A comprehensive overview of the interconnections between the history of western civilization and the history
of science, this volume examines the evolution of science and scientific thought from ancient times to present.
Framed in a lively narrative style, the book also explores the human side of science, fundamental concepts and
models in all sciences, and the general ideas behind scientific developments.
Reveals how the social, religious, political, cultural, and other external factors blend with individual psychology,
the book focuses on the rational and irrational factors that motivate thinkers to construct a science.
Describes each historical period through its own standards and presuppositions.
Expands its coverage of 16th-19th century scientific and cultural history, and presents new interpretations of
Einstein and quantum theory.
Contains more information on the general cultural context in which science is embedded and the personal, psychological
forces at work (i.e. Einstein and Einstein-Bohr debate).
Table of Contents
I. BEGINNINGS: SCIENCE IN ANTIQUITY.
1. Man, Gods, and the Cosmos.
2. Lighting the Lamp: Early Greece.
3. The Elements of All Things: Numbers and Ideas.
4. The First Scientist: Aristotle.
5. The Temple of the Muses: Science after Aristotle.
6. Greek to Latin: Science in the Age of Rome.
II. REASON AND FAITH: THE MIDDLE AGES.
7. Athens and Jerusalem: Pagan Science and Christianity.
8. The Cosmic Garden: Islamic Science and the Twelfth Century Renaissance.
9. The Errors of the Philosophers.
10. The Gate and the Key: Empiricism, Mathematics, and Experiment.
11. Medieval Skeptics. Interlude: Chickens and the Scientific Method.
III. THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION.
12. "Man Can Do All Things..." The Renaissance.
13. The Earth Moves!
14. From Magic to Mechanism.
15. The Language of Nature: Galileo.
16. "Such a Wonderful Uniformity."
17. Skeptical Chemists.
18. Optimism, or Cultivating the Garden.
IV. LIFE ITSELF.
19. The Dark Abyss of Time.
20. The Law of Higgledly-Piggledy.
21. Progress in the Nineteenth Century: Life and Matter.
22. Progress in the Nineteenth Century: Classical Physics.
V. THE SECOND REVOLUTION AND BEYOND.
23. Strange New World: Relativity.
24. The Story ofh.
25. Things Past, Things to Come: Cosmology.
26. The Secret of Life.
