Non-scientists often perceive science as a dry, boring vocation pursued by dry, boring people. Contrary to popular perception, science has actually been the product of fascinating people seeking to explain the world around them. From Galileo's difficulties with the Inquisition, to the quirkiness of Newton, to the iconic figure that was Einstein, this innovative volume chronicles the history of science using extensive passages from the works of the scientists themselves. Who better to appeal to our common sense concerning the truth of a sun-centered universe than Copernicus himself? Kepler expresses in his own words the way in which he awoke to the revelation of elliptical orbits, and Darwin shares his slowly evolving ideas leading to the theory of natural selection. Part biography, part history, this work reveals the personalities behind the world's most significant scientific discoveries, providing an interesting new perspective on the human endeavor we call science. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

When it was first published in 1992, The Beginnings of Western Science was lauded as the first successful attempt ever to present a unified account of both ancient and medieval science in a single volume. Chronicling the development of scientific ideas, practices, and institutions from pre-Socratic Greek philosophy to late-Medieval scholasticism, David C. Lindberg surveyed all the most important themes in the history of science, including developments in cosmology, astronomy, mechanics, optics, alchemy, natural history, and medicine. In addition, he offered an illuminating account of the transmission of Greek science to medieval Islam and subsequently to medieval Europe. The Beginnings of Western Science was, and remains, a landmark in the history of science, shaping the way students and scholars understand these critically formative periods of scientific development. It reemerges here in a second edition that includes revisions on nearly every page, as well as several sections that have been completely rewritten. For example, the section on Islamic science has been thoroughly retooled to reveal the magnitude and sophistication of medieval Muslim scientific achievement. And the book now reflects a sharper awareness of the importance of Mesopotamian science for the development of Greek astronomy. In all, the second edition of The Beginnings of Western Science captures the current state of our understanding of more than two millennia of science and promises to continue to inspire both students and general readers.

"[P.D. Ouspensky's] yearning for a transcendent, timeless reality—one that cancels out physical disintegration and death—figures into science at some fundamental level. Einstein found solace in his theory of relativity, which suggested to him that events are ever-present in the space-time continuum. When his friend Michele Besso passed on shortly before his own death, he wrote: 'For us believing physicists the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, even if a stubborn one.'" —from Magic, Mystery, and Science The triumph of science would appear to have routed all other explanations of reality. No longer does astrology or alchemy or magic have the power to explain the world to us. Yet at one time each of these systems of belief, like religion, helped shed light on what was dark to our understanding. Nor have the occult arts disappeared. We humans have a need for mystery and a sense of the infinite. Magic, Mystery, and Science presents the occult as a "third stream" of belief, as important to the shaping of Western civilization as Greek rationalism or Judeo-Christianity. The occult seeks explanations in a world that is living and intelligent—quite unlike the one supposed by science. By taking these beliefs seriously, while keeping an eye on science, this book aims to capture some of the power of the occult. Readers will discover that the occult has a long history that reaches back to Babylonia and ancient Egypt. It proceeds alongside, and frequently mingles with, religion and science. From the Egyptian Book of the Dead to New Age beliefs, from Plato to Adolf Hitler, occult ways of knowing have been used—and hideously abused—to explain a world that still tempts us with the knowledge of its dark secrets.

Presented in an informal, narrative style, this text looks at science, from the ancient world , to medieval science, the scientific revolution, through to 20th century physics. This edition offers more coverage of 20th century history , wars, and technology; more on Albert Einstein; and more on quantum mechanics and philosophy. For all those interested in science, history, philosophy, physics, and engineering.

Cited frequently, but analyzed rarely, the rise of the synthetic dyestuffs industry and the nature of its technology have, until the present work, remained poorly understood. This has led to the perpetuation of several misconceptions, such as the belief that the industry was wholly science-based from the start.

The Japanese first encountered Western scientific technology around 1543, when the Portuguese drifted ashore and left them firearms. For the next few centuries Japan's policy of national isolation severely limited contact with the West. In the middle of the nineteenth century, when Commodore Perry introduced the Japanese to a few of the West's technological achievements, they realized how vulnerable their technological ignorance made them and felt great pressure to master Western science as quickly as possible. In The Japanese and Western Science, Masao Watanabe succinctly examines the intersection of Western science and Japanese culture since Japan's opening to the West. Using case studies, including a Japanese scientist trained in the West and foreign teachers brought to Japan, he describes how the Japanese quickly and effectively accepted Western science and technology. Yet Japan, eager to catch up, sought for the fruits of science rather than its cultural and religious roots or the processes that allowed it to flourish. The author contends that this resulted in a lack of integration of the new science into Japanese culture with the resulting strains in people's lives, their education, in research, in international affairs, and in environmental pollution. The central three chapters focus on Darwin, how his views were introduced, what aspects were of most interest—survival of the fittest rather than the common origins of animals and humans—and how one Japanese biologist sought to blend social Darwinism and Buddhist ideas. In one of the summarizing chapters, Watanabe contrasts the Western and Japanese conceptions of nature, and points out that the latter has tended to make the Japanese rely on mother nature to cope with the effects of human actions, no matter what these might be. The book is the product of painstaking research and penetrating insight by a Japanese scholar who has firsthand knowledge of Western science and culture.

There can be little doubt that the Greek tradition of philosophical criticism had its main source in Ionia. . . It thus leads the tradition which created the rational or scienti?c attitude, and with it our Western civilization, the only civilization, which is based upon science (though, of course, not upon science alone). Karl Popper, Back to the Presocratics Harvard University physicist and historian of Science, Gerald Holton, coined the term “Ionian Enchantment”, an expression that links the idea back in the 6th c- tury B. C. to the ancient Ionians along the eastern Aegean coast, while capturing its fascination. Approximately within a seventy- ve year period (600–525 B. C. ) -a split second in the history of humanity- the three Milesian thinkers, Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes, without plain evidence, but with an unequalled power of critical abstraction and intuition, had achieved a true intellectual re- lution; they founded and bequeathed to future generations a new, unprecedented way of theorizing the world; it could be summarized in four statements: beneath the apparent disorder and multiplicity of the cosmos, there exists order, unity and stability; unity derives from the fundamental primary substratum from which the cosmos originated; this, and, consequently, the cosmic reality, is one, and is based not on supernatural, but on physical causes; they are such that man can - vestigate them rationally. These four statements are neither self-evident nor se- explanatory.

Artisan/Practitioners offers an introduction to the history of science through new discussion of an influential thesis in the discipline. The "Zilsel thesis" argues that artisans, craftsmen, and other practitioners exerted an important influence on the development of empirical methodologies in the Scientific Revolution, the "new sciences" of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.