Middle Ages (5th-15th Century)

"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.

Welcome to the Electronic Grosseteste, a web-site dedicated to providing electronic access to the Latin works of Robert Grosseteste (ca. 1170-1253). Materials relating to Grosseteste's life, and the thirteenth century may also be found here. The first phase of this project has recently received funding from the British Academy Users are welcome to make copies of public domain texts, but there are copyright notices concerning specific texts and images . This site went will continue to expand over the next two years. All comments are welcome, especially those that will enhance its usefulness

The "Department Archive for History of Science" consists of five collections:
1. The administration archive. ( to collect and to document the history of the NHMW )
2. The collection of letters and bequests (Letters and part bequests)
3. The picture collection
4. The photograph - und glass plate negative collection ( photos und glass plates)
5. The collection of busts, small dioramas, object sources, as far as they don’t belong
to collection 1. or 2., e.g. early microscopic slides by emperor Ferdinand I.

A few miles farther on, we came to a big, gravelly roadcut that looked like an ashfall, a mudflow, glacial till, and fresh oatmeal, imperfectly blended. "I don't know what this glop is," [Kenneth Deffeyes] said, in final capitulation. "You need a new geologist. You need a Californian."
John McPhee, Assembling California, p. 11 [The Noonday Press; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1993]

Claudius Ptolemy was an astronomer and mathematician of the 2c A.D., whose exact dates we do not know, but who must apparently have worked in Alexandria between A.D. 127 and 148 since some of his astronomical observations are consistent with those dates.
(Thus the Oxford Classical Dictionary. The Geography itself also provides at least one clue, listing the Egyptian city of Antinoöpolis, founded in A.D. 130.)

The main ideas which underpin the calculus developed over a very long period of time indeed. The first steps were taken by Greek mathematicians.

To the Greeks numbers were ratios of integers so the number line had "holes" in it. They got round this difficulty by using lengths, areas and volumes in addition to numbers for, to the Greeks, not all lengths were numbers.

Until recently modern thinkers believed rubber originated in 19th century Europe. According to a Tech Talk article published by Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday, July 14, 1999, Professor Dorothy Hosler, Assistant Professor Sandra Burkett and an undergraduate named Michael Tarkanian learned that the Mayan people in ancient Mesoamerica made and used rubber as long ago as 1600 BCE.

Many people view genetic engineering as a relatively new field of scientific pursuit, but in fact the techniques that are in use today are the result of a series of landmark discoveries that were made over a period spanning more than 125 years. This article presents a timeline of key discoveries that have culminated in the human genome project, an international effort to decipher the sequence of the 3 billion base pair subunits of DNA which reside in the chromosomes of human beings.

Hundreds of researchers have made significant contributions to cognitive science. What follows is a set of short academic biographies of people whom we believe should be counted on anyone's list of important contributors; the work of many of them is discussed in the Companion. Not every important figure is included; and some people are included, especially from the history of cognitive science, who would not describe, or could not have described, themselves as cognitive scientists despite their considerable impact on the field. We trust that the list will be useful to students doing research in cognitive science and to readers who wish to familiarize themselves with the work of specific contributors.

For over two thousand years people have thought about the fundamental particles from which all matter is made, starting with the gradual development of atomic theory, followed by a deeper understanding of the quantized atom, leading to the recent theory of the Standard Model.
We invite you to explore this history of particle physics with a focus on the scientists and thinkers who helped shape the field of particle physics. The four sections are arranged chronologically.