Page 370 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

science—overview 1671

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your
sources. • Albert Einstein (1879–1955)

modern astronomer to suggest that the earth might be Scientific research was supported by the creation of sci-
orbiting the sun; Brahe’s careful astronomical observa- entific societies and journals, the introduction of science
tions provided the empirical base for Copernicus’s theo- courses in universities, and the creation of research labo-
ries, and Kepler’s calculations showed that the new ratories by businesses. The last two developments were
model of the universe worked much better if it was both pioneered in Germany.The word scientist was first
assumed that heavenly bodies traveled in ellipses rather used in the 1840s. Meanwhile, the spread of scientific
than circles. Galileo used the newly invented telescope to approaches to the study of reality and the increasing
show that heavenly bodies were as scarred and blemished scope of scientific theory began to yield significant tech-
as the earth, an observation that raised the intriguing pos- nological innovations in health care, manufacturing, and
sibility that the heavens might be subject to the same laws warfare. Particularly important were innovations in trans-
as the earth. Newton clinched this powerful unifying idea portation and communications, such as the invention of
by showing that both the earth and the heavens—the trains and planes and the introduction of postal services,
very small and the very large—were subject to the same the telegraph, the telephone, and eventually the Internet,
basic laws of motion. And this suggested the possibility because these innovations expanded the scale and quick-
that the universe as a whole might run according to gen- ened the pace of information exchanges.
eral, abstract laws rather than according to the dictates of In the twentieth century, a series of new scientific the-
divine beings. Galileo’s discovery of millions of new ories appeared that refined the orthodoxies of eigh-
stars also suggested that the universe might be much teenth- and nineteenth-century science. Einstein’s theory
larger than had been supposed, while Anthony van of relativity demonstrated that space and time were not
Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723), the pioneer of modern absolute frames of reference, while the quantum theory
microscopy, showed that at small scales there was also showed that, at the very smallest scales, reality itself
more to reality than had been imagined.Taken together, does not behave in the predictable, mechanical ways
the theories of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries assumed by earlier theories. Big bang cosmology, which
transformed traditional views of the universe in ways that has dominated cosmological thought since the 1960s,
threatened to decenter human beings and throw into demonstrated that the universe, far from being eternal
question God’s role in managing the universe. It was no and infinite, had a history, beginning many billions of
wonder, then, that many feared that the new science years ago, while the theory of plate tectonics, which
might undermine religious faith. appeared at about the same time, provided the founda-
Since the seventeenth century, the global information tions for a unified theory of geology and a detailed his-
exchanges that stimulated the scientific breakthroughs of tory of the formation and evolution of the earth. In
the scientific revolution have accelerated and affected biology, Francis Crick (1916–2004) and James Watson
more and more of the world.The prestige of the new sci- (b. 1928) described the structure of DNA in 1953; their
ences was particularly high in the era of the Enlighten- work laid the foundations for modern evolutionary the-
ment (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries), and ory and modern genetic technologies. Meanwhile, the
encouraged more and more investigators to study the scale of scientific research itself expanded as govern-
world using the techniques and assumptions of the sci- ments and corporations began to fund special research
entific revolution. In the eighteenth and nineteenth cen- facilities, sometimes to fulfill national objectives, as was
turies, scientific investigations yielded powerful new the case with the Manhattan Project, which designed the
theories in fields as diverse as medicine (the germ theory), first atomic weapons.
chemistry (the atomic theory and the periodic table), the
study of electromagnetism (the unified theory of electro- Outlook
magnetism), energetics (theories of thermodynamics), Recent scholarship suggests that it is a mistake to see
geology, and biology (natural selection). modern science as fundamentally different from all other