Mod 1 Notes

Question 1

What’s the point of the history of science?

Answer 1

It helps you understand how science should and shouldn’t be practiced.

Question 2

When are the oldest science records we have today from?

Answer 2

Around 3,000 BC.

Question 3

Where did medical care start?

Answer 3

Ancient Egypt.

Question 4

What method did the Egyptian doctors begin with?

Answer 4

Trial and error.

Question 5

Who was Imhotep?

Answer 5

He was a physician around 2650 BC.

Question 6

What was special about Imhotep?

Answer 6

He was well known for his dependability and people came from hundreds of miles away hoping he had a cure for them.

Question 7

What did Egyptian doctors use moldy bread for?

Answer 7

Treating open wounds.

Question 8

Why did the moldy bread method work?

Answer 8

Some bread molds make penicillin.

Question 9

What did Egyptian doctors use poppy seeds for?

Answer 9

Pain relief.

Question 10

What is in poppy seeds that helps with pain relief so well that it’s still used today?

Answer 10

Morphine and codeine.

Question 11

When did the Egyptians create papyrus?

Answer 11

As far back as 5,000 years ago.

Question 12

How did the Egyptians make papyrus?

Answer 12

They took the bendy stems of the plant, cut them in thin strips, laid the them crossing over each other, and wet them.

Question 13

When the papyrus dried, what happened?

Answer 13

It made a sort of paper scroll, which they called papyrus after the plant.

Question 14

What was made in Mesopotamia at the same time as papyrus was in Egypt?

Answer 14

The potter’s wheel, and with it, pottery.

Question 15

What was in existence the same time as the potter’s wheel and papyrus?

Answer 15

The horse-drawn chariot.

Question 16

What did the Chinese make around 1,000 BC?

Answer 16

The compass.

Question 17

Why do most historians not think of Egyptians as scientists?

Answer 17

Because they didn’t formulate general laws.

Question 18

Who was Thales?

Answer 18

He was an ancient Greek astronomer around the 640s-540s BC.

Question 19

What was special about Thales?

Answer 19

He correctly predicted a solar eclipse, or as he called it, a “short-term disappearance of the sun.”

Question 20

Who was Anaximenes?

Answer 20

He was an ancient “chemist” around 546 BC.

Question 21

What was special about Anaximenes?

Answer 21

He was probably an associate of Anaximander. He believed air was the most basic material and that everything was made of air.

Question 22

Who was Anaximander?

Answer 22

He was a “biologist” around 500 BC.

Question 23

What was special about Anaximander?

Answer 23

He was likely one of Thales’s students. He came up with the theory of evolution from fish (before Charles Darwin.)

Question 24

Who was Leucippus?

Answer 24

He was a Greek scientist who proposed that all matter is composed of little units called atoms around the early 400s BC.

Question 25

Who was Democritus?

Answer 25

He was a scientist and student of Leucippus around 460-370 BC.

Question 26

What was special about Democritus?

Answer 26

He came up with the sand:atom analogy. Some materials are more tightly packed together than others. That’s what makes them behave differently from each other.

Question 27

Who were the first true scientists?

Answer 27

The ancient Greeks.

Question 28

What’s the best way to write a hypothesis?

Answer 28

With an if/then statement.

Question 29

What is plagiarism?

Answer 29

Copying someone else’s words; be sure to write in your own words.

Question 30

When was Aristotle around?

Answer 30

384-322 BC

Question 31

What is Aristotle called?

Answer 31

The father of life science.

Question 32

What did Aristotle do?

Answer 32

He was the first to come up with a system to classify animals and plants, placing them into groups based on their similarities.

Question 33

When was Archimedes around?

Answer 33

287-212 BC

Question 34

What did Archimedes do?

Answer 34

He applied mathematical formulas to explain why certain things happened the way they did.

Question 35

What is the Fields Medal?

Answer 35

A medal with the image of Archimedes and words that translate to “rise above oneself and grasp the world;” it’s awarded every 4 years to recognize outstanding mathematical achievement.

Question 36

When was Ptolemy around?

Answer 36

AD 100-170

Question 37

What did Ptolemy assume?

Answer 37

Earth was the center of the universe, a hypothesis known as the geometric or Ptolemaic system. It was believed until around the 1600s.

Question 38

When and what were the Dark Ages?

Answer 38

After the first few centuries AD, scientific progress drastically slowed, as there was little desire for explaining and real experimental science was discouraged.

Question 39

What was the main goal of alchemists?

Answer 39

To find a way to transform lead/inexpensive materials into gold/precious substances.

Question 40

What does scientific progress depend on?

Answer 40

Scientists, government, and culture.

Question 41

How does science progress?

Answer 41

By building on the work of previous scientists.