The history of science and technology

THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Bryan Bunch Alexander Hellemans HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The History of Science and Technology A Browser’s Guide to the Great Discoveries, Inventions, and the People Who Made Them, from the Dawn of Time to Today THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY BRYAN BUNCH with ALEXANDER HELLEMANS HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY / BOSTON • NEW YORK / 2004 Copyright © 2004 by Bryan Bunch and Alexander Hellemans all rights reserved For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003 Visit our Web site: www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available isbn 0-618-22123-9 printed in the united states of america Book Design: Robert Overholtzer and G & H Soho, Inc Produced by Scientific Publishing, Inc Editorial Assistant: Marianne Bunch Composition and paging: G & H Soho, Inc (Kathie Kounouklos) Copyediting: Felice Levy Illustration Research: Susan Hormuth VB 10 Contents Introduction vii Science and Technology before Scientists: through 599 BCE viii OVERVIEW: The Stone Ages Knowledge among huntergatherers The Agricultural Revolution and other revolutions Civilization A note on dating Major advances ESSAYS: The best rocks for tools 11 Stone technologies of the Old Stone Age 13 The first immigrants 14 Machines that go around 15 The first ceramics 16 Stone technology of the Middle Stone Age and Neolithic 17 New materials: tooth, bone, and horn 18 The first machines 19 Trade with distant peoples 20 What caused the Agricultural Revolution? 21 Building with brick and stone 23 Irrigation and the rise of civilization 24 Metals and early smelting 27 City life 28 Inventing and writing numbers 29 The invention of the wheel 31 The Iceman Ötzi 32 Mesopotamian mathematics 33 Early sailing 34 The calendar 35 How did the Egyptians build the pyramids? 36 Paddles and oars 38 Early units of measure 40 Egyptian medicine 41 Santorini and Atlantis 43 Science and Technology in Antiquity: 600 BCE through 529 CE 50 OVERVIEW: Philosophy, a precursor to science 51 The Hellenistic world and the Roman Empire 52 Other cultures of the period 52 Major advances 53 ESSAYS: The first great explorers 57 The first known date 58 Mathematics and mysticism 59 The elements 61 Early atomists 63 Three classic problems 64 Cast iron in China 68 Inventions of Archimedes 71 Salt and the fall of civilization 73 Domes, beams, columns, arches, trusses 74 Maps of the world 78 Why was the steam engine not used in Antiquity? 80 The great eruption of Vesuvius 82 The Almagest 86 Medieval Science and Technology: 530 through 1452 92 OVERVIEW: The decline of science in Europe 93 Science in China 93 Science and mathematics in India 94 Arab science 94 The revival of science in Europe 95 The technology revolution of the Middle ages 96 Major advances 97 ESSAYS: Telling time 103 Alchemy from start to finish 105 Early surgery 109 The other Omar Khayyám 113 Water for power 114 Cathedrals 116 Wind power, Perpetual motion: an old dream 119 Water for control 122 Impetus and inertia 132 Early mechanical clocks 133 Movable type 138 The Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution: 1453 through 1659 140 OVERVIEW: The Renaissance 141 The Scientific Revolution 142 Technology 143 Major advances 143 ESSAYS: The mystery of Leonardo da Vinci 149 Inventing signs 154 Fossils: organisms turned to rock 155 Old and New World plants meet 157 The pepper plant’s story 159 1543: A great year in publishing 160 Gunpowder and guns in East and West 161 A great scoundrel 162 The immutability of the heavens 166 Replacing Aristotle’s physics 167 Galileo and measurement 168 Pendulum myths 174 Galileo and his telescope 167 Saturn’s rings 178 Francis Bacon and the scientific method 181 Circulation of the blood 184 The Church and astronomy 185 The first vacuums on Earth 188 The advent of electricity 190 Scientific Method: Measurement and Communication: 1660 through 1734 194 OVERVIEW: European domination 195 The scientific method 195 Science becomes a shared activity 196 Major advances 196 ESSAYS: The first statistician 199 Mad Madge, the scientist 203 Velocity of light 208 Progress in keeping time 209 The nature of light 210 Newton’s Principia 213 Recognizing the power of steam 215 The canal age 216 Phlogiston 218 Temperature 224 The Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution: 1735 through 1819 230 OVERVIEW: Philosophy and science 231 The romantic reaction 232 The Industrial Revolution 232 The Encyclopédie 232 Rise of the engineer 233 Major advances 233 v Contents ESSAYS: Cast iron in England 238 Introducing Newton to the French 240 Verifying Newton’s theory of gravitation 245 The French describe technology 247 The taming of the longitude 252 The Lunar Society 255 The atmospheric steam engine 257 The transit of Venus 259 Steam engines power machines 266 When was the Industrial Revolution? 270 Flight 274 Neptunism v Plutonism 276 Boulton & Watt 278 A continuing search for fiber 281 An American genius 285 Machine tools 296 Railroads, trains, and locomotives 298 Science and Technology in the 19th Century: 1820 through 1894 308 OVERVIEW: Science becomes professional 309 National differences 309 The philosophical basis of 19th-century science 310 Science and the public 311 Science and technology 311 Major advances 311 ESSAYS: Electricity and magnetism 320 The nature of heat 325 Understanding fossils 326 Non-Euclidean geometry 331 Galois and group theory 337 United States railroads 341 Intellectual and technological property 342 The telegraph 353 Predicting the planets 357 Nitrogen: A matter of life and death 358 The Crystal Palace 366 The value of π 370 The cell theory 372 Color and chemistry 374 The theory of evolution 377 A chemist revolutionizes medicine 385 Field theories 387 Organic chemistry 389 Perpetual motion: a 19th century obsession 392 America’s greatest inventor 395 The periodic table 399 The Bell telephone 404 The germ theory of disease 406 Lights and lighting 410 The feminine brain (a 19th century view) 419 Does the ether exist? 424 The skyscraper 427 The perfect machine: the turbine 429 The development of radio 436 Rise of Modern Science and Technology: 1895 through 1945 438 OVERVIEW: The growth of 20th-century science 439 New philosophies 439 Quantum reality 440 Energy wherever needed 440 Electricity: a revolution in technology 441 Science and technology 441 Major advances 442 ESSAYS: Invisible radiation 452 Atoms have parts 455 The discovery of genes 459 Relativity 469 The age of Earth 473 Composites 488 The size of the universe 494 vi The quantum 497 Antibiotics: “Magic bullets” against disease 505 The limits of mathematics 512 The Hale telescope at Mt Palomar 516 Early digital computers 522 The mathematics of Nicolas Bourbaki 527 Creating elements 529 The Manhattan project 533 The first working computers 535 Scientists and defense 538 Big Science and the Post-Industrial Society: 1946 through 1972 540 OVERVIEW: The cold war and new technology 541 Big science 542 Specialization and changing categories 542 Technology changes society 542 Major advances 543 ESSAYS: From tubes to chips 554 The force of the vacuum 560 Discovering DNA 569 Nuclear power 573 Stopping an epidemic 575 Higher computer languages 577 God is left-handed 581 The space race 583 Lasers 591 The chip 592 Seeing the whole sky 594 Quasars 598 Ecology and sociobiology 602 Plate tectonics 611 Unifying the forces 612 Exploring the planets 619 Scanning the body 621 The Information Age: 1973 through 2003 624 OVERVIEW: Information and society 625 Globalization 626 The post-industrial society 626 Science questioned 627 Problems of the Information Age 628 Major Advances 628 ESSAYS: Genetic engineering 641 Strings to branes 643 Monoclonal antibodies 645 The first successful home computer 649 The return of catastrophism 656 The space shuttle 659 Humans learn to copy DNA 662 AIDS 663 Missing mass 667 High-temperature superconductors 672 Communicating with light 677 Alternative energy sources 680 Measuring with waves, seeing with fringes 695 Spin –– not just for politicians 697 Time shifting 701 Dark energy 702 Neutrino mass 703 The Human Genome Project 709 Further reading 720 Index 722 Illustration credits 776 Introduction W elcome to a complicated book that I think will be easy to read and use Most histories of science or technology present a highly selected story of the most important discoveries The History of Science and Technology takes a different approach While there are narrative accounts of more than a hundred different topics –– these are the short essays that have gray backgrounds to distinguish them from other elements of the book –– the main body of the book is a chronicle of virtually everything that has happened in science and technology, including false steps and ignored precursors Cross references, labeled See also, direct the reader to the related material that begins, continues, or concludes a line of investigation Thus, there are thousands of separate histories embedded in the chronicle section A comprehensive index provides yet another way to follow a particular line of development The History of Science and Technology is separated into ten chapters, each representing a major division of the history of science and technology The introductions to these chapters provide a more conventional history, with the emphasis on the character and philosophy of the period, the new ideas or methods that emerged during the period, and the major advances in each branch of science or technology Throughout the chronicle an effort has been made to more than simply list the achievements, which might be recognized by a scientist or mathematician but not by the ordinary reader Instead, chronicle entries are often expanded to give a very brief précis of the meaning of terms or the impact of a discovery on science or society As a part of the chronicle, brief biographies, set off in boxes, are provided for the most important scientists or inventors These biographies are placed near the first mentioned achievement of the scientist or inventor and provide information on the birth and death places and dates within the box Most other scientists or inventors have birth and death information shown within square brackets at the first mention The square brackets for birth and death information are one of several typographical devices used throughout the book Another is the use of place names in parentheses that provide the modern names for nations and sometimes cities For example, the city known as Königsberg during the 19th century is further identified by its current name as (Kaliningrad, Russia) or an ancient city such as Nineveh is identified by the modern name of the country where its ruins are found, (Iraq) Many book titles or words are given in their original language but translated in a combination of parentheses with quotations marks, as for example, Galileo’s Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mundo, Tolemaico e Copernico (“dialogue concerning the two chief world systems, Ptolemaic and Copernican”) Dates are given throughout in terms of CE (“common era”) and BCE (“before common era”) The dating system is explained more fully on page The History of Science and Technology is based on two earlier books: Timetables of Science by Alexander Hellemans and Bryan Bunch; and Timetables of Technology by Bryan Bunch and Alexander Hellemans Many of the essays, portions of the chapter introductions, and chronicle entries were originally written by Hellemans for these books Hellemans also contributed some new chronicle entries and essays to this book But the present selection and arrangement of material as well as all editing is entirely my responsibility, including of course any errors of fact or interpretation I want to thank especially my agent, John W Wright, who has not only supported this book and its predecessors, but contributed to the structures that make these books work in their own rather unusual ways, and also Gordon Hardy, my editor at Houghton Mifflin, for his patience during a long production process Thanks also go to my friends Jenny Tesar, whose help with the history of biology was invaluable, and the artist James Koran Davis, who not only concerned himself with the progress of the book on a regular basis but also contributed a number of drawings and photographs that make it possible to visualize some of the ideas and inventions My wife Mary did a lot of everything to make this project happen, from research to reading to indexing, and at the same time put up with a husband who spent an inordinate amount of time shut away with the history of science and technology Bryan Bunch Pleasant Valley, New York vii Science and Technology before Scientists: through 599 BCE A lthough early humans and their ancestors understood many natural laws and developed skills for making useful tools, no one person could be described as the first scientist Nameless Egyptians, Sumerians, Chinese, Maya, and others worked out mathematical rules, cured illnesses, built great structures, created new materials, and learned how to read the stars and planets –– but their successes were largely a collection of skills, rather than a science Science as an organized body of thought is usually identified with the Ionian school of Greek philosophers (about 600 bce) or later, perhaps as late as the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century The Ionian philosophers made a serious effort to develop a rational basis for the universe, although few of those early thinkers could be called scientists or mathematicians in the modern sense of the word Advances in knowledge, skills, and technology, however, had been part of human history long before our ancestors were fully human We begin by considering the arts, inventions, and understandings of this early period, which might be classified as crafts or technology The Stone Ages Stone tools have long been the first recognized technology It is almost certain that wooden tools preceded stone by millions of years, but wood survives only in exceptional circumstances Therefore, we must begin with the stone tools first found in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania by Louis and Mary Leakey and others, and since found elsewhere in Africa as well It is customary to think that those tools were made by one of our direct ancestors, perhaps Homo habilis or H rudolfensis 2,500,000 years ago Despite this common assumption, some evidence suggests that the first stone tools were made by those early relatives not on the direct line to modern humans, the australopithecines The early tools associated with H habilis and H rudolfensis were simple broken pebbles The next technology we know of came after different species emerged, H ergaster and H erectus (1,800,000 years ago) These African and Asian humans greatly improved stone tools by flaking pieces off a core, creating distinctive shapes with only a single cutting edge that we call hand axes (or bifaces) and scrapers or choppers The hammerstone used to work the other tools could be thought of as the first “machine tool.” Today we are so accustomed to the idea of a time called the Stone Age that it is easy to forget that the expression was coined less than two centuries ago by Christian Jurgensen Thomsen for a project started in 1816 He divided early artifacts for a museum collection into stone, bronze, and iron The museum catalog, published in 1836, enshrined the Stone, Bronze, and Iron ages In 1865 Sir John Lubbock further subdivided the Stone Age into the Old Stone Age and the New Stone Age After these simple names were translated into the Greek-derived technical terms Paleolithic and Neolithic, a middle stone age, the Mesolithic was added The hand axe and scraper set of tools, or toolkit or industry, continued for more than a million years before a different stone tool emerged Various types of points, often considered to be spearheads, knives, arrowheads, or teeth (such as saws’ teeth) were devised They became parts of different toolkits used by different societies of later species, such as H heidelbergensis and H neanderthalensis (600,000 to 30,000 years ago), as well as by our own species, H sapiens (which may be 200,000 years old) Other stone tools from this period included awls or needles as well as burins (engraving tools) The New Stone Age, or Neolithic, occupies a much shorter time than the Old Stone Age Various criteria produce different starting dates for the Neolithic, but in terms of the kinds of stone tools manufactured, such as ground stone axe or adze heads and small points called microliths, the period began as early as 20,000 years ago in Europe and ended when metal came into common use, about 5,000 years ago In other regions, Neolithic technology persisted much later, with some stone tools, such as arrowheads, still in use in the 20th century in a few societies Knowledge among hunter-gatherers The great apes live primarily by foraging, rather than gathering –– the difference being that a gatherer brings food picked up in various places back to a central location for consumption or storage whereas a forager eats the food on site There is no reason to suppose that the earliest hominids were gatherers, but there is some evidence that H habilis and H rudolfensis occupied cer1 .. .The History of Science and Technology A Browser’s Guide to the Great Discoveries, Inventions, and the People Who Made Them, from the Dawn of Time to Today THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY. .. page The History of Science and Technology is based on two earlier books: Timetables of Science by Alexander Hellemans and Bryan Bunch; and Timetables of Technology by Bryan Bunch and Alexander... development The History of Science and Technology is separated into ten chapters, each representing a major division of the history of science and technology The introductions to these chapters