Early Modern (15th-18th Century)

The Milestones of Science" is a collection of first editions by world famous early scientists that form a veritable history of science, acquired in the late 1930s by the Museum of Science in Buffalo, New York, and now housed by the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library.
The relevance of science can hardly be overstated; it dominates the world in which we live. The discoveries made by the early modern astronomers Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei and Sir Isaac Newton helped us to understand the universe in which we live. The early studies of the first modern physicians Andreas Vesalius, William Harvey, Edward Jenner, Joseph Lister and Louis Pasteur made it possible for us to live longer and healthier lives than ever before. The current era owes a profound debt to the dozens of early scientists in fields as various as geology, biology, chemistry, mathematics and physics, whose works are represented in the Milestones Collection. Without their pioneering efforts, it is doubtful if the new Age of the Computer would have been possible.

Study of Physics and Chemistry; Theories about Heat and Elementary Particles; Wave Nature of Sound and Light; Types of Motion; Physical Phenomenon such as Elasticity, Viscosity, Surface Tension, Magnetism etc; Comparisons with European Science after the 13th C:

Euclid (Alexandria) In his Optica he noted that light travels in straight lines and described the law of reflection. He believed that vision involves rays going from the eyes to the object seen and he studied the relationship between the apparent sizes of objects and the angles that they subtend at the eye

Robert Hooke's father was John Hooke who was a curate at All Saints Church in Freshwater on the Isle of Wight. Although formally a curate, since the minister was also Dean of Gloucester Cathedral and of Wells, John Hooke was left in charge of All Saints. It was a well off church being in the patronage of St John's College, Cambridge. As well as his duties in the church, John Hooke also ran a small school attached to the church and acted as a private tutor. Robert had a brother named John, the same as his father, who was five years older.

ASAP is an organisation that aims to provide access to Australia's scientific, technological and medical heritage. It has links with Australia's major scientific and cultural institutions including the National Library of Australia, Australian Archives, the Australian Academy of Science and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.

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]

Explorer, navigational expert, mathematician, scientist and astronomer Thomas Harriot was born in Oxford about 1560. In 1577 he entered St. Mary's Hall (a subsidiary of Oriel College) and in 1580, shortly after he was graduated B.A., he joined the household of Walter Ralegh. There he prepared Arcticon, a navigational text which has not survived. He also encouraged Ralegh to follow in the footsteps of Sir Humphrey Gilbert in exploring and colonizing the New World. After Gilbert's death in 1583, Ralegh, with Harriot's help, prepared for an expedition to America. Although Ralegh hoped to command the 1584 voyage, Queen Elizabeth would not permit him to do so. Harriot may have gone on this voyage because there is some evidence that it was at this time that he learned the Algonquian language.

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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.