Module 2: History of Technology

Question 1

The history of science and technology is the account of mankind’s curiosity, need to survive and resilience to change.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

As society and circumstances in history demand man adapts, and so we did.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

The earliest roots if the “science” that we have now were founded in the ancient “river valley” civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia.

Answer 3

Ancient Civilization

Question 4

These civilizations made important contributions in several areas that in time would become the foundation of the scientific traditions of the Greek and Romans. These areas are writing, astronomy, medicine and mathematics.

Answer 4

Ancient Civilization

Question 5

The ___________ (see Figure 5) became the inspiration for the original alphabet that was like most alphabets including the Latin alphabet.

Answer 5

Egyptian Hieroglyphs

Question 6

Egyptian have excellent calendars, they tried to reconcile the solar and lunar cycles, and established __________. Egyptian astrologers became interested in celestial phenomena because of their apparent regularity and their celestial motion.

Answer 6

established 365-day year and 24 hours a day

Question 7

___________ identify the planets with their gods; this was later adopted and further developed in Greek astrology. Babylonians created non-mathematical diaries, almanacs and numerical planetary tables. They are particularly fascinated with moon thus studied extensively lunar eclipses. Figure 6 show a tablet from Babylon with a list of eclipses between 518 and 465, mentioning the death of king Xerxes.

Answer 7

Babylonians

Question 8

Egyptians believed that diseases were mainly __________________.

Babylonians medicine has ____________. The use of pharmacological remedies (drugs) was widespread but its effectiveness was believed to be dependent on ritual conditions.

Answer 8

mainly due to an invasion of body by evil spirits

a touch of astrology

Question 9

The _________ in Figure 7 is an Egyptian medical document containing remedies for several diseases and wounds including tumors, headaches, burn, abscess and bad breath.

Answer 9

Ebers Papyrus

Question 10

There were also records of practical knowledge of many herbal remedies, as well as some surgical knowledge existed in the ancient civilizations such as in Figures 8a and 8b which shows some ancient Babylonian surgical instruments. However, the causes of diseases were not entirely understood since they associate the diseases as their Gods works.

Answer 10

Ancient Civilization

Question 11

__________ are excelled in geometry and had developed a number system that was decimal in character, employing different symbols for each power of 10 such as the one shown in Figure 9.

Meanwhile, the _________ developed the sexagesimal (base60) system.

Although they did not study genuine algebra because they lack knowledge of algebraic rules, they used arithmetic operations to solve problems for which we today can solve using quadratic equations.

Answer 11

Egyptians, Babylonians

Question 12

________ covers a wide array of practices and theories that do not resemble to modern science.

Answer 12

Greek Science

Question 13

The boundaries between disciplines were fluid during this ancient period and the definition of subjects and methodologies were discussed vigorously. Hence, it is often futile to try to draw firm boundaries between subjects such as philosophy, medical theory, mathematics, technology, astrology, and astronomy.

Answer 13

Greek and Roman

Question 14

Early Cosmology

__________ are the earliest Greek philosophers and cosmologists.

Answer 14

Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes

Question 15

Early Cosmology

They all dealt with ___________, such as earthquakes and lightning and the structure of the earth. Since they often rely on reasoning, to explain nature, rather than observation, their arguments variably weak and cannot be proven.

Answer 15

Natural Phenomena

Question 16

Astronomy
The ________ developed conceptual models of the universe during the ________ era.

Answer 16

Greek, Pre-socratic

Question 17

Astronomy:
The basic assumption is that the universe is _______ and _______ and the cosmos are finite. They thought that planets are moving in a perfect circular motion around our planet.

Answer 17

geocentric and geostatic

Question 18

Astronomy

Greek philosophy during the pre-Socratic era is characterized by mixed ___________ and ________ speculations.

Answer 18

metaphysical and physical speculations.

Question 19

Identify:
search for general, eternal principles.

Answer 19

Metaphysical

Question 20

Identify:
logical, causal explanation of phenomena

Answer 20

Physical

Question 21

Democracy:

The __________ was also highlighted by their form of governance.

Answer 21

Golden Age of Athens

Question 22

Democracy:

________ are known for their forum (as shown in Figure 11), hence the beginnings of senate/ congress in a democratic form of government .

Answer 22

Romans

Question 23

Democracy
_________ (469 BCE Athens, Greece) is the most influential philosopher.

Answer 23

Socrates

Question 24

Democracy
__________ (384 - 322 BCE Athens, Greece) accepted reality as it appeared, accepted the idea of change

Answer 24

Aristotle

Question 25

Democracy:

_______ He emphasized natural philosophy based on observation and systemic logic.

Answer 25

Aristotle

Question 26

Democracy:

____________ (90 -168 BCE Alexandria, Egypt) is a Greek-Roman astronomer, mathematician, geographer, astrologer and poet. He created a geocentric model (see Figures 14a and 14b).

Answer 26

Ptolemy

Question 27

______________ was characterized by the fall of the Roman Empire, invasions and mass migrations, thus decline in the population and counter urbanization.

Answer 27

The Early part of the Middle Age

Question 28

______________ which began after 1000, the population of Europe increased greatly as technological and agricultural innovations allowed trade to flourish.

Answer 28

During the High Middle Ages

Question 29

________________ was marked by difficulties and calamities including famine, plague, and war, which significantly diminished the population of Europe.

Answer 29

The late of the Middle age

Question 30

______________ ended massive scientific change in Europe. During the first wave of this plague, it was estimated that one third of the European population died.

Answer 30

Black Death (1347)

Question 31

______________ was a mathematician who could read Greek and used Ptolemy’s data to plot the orbits of the planets (see Figure 15). He wrote the De revolutionibus orbium (1543) coelestium and claimed “In the center of it all rests the Sun” – this overthrew the hierarchy of the ancient and medieval cosmos.

Answer 31

Nicolas Copernicus

Question 32

______________ is the Father of Scientific Revolution. He wrote the Novum organon (1620) to describe Baconian method of science (see Figure 16). He developed the scientific method using induction of data from experiments. He put emphasis on practical and useful knowledge, thus he encouraged the discovery of laws of science rather than using logic based deductive arguments.

Answer 32

Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626)

Question 33

_________________ during his time is the “game changer” of Astronomy. He invented the telescope, saw sunspots, phases of Venus, Lunar craters, Moons of Jupiter, and saw that Milky Way is made of stars (see Figure 17a and 17b). He wrote the Dialogo (1632) in Italian for the public, compared the Ptolemaic system unfavorably over the Copernican Model, and for that, he was tried by inquisition in 1633. He also studied the Math of Motion, Pendulum, falling objects and projectiles.

Answer 33

Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642)

Question 34

______________ is a French Mathematician and Philosopher (see Figure 18). He is the Father of modern western philosophy; much philosophy is based on his writings. He abandoned scholastic Aristotelianism and became the first modern version of mind-body dualism. He promoted science grounded in observation and experiment, created Cartesian view of the Universe – a mechanistic view of nature, and coined term “molecule”.

Answer 34

Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650)

Question 35

_____________ wrote the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathe-matica in 1667 (see Figure 19). He studied terrestrial and celestial mechanics using Euclidean theorems and his calculus. His work in dynamics, alchemy and theology are well-known.

In module 1, we sited how he utilized his quarantine time by formulating the Theory of Light, the Theory of Motion and the Theory of Gravity.

Answer 35

Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727)

Question 36

The ______ century brought decisive steps towards modern science, which accelerated during the 18th century.

Answer 36

17th

Question 37

_____________ was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist. He is best known for his contributions to the science of evolution (See Figures 21a and 21b). He wrote the Theory of the Origin of Species (1844). He proposed that all species of life have evolved over time from a single simple organism; He also introduced the theory of natural selection, whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring.

Answer 37

Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882)

Question 38

_________________ in an American astronomer who discovered other galaxies profoundly changing the way we look at the Universe (see Figures 22a and 22b). He proposed Hubble’s Law and explained that the universe was expanding and that galaxies move away from the Milky Way at a speed directly proportionate to the distance from it. He is one of the most influential astronomers since the times of Galileo, Kepler and Newton.

Answer 38

Edwin Hubble (1889 – 1953)

Question 39

____________ is a German theoretical physicist (see Figure 23). He developed the theory of relativity whereby proposing the famous equation in the conversion of mass to energy.

Answer 39

Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955)

Question 40

______________ English theoretical physicist and cosmologist. He is a world famous author and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge (see Figure 24). He is well-known for his written works about Black hole, The Big Bang Theory, and Artificial Intelligences.

Answer 40

Stephen Hawking

Question 41

The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge

Answer 41

Stephen Hawking