience and these differences are sources of debate. He views science as descriptive and religion as prescriptive. He stated that if science and mathematics concentrate on what the world ought to be, in the way that religion does, it may lead to improperly ascribing properties to the natural world as happened among the followers of Pythagoras in the sixth century B.C. In contrast, proponents of


id: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion-6.md
category: reference
title: Relationship between science and religion
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:27.836352+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-0
summary:
=== Integration === As a general view, this holds that while interactions are complex between influences of science, theology, politics, social, and economic concerns, the productive engagements between science and religion throughout history should be duly stressed as the norm. Scientific and theological perspectives often coexist peacefully. Christian and non-Christian religions have historically integrated well with scientific ideas, as in the ancient Egyptian technological mastery applied to monotheistic ends, the scientific advances made by Muslim scholars during the Ottoman Empire and mathematics under Hinduism and Buddhism. Even many 19th-century Christian communities welcomed scientists who claimed that science was not at all concerned with discovering the ultimate nature of reality. According to Lawrence M. Principe, the Johns Hopkins University Drew Professor of the Humanities, from a historical perspective this points out that much of the current-day clashes occur between limited extremists—both religious and scientistic fundamentalists—over a very few topics, and that the movement of ideas back and forth between scientific and theological thought has been more usual. To Principe, this perspective would point to the fundamentally common respect for written learning in religious traditions of rabbinical literature, Christian theology, and the Islamic Golden Age, including a Transmission of the Classics from


id: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion-7.md
category: reference
title: Relationship between science and religion
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:27.836352+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-0
summary:
Among early Christian teachers, Tertullian (c. 160–220) held a generally negative opinion of Greek philosophy, while Origen (c. 185–254) regarded it much more favorably and required his students to read nearly every work available to them. Earlier attempts at reconciliation of Christianity with Newtonian mechanics appear quite different from later attempts at reconciliation with the newer scientific ideas of evolution or relativity. Many early interpretations of evolution polarized themselves around a struggle for existence. These ideas were significantly countered by later findings of universal patterns of biological cooperation. According to John Habgood, the universe seems to be a mix of good and evil, beauty and pain, and that suffering may somehow be part of the process of creation. Habgood holds that Christians should not be surprised that suffering may be used creatively by God, given their faith in the symbol of the Cross. Robert John Russell has examined consonance and dissonance between modern physics, evolutionary biology, and Christian theology. Christian philosophers Augustine of Hippo (354–430) and Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) held that scriptures can have multiple interpretations on certain areas where the matters were far beyond their reach, therefore one should leave room for future findings to shed light on the


id: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion-8.md
category: reference
title: Relationship between science and religion
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:27.836352+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-0
summary:
==== Perspectives on evolution ==== In recent history, the theory of evolution has been at the center of some controversy between Christianity and science. Christians who accept a literal interpretation of the biblical account of creation find incompatibility between Darwinian evolution and their interpretation of the Christian faith. Creation science or scientific creationism is a branch of creationism that attempts to provide scientific support for a literal reading of the Genesis creation narrative in the Book of Genesis and attempts to disprove generally accepted scientific facts, theories and scientific paradigms about the geological history of the Earth, cosmology of the early universe, the chemical origins of life and biological evolution. It began in the 1960s as a fundamentalist Christian effort in the United States to prove Biblical inerrancy and falsify the scientific evidence for evolution. It has since developed a sizable religious following in the United States, with creation science ministries branching worldwide. In 1925, The State of Tennessee passed the Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of the theory of evolution in all schools in the state. Later that year, a similar law was passed in Mississippi, and likewise, Arkansas in 1927. In 1968, these "anti-monkey" laws were struck


id: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-9
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion-9.md
category: reference
title: Relationship between science and religion
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:27.836352+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-0
summary:
According to Andrew Dickson White's 1896 book A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, a biblical world view affected negatively the progress of science through time. Dickinson also argues that immediately following the Reformation matters were even worse. The interpretations of Scripture by Luther and Calvin became as sacred to their followers as the Scripture itself. For instance, when Georg Calixtus ventured, in interpreting the Psalms, to question the accepted belief that "the waters above the heavens" were contained in a vast receptacle upheld by a solid vault, he was bitterly denounced as heretical. Today, much of the scholarship in which the conflict thesis was originally based is considered to be inaccurate. For instance, the claim that early Christians rejected scientific findings by the Greco-Romans is false, since the "handmaiden" view of secular studies was seen to shed light on theology. This view was widely adapted throughout the early medieval period and afterwards by theologians (such as Augustine) and ultimately resulted in fostering interest in knowledge about nature through time. Also, the claim that people of the Middle Ages widely believed that the Earth was flat was first propagated in the same period that originated the


id: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-10
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion-10.md
category: reference
title: Relationship between science and religion
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:27.836352+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-0
summary:
==== Reconciliation in Britain in the early 20th century ==== In Reconciling Science and Religion: The Debate in Early-twentieth-century Britain, historian of biology Peter J. Bowler argues that in contrast to the conflicts between science and religion in the U.S. in the 1920s (most famously the Scopes Trial), during this period Great Britain experienced a concerted effort at reconciliation, championed by intellectually conservative scientists, supported by liberal theologians but opposed by younger scientists and secularists and conservative Christians. These attempts at reconciliation fell apart in the 1930s due to increased social tensions, moves towards neo-orthodox theology and the acceptance of the modern evolutionary synthesis. In the 20th century, several ecumenical organizations promoting a harmony between science and Christianity were founded, most notably the American Scientific Affiliation, The Biologos Foundation, Christians in Science, The Society of Ordained Scientists, and The Veritas Forum. === Confucianism and traditional Chinese religion === The historical process of Confucianism has largely been antipathic towards scientific discovery. However the religio-philosophical system itself is more neutral on the subject than such an analysis might suggest. In his writings On Heaven, Xunzi espoused a proto-scientific world view. However, during the Han Synthesis the more anti-empirical Mencius was favored and


id: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-11
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion-11.md
category: reference
title: Relationship between science and religion
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:27.836352+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-0
summary:
Pratyakṣa or Dṛṣṭam – direct sense perception, Anumāna – logical inference and Śabda or Āptavacana – verbal testimony. Nyaya, the Hindu school of logic, accepts all these 3 means and in addition accepts one more – Upamāna (comparison). The accounts of the emergence of life within the universe vary in description, but classically the deity called Brahma, from a Trimurti of three deities also including Vishnu and Shiva, is described as performing the act of 'creation', or more specifically of 'propagating life within the universe' with the other two deities being responsible for 'preservation' and 'destruction' (of the universe) respectively. In this respect some Hindu schools do not treat the scriptural creation myth literally and often the creation stories themselves do not go into specific detail, thus leaving open the possibility of incorporating at least some theories in support of evolution. Some Hindus find support for, or foreshadowing of evolutionary ideas in scriptures, namely the Vedas. The incarnations of Vishnu (Dashavatara) is almost identical to the scientific explanation of the sequence of biological evolution of man and animals. The sequence of avatars starts from an aquatic organism (Matsya), to an amphibian (Kurma), to a land-animal (Varaha), to a humanoid (Narasimha),


id: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-12
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion-12.md
category: reference
title: Relationship between science and religion
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:27.836352+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-0
summary:
The Ahmadiyya movement emphasize that "there is no contradiction between Islam and science". For example, Ahmadi Muslims universally accept in principle the process of evolution, albeit divinely guided, and actively promote it. Over the course of several decades the movement has issued various publications in support of the scientific concepts behind the process of evolution, and frequently engages in promoting how religious scriptures, such as the Qur'an, supports the concept. For general purposes, the second Khalifa of the community, Mirza Basheer-ud-Din Mahmood Ahmad says: The Holy Quran directs attention towards science, time and again, rather than evoking prejudice against it. The Quran has never advised against studying science, lest the reader should become a non-believer; because it has no such fear or concern. The Holy Quran is not worried that if people will learn the laws of nature its spell will break. The Quran has not prevented people from science, rather it states, "Say, 'Reflect on what is happening in the heavens and the earth.'" (Al Younus) === Jainism === ==== Biology ==== Jainism classifies life into two main divisions those who are static by nature (sthavar) and those who are mobile (trasa). Jain texts describes life in plant long


id: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-13
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion-13.md
category: reference
title: Relationship between science and religion
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:27.836352+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-0
summary:
==== United States ==== In 1916, 1,000 leading American scientists were randomly chosen from American Men of Science and 42% believed God existed, 42% disbelieved, and 17% had doubts/did not know; however, when the study was replicated 80 years later using American Men and Women of Science in 1996, the results were very much the same with 39% believing God exists, 45% disbelieved, and 15% had doubts/did not know. In the same 1996 survey, for scientists in the fields of biology, mathematics, and physics/astronomy, belief in a god that is "in intellectual and affective communication with humankind" was most popular among mathematicians (about 45%) and least popular among physicists (about 22%). In terms of belief in God among elite scientists, such as "great scientists" in the "American Men of Science" or members of the National Academies of Science; 53% disbelieved, 21% were agnostic, and 28% believed in 1914; 68% disbelieved, 17% were agnostic, and 15% believed in 1933; and 72% disbelieved, 21% were agnostic, and 7% believed in 1998. However Eugenie Scott argued that there are methodological issues in the study, including ambiguity in the questions such using a personal definition of God instead of broader definitions of God. A


id: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-14
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion-14.md
category: reference
title: Relationship between science and religion
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:27.836352+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-0
summary:
==== Other or multiple countries ==== According to the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture's report on 1,100 scientists in India: 66% are Hindu, 14% did not report a religion, 10% are atheist/no religion, 3% are Muslim, 3% are Christian, 4% are Buddhist, Sikh or other. 39% have a belief in a god, 6% have belief in a god sometimes, 30% do not believe in a god but believe in a higher power, 13% do not know if there is a god, and 12% do not believe in a god. 49% believe in the efficacy of prayer, 90% strongly agree or somewhat agree with approving degrees in Ayurvedic medicine. Furthermore, the term "secularism" is understood to have diverse and simultaneous meanings among Indian scientists: 93% believe it to be tolerance of religions and philosophies, 83% see it as involving separation of church and state, 53% see it as not identifying with religious traditions, 40% see it as absence of religious beliefs, and 20% see it as atheism. Accordingly, 75% of Indian scientists had a "secular" outlook in terms of being tolerant of other religions. According to the Religion Among Scientists in International Context (RASIC) study on 1,581 scientists from


id: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-15
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion-15.md
category: reference
title: Relationship between science and religion
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:27.836352+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: relationship-between-science-and-religion-20260505-0
summary:
==== United States ==== According to a 2015 Pew Research Center Study on the public perceptions on science, people's perceptions on conflict with science have more to do with their perceptions of other people's beliefs than their own personal beliefs. For instance, the majority of people with a religious affiliation (68%) saw no conflict between their own personal religious beliefs and science while the majority of those without a religious affiliation (76%) perceived science and religion to be in conflict. The study noted that people who are not affiliated with any religion, also known as "religiously unaffiliated", often have supernatural beliefs and spiritual practices despite them not being affiliated with any religion and also that "just one-in-six religiously unaffiliated adults (16%) say their own religious beliefs conflict with science." Furthermore, the study observed, "The share of all adults who perceive a conflict between science and their own religious beliefs has declined somewhat in recent years, from 36% in 2009 to 30% in 2014. Among those who are affiliated with a religion, the share of people who say there is a conflict between science and their personal religious beliefs dropped from 41% to 34% during this period." In a 2024 Pew


id: science-in-the-renaissance-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_Renaissance-0.md
category: reference
title: Science in the Renaissance
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_Renaissance
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:29.093609+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-in-the-renaissance-20260505-0
summary:
Science in the Renaissance was predominantly an extension of medieval traditions of natural philosophy but also produced new ideas and methods in mathematics, anatomy and astronomy and included a revolution in the European understanding of the Earth's geography. The collection of ancient scientific texts began in earnest at the start of the 15th century and continued up to the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, and the invention of printing allowed a faster propagation of new ideas. Some scholars have argued that the era was scientifically backward because Renaissance humanists favored human-centered subjects like politics and history over study of natural philosophy or applied mathematics. More recently, however, scholars have acknowledged the positive impact of the rediscovery of lost or obscure texts and the increased focus on the study of language and the correct reading of texts, while also emphasizing how the invention and rapid spread of the moveable type printing press and the encounter with the Americas served as necessary preconditions for the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century. == Context == During and after the Renaissance of the 12th century, Europe experienced an intellectual revitalization, especially with regard to the investigation of the natural world. In the 14th century,


id: science-in-the-renaissance-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_Renaissance-1.md
category: reference
title: Science in the Renaissance
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_Renaissance
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:29.093609+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-in-the-renaissance-20260505-0
summary:
While differing in some respects, alchemy and chemistry often had similar goals during the Renaissance period, and together they are sometimes referred to as chymistry. Alchemy is the study of the transmutation of materials through obscure processes. Although it is often viewed as a pseudoscientific endeavor, many of its practitioners utilized widely accepted scientific theories of their times to formulate hypotheses about the constituents of matter and the ways matter could be changed. One of the main aims of alchemists was to find a method of creating gold and other precious metals from the transmutation of base materials. A common belief of alchemists was that there is an essential substance from which all other substances formed, and that if you could reduce a substance to this original material, you could then construct it into another substance, like lead to gold. Medieval alchemists worked with two main elements or "principles", sulphur and mercury. Paracelsus was a chymist and physician of the Renaissance period who believed that, in addition to sulphur and mercury, salt served as one of the primary alchemical principles from which everything else was made. Paracelsus was also instrumental in helping to put chemical practices to practical medicinal use


id: science-in-the-renaissance-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_Renaissance-2.md
category: reference
title: Science in the Renaissance
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_Renaissance
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:29.093609+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-in-the-renaissance-20260505-0
summary:
The accomplishments of Greek mathematicians survived throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages through a long and indirect history. Much of the work of Euclid, Archimedes, and Apollonius, along with later authors such as Hero and Pappus, were copied and studied in both Byzantine culture and in Islamic centers of learning. Translations of these works began already in the 12th century, with the work of translators in Spain and Sicily, working mostly from Arabic and Greek sources into Latin. Two of the most prolific were Gerard of Cremona and William of Moerbeke. The greatest of all translation efforts, however, took place in the 15th and 16th centuries in Italy, as attested by the numerous manuscripts dating from this period currently found in European libraries. Virtually all leading mathematicians of the era were obsessed with the need for restoring the mathematical works of the ancients. Not only did humanists assist mathematicians with the retrieval of Greek manuscripts, they also took an active role in translating these work into Latin, often commissioned by religious leaders such as Nicholas V and Cardinal Bessarion. Some of the leading figures in this effort include Regiomontanus, who made a copy of the Latin Archimedes and had


id: repression-of-science-in-the-soviet-union-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repression_of_science_in_the_Soviet_Union-0.md
category: reference
title: Repression of science in the Soviet Union
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repression_of_science_in_the_Soviet_Union
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:30.233071+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: repression-of-science-in-the-soviet-union-20260505-0
summary:
Many fields of scientific research in the Soviet Union were banned or suppressed with various justifications. All humanities and social sciences were tested for strict accordance with dialectical materialism. These tests served as a cover for political suppression of scientists who engaged in research labeled as "idealistic" or "bourgeois". Many scientists were fired, others were arrested and sent to Gulags. The suppression of scientific research began during the Stalin era and continued after his death. The ideologically motivated persecution damaged many fields of Soviet science. == Examples == === Biology === In the mid-1930s, the agronomist Trofim Lysenko started a campaign against genetics and was supported by Stalin. If the field of genetics' connection to Nazis wasn't enough, Mendelian genetics was also suppressed due to beliefs that it was "bourgeoisie science" and its association with the priest Gregor Mendel due to hostility to religion because of the Soviet policy of state atheism. In 1950, the Soviet government organized the Joint Scientific Session of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences, the "Pavlovian session". Several prominent Soviet physiologists (L.A. Orbeli, P.K. Anokhin, Aleksey Speransky, Ivane Beritashvili) were accused of deviating from Pavlov's teaching. As a consequence


id: repression-of-science-in-the-soviet-union-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repression_of_science_in_the_Soviet_Union-1.md
category: reference
title: Repression of science in the Soviet Union
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repression_of_science_in_the_Soviet_Union
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:30.233071+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: repression-of-science-in-the-soviet-union-20260505-0
summary:
=== Physics === In the late 1940s, some areas of physics, were also criticized on grounds of "idealism". In quantum mechanics Soviet physicists Dmitry Blokhintsev, Yaakov Terletsky and K. V. Nikolsky developed a version of the statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics, which was seen as more adhering to the principles of dialectical materialism. Special and general relativity were a matter of controversy among the Soviet scientists since 1920. Some of them argued that this theory is grounded in Machism (acutely criticized by Vladimir Lenin in his Materialism and Empiriocriticism), others were a group of so-called "mechanists" (see Mechanists and dialecticians controversy), later "Young Stalinists" joined the ranks of the relativity theory. At the same time a considerable number of prominent Soviet physicists defended the relativity theory. The attacks on the relativity theory intensified in 1949 under the auspices of the struggle against the "physical idealism" in the work of Leonid Mandelstam. Initially Sergey Vavilov, President of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, managed to defend Mandelstam, but in 1952 the political attacks on "reactionary Einsteinianism" intensified further. This pseudoscientific campaign sizzled after the death of Stalin. Although initially planned, the process of "ideological cleansing" in physics did not


id: roman-science-origins-development-and-influence-to-the-later-middle-ages-20260505-0
category: reference
title: Roman Science: Origins, Development, and Influence to the Later Middle Ages
tags: science, encyclopedia
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:35.903880+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: roman-science-origins-development-and-influence-to-the-later-middle-ages-20260505-0
file:
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Science:_Origins,_Development,_and_Influence_to_the_Later_Middle_Ages-0.md

summary:
Roman Science: Origins, Development, and Influence to the Later Middle Ages is a book by science historian William Harris Stahl, published in 1962 by University of Wisconsin Press. == Synopsis == This book covers the history of science in the Latin-speaking West from its Greek origins to the time of the Graeco-Arabic revival, focusing on the influence of Greek science in the Latin world, and on how this influence shaped both scientific education and scientific culture all the way to the Middle Ages. The volume follows what the author calls "the handbooks movement", the production of encyclopedic material originating with Greek authors, such as Posidonius and Theon of Smyrna, and follows this tradition among the Romans. Stahl devotes specific chapters to Pliny, Solinus, Chalcidius, Macrobius, Capella, Boethius, Cassiodorus, Isidore, Bede, and other authors till about 1250, and discusses the genesis and subsequent development of the liberal arts in the Quadrivium and Trivium from the age of Plato (428–424 BC) and Isocrates (436–338 BC) till the Middle Ages and Renaissance. == Content == The initial section on "Classical Greek Origins" treats the discoveries of Aristarchus of Samos, Pythagora, the Sophists Hippias of Elis and Isocrates, Plato, the mathematician Eudoxus – credited

source_url:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Science:_Origins,_Development,_and_Influence_to_the_Later_Middle_Ages


id: romanticism-in-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism_in_science-0.md
category: reference
title: Romanticism in science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism_in_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:37.034889+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: romanticism-in-science-20260505-0
summary:
19th-century science was greatly influenced by Romanticism (or the Age of Reflection, c. 1800–1840), an intellectual movement that originated in Western Europe as a counter-movement to the late-18th-century Enlightenment. Romanticism incorporated many fields of study, including politics, the arts, and the humanities. In contrast to the Enlightenment's mechanistic natural philosophy, European scientists of the Romantic period held that observing nature implied understanding the self and that knowledge of nature "should not be obtained by force". They felt that the Enlightenment had encouraged the abuse of the sciences, and they sought to advance a new way to increase scientific knowledge, one that they felt would be more beneficial not only to mankind but to nature as well. Romanticism advanced a number of themes: it promoted anti-reductionism (that the whole is more valuable than the parts alone) and epistemological optimism (man was connected to nature), and encouraged creativity, experience, and genius. It also emphasized the scientist's role in scientific discovery, holding that acquiring knowledge of nature meant understanding man as well; therefore, these scientists placed a high importance on respect for nature. Romanticism declined beginning around 1840 as a new movement, positivism, took hold of intellectuals, and lasted until about 1880. As


id: romanticism-in-science-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism_in_science-1.md
category: reference
title: Romanticism in science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism_in_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:37.034889+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: romanticism-in-science-20260505-0
summary:
== Naturphilosophie == In Friedrich Schelling's Naturphilosophie, he explained his thesis regarding the necessity of reuniting man with nature; it was this German work that first defined the Romantic conception of science and vision of natural philosophy. He called nature "a history of the path to freedom" and encouraged a reunion of man's spirit with nature. === Biology === The "new science of biology" was first termed biologie by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in 1801, and was "an independent scientific discipline born at the end of a long process of erosion of 'mechanical philosophy,' consisting in a spreading awareness that the phenomena of living nature cannot be understood in the light of the laws of physics but require an ad hoc explanation." The mechanical philosophy of the 17th century sought to explain life as a system of parts that operate or interact like those of a machine. Lamarck stated that the life sciences must detach from the physical sciences and strove to create a field of research that was different from the concepts, laws, and principles of physics. In rejecting mechanism without entirely abandoning the research of material phenomena that do occur in nature, he was able to point out that "living


id: romanticism-in-science-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism_in_science-2.md
category: reference
title: Romanticism in science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism_in_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:37.034889+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: romanticism-in-science-20260505-0
summary:
==== Organic chemistry ==== The development of organic chemistry in the 19th century necessitated the acceptance by chemists of ideas deriving from Naturphilosophie, modifying the Enlightenment concepts of organic composition put forward by Lavoisier. Of central importance was the work on the constitution and synthesis of organic substances by contemporary chemists. == Popular image of science == Science was a subject of great interest to important romantic writers and artists. The English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, for example, was a passionate student of chemistry as well as optics, medicine, and the now-discredited field of animal magnetism. William Wordsworth was one of several writers whose poetry about the natural world is associated with the rise of ecology, even though ecology would not be formalized as a discipline until the second half of the nineteenth century. Another British Romantic writer interested in science was Mary Shelley. Her famous book Frankenstein also conveyed important aspects of Romanticism in science as she included elements of anti-reductionism and manipulation of nature, both key themes that concerned Romantics, as well as the scientific fields of chemistry, anatomy, and natural philosophy. She stressed the role and responsibility of society regarding science, and through the moral of her


id: s-i-vavilov-institute-for-the-history-of-science-and-technology-ras-20260505-0
category: reference
title: S.I. Vavilov Institute for the History of Science and Technology RAS
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.I._Vavilov_Institute_for_the_History_of_Science_and_Technology_RAS
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:39.492842+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: s-i-vavilov-institute-for-the-history-of-science-and-technology-ras-20260505-0
file:
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.I._Vavilov_Institute_for_the_History_of_Science_and_Technology_RAS-0.md

summary:
The Sergey Vavilov Institute for the History of Science and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (or Institute for the History of Science and Technology named after S. I. Vavilov RAS (IHIT or IIET RAS)) is the only research institute in Russia for the study of the history of science and technology. It managed by the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences. == History == In 1921, the Russian Academy of Sciences established the "Commission for the Study of the History, Philosophy and Technology" under the chairmanship of Vladimir Vernadsky (later renamed the Commission on the History of Knowledge). From 1930, the commission was chaired by N. I. Bukharin. === Institute of the History of Science and Technology === On February 28, 1932, the Institute of the History of Science and Technology was established on the basis of the CHK, with Bukharin appointed as its first director. Later, the institution was headed by A. A. Maximov, B. G. Kuznetsov, and V. V. Osinsky-Obolensky (1935–1937). The institute was dissolved on February 5, 1938, after being declared a "center of anti-Soviet conspiracy". === Modern Institute === On November 22, 1944, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR issued a


id: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa-0.md
category: reference
title: History of science and technology in Africa
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:40.805209+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-0
summary:
Africa has the world's oldest record of human technological achievement: the oldest surviving stone tools in the world have been found in eastern Africa, and later evidence for tool production by humans' hominin ancestors has been found across West, Central, Eastern and Southern Africa. The history of science and technology in Africa since then has, however, received relatively little attention compared to other regions of the world, despite notable African developments in mathematics, metallurgy, architecture, and other fields. == Early humans == The Great Rift Valley of Africa provides critical evidence for the evolution of early hominins. The earliest tools in the world can be found there as well: An unidentified hominin, possibly Australopithecus afarensis or Kenyanthropus platyops, created stone tools dating to 3.3 million years ago at Lomekwi in the Turkana Basin, eastern Africa. Homo habilis, residing in eastern Africa, developed another early toolmaking industry, the Oldowan, around 2.3 million years ago. Homo erectus developed the Acheulean stone tool industry, specifically hand-axes, at 1.5 million years ago. This tool industry spread to the Middle East and Europe around 800,000 to 600,000 years ago. Homo erectus also begins using fire. Homo sapiens, or modern humans, created bone tools and backed


id: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa-1.md
category: reference
title: History of science and technology in Africa
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:40.805209+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-0
summary:
=== Eastern Africa === Megalithic "pillar sites", known as "namoratunga", date to as early as 5,000 years ago and can be found surrounding Lake Turkana in Kenya. Although somewhat controversial today, initial interpretations suggested that they were used by Cushitic speaking people as an alignment with star systems tuned to a lunar calendar of 354 days. === Southern Africa === Today, South Africa has cultivated a burgeoning astronomy community. It hosts the Southern African Large Telescope, the largest optical telescope in the southern hemisphere. South Africa is currently building the Karoo Array Telescope as a pathfinder for the $20 billion Square Kilometer Array project. South Africa is a finalist, with Australia, to be the host of the SKA. Due to archeological findings it has been speculated that the kingdoms of Zimbabwe such as Great Zimbabwe and mapungubwe used astronomy. Monolith stones with special engravings thought to be used to track Venus were found. They were compared to Mayan calendars and were found to be more accurate than them == Mathematics == According to Paulus Gerdes, the development of geometrical thinking started early in African history, as early humans learned to "geometricize" in the context of their labor activities. For example,


id: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa-2.md
category: reference
title: History of science and technology in Africa
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:40.805209+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-0
summary:
Mathematical notation was decimal, and based on hieroglyphic signs for each power of ten up to one million. Each of these could be written as many times as necessary to add up to the desired number; so to write the number eighty or eight hundred, the symbol for ten or one hundred was written eight times respectively. Because their methods of calculation could not handle most fractions with a numerator greater than one, ancient Egyptian fractions had to be written as the sum of several fractions. For example, the fraction two-fifths was resolved into the sum of one-third + one-fifteenth; this was facilitated by standard tables of values. Some common fractions, however, were written with a special glyph; the equivalent of the modern two-thirds is shown on the right. Ancient Egyptian mathematicians had a grasp of the principles underlying the Pythagorean theorem, knowing, for example, that a triangle had a right angle opposite the hypotenuse when its sides were in a 3–4–5 ratio. They were able to estimate the area of a circle by subtracting one-ninth from its diameter and squaring the result: Area ≈ [(8⁄9)D]2 = (256⁄81)r2 ≈ 3.16r2, a reasonable approximation of the formula πr2. The golden ratio


id: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa-3.md
category: reference
title: History of science and technology in Africa
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:40.805209+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-0
summary:
=== Northern Africa and the Nile Valley === Nubia was a major source of gold in the ancient world. Gold was a major source of Kushitic wealth and power. Gold was mined East of the Nile in Wadi Allaqi and Wadi Cabgaba. Around 500 BCE, Nubia, during the Meroitic phase, became a major manufacturer and exporter of iron. This was after being expelled from Egypt by Assyrians, who used iron weapons. === East Africa === The Aksumites produced coins around 270 CE, under the rule of King Endybis. Aksumite coins were issued in gold, silver, and bronze. Since 600 BCE, Bantu peoples in Uganda had been producing high-grade carbon steels using preheated forced draft furnaces, a technique achieved in Europe only with the Siemons process in the mid-19th century. Anthropologist Peter Schmidt discovered through the communication of oral tradition that the Haya in Tanzania have been forging steel for over 2000 years. This discovery was made accidentally while Schmidt was learning about the history of the Haya via their oral tradition. He was led to a tree which was said to rest on the spot of an ancestral furnace used to forge steel. When later tasked with the challenge of


id: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa-4.md
category: reference
title: History of science and technology in Africa
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:40.805209+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-0
summary:
=== West Africa and the Sahel === The knowledge of inoculating oneself against smallpox seems to have been known to West Africans, more specifically the Akan. A slave named Onesimus explained the inoculation procedure to Cotton Mather during the 18th century; he reported to have gotten the knowledge from Africa. Bonesetting is practiced by many groups of West Africa (the Akan, Mano, and Yoruba, to name a few). In Djenné the mosquito was isolated to be the cause of malaria, and the removal of cataracts was a common surgical procedure (as in many other parts of Africa). The dangers of tobacco smoking were known to African Muslim scholars, based on Timbuktu manuscripts. Palm oil was important in health and hygiene. A German visiting in 1603-1604 reported that people washed themselves three times a day, "after which they anoint themselves with tallow or with palm oil, which is an excellent medicine". Palm oil protected the skin and hair, and it had cosmetic value in many cultures. Women (and sometimes men) spread palm oil on their skin to "shine the whole day". Palm oil was also a useful way of applying decorative color and perfumes, like powdered camwood. Many Africans considered palm


id: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa-5.md
category: reference
title: History of science and technology in Africa
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:40.805209+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-0
summary:
=== East Africa === European travelers in the Great Lakes region of Africa during the 19th century reported cases of surgery in the kingdom of Bunyoro-Kitara. Medical historians, such as Jack Davies argued in 1959 that Bunyoro's traditional healers were perhaps the most highly skilled in precolonial sub-Saharan Africa, possessing a remarkable level of medical knowledge. One observer noted a "surgical skill which had reached a high standard". Caesarean sections and other abdominal and thoracic operations were performed on a regular basis with the avoidance of haemorrhage and sepsis using antiseptics, anaesthetics and cautery iron. The expectant mother was normally anesthetized with banana wine, and herbal mixtures were used to encourage healing. From the well-developed nature of the procedures employed, European observers concluded that they had been employed for some time. Bunyoro surgeons treated lung inflammations, Pneumonia and pleurisy by punching holes in the chest until the air passed freely. Trephining was carried out and the bones of depressed fractures were elevated. Horrible war wounds, even penetrating abdominal and chest wounds were treated with success, even when this involved quite heroic surgery. Amputations were done by tying a tight ligature just above the line of amputation and neatly cutting off


id: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa-6.md
category: reference
title: History of science and technology in Africa
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:40.805209+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-0
summary:
=== Southern Africa === A South African, Max Theiler, developed a vaccine against yellow fever in 1937. Allan McLeod Cormack developed the theoretical underpinnings of CT scanning and co-invented the CT-scanner. The first human-to-human heart transplant was performed by South African cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard at Groote Schuur Hospital in December 1967. See also Hamilton Naki. During the 1960s, South African Aaron Klug developed crystallographic electron microscopy techniques, in which a sequence of two-dimensional images of crystals taken from different angles are combined to produce three-dimensional images of the target. The Zulu king represented the ultimate public health official. As Ndukwana, one of Stuart's respondents, explains, "All people like the land they lived on belonged to the king. If any man got seriously ill, his illness would be notified to the mnumzana[head-man], who would instantly report the fact to the izinduna (chiefs) and they to the king. The king would then most likely give the order to consult diviners so as to discover the nature and cause of his illness. A sick man in Zululand was always an object of great importance.' In theory the Zulu king and his local chiefs took responsibility for the well-being of their people and


id: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa-7.md
category: reference
title: History of science and technology in Africa
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:40.805209+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-0
summary:
== Agriculture == Tropical soils are typically low in organic matter and so present special problems to agriculturalists. Indeed, African soils, (outside alluvial and volcanic areas) are in large part deficient in the characteristics of structure, texture, and chemistry which mainly determine soil fertility. Tropical areas do not have a winter season, so micro-organisms continue to break down organic matter throughout the year. Tropical soils typically have very small percentages of organic matter or humus (sometimes as little as 1%) as a result. Soils in temperate climates may, in contrast, consist of 12 to 14 or (in virgin soils in the Midwestern United States) up to 16% organic materials, because the cold winters slow the processes of decomposition and allow organic material to build up over time. In many tropical regions, farmers practice a semi-sedentary form of agriculture, using fields for two or three years and then abandoning them for a decade or more (up to 25 years after two years of cultivation in the case of savanna woodlands in Africa), until the humus content has been restored by natural processes. Through careful observation, experimentation and selection of desirable traits over the course of 2,000 years, Africans managed to create


id: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa-8.md
category: reference
title: History of science and technology in Africa
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:40.805209+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-0
summary:
Since communications and markets were relatively poorly developed, the farmer had to sow a great variety of crops with a great variety of characteristics, in order to survive no matter what the climatic variations, so that he would not be, in effect, wiped out. By taking a single ecological zone, understanding its complexity with a thoroughness incomprehensible to even a Westerner, developing a rich and subtle language with a profusion of terms for the understanding of local ecology, planting dozens of crops to which the environment was peculiarly suited, the farmer sought to defeat famine, to cheat death. within the African Great Lakes advanced agriculture practices were employed such as "hydraulic practices in the mountains, man-made watering places, river diversions, hollowed-out tree-trunk pipes, irrigation on cultivated slopes, mounding in drained marshes, and irrigation of banana and palm tree gardens" as well as extensive use of terraces and the practice of double and triple cropping. The agrarian success of the Great Lakes civilization accounts for its exceptionally high levels of human density. Many foreign experts were impressed by the sophistication of the areas traditional methods of intensive farming. The agriculture of the great lakes was described below: The "beautiful irrigated fields",


id: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-9
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa-9.md
category: reference
title: History of science and technology in Africa
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:40.805209+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-0
summary:
=== Southern Africa === In order to prevent erosion, southern Africans built dry-stone terraces on steep hillsides. Randall MacIver describes the irrigation technology used in Nyanga, Zimbabwe: The country about Inyanga is well watered, but it would seem that the old inhabitants required a more general distribution of the supply than was afforded by the numerous streams running down from the hills. Accordingly, they adopted a practice which has been prevalent under similar conditions in several other countries, Algeria being one instancewhich has come under the waiter's own observation. The stream was tapped at a point near its source, and part of the water deflected by a stone dam. This gave them a high-level conduit, by which the water could be carried along the side of a hill and allowed to descend more gradually than the parent stream. There are very many such conduits in the Inyanga region, and they often run for several miles. The gradients are admirably calculated, with a skill which is not always equalled by modern engineers with their elaborate instruments. The dams are well and strongly built of unworked stones without mortar; the conduits themselves are simple trenches about one metre in depth. The earth


id: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-10
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa-10.md
category: reference
title: History of science and technology in Africa
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:40.805209+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-0
summary:
=== Northern Africa === Egyptians wore linen from the flax plant, and used looms as early as 4000 BCE. Nubians mainly wore cotton, beaded leather, and linen. The Djellaba was made typically of wool and worn in the Maghreb. === West Africa and the Sahel === Valentim Fenandes, writing in the early sixteenth century on the basis of news received in Lisbon from early travellers, praised the high quality of Mandinka cotton cloth that was found all along the west coast of West Africa Such comments were repeated with regard to the cotton cloth of the "Slave Coast" and Benin as well, produced especially in centers in the Yoruba country. John Phillips, an English captain who sailed to the Slave Coast at the end of the seventeenth century, was particularly impressed with local cloth, some of which was purchased by the European traders and fetched high prices in the New World. Some of the oldest surviving African textiles were discovered at the archaeological site of Kissi in northern Burkina Faso. They are made of wool or fine animal hair in a weft-faced plain weave pattern. Fragments of textile have also survived from the thirteenth century Benin City in Nigeria. In


id: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-11
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa-11.md
category: reference
title: History of science and technology in Africa
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:40.805209+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-0
summary:
=== Central Africa === Among Kuba people, in present-day Democratic Republic of Congo, raffia clothes were woven. They used the fibers of the leaves on the raffia palm tree. Weaving with palm leaves was a highly developed art in Central Africa, and European travelers and missionaries compared woven palm-leaf cloth to the finest European-made silks. Filippo Pigafetta praised the "marvelous arte" of "making cloaths of sundry sortes, as Velvets shorne and unshorne, Sattens, Taffata, Damaskes, Sarcenettes and such like" in the eastern provinces and areas adjoining Kongo. Sarcenet was a fine silk, but, unlike that made in Europe, the type made in "this countrey and other places thereabouts" was "not of any silken stuffe" but "of the leaves of Palme trees." Indeed, the finest specimens were too "precious" for any but "the king, and such as it pleaseth him". Cavazzi wrote that the beaten leaves of one type of palm resulted in such fine, soft fibers that the weave of the cloth thus produced brought him to "astonishment". To produce such finely woven luxury cloth, the leaves had to be worked to a greater degree than the tying and laying required for thatching. Pigafetta noted that the process started with


id: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-12
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa-12.md
category: reference
title: History of science and technology in Africa
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:40.805209+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-0
summary:
=== Northern Africa and the Nile Valley === Carthage's fleet included large numbers of quadriremes and quinqueremes, warships with four and five ranks of rowers. Its ships dominated the Mediterranean. The Romans however were masters at copying and adapting the technology of other peoples. According to Polybius, the Romans seized a shipwrecked Carthaginian warship, and used it as a blueprint a massive naval build-up, adding their own refinement – the corvus – which allowed an enemy vessel to be "gripped" and boarded for hand-to-hand fighting. This negated initially superior Carthaginian seamanship and ships. Early Egyptians knew how to assemble planks of wood into a ship hull as early as 3000 BC (5000 BCE). The oldest ships yet unearthed, a group of 14 discovered in Abydos, were constructed from wooden planks which were "sewn" together. Woven straps were used to lash the planks together, and reeds or grass stuffed between the planks helped to seal the seams. Because the ships are all buried together and near a mortuary complex belonging to Pharaoh Khasekhemwy, originally the boats were all thought to have belonged to him. One of the 14 ships dates to 3000 BCE, however, and is now thought to perhaps have


id: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-13
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa-13.md
category: reference
title: History of science and technology in Africa
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:40.805209+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-0
summary:
=== West Africa and the Sahel === A Nok sculpture portrays two individuals, along with their goods, in a dugout canoe. Both of the anthropomorphic figures in the watercraft are paddling. The Nok terracotta depiction of a dugout canoe may indicate that Nok people utilized dugout canoes to transport cargo, along tributaries (e.g., Gurara River) of the Niger River, and exchanged them in a regional trade network. The Nok terracotta depiction of a figure with a seashell on its head may indicate that the span of these riverine trade routes may have extended to the Atlantic Coast. In the maritime history of Africa, there is the earlier Dufuna canoe, which was constructed approximately 8000 years ago in the northern region of Nigeria; as the second earliest form of water vessel known in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Nok terracotta depiction of a dugout canoe was created in the central region of Nigeria during the first millennium BCE. In the 14th century CE King Abubakari II, the brother of King Mansa Musa of the Mali Empire is thought to have had a great number of boats sitting on the coast of West Africa. The boats would communicate with each other by drums. Malian


id: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-14
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa-14.md
category: reference
title: History of science and technology in Africa
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:40.805209+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-0
summary:
=== East Africa === It is known that ancient Axum traded with India, and there is evidence that ships from Northeast Africa may have sailed back and forth between India/Sri Lanka and Nubia trading goods and even to Persia, Himyar and Rome. Aksum was known by the Greeks for having seaports for ships from Greece and Yemen. Elsewhere in Northeast Africa, the 1st century CE Greek travelogue Periplus of the Red Sea reports that Somalis, through their northern ports such as Zeila and Berbera, were trading frankincense and other items with the inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula as well as with the then Roman-controlled Egypt. Middle Age Swahili kingdoms are known to have had trade port islands and trade routes with the Islamic world and Asia and were described by Greek historians are "metropolises". Famous African trade ports such as Mombasa, Zanzibar, Mogadishu and Kilwa were known to Chinese sailors such as Zheng He and medieval Islamic historians such as the Berber Islamic voyager Abu Abdullah ibn Battuta. The dhow was the ship of trade used by the Swahili. They could be massive. It was a dhow that transported a giraffe to Chinese Emperor Yong Le's court, in 1414. Few


id: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-15
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa-15.md
category: reference
title: History of science and technology in Africa
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:40.805209+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-0
summary:
=== Northern Africa and the Nile Valley === Africa's first writing system and the beginning of the alphabet was Egyptian hieroglyphs. Two scripts have been the direct offspring of Egyptian hieroglyphs, the Proto-Sinaitic script and the Meroitic alphabet. Out of Proto-Sinaitic came the South Arabian alphabet and Phoenician alphabet, out of which the Aramaic alphabet, Greek alphabet, the Brāhmī script, Arabic alphabet were directly or indirectly derived. Out of the South Arabian alphabet came the Ge'ez alphabet which is used to write Blin(cushitic), Amharic, Tigre, and Tigrinya in Ethiopia and Eritrea. Out the Phoenician Alphabet came tifinagh, the berber alphabet mainly used by the Tuaregs. The other direct offspring of Egyptian hieroglyphs was the Meroitic alphabet. It began in the Napatan phase of Nubian history, Kush (700–300 BCE). It came into full fruition in the 2nd century, under the successor Nubian kingdom of Meroë. The script can be read but not understood, with the discovery at el-Hassa, Sudan of ram statues bearing meroitic inscriptions might assist in its translation. === The Sahel === With the arrival of Islam came the Arabic alphabet in the Sahel. Arabic writing is widespread in the Sahel. The Arabic script was also used to write


id: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-16
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa-16.md
category: reference
title: History of science and technology in Africa
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:40.805209+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-0
summary:
It is especially interesting that the form of writing that developed in Bunyoro was based on a floral code, as the absence of both writing and flowers in African culture have been used by Jack Goody as evidence of African culture's separateness from that of "Eurasia." Goody has written that African peoples generally did not make significant use of flowers in worship, gift-giving or decoration. He does "not know of any indigenous use of odours", nor of plants playing a role in stories or myths. This is thought to be because of Africa's "simple" agriculture, "non-complex" societies and absence of a "culture of luxury". This description of African life does not fit well with what we know of precolonial Bunyoro, a large, relatively ancient, and extremely hierarchical kingdom, and the analysis of the role of flowers was quite inaccurate. The ancient court music composers of Buganda discovered how human auditory perception processes a complex sequence of rapid, irregular sound impulses by splitting the total image into perceptible units at different pitch levels. They had made use of their discovery in composition, creating indirectly polyphonies of interweaving melodic lines that would suggest words to a Luganda speaker, as if some spirit


id: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-17
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa-17.md
category: reference
title: History of science and technology in Africa
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:40.805209+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-0
summary:
=== West Africa === Between 3200 BP and 1000 BP, various Central Saharan rock art sites from the Horse Period were created depicting charioteers, mostly upon horse-driven chariots and rarely upon cattle-driven chariots; these painted and engraved depictions were distributed in 81 painted and 120 engraved depictions in Algeria, 18 painted and 44 engraved depictions in Libya, 6 engraved depictions in Mali, 125 engraved depictions in Mauritania, 96 engraved depictions in Morocco, 29 engraved depictions in Niger, and 21 engraved depictions in Western Sahara, and were likely created by the Garamantes, whose ancestors were ancient Berbers and Saharan pastoralists. Rock art engravings of ox-drawn wagons and horse-driven chariots can be found in Algeria, Libya, southern Morocco, Mauritania, and Niger. At Dhar Tichitt, there is Neolithic rock art that depicts a human figure with a link in their hand, connecting him to yoked oxen that are pulling a cart. At Dhar Walata, there is Neolithic rock art that depicts a human figure in relation to an ox cart. At Bled Initi, which is a hamlet near Akreijit, there are two depictions of ox carts that have been estimated to date between 650 BCE and 380 BCE, and are consistent with the


id: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-18
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa-18.md
category: reference
title: History of science and technology in Africa
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:40.805209+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-0
summary:
=== West Africa === Fortification was a major part of defense, integral to warfare. Massive earthworks were built around cities and settlements in West Africa, typically defended by soldiers with bow and poison-tipped arrows. The earthworks are some of the largest man made structures in Africa and the world such as the walls of Benin and Sungbo's Eredo. In Central Africa, the Angola region, one find preference for ditches, which were more successful for defense against wars with Europeans. African infantry did not just include men. The state of Dahomey included all-female units, the so-called Dahomey Amazons, who were personal bodyguards of the king. The Queen Mother of Benin had her own personal army, 'The Queen's Own.' Biologicals were extensively used in many parts of Africa, most of the time in the form of poisoned arrows, but also powder spread on the war front or in the form of the poisoning of horses and water supply of the opponents. In Borgu, there were specific mixtures to kill, for hypnosis, to make the enemy bold, and to act as an antidote against the enemies' poison. A specific class of medicine-men was responsible for the making of the biologicals. In South Sudan,


id: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-19
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa-19.md
category: reference
title: History of science and technology in Africa
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:40.805209+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-0
summary:
=== Northern Africa and the Nile Valley === Carthage imported gold, copper, ivory, and slaves from tropical Africa. Carthage exported salt, cloth, metal goods. Before camels were used in the trans-Saharan trade pack animals, oxen, donkeys, mules, and horses were utilized. Extensive use of camels began in the 1st century CE. Carthage minted gold, silver, bronze, and electrum(mix gold and silver) coins mainly for fighting wars with Greeks and Romans. Most of their fighting force were mercenaries, who had to be paid. Islamic North Africa made use of the Almoravid dinar and Fatimid dinar, gold coins. The Almoravid dinar and the Fatimid dinar were printed on gold from the Sahelian empires. The ducat of Genoa and Venice and the florine of Florence were also printed on gold from the Sahelian empires. Ancient Egypt imported ivory, gold, incense, hardwood, and ostrich feather. Nubia exported gold, cotton/cotton cloth, ostrich feathers, leopard skins, ivory, ebony, and iron/iron weapons. === West Africa and the Sahel === Cowries have been used as currency in West Africa since the 11th century when their use was first recorded near Old Ghana. Its use may have been much older. Sijilmasa in present-day Morocco seems to be a major


id: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-20
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa-20.md
category: reference
title: History of science and technology in Africa
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:40.805209+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-and-technology-in-africa-20260505-0
summary:
=== West Africa === Igbo Olokun, also known as Olokun Grove, may be one of the earliest workshops for producing glass in West Africa. Glass production may have begun during, if not before, the 11th century. The 11th–15th century were the peak of glass production. High lime, high alumina (HLHA) and low lime, high alumina (LLHA) glass are distinct compositions that were developed using locally sourced recipes, raw materials, and pyrotechnology. The presence of HLHA glass beads discovered throughout West Africa (e.g., Igbo-Ukwu in southern Nigeria, Gao and Essouk in Mali, and Kissi in Burkina Faso), after the ninth century CE, reveals the broader importance of this glass industry in the region and shows its participation in regional trade networks (e.g., trans-Saharan trade, trans-Atlantic trade). Glass beads served as "the currency for negotiating political power, economic relations, and cultural/spiritual values" for "Yoruba, West Africans, and the African diaspora." == Science and traditional worldviews == Bandama and Babalola (2023) states: The view of science as "embedded practice", intimately connected with ritual, for example, is considered "ascientific", "pseudo-science", or "magic" in Western perspective. In Africa, there is a strong connection between the physical and the terrestrial worlds. The deities and gods are


id: science-and-technology-in-germany-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_Germany-0.md
category: reference
title: Science and technology in Germany
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_Germany
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:43.618760+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-and-technology-in-germany-20260505-0
summary:
Science and technology in Germany has a long and illustrious history, and research and development efforts form an integral part of the country's economy. Germany has been the home of some of the most prominent researchers in various scientific disciplines, notably physics, mathematics, chemistry and engineering. Before World War II, Germany had produced more Nobel laureates in scientific fields than any other nation, and was the preeminent country in the natural sciences. Germany is currently the nation with the 3rd most Nobel Prize winners, 115. The German language, along with English and French, was one of the leading languages of science from the late 19th century until the end of World War II. After the war, because so many scientific researchers' and teachers' careers had been ended either by Nazi Germany which started a brain drain, the denazification process, the American Operation Paperclip and Soviet Operation Osoaviakhim which exacerbated the brain drain in post-war Germany, or simply losing the war, "Germany, German science, and German as the language of science had all lost their leading position in the scientific community." Today, scientific research in the country is supported by industry, the network of German universities and scientific state-institutions such as


id: science-and-technology-in-germany-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_Germany-1.md
category: reference
title: Science and technology in Germany
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_Germany
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:43.618760+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-and-technology-in-germany-20260505-0
summary:
Johannes Kepler discovered the laws according to which planets are moving around the Sun, who were called Kepler's laws after him. With his introduction to calculating with logarithms, Kepler contributed to the spread of this type of calculation. In mathematics, a numerical method for calculating the volume of wine barrels with integrals was named former Kepler's barrel rule. He made optics to a subject of scientific investigation and confirmed the discoveries made with the telescope by his Italian contemporary Galileo Galilei (1564–1642). He worked on the theory of the telescope and invented the refracting astronomical or Keplerian telescope, which involved a considerable improvement over the Galilean telescope. Kepler also made the invention of the valveless gear pump, because a mine owner needed a device to pump water out of his mine. === Physics === Otto von Guericke (1602–1686) was a scientist, inventor, mathematician and physicist from Magdeburg. He is best known for his experiments on air pressure using the Magdeburg hemispheres. With the invention of the vacuum pump he laid the foundation of vacuum technology. Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736) was a physicist and inventor of measuring instruments from Danzig. The temperature unit degrees Fahrenheit (°F) was named after him. Gustav


id: science-and-technology-in-germany-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_Germany-2.md
category: reference
title: Science and technology in Germany
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_Germany
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:43.618760+00:00
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parent: science-and-technology-in-germany-20260505-0
summary:
Germany has been the home of many famous inventors and engineers, such as Johannes Gutenberg, who is credited with the invention of movable type printing press in Europe; Hans Geiger, the creator of the Geiger counter; and Konrad Zuse, who built the first electronic computer. German inventors, engineers and industrialists such as Zeppelin, Siemens, Daimler, Otto, Wankel, Von Braun and Benz helped shape modern automotive and air transportation technology including the beginnings of space travel. The engineer Otto Lilienthal laid some of the fundamentals for the science of aviation. The physicist and optician Ernst Abbe (1840–1905) founded in the 19th century together with the entrepreneurs Carl Zeiss (1840–1905) and Otto Schott (1851–1935) the basics of modern Optical engineering and developed many optical instruments like microscopes and telescopes. Since 1899 he was the sole owner of the Carl Zeiss AG and played a decisive role of setting up the enterprise Jenaer Glaswerk Schott & Gen (today Schott AG). These enterprises are very successful worldwide up to present time (21st century). The engineer Rudolf Diesel (1858–1913) was the inventor of an internal combustion engine, the Diesel engine. He first published his idea of an engine with a particularly high level of efficiency


id: science-and-technology-in-germany-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_Germany-3.md
category: reference
title: Science and technology in Germany
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_Germany
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:43.618760+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-and-technology-in-germany-20260505-0
summary:
Besides natural sciences, German researchers have added much to the development of humanities. Albertus Magnus (c. 1200–1280) was a polymath, philosopher, lawyer, natural scientist, theologian, Dominican and Bishop of Regensburg. His great, diverse knowledge earned him the name Magnus ("the Great"), the title of Doctor of the Church and the honorary title of doctor universalis. Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768) was a German art historian and archaeologist, "the prophet and founding hero of modern archaeology". Heinrich Schliemann (1822–1890) was a wealthy businessman and a devotee of the historicity of places mentioned in the works of Homer and an archaeological excavator of Hisarlik (since 1871), now presumed to be the site of Troy, along with the Mycenaean sites Mycenae and Tiryns. Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) is widely counted as one of the greatest classicists of the 19th century; his work regarding Roman history is still of fundamental importance for contemporary research. Max Weber (1864–1920) was together with Karl Marx (1818–1883) among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society and is regarded as one of the founder of the Sociology. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was a philosopher of the Enlightenment and professor of logic and metaphysics in Königsberg. Kant is one


id: science-and-technology-in-germany-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_Germany-4.md
category: reference
title: Science and technology in Germany
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_Germany
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:43.618760+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-and-technology-in-germany-20260505-0
summary:
Benjamin List, Chemistry, 2021 Klaus Hasselmann, Physics, 2021 Reinhard Genzel, Physics, 2020 Joachim Frank, Chemistry, 2017 Thomas C. Südhof, Physiology or Medicine, 2013 Harald zur Hausen, Physiology or Medicine, 2008 Gerhard Ertl, Chemistry, 2007 Peter Grünberg, Physics, 2007 Theodor W. Hänsch, Physics, 2005 Wolfgang Ketterle, Physics, 2001 Herbert Kroemer, Physics, 2000 Günter Blobel, Physiology or Medicine, 1999 Horst L. Störmer, Physics, 1998 Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, Physiology or Medicine, 1995 Reinhard Selten, Economics, 1994 Bert Sakmann, Physiology or Medicine, 1991 Erwin Neher, Physiology or Medicine, 1991 Hans G. Dehmelt, Physics, 1989 Wolfgang Paul, Physics, 1989 Johann Deisenhofer, Chemistry, 1988 Robert Huber, Chemistry, 1988 Hartmut Michel, Chemistry, 1988 J. Georg Bednorz, Physics, 1987 Ernst Ruska, Physics, 1986 Gerd Binnig, Physics, 1986 Klaus von Klitzing, Physics, 1985 Georges J.F. Köhler, Physiology or Medicine, 1984 Georg Wittig, Chemistry, 1979 Ernst Otto Fischer, Chemistry, 1973 Karl von Frisch, Physiology or Medicine, 1973 Max Delbrück, Physiology or Medicine, 1969 Manfred Eigen, Chemistry, 1967 Feodor Felix Konrad Lynen, Physiology or Medicine, 1964 Karl Ziegler, Chemistry, 1963 Maria Goeppert-Mayer, Physics, 1963 J. Hans D. Jensen, Physics, 1963 Rudolf Mössbauer, Physics, 1961 Werner Forssmann, Physiology or Medicine, 1956 Polykarp Kusch, Physics, 1955 Max Born, Physics, 1954 Walther Bothe, Physics, 1954


id: science-in-the-enlightenment-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_Enlightenment-0.md
category: reference
title: Science in the Enlightenment
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_Enlightenment
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:44.987341+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-in-the-enlightenment-20260505-0
summary:
The history of science during the Enlightenment traces developments in science and technology as Enlightenment ideas and ideals were being disseminated across Europe and North America. Generally, the period spans from the final days of the 16th- and 17th-century Scientific Revolution until roughly the 19th century, after the French Revolution (1789) and the Napoleonic era (1799–1815). The scientific revolution saw the creation of the first scientific societies, the rise of Copernicanism, and the displacement of Aristotelian natural philosophy and Galen's ancient medical doctrine. By the 18th century, scientific authority began to displace religious authority, and the disciplines of alchemy and astrology lost scientific credibility. While the Enlightenment cannot be pigeonholed into a specific doctrine or set of dogmas, science came to play a leading role in Enlightenment discourse and thought. Many Enlightenment writers and thinkers had backgrounds in the sciences and associated scientific advancement with the overthrow of religion and traditional authority in favour of the development of free speech and thought. Broadly speaking, Enlightenment science greatly valued empiricism and rational thought, and was embedded with the Enlightenment ideal of advancement and progress. As with most Enlightenment views, the benefits of science were not seen universally; Jean-Jacques Rousseau criticized the


id: science-in-the-enlightenment-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_Enlightenment-1.md
category: reference
title: Science in the Enlightenment
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_Enlightenment
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:44.987341+00:00
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parent: science-in-the-enlightenment-20260505-0
summary:
Universities in France tended to serve a downplayed role in the development of science during the Enlightenment; that role was dominated by the scientific academies, such as the French Academy of Sciences. The contributions of universities in Britain were mixed. On the one hand, the University of Cambridge began teaching Newtonianism early in the Enlightenment, but failed to become a central force behind the advancement of science. On the other end of the spectrum were Scottish universities, which had strong medical faculties and became centres of scientific development. Under Frederick II, German universities began to promote the sciences. Christian Wolff's unique blend of Cartesian-Leibnizian physics began to be adopted in universities outside of Halle. The University of Göttingen, founded in 1734, was far more liberal than its counterparts, allowing professors to plan their own courses and select their own textbooks. Göttingen also emphasized research and publication. A further influential development in German universities was the abandonment of Latin in favour of the German vernacular. In the 17th century, the Netherlands had played a significant role in the advancement of the sciences, including Isaac Beeckman's mechanical philosophy and Christiaan Huygens' work on the calculus and in astronomy. Professors at universities in


id: science-in-the-enlightenment-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_Enlightenment-2.md
category: reference
title: Science in the Enlightenment
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_Enlightenment
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:44.987341+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-in-the-enlightenment-20260505-0
summary:
The limitations of such academic journals left considerable space for the rise of independent periodicals. Some eminent examples include Johann Ernst Immanuel Walch's Der Naturforscher (The Natural Investigator) (1725–1778), Journal des sçavans (1665–1792), the Jesuit Mémoires de Trévoux (1701–1779), and Leibniz's Acta Eruditorum (Reports/Acts of the Scholars) (1682–1782). Independent periodicals were published throughout the Enlightenment and excited scientific interest in the general public. While the journals of the academies primarily published scientific papers, independent periodicals were a mix of reviews, abstracts, translations of foreign texts, and sometimes derivative, reprinted materials. Most of these texts were published in the local vernacular, so their continental spread depended on the language of the readers. For example, in 1761 Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov correctly attributed the ring of light around Venus, visible during the planet's transit, as the planet's atmosphere; however, because few scientists understood Russian outside of Russia, his discovery was not widely credited until 1910. Some changes in periodicals occurred during the course of the Enlightenment. First, they increased in number and size. There was also a move away from publishing in Latin in favour of publishing in the vernacular. Experimental descriptions became more detailed and began to be accompanied by reviews.


id: science-in-the-enlightenment-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_Enlightenment-3.md
category: reference
title: Science in the Enlightenment
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_Enlightenment
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:44.987341+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-in-the-enlightenment-20260505-0
summary:
As an Encyclopédie, it is to set forth as well as possible the order and connection of the parts of human knowledge. As a Reasoned Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Trades, it is to contain the general principles that form the basis of each science and each art, liberal or mechanical, and the most essential facts that make up the body and substance of each. The massive work was arranged according to a "tree of knowledge". The tree reflected the marked division between the arts and sciences, which was largely a result of the rise of empiricism. Both areas of knowledge were united by philosophy, or the trunk of the tree of knowledge. The Enlightenment's desacrilization of religion was pronounced in the tree's design, particularly where theology accounted for a peripheral branch, with black magic as a close neighbour. As the Encyclopédie gained popularity, it was published in quarto and octavo editions after 1777. The quarto and octavo editions were much less expensive than previous editions, making the Encyclopédie more accessible to the non-elite. Robert Darnton estimates that there were approximately 25 000 copies of the Encyclopédie in circulation throughout France and Europe before the French Revolution. The extensive,


id: science-in-the-enlightenment-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_Enlightenment-4.md
category: reference
title: Science in the Enlightenment
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_Enlightenment
date_saved: 2026-05-05T03:12:44.987341+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: science-in-the-enlightenment-20260505-0
summary:
=== Popular science in print === Increasing literacy rates in Europe during the course of the Enlightenment enabled science to enter popular culture through print. More formal works included explanations of scientific theories for individuals lacking the educational background to comprehend the original scientific text. Sir Isaac Newton's celebrated Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica was published in Latin and remained inaccessible to readers without education in the classics until Enlightenment writers began to translate and analyze the text in the vernacular. The first French introduction to Newtonianism and the Principia was Eléments de la philosophie de Newton, published by Voltaire in 1738. Émilie du Châtelet's translation of the Principia, published after her death in 1756, also helped to spread Newton's theories beyond scientific academies and the university. However, science took an ever greater step towards popular culture before Voltaire's introduction and Châtelet's translation. The publication of Bernard de Fontenelle's Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds (1686) marked the first significant work that expressed scientific theory and knowledge expressly for the laity, in the vernacular, and with the entertainment of readers in mind. The book was produced specifically for women with an interest in scientific writing and inspired a variety of similar


