Bedlam: Custody Care and Cure 1247-1997 at the Museum of London until 15 March 1998. This exhibition tells the fascinating 750-year-old story of Bethlem Royal Hospital, popularly known as 'Bedlam'.
Bethlem is the world's oldest institution caring for people with mental disorders. It has been a part of London since 1247 and many people, rich and poor, have played a part in its history
Many things are known about optics: the rectilinearity of light rays; the law of reflection; transparency of materials; that rays passing obliquely from less dense to more dense medium is refracted toward the perpendicular of the interface; general laws for the relationship between the apparent location of an object in reflections and refractions; the existence of metal mirrors (glass mirrors being a 19th century invention).
Brahmagupta (598-670) writes Khandakhadyaka which solves quadratic equations and allows for the possibility of negative solutions.
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1136 Abraham bar Hiyya Ha-Nasi writes the work Hibbur ha-Meshihah ve-ha-Tishboret, translated in 1145 into Latin as Liber embadorum, which presents the first complete solution to the quadratic equation.
1484 Nicolas Chuquet (1445-1500) writes Triparty en la sciences des nombres. The fourth part of which contains the "Regle des premiers," or the rule of the unknown, what we would today call an algebra. He introduced an exponential notation, allowing positive, negative, and zero powers. In solving general equations he showed that some equations lead to imaginary solutions, but dismisses them ("Tel nombre est ineperible").
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Perseus is an evolving digital library, engineering interactions through time, space, and language. Our primary goal is to bring a wide range of source materials to as large an audience as possible. We anticipate that greater accessibility to the sources for the study of the humanities will strengthen the quality of questions, lead to new avenues of research, and connect more people through the connection of ideas.
The Medieval Technology Pages are an attempt to provide accurate, referenced information on technological innovation and related subjects in western Europe during the Middle Ages. There are several ways to access this information. The most direct method is through the Subject Index which provides direct access to all the technology pages. Many of the articles are also present in a historical Timeline. And material can be found by examining the References which back-reference all articles through the sources used.
Ancient Greeks struggled to understand the nature of matter
Empedocles (around 490 to 444 BC) thought there were four original elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water. He thought everything else came about through their combination and/or separation by the two opposite principles of Love and Strife.
Leucippus (around 460 to 420 BC) and Democritus (around 460 to 370 BC), supposedly a pupil of Leucippus, are considered the founders of atomism. Leucippus regarded atoms as imperceptible, individual particles that differ only in shape and position.
Plato (about 427 to 347 BC) in his work, the Timaeus, proposes a mathematical construction of the elements - earth, air, fire, water. Each of these elements is said to consist of particles or primary bodies. Each particle is a regular geometrical solid- the cube, tetrahedron, octahedron and icosahedron. Each of these particles is composed of simple right triangles. The particles are like the molecules of the theory; the triangles are its atoms.
Plato's beliefs as regards the universe were that the stars, planets, Sun and Moon move round the Earth in crystalline spheres. The sphere of the Moon was closest to the Earth, then the sphere of the Sun, then Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and furthest away was the sphere of the stars. He believed that the Moon shines by reflected sunlight.
Between 1339 and 1351 AD, a pandemic of plague traveled from China to Europe, known in Western history as The Black Death. Carried by rats and fleas along the Silk Road Caravan routes and Spice trading sea routes, the Black Death reached the Mediterranean Basin in 1347, and was rapidly carried throughout Europe from what was then the center of European trade. Eventually, even areas of European settlement as isolated as Viking settlements in Greenland would be ravaged by the plague. By the time these plagues had run their course in 1351, between 25 and 50% of the population of Europe was dead. An equally high toll was exacted from the populations of Arabia, North Africa, South Asia, and East Asia. This paper will examine the role of trade in the spread of the plague.
The Era of Biological Energy Sources: 9000 BC to AD 600
Between 9000 BC and 6000: Plants and animals are domesticated.
6000 BC: Copper artifacts are common in the Middle East.
4000 BC: Light wooden plows are used in Mesopotamia.
3500 BC: Kiln-fired bricks and pots are made in Mesopotamia.
3500 BC: Irrigation is developed in Mesopotamia.
"Faith and Reason" is an hour-length documentary about the interaction between science and religion, both historically and today. Through interviews with leading scientists and theologians, the program explores the history of the relationship between these two fields, and reveals that, contrary to widespread popular opinion, for most of history science and religion have been deeply entwined. Moreover, the program looks at a growing movment of scientists and theologians around the world today who believe that faith and reason can support one another. Here we consider issues in evolutionary biology, cosmology, genetics, and technology.
