History of Science

41. Bodies and Dollars

Brain science - took off during Cold War era, scientists found that treating the brain with different chemicals could affect mood and behavior. Chlorpromazine - brand name Thorazine - introduced at an anti psychotic drug in 1954. Meprobamate - brand name Milltown, first anti anxiety medication, became best-selling drug in US Diazepam - Valium - first of benzodiazepine family of drugs - worked faster and longer - also became very commonplace. "Mother's little helper" - this nickname tells the story of the US at the time: most women worked at home, many of them suffering from "the problem with no name" - which we now might call depression and anxiety, owed in part to a lack of options, respect, and rights. Diazepam worked to calm worried brains, but it didn't change a patriarchal culture. Lithium - used to treat bipolar disorder as a mood stabilizer, but can have serious side effects. first approved by FDA in 1974. 1960's - Chemical Imbalance Theory - basically, since antidepressants seem to work by elevating levels of norepinephrine and serotonin, depression may be caused by a lack of these critical neurotransmitters. Theory is widely talked about, but has never been proven. 1987 - Fluoxetine - brand name Prozac - first SSRI Another way biotech could make money off of bodies: turn certain samples of human tissues into immortalized cell lines using tissue engineering. these cells don't die out, but keep growing indefinitely. Trying experiments on a dish of human cells can be less risky and expensive than using human subjects. These cells had to come from someone though, and that raises ethical questions. Henrietta Lacks - African American housewife in Baltimore who presented in 1951 at Johns Hopkins with advanced cervical cancer. Cell biologist George Gey took a biopsy and tried to keep it alive. Lacks' tumor cells could just keep growing, generation after generation of cell. His idea was that, since cancer cells divide aggressively and don't rely on a plan from the body, they might be easier to keep alive forever outside of one. Gey freely shared the cells with other reserachers, and the cell line - Hela - became the most important cell line in biomedical research and remains so today. 1954 - Hela was used by Jonas Salk to develop polio vaccine Henrietta passed. Henrietta never gave her consent for her cells to be used, and was never compensated for them. Her family didn't know about the existence of the cell line until 1975. To the Lacks family, the cell line represented society's continued exploitation of black women. GMO - genetically modified organisms - organism that has had its genome edited to include DNA from other organisms. Gene Gun - used to make GMO Flavor saver - bruise-resistant tomato, first GMO marketed in US, 1992 1995 - BT corn Monsanto - Roundup ready crops GMO industry is worth over $300 billion dollars today - mainly from soy, canola, cotton, and corn GMO properties - mainly herbicide/insecticide resistance - don't make foods more nutritious or better tasting. These properties are all about yields for grains that are fed to animals or used as ingredients. 1978 - Louise Brown - first baby born using IVF (in vitro fertilization) in vitro - means "in glass" 1980's - egg donation became possible 1996 - Dolly the sheep - first cloned animal - using somatic cell nuclear transfer Epigenetics - environmental stimuli and experiences turn some genes "off" and others "on"

33. The Atomic Bomb

Einstein wrote to Roosevelt, urging him to create an atomic bomb before Hitler. Leo Szilard - 1933 - realized it was theoretically possible to split apart an atom to create nuclear fission, releasing vast amounts of energy, thus splitting apart another atom, and another, and another.... he came up with the idea of a nuclear chain reaction, which could become a superweapon. Enrico Fermi - 1934 - patented the idea of a nuclear reactor, or atomic pile - device would cause self-sustaining nuclear reaction. 1938 - German physicists actually achieved nuclear fission in a lab - and Germany annexed Austria, then Poland a year later. Szilard drafted a letter to Roosevelt along with a few other physicists, got Einstein to sign it, since he was the most renowned scientist of the time. Einstein was a pacifist, but also a very smart, deeply pragmatic person. In his mind, it was only a question of whether the Americans, Germans, or Russians would split the atom first. He foresaw a very bad ending, possibly the end of the world. The U.S. Government, along with some help from Canada, ran a highly secretive program, secret even from Congress, code-named The Manhattan Project. It involved 43,000 people, a who's-who of scientists of their day. One of the biggest sites for this project was under the football field at the University of Chicago. It was here in December 1942 that Enrico Fermi created the first nuclear chain reaction. In 1944, the Dine (Navajo nation) started mining uranium for the project. The Dine would continue to mine the nation's uranium for decades, until 1989, long after the peak of the Cold War. No one can say for sure the exposure that the Dine endured, but most likely led to higher rates of lung cancer. US didn't address this until the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990. Los Alamos Lab, NM - Julius Robert Oppenheimer - father of the atomic bomb - oversaw project's scientific research and design - July 16, 1945, set off world's first atomic explosion - it was much bigger than anyone anticipated. "I am become death, destroyer of worlds." - Vishnu, Baghavad Gita Why did Truman drop the bomb? Truman was aware that Japan was militarily weak, and that victory was almost inevitable. They were also aware of the number of casualties that would result from the atomic bomb. Besides immediate military victory, two other reasons factored into the decision: 1. Justify its monumental cost 2. Intimidate all enemies, present and future, of the United States August 6, 1945 - Enola Gay B29 superfortress bomber - dropped 10,000 lb uranium bomb code named Little Boy on Hiroshima. First and deadliest atomic bomb in history. 3 days later, dropped plutonium weapon nicknamed Fat Man on Nagasaki. About 200,000 people died during the bombings and in the months afterward. Japan surrendered unconditionally. Yet the end of WWII and the revelation of The Manhattan Project did not bring about world peace - but a smoldering global super-conflict called the Cold War, between the Soviet Union and the United States. The stakes: control over most of the world. The rules: nuclear physics. Measures of success: the numbers and sizes of atomic bombs. Hydrogen bomb - used nuclear fusion to create an even bigger reaction than the original bombs. Testing the hydrogen bomb ecologically destroyed Bikini Atoll, displacing islanders forever. Nuclear power accidents: 1. Three mile island (1979) 2. Chernobyl (1986) 3. Fukushima Daiichi (2011) **nuclear waste is a huge issue with nuclear power

32. Einstein's Revolution

Einstein's work made humanity re-examine time and space. Euclid, Aristotle, Newton - saw laws governing the universe as absolute. By 1900, physics was perceived by many to be an almost completed discipline. But within this almost completeness, there lurked many unanswered questions. Michelson Morley experiment - 1887 - attempted to demonstrate that the speed of light changed, but it failed, they found light moved at a constant speed as if there was no ether. By early 1900's radioactive decay was well understood, and the theory of the immutable atom was no longer valid. The Photoelectric effect: the paradox that certain metals produce electrical currents when zapped with wavelength of light above a certain threshold. Einstein - born 1879, grew up in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, dropped out of high school, then studied to teach physics and math, became a Swiss citizen, couldn't get a teaching job because he was Jewish, so he took a job at a patent office and started a PhD at University of Zurich, finished in 1905. First wife Mileva Maric, the only female among Albert Einstein's fellow students at Zurich Polytechnic. 1905 - Albert published his dissertation and four papers that changed physics overnight. It was his Annus Mirabilis. At 26, he published revolutionary work on: 1. Brownian motion - the random motion of particles in fluids 2. The Photoelectric Effect - supporting the idea of energy as a series of particles 3. The Equivalence of Mass & Energy 4. Special Relativity - especially made Einstein a scientific rock star. He proved that nothing can move faster than light. This explained why Michelson and Morley hadn't observed light slowing in ether. And a lot of other things. Special relativity was all about comparing physical effects from different observer positions in terms of velocity, or speed in a particular direction. Equivalence of Mass & Energy proof: E = mc² Energy = mass x speed of light squared The idea that mass and energy can be converted into one another. "Mass and energy are both but different manifestations of the same thing - a somewhat unfamiliar conception for the average mind." 1915 - Published the theory of general relativity. General relativity explains the physics of all situations. Special relativity is one specific case of general relativity. For example, gravity was found not to be a force, like light, but an effect, a distortion in the shape of space due to mass. The mass of the sun, for example, causes spacetime to curve. Many of Einstein's contemporaries objected to this, but Einstein was confident, and patient. 1919 - There was a solar eclipse that allowed scientists to confirm his theory. Einstein also contributed to the birth of modern particle physics. 1911 - Ernest Rutherford and Niels Bohr theorized a model of the atom. 1926 - Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrodinger worked out math behind quantum mechanics. Heisenberg uncertainty principle - any observer can detect the position or velocity of any quantum particle, at any given time interval, but not both at the same time. Einstein hated this - said "God doesn't play dice with the world." By 1930s, Einstein was easily the most famous scientist since Darwin. There was only one problem: he was Jewish, and living in Germany. In 1933, Einstein renounced his German citizenship and took a professorship at Princeton. Einstein also had the ears of politicians planning for another great war in Europe. He felt he had a duty to explain to the American establishment just how powerful atomic energy could be. WWII, then Cold War - nuclear weapons new measure of imperial might. Israel offered Einstein the presidency, which he turned down. He lived the rest of his life in New Jersey. He always regretted that his discoveries were used for violent ends. He was generally skeptical of modernity. "Our entire much-praised technological progress, and civilization generally, could be compared to an axe in the hand of a pathological criminal." In the end, even the horrors of two world wars couldn't shake his faith that there was great meaning in the universe. A code to be deciphered by science.

43. The Internet and Computing

None of the advances in biotech could've happened without advances in computing. What we mean by computing keeps changing. It has now become a ubiquitous dimension of contemporary life. 1965 - Moore's Law - Gordon Moore guessed that, roughly every year, the number of electronic switches that people could squeeze onto one computer chip would double. Moore's prediction was very close to being accurate, and also became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now serves as CEO of Intel and is worth billions. Data storage has also seen rapid advancement - from floppy discs to USB drives to cloud storage. 1970 - Xerox company created Xerox Park, where researchers invented parts of modern computing. Alto - first personal computer, laser printing, ethernet, GUI (graphical user interface). 1970's - two nerds who dropped out of college started selling computers that were meant to be used at home - Apple 2 - released in 1977 - Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak - became billionaires. Bill Gates - dropped out of Harvard, founded Microsoft - DOS operating system 1975 Birth of social media in early 2000's - new social spaces, allowed for new communities to form. 1958 - Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - DARPA - How could information be moved around quickly, even after a nuclear strike? A network! Founded first computer network - ARPANET - 1969 - packet switching At first, ARPANET only linked a few universities. But it grew as researchers found that linking computers was useful for all sorts of reasons, nukes aside! 1983 - Several computer networks including ARPANET were joined together using a standard way of requesting and sharing information: TCP/IP - backbone of internet today Sir Tim Berners Lee - invented World Wide Web in 1990. Built the first web browser to begin the first functional, usable web we know today. The Web had profound effects. It brought the internet to millions of people - and brought them into it, making them feel like they had a home "online," a virtual place to represent themselves, meet strangers all over the world, and troll educational video shows! Also democratized the tools of knowledge making. It's as if the internet now contains not just one, but several "libraries of Alexandria." Latest advances in computing: 1. Quantum computers - superposition - don't work on traditional binary system - major shifts in cryptography 2. Big data - will it change how we do science? If internet-enabled sensor of all kinds are always transmitting data back to databases, then maybe the work of science will shift away from data collection, and even away from analysis - AI can crunch numbers - and into asking questions about patterns that emerge from data, seemingly on their own. Could even lead to a new paradigm called hypothesis-free science. Other questions/issues: -How will trusting computers with our cognitive responsibilities change societies? -Blockchain/cryptocurrency -Environmental costs: -computers require ever greater amounts of electricity -rare-earth metals -older computers become e-waste

22. Darwin and Natural Selection

early 1800's England - Natural theology: 1. Divine creator 2. Species that didn't change ever 3. Short creation 4. A perfect design for each species Charles Darwin - studied at Cambridge, earned "gentleman's C's", collected a lot of beetles, graduated in 1822 after college, set sail on HMS Beagle and sailed around the world for 5 years - gave him time to read geological theories of Charles Lyell, think about gradual change over long ages, gave him many opportunities to collect and compare fossils Galapagos - the different species seemed to vary according to island. this turned out to be one in a number of clues that would lead him to developing the theory of evolution by natural selection. Living beings compete over resources, and only the most fit for a given region survive. Useful traits emerge over time. Darwin delayed publishing his theories for many years. He wanted to wait until he had incontrovertible proof. Then in 1858, he received letter from Alfred Russell Wallace, who had independently conceived the theory of evolution by natural selection. He wrote to Darwin for advice, asking him if he would be interested in the theory. Darwin and Wallace published a joint letter. Then in 1859, he published The Origin of Species. It was a scientific bestseller. He included in this book all his unanswered questions about his theory. Today, we know many of the answers. Natural selection modifies the population: the fittest survive and reproduce, passing on their traits. Say, the long beaks get to more food and survive when food becomes scarce. Unfit species die out. Populations diverge into new species! Alfred Wallace - born to a poor family, became a teacher. Wallace met Henry Walter Bates in 1844. They became science besties and decided to figure out how evolution works in order to apply that knowledge to human society and save people from greed and individualism. 1848-1852 - Wallace and Bates went to the Amazon to collect specimens for museums in London. He was very successful, but his boat caught fire and sank on the way back. But Wallace never gave up. He then set off to Southeast Asia to collect more specimens to pay the bills, developing a brilliant reputation. He traveled to many islands in Southeast Asia. 1858, his theory clicked into place: A self-acting process: for any species, the fittest would survive. Invented the discipline of bio-geography and wrote The Malay Archipelago. Darwinism was actually accepted rather quickly in society. The idea became equated with the phrase "survival of the fittest." This term was increasingly applied to human society as Social Darwinism, in a way Darwin and Wallace wouldn't have approved of. With the industrial revolution, a new class of capitalists began to see themselves as more fit to govern than the nobles they replaced, or the workers they controlled.

29. Cinema, Radio, and Television

Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray both created working telephone systems in 1876. Edison developed phonograph in 1877, before lightbulb and electrical power systems that made him famous. Louis Le Prince - first movie 1888, then disappeared from a train and was never seen again (!!!) Dixon - 1890's kinetograph, invented at Menlo Park for Edison company. 1895 - kinetophone. Edison was a huge patent troll and kept suing other cinematic entrepreneurs on the east coast, which led to the west coast becoming an epicenter for movie making - along with the climate and natural lighting. Auguste & Louis Lumiere - invented cinematograph in 1890's with the idea of holding mass screenings 1902 - US Court of Appeals ruled against Edison, finding his company couldn't hold the patent on all movie cameras, only the specific model Dixon invented. Radio came decades after cinema, strangely enough. Radio waves have to travel long distances without losing fidelity, or accuracy. Whereas movies were just carted around using physical reels of film. Heinrich Hertz - 1885 discovered that a wire carrying electric current would radiate, or give off electromagnetic waves, when it swung back and forth - he made an antenna. His work led directly to the radio, and unit which we use to measure radio waves is called Hertz. Guglielmo Marconi - worked in 1890's to send telegrams wirelessly. He sent and received first radio signals. Won Nobel prize in 1909. Regular radio broadcasts began in Pittsburgh in 1920, and the BBC created first radio network in 1922. By 1936, 3/4 of American households owned a radio. This invention, and the automobile, connected cities to rural areas and changed how people consumed music and sports. Radio also became a tool of political propaganda and an indispensable way of communicating important news. October 30, 1938 - H.G Wells War of the Worlds was broadcast via radio. Some people didn't understand that it was fiction, causing a panic. John Baird - invented mechanical TV in 1920's. Television didn't take off as an industry until the 1940's, however. July 20, 1969 - People all over the world watched on TV as a man set foot on the moon. These technologies arose from intense, competitive, corporate research programs. Menlo Park set the stage for other R&D research hubs at Standard Oil, General Electric, Dupont, Bell Labs, IBM Labs, and Google X.

23. Eugenics and Francis Galton

Cousin to Charles Darwin, a polymath who made many contributions to different branches of science, but who now is mainly remembered as the father of eugenics. Eugenics - the idea that the gene pool of the human species could somehow be improved if certain people didn't reproduce. Galton argued that an organism's most important characteristics must be biological, rather than shaped by environment or experience. Like Darwin, he sought evidence for his theory. 1869 - published Hereditary Genius - contains first use of term "nature vs. nurture" He proposed studying twins, which he saw as a natural experiment. By the mid-1900's twin studies became the foundation of behavioral genetics, or how heredity affects behavior. He didn't conduct his own twin studies, but he outlined what those studies should look like. He also bred sweet peas. He noticed a bell curve of traits. His practice of anthropometry - or literally, measuring humans - became common across many disciplines. He also pioneered the use of fingerprints. Galton argued for positive eugenics, the idea that those who were eminent/ had good genetics should have more children. His science of eugenics quickly gained traction in society. Driven by a fear that births of supposedly inferior people would lead to weak or criminally degenerate adults, some states introduced forcible sterilization laws starting in 1907. These were mostly used to justify the sterilization of already incarcerated groups and those with different abilities. This was negative eugenics, something Galton hadn't explicitly argued for. The worst spin-offs from Galton: Madison Grant - famous for works of scientific racism and his role in immigration restriction and anti-miscegenation laws in the United States. Wrote a book called The Passing of the Great Race in 1916. Thought the great Nordics were being outbred by inferior types of whites. Charles Davenport - famous for works of scientific racism that lacked statistical evidence. Was a fan of the Nazis. Margaret Sanger - Sanger was an inspiration for the character and several story arcs of Wonder Woman. Opened the first birth control clinic in the US in 1916. Founded the American Birth Control League to educate people about contraceptives and safe abortion procedures. In the 20's and 30's, she thought eugenics would give her movement legitimacy. By the late 1920's, eugenics had been recognized as bad science by most practicing biologists. But as a source of policy for many lawmakers in the US, Germany, and elsewhere, eugenics was still very much alive. Buck v. Bell case - the decision sided with eugenicists and has never technically been overturned. In fact, forced sterilization was still happening in California prisons until it was banned in 2014.

34. Biomedicine

Healthcare based on a biological understanding of human bodies and diseases. Morphine - first wonder drug, induces relaxation and sleepiness, and too much can kill you. And it's super addictive. But very effective and relatively cheap! 1850's - hypodermic needle introduced Late 1800's/early 1900's - what the life sciences had gained in theories and models, they still lacked in applications. 1907- Ehrlich - Salvarsan - used to effectively treat early syphilis 1931 - Germany - mepacrine - anti-malarial drug 1939 - Domagk - discovered sulfanilamide - first broad-spectrum treatment for bacteria - awarded Nobel in 1939 1928 - Alexander Fleming - noticed by accident that some mold in his lab seemed to kill some harmful bacteria - he cultured it and started to experiement - discovered Penicillins. Penicillins eclipsed Sulfas as first line antibiotic during WWII. 1945 - Bell shared Nobel with other scientists who had made mass production of penicillin possible Charles Drew - African American doctor who showed great promise, graduated from Magill in Montreal 1933, became an instructor at Howard University in DC 1935. One year later, became surgical resident. 1938 Drew earned Rockefeller fellowship at Columbia University and at Presbyterian Hospital became first AA Dr. of Medical Science. His doctoral thesis on banked blood, revolutionized medicine. He worked out how to store plasma. Anticipating terrible casualties, and drawing on lessons from the first world war, New York's blood transfusion betterment association met with British physician John Scudder to formulate a plan. Scudder had heard of Drew's work on plasma and hired him as soon as he earned his doctorate, in 1940. Drew was asked to help the Red Cross, but he was asked to segregate white and black blood, so he resigned after a few months. WWII - Nazi's conducted human experiments - Josef Mengela German Eugenics: the application of a distorted understanding of Darwinian evolution to human society. Japan - also did human experiments After the war, the US granted some scientists immunity in exchange for their data Atrocities of human experimentation during WWII led to Nuremberg Code of Medical Ethics - new philosophy of bioethics IRB - Institutional Review Board - it's a long process in which scientists and regulators scrutinize what will or won't be done in the name of medicine, to whom, for what purpose. **One of the greatest, quietest moral wins in the history of science.** 1950s - Jonas Salk - polio vaccine

31. Radiation and Marie Curie

Marie Curie - first woman to win Nobel Prize, only woman to win two, only person to ever win Nobels in multiple natural sciences. Wilhelm Rontgen - while experimenting with making cathode rays (rays of electrons) in 1895, he noticed a piece of cardboard painted with barium was glowing when it was placed near the cathode ray tube. when he cut out the lights, he noticed the paint was already glowing in the dark. He called these rays x-rays and started researching them. Made an image of bones in wife's hand using x-rays. Won Nobel Prize in 1901. Becquerel - 1896 - was experimenting with phosphorescence when he heard about Rontgen's findings. Started noticing that some materials like uranium gave off rays, and left impressions on a photographic plate just by being near it. Radiation - energy that comes out of matter as it decays, or breaks down into other, smaller forms of matter. Curie would later name this process of decay Radioactivity. Bequerel also researched what happens when you mix radiation and magnetic fields, showing that radiation can have an electrically negative, positive, or neutral charge. When he accidentally burned himself by carrying around a piece of radium, he concluded that radioactive substances might be able to burn bad stuff like tumors, so they might have a medical use in fighting cancer. Died at only 55, likely due to his work with radioactive substances. The scientific question he left behind was what happens when a substance emits radioactivity? Pierre and Marie Curie - Marie enrolled at the University of Paris and earned a degree with distinction in physics 1893, another degree in mathematics in 1894. She was broke and hungry, and would tutor all night after her classes. In her search for a lab, she met Pierre Curie, and they fell in love. He admitted that Marie was "his biggest discovery." 1895 Marie and Pierre were married. Marie read about Rontgen and Bequerel's experiments. She use a sensitive electrometer, which measure electric charge and was developed by Pierre years earlier, to test how ray-producing uranium affected electromagnetic fields. She found that uranium gave off rays that made the very air conduct electricity. The only thing that mattered in terms of the effect was the amount of uranium present. She created a theory of radioactivity: in some substances, atoms themselves must be breaking down slowly, giving off radioactivity. This theory became foundational for modern physics. From the preSocratic atomists to the creator of the periodic tabel, Dmitri Medeleev, a long tradition of people studying stuff had built upon an imaginary indivisible unit of matter - the atom. Discovered Polonium and Radium. Developed techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes. Shared Nobel Prize with her husband and with Becquerel in 1903. Marie applied her theory. She used radioactive materials to treat cancer. Pierre has the idea of implanting small seeds of radioactive material into tumors to shrink them. She set up mobile radiography units during WWI. Tragically she died of cancer in 1934, likely due to her radiation exposure. She and Pierre are buried in lead-lined caskets in the Pantheon in Paris. Her manuscripts and personal possessions are still dangerously radioactive. Their daughter Irene Joliot Curie was also an outstanding chemist and won a Nobel Prize.

35. Genetics and Modern Synthesis

Modern synthesis - neo-Darwinism - uses Mendelian inheritance to explain how Darwinian natural selection works in real time. Dobzhansky - studied wild flies in nature Defined evolution as: the change in the frequency of an allele within a gene pool. -1938 Also spent his life trying to convince people that human "races" are not genetically defined, but socially constructed. The biological features that people have associated with different races have changed over time, and the boundaries between those races have been redrawn. JBS Haldane - pioneered biostatistics, published first genetic linkage maps for mammals, helped establish population genetics Ernst Mayr - species not just a group of similar organisms, but a group of organisms that can only breed with each other, helped establish evolutionary biology Julian Huxley - cline: the gradient of some trait - say, some gene - within a population across a geographical range (his brother Aldous Huxley wrote dystopia novel Brave New World) Soviet Union: science and technology were highly prized, focus was on application, like agriculture Marxist principles: there is only one, material world, and whoever controls the means of production - capital and technology - controls the world. Lysenko - came up with a process called vernalization, and it caught on, along with Lysenko's other ideas for farming, faster than scientists could investigate whether they actually worked. made a lot of other unscientific claims about agriculture. also used his power to destroy careers of geneticists in the soviet union, replace them with lackies. Lysenkoism - science purely for politics' sake. Now, all systems of science are political - saying you're "apolitical" just means you're for the status quo - but Lysenkoism wasn't even science anymore. 1948 - talked Stalin into banning population genetics. Only ended in 1960's after death of Stalin and Lysenko.

42. The Century of the Gene

The Human Genome Project The amount of information contained even in the smallest organism is mind boggling. 1977 - Frederick Sanger - Sanger sequencing - became the standard way to sequence genes. works by "chopping up an unknown sequence of DNA, tagging them with four different flourescent dyes that bond to the four different nucleic bases, and then sorting out the segment by length." **decoding even one sequence of DNA requires many copies of that same sequence, which, up until the 1980's took a LOT of time and expense, and even then, didn't always work Kary Mullis - developed PCR - polymerase chain reaction - cycles of heating and cooling allows copying of DNA more efficiently and on a much greater scale, can make billions of copies an hour - published paper in 1985, went on to win Nobel Prize. Planning for human genome project began in 1990 with funding from NIH and Dept. of Energy. Center for Human Genome Research, first director was Watson, then taken over by Francis Collins. One of initial goals was cancer research. Many labs all over the world participated. 1996 - sequencing began. 1997 - National Human Genome Research Institute. 1998 - Venter - expressed sequence tags Venter - believed project should move from slow & reliable Sanger sequencing, to faster & more expensive shotgun sequencing. "Shotgunning" a genome requires fragmenting it into bits, several times in a row, then letting a computer try to piece the blueprint back together. Each pass is flawed, but collectively, they add up to a whole sequence. Venter quite NHGRI and founded a for-profit company Celera Genomics. He planned to pay for this by holding the sequenced genes as intellectual property. 1998 - controversially licensed the health data of Icelanders to private company called Decode Genetics, that were looking for genetic links to illnesses. 2000 - before project was finished, President Clinton signed an order to prevent genetic discrimination in workplaces. "We have caught the first glimpses of our instruction book, previously known only to God." - Dr. Francis Collins, The Human Genome Project Complete draft of human genome completed in 2003. Within 13 years, scientists around the world had mapped over 3 billion base pairs. But they understood very little of it. They found that much DNA doesn't seem to code for anything, while other DNA serves a regulatory function, turning certain genes on and off. ENCODE - Encyclopedia of DNA Elements Project - to understand all functional elements of human DNA - published in 2012. 0 Sequencing cost continues to fall exponentially: the first human genome cost three billion dollars. Today, sequencing one human genome only costs about a thousand. Today, DNA evidence is a cornerstone of forensics. It can also be used to exonerate someone who has been wrongly convicted. Human Genome Diversity Project - Stanford - 1990's - mission to collect DNA samples from thousands of different populations to understand human diversity. The founder, LL Cavalli-Sforza, prominent geneticist who thought the project would fight racism and celebrate different cultures. Yet some critics accused the project of being racist by exploiting indigenous people for potential commercial gain. Now, genetic ancestry testing has become commonplace. These tests could've highlighted how incredibly similar all humans are, and how artificial groupings based on races are. Instead, many ancestry tests reinforce census race terms. The 20th century was the century of the gene. -Evelyn Fox Keller

37. The Space Race

The United States and the Soviet Union were the two great world powers that emerged after WWII. They competed to send satellites and people into space, partly to intimidate each other. Orville & Wilbur Wright - ran a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio (their sister really ran the place). Built lots of gliders, then eventually a powered plane. Experimented with designs using a small, homemade wind tunnel. The brothers took off on the first heavier-than-air flight on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk in the outer banks of NC. Eventually, the Wrights did more demonstrations and convinced the US military to invest. Aviation took off for war, mail, and passenger services. With a more advanced engine, Charles Lindberg flew across the Atlantic in 1927. Commercial airlines were available for wealthy customers by early 1930's. 1865 - Jules Verne - From the Earth to the Moon Science fiction matters. It influences how we, including real-life scientists and engineers, think about what the future can be. In this case, Verne was notable for trying to imagine a pretty dang realistic plan for space exploration, given 19th century technology. Dr. von Braun - Nazi physicist - developed chemical reactions to propel long-range rockets, like the V-2 rocket, which killed many during WWII. US **forgave his actions** to exploit his science. He became director of Marshall Space Flight Center at NASA. October 4, 1957 - USSR launched Sputnik satellite. Shocked the world and terrified many in the US. 1961 - USSR sent first human into space, Yuri Gagarin, made one whole orbit of the earth, first cosmonaut. 1963 - Valentina Tereshkova - first woman in space. - 1961 - JFK publicly threw down a monumental challenge: to land a man on the moon before the decade was out. Mercury program - put Americans into space Apollo program - successfully put humans on the moon -they used advanced computers to chart a course to the moon, over thousands of miles -trained pilots to be astronauts, or "star sailors" -designed a command module that could land on the moon, then take off again -built a rocket that could take the astronauts and lunar module to the moon - Saturn V - designed by Werner von Braun's team - launched by mixing chemicals that would react violently - liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen, R1 rocket propellant. After several missions, and a few disasters, NASA felt they could safely send humans to the moon and back in 1969. July 16, 1969 - Apollo 11 took of from Merritt Island FL. July 20, their Eagle lander touched down in the moon's sea of tranquility. Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on a planetary body other than earth. He was joined by Buzz Aldrin. Apollo 13 - arguably one of NASA's biggest successes, as they were able to correct the failure and bring astronauts home safely. NASA was as much a managerial success as a technical one. An example of "big science." Hubble Space Telescope Mars Rover Cassini-Huygens Satellite -the scientific value of these missions is almost incalculable, even if their practical value is almost zero. The shuttle program itself was retired in 2011. One response to this lack of public funding has been an explosion of private space agencies, developing space tourism. Another solution has been international collaboration. Despite persisting political tensions, Russia and the United States collaborate on space missions to this day. Since 1998, Americans, Canadians, Russians, Japanese, and Europeans have been collaborating aboard the ISS (International Space Station). New techne that have come from space exploration: -solar cells -freeze drying -digital cameras -gps -weather prediction -modern communication technologies -spy satellites Has also filled orbit with a ton of space junk. Whose job to clean?? So space science raises tough questions about power and knowledge, shared resources and competitions between nations. But there's only one earth, and space science also provides some good models on how to share. JFK 1962 - "We shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding."

36. The Computer and Turing

What is a computer? Up until the 1950's, a computer was a person who computed, usually a woman. Today, computer is a machine that can be programmed to perform logical tasks - like math problems - automatically. 1837 - Charles Babbage - fully conceived a digital, programmable, but mechanical computer called the Difference Engine. Sadly never completed. Ada Lovelace - wrote first algorithm for processing. Herman Holorith - created tabulating machine that was actually made and put to use in United States. With his machine, the 1890 census was finished in weeks, not years. Went on to found The Tabulating Machine Company, which is still in business today as IBM. Alan Turing - British mathematician/cryptographer/linguist/philosopher who laid foundation for a mathematical science of computing in 1930's. Turing proposed the Turing Machine, a thought experiment to test the limits of computing. Could theoretically perform an algorithm, or programmed operation. Turing couldn't make an abstract perfect computer, but he could lay out how the logic of writing and reading programs should work, and how a relatively simple device could, given enough memory, accomplish any logical operation. During WWII, Turing went into the top secret Ultra program at Bletchley Park, working as a code breaker. His job was to decipher encrypted messages about German naval movements. The Germans used a device called an Enigma Machine that used supposedly unbreakable ciphers, so that only someone with the same cipher could understand the message. Turing broke through using a computer he built called the Bombe. Wartime computers like Turing's weren't very fast or sophisticated, they were smart ways of automating a lot of dumb tasks. After the war, Turing continued working on computers. 1948 - Intelligent Machinery gave more details on the Turing Machine. 1950 - Computing Machinery and Intelligence. Became foundational in the study of artificial intelligence, or AI. "The appearance of intelligence is proof of it." - Turing The Turing Test - still in use as a challenge in AI. A human asks questions to both a computer and another human, then tries to guess which is which. Led to Church-Turing Hypothesis: Computation power is computation power. It doesn't matter if that power comes from electrical circuitry or a human brain, or how fast the individual parts of the machine are. 1950 - machine learning - build a child's mind, then teach it how to learn on its own. 1952 - police investigating a burglary at his home, became aware he was in a relationship with another man. the British government pressed charges. he was convicted of "gross indecency" and sentenced to take libido lowering hormones. died in 1954, possibly a suicide, at only age 41. British government didn't pardon him until 2016. John von Neumann - met with Turing in 1930s. proposed the idea of storing a computer program in the computer's memory. Claude Shannon - also met with Turing in 1930s. invented the word bit, came up with circuit designs. most well-known for founding information theory. Grace Hopper - invented a compiling tool 1947 - William Shockley - solid state transistor Annie Easley - African American rocket scientist, started her career as a "computer", then went on to use computers. In the era of Jim Crow, Easley left Alabama and went to work for NASA in Ohio. Although the path was not easy, due to her hard work, the name Easley will always be remembers in computer science.

12. The Scientific Revolution

**The term science, in its current meaning, wasn't used until the 18th century.** Kuhn - different sciences undergo "revolutions" when scientists gather enough data that they can't explain using their current paradigm, or unstated, world-organizing theory about how the universe works. Nicolaus Copernicus - a mathematician and astronomer who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than the Earth at the center of the universe. Heliocentrism. 1543 - De Rev - On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres - published on his deathbed. **Was not based on new observations and didn't prove Heliocentrism. According to Copernicus, a sun-centered model was more "pleasing to the mind." Also, his math was a disaster. **The concept of the "scientific revolution" starting here began in the 20th century. It doesn't make as much sense as the idea of many scientific revolutions happening in different places, at different times.**

19. Biology before Darwin

17th and 18th century ideas about what is life Biology as a term not used until 1799 Natural history - observation based study of living things, based on Aristotle 1634 - Johnannes Baptista van Helmont - arrested by the inquisition for studying plants! Was put under house arrest, but like Galileo, it motivated him to science even harder! Willow weighing experiment - first quantitative biology experiment Maria Sibylla Merian - OG insect inspector and illustrator! Careful observations of metamorphosis. 1705 book. Carl Linnaeus - binomial nomenclature. The first name, or genus, represents a more general category. The second name, or species, is based on specific characteristics. Kingdom --> Class --> Order called "the second Adam" because he named so many plants and animals Sir Joseph Banks - preeminent British naturalist of his day, sailed with James Cook, pushed the powerful British empire to make tabulating nature a project of prestige. The Transformists - Comte de Buffon, Jean Baptiste Lamarck, Georges Cuvier

40. Biotechnology

1940's - scientists knew that nucleus of cell contained thread-like structures called chromosomes that played a critical role in cell division chromosomes seemed to be made out of protein, and other...stuff - made of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and phosphorus - deoxyribonucleic acid. isolated, dna looks like a white powder, but no one knew the molecule's structure 1944 - Schrodinger - What is Life - gene - unit of heredity, must be part of chromosomes - thought gene must be very small, must be varied, but orderly Max Delbruck - ran The Phage Group - worked with viruses that parasite bacteria, known as bacteriophages The Phage Group did important work on how life works at a small scale, using radioactive tracers inside of viruses. But even they couldn't tell if it was the DNA part or the protein part of the virus that took over the bacterium. Linus Pauling - one of the founders of the fields of quantum chemistry and molecular biology - won two Nobel prizes. X-ray crystallography - can reveal a molecule's shape. James Watson - American biochemist (was also a sexist jerk), also a member of phage group Francis Crick - a complimentary pair to Watson, they were jointly awarded Nobel in Physiology or Medicine in 1962. Watson and Crick's approach was modeling DNA - asking which atoms went where, based on the laws of chemistry and physics. **Harvard refused to publish Watson's autobiography called The Double Helix, because of potentially libelous characterization of other collaborators in the project. Specifically villainized Rosalyn Franklin - worked at King's College London, was Jewish, and a woman, went to a talk by Watson and Crick, tore apart their suggested model of DNA. The head of the Cavendish was humiliated, fobidding them from more DNA modelling. She was a leading expert in x-ray crystallography. 1952 - Franklin made photo 51 - x-ray crystallography image of DNA - shows a clear x-pattern, suggesting a helix, or spiral stair shape. But Franklin didn't know that the deputy director of her lab, Maurice Wilkins, was secretly passing her notes and images to Watson and Crick. The rest became history... Adenine pairs with Thymine (A-T) Guanine pairs with Cytosine (G-C) *Uracil (U) instead of thymine (T) in RNA The zipper shape of the double-helix allows DNA to transmit information from generation to generation with few copying errors. A cellular machine "unzips" the staircase down the middle, and figures out one half of a base pair by looking at the other. After publishing their work, Watson and Crick became celebrities, while Franklin died young, likely due to her work with x-rays. DNA became a machine-language "program" to make RNA, which became an assembly-language "program" for making proteins, which are what life is made out of. This process was thought to be quite computer-like, moving only in one direction - from DNA to RNA to proteins. - Central Dogma of Genetics **we now know this process is more complicated, but the essential idea is useful 1953 - University of Chicago chemist Stanley Miller and his advisor Harold Urey produced amino acids, the building blocks of life, out of an electrified broth of non-living nutrients. Supported the theory that life originated from a "primordial soup" billions of years ago. This is in contrast to the idea that life came from outer space - Panspermia - which Crick believed. Mutations gave rise to the diversity that Darwin described. Molecular techniques revolutionized the study of evolution. Species were regrouped by the similarity of their DNA, not their visible physical features. Biotech took off in early 1970's in San Francisco. Berg/Cohen/Boyer - published the results of experiments with recombinant DNA - rDNA. With rDNA, scientists could splice DNA from two different species. Allowed for greater production of the hormone insulin, among other things. Diamond v. Chakrabarty - landmark Supreme Court case - can a company patent a bioengineered life form? Yes - if you engineer an organism's genome, then it becomes a technology. 1980 - several biotech companies launched IPO's with massive valuations.

21. The Industrial Revolution

By 1900, industrialization had transformed the world. Coal was source of energy for industrial revolution. It burned much hotter and more efficiently than charcoal, allowing for smelting of metal and powering of locomotive. The steam engine is a reminder that a revolutionary technology often isn't one new invention, but a process of improving existing ones. 1781 - James Watt - Watt steam engine - improved on older designs, made more efficient. Precision manufacturing enabled production of interchangeable parts at scale. Arose shortly after Watt's engine. Telegraphy - sending messages over long distances using electrical signals, transformed communication for many Agricultural machines Electrical light Thomas Telford - dubbed the Colossus of Roads, he shone a light on civil engineering By 1800, the capital generated by cottage industries became the foundation for factories. And factories offered lots of advantages over a rural cottage - namely, the production could be mechanized and centralized, to make things more quickly for less money. As industrialization took off, labor went from being seasonally based to being based on clock time. Factory work started early in the morning and stopped late at night. Laborers worked in shifts and were fined if they didn't keep pace. Class - before industrial revolution, your lot in life was determined by birth. Industrialization led to new way of thinking about class where your place in society wasn't tied to nobility, but to money. So there was the possibility of class mobility. Middle class - industrialization led to a whole new class of non-noble property owners. Middle class became chief producers and consumers of industrial products. Working class - often lived in crowded, unsanitary facilities. Typhus and cholera outbreaks were common. Environment - the burning of so much coal so quickly left its mark on the earth. Today many earth scientists agree we are living in a new geological epoch due to human alteration of the earth - Anthropocene - "the age of man" Key changes during time of Industrial Revolution: 1. Increased standard of living 2. Sustained economic growth 3. Environmental degradation 4. Harsh working conditions 5. Anthropocene

45. Climate Science

The Blue Marble - 1972 - taken during Apollo 17 mission. Has become a symbol for the environmental movement. Scientist tend to be resistant to big claims. By the 1900's scientist were trending toward specialization. Guy Callendar - accurately predicted rising atmospheric CO2 levels in 1938. Correlated temperature trends with CO2 trends. Han Seuss & Roger Revelle - 1957 - human emissions might create a "greenhouse effect." Keeling Curve - trend of rising CO2 levels and rising temperatures. IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - 1988 1996 - world governments came together to ban CFCs - were causing hole in ozone layer 2000 - Paul Crutzen introduced the term anthropocene *some objections to this term relate to the fact that not all humans are to blame Capitalocene - another term popular with scientists Golden spikes - geological moments that represent shifts in the very makeup of the earth, usually create visible shifts in geology Coal - late 1700's to late 1800's Radioactive material - strontium 90 - traces could be found all over the world after the first atomic bomb test in 1945 Plastic -took off around 1960 Chicken bones - more than 23 billion chickens alive at any given time, most common terrestrial vertebrate species on the planet Great Acceleration - saw rapid, often exponential growth in human population, use of freshwater, ability to produce and move food, greenhouse gas emissions, temperature of the earth's surface, and consumption of all kinds of natural resources. Also gave rise to first Mega-Cities - urban areas with over 10 million people. Lead to creation of national parks and green areas in cities. Planetary boundaries - a set of nine specific ranges for natural processes within which humans can definitely live. These include measures such as climate change, ocean acidification, and ozone depletion, but also the genetic diversity of life on earth and how much land is converted to cropland. Climate change pushback - politically conservative talk shows still run stories about how there's "no consensus" 2010 - Naomi Oreskes, Eric Conway - fossil fuels companies had hired some of the same PR strategists as tobacco companies decades earlier, to invent climate denial, to create doubt about science that isn't really doubted by scientists. What kinds of knowledge do we need to make today, in a connected, fragile, increasingly "disrupted" world? Scientists are increasingly being called to go beyond description, and recommend action. Geoengineering - climate engineering Some geoengineering is relatively uncontroversial, like planting more forests, while others are hotly debated, like adding iron to the ocean to foster growth of algae, to capture more CO2. The biggest shifts in science today are moral. Yellow vest movement - France - French people subject to a higher tax on fuel, to curb emissions, hit working poor hardest, especially in rural areas, riots broke out. Also questions about professional scientists today being on the wrong side of history - Geologists working to extract more fossil fuels, for example. Science alone can't answer the tough questions on what we should do about climate disruption and who should pay for potential solutions.

24. Microbiology

Microbes - single celled organisms Matthias Schleiden (studied plants) & Theodor Schwann (studied animals) - proposed modern cell theory around 1837 - cell is the fundamental unit of life. Noticed dots in the middle of cells - nuclei - must be somehow important to life. Huxley - mechanistic model: cells are little factories with different parts that have different functions. their functions make the parts add up to the whole. Cell theory wasn't immediately connected with disease, however. Miasma theory: diseases were caused by foul-smelling airs that came from rotting meats, swamps, and other putrefying sources. By the mid-1800's a few scientists were pushing germ theory. Cholera - had been ravaging England since it was introduced from south Asia in early 1800's. 1854 - Cholera epidemic hit London. Doctor John Snow mapped cases and seemed to notice a cluster centered around one public well. Hypothesized that cholera microbes were multiplying in the waters. Convinced leaders of neighborhood to remove pump handle. Outbreak subsided and Snow was lauded as a hero. Louis Pasteur - chemist who developed the overall principle of vaccination and contributed to the foundation of immunology. Credited as co-founder of microbiology and founder of zymology - the science of fermentation. Fermentation - when sugar is biologically converted into ethanol and carbon dioxide. In food, this usually happens due to bacteria or yeast. 1865 - Pasteur patented a process in which liquids, such as milk, were heated to a temp. 60-100 degrees Celsius, which would kill microbes. This became known as pasteurization. Related to this idea of killing bad germs, Pasteur also helped develop hygienic medical practices, along with British surgeon Joseph Lister. No germs in the operating room! Sparred with scientist over theory of spontaneous generation. Pasteur believed living things could only grow out of other living things - biogenesis. Pasteur's immunology work - if you could identify a microorganism, you could give someone a weakened version of it, or vaccine, and the patient taking the vaccine would develop immunity to the real bug. 1879 - developed first lab manufactured vaccine - for chicken cholera. Robert Koch - studied small things that lead to big developments in human health. identified different microbes. founded bacteriology with other German colleagues. In 1880s and 1890s, traveled to areas experiencing epidemics to identify microbes. Anthrax, tuberculosis, diphtheria, typhoid, pneumonia, gonorrhea, meningitis, whooping cough, tetanus, plague, leprosy, syphilis. Jacques Loeb - parthenogenesis

17. Newton and Leibniz

Sir Isaac Newton - from poor farming family, attended Trinity College at Cambridge around 1661, came up with concept of calculus before he graduated. Calculus is the mathematics that describes how a thing changes instantaneously, whether that thing is velocity, acceleration, displacement, height, weight, volume, or whatever. 1666 - Cambridge closed due to plague scare, Newton went home and had his Annus Mirabilis - Miracle Year 1. discovered the laws of gravity 2. laid down core ideas of calculus 3. started to develop theory of light and colors **Newton was also a rabid alchemist. That said, Newton wasn't interested in trying to turn lead into gold. He was just trying to understand everything. ** 1672 - On Optics - crucial experiment - was very controversial, debate went on for decades Queries - went way beyond optical physics, concerning the nature and transmission of heat, the possible cause of gravity, electricity, how God created matter "in the beginning," the proper way to do science, and the ethical conduct of human beings. As much as the work on optics itself, these queries influenced science for centuries. 1687 - The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy - "Principia" 1. The motion of bodies in free space 2. Movement of bodies in a restricted medium 3. Celestial mechanics - gravity was the force holding all the planets in their orbits around the sun Mechanical intelligibility - a fact about nature is true because we can do stuff with it Gottfried Wilhelm Liebniz - 1666 - On the Combinatorial Art - written when he was just 19! Liebniz worked out elements of calculus in 1675, independently of Newton. And we actually use Leibniz's version, not Newton's! Liebniz's delay in publication, along with a growing rivalry between thinkers from different nations, meant that Leibniz never really got the credit he deserved. The royal society favored Newton from the start. They never gave Leibniz a chance to offer his version of events, ruling in favor of Newton - the society's president - in 1713.

16. Age of Exploration

1400 - 1600's "Age of exploration" - an exchange - the greatest exchange of people, plants, animals, diseases, and ideas that the world has ever seen. 1400 - compass and gunpowder had both made their way to Europe from China. Late 1400's - Portugese ships travel around the horn of Africa to India. Philosophical difference in exploration between Chinese explorers and Portugese explorers - most people living around the Indian ocean respected overlapping political boundaries, while European's states didn't recognize other states' claims to their territories. 1492 - The Colombian Exchange begins. The later colonial powers - the English, Dutch, and French - followed the Portuguese and Spanish pattern of state support for science, focused on geography and botany. Science became a tool of empire. By 1800, Europeans controlled 35% of land and resources on Earth. Edible plants from the new world - corn, potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers, chili peppers, beans, tobacco, pumpkin, chocolate, avocados, vanilla, peanuts, pecans, cashews Carl Linnaeus - formalised the modern system of naming organisms called binomial nomenclature. As more people learned about the new world, they wanted to make more sense of it. So exploration led to the development of museums and the practice of scientific collecting. Wunderkammern. Human immune systems are adaptive: they learn over time how to better respond to threats from dangerous microbes. Which is amazing! But the populations of Eurasia and Africa had been mostly separated from those of the Americas and Australia for thousands of years. Smallpox ran rampant through Native American populations, killing half of people who caught it. Smallpox was only the most deadly of a number of diseases that Europeans and Africans brought (the exchange may have worked the other way with syphilis). Cotton Mather - variolation is a way of protecting someone against smallpox by deliberately infecting them with material from another person who had survived the disease. This is different from vaccination, which uses a similar but milder virus to trick the body into fighting smallpox. Colonization and slavery - these practices embodied Francis Bacon's philosophy of instrumentalizing, or exploiting, "nature": the new world and its peoples were resources to be used for the betterment of humankind, in this case, meaning Christian humankind. Alongside the "new science" created by the thinkers of the scientific revolution, the age of exploration created a new sense of the new in Europe. Nova Reperta engravings.

15. The New Anatomy

Andreas Vesalius - challenged the theories of Galen and ultimately revolutionized the study of biology and the practice of medicine. De Humani Corporis Fabrica - 1543. Brain and nerves are center of the mind. Also a guide to human dissection. Vesalius began to think about the human body as a composite of physical, mechanical, interlocking systems, not a bag of humors. William Harvey - fellow at Royal College of Physicians in London, most famous for theory circulatory system. Vivisection - live dissection. Anton Philips van Leeuwenhoek - inventor of the microscope, became known as the "father of microbiology." Discovered microscopic organisms he called "animalcules." Jan Swammerdam - he delicately dissected animal and plant tissues under a microscope, learning in the process about the structure and development of life. Robert Hooke - for all his contributions and technological advances, Hooke has been called England's Leonardo da Vinci. 1665 - Micrographia. First instance of word "cell" being used.

27. Electricity

Current can happen either by the movement of negatively charged subatomic particles called electrons through wires, or by the movement of charged molecules called ions. Ben Franklin - 1752 - flew his kite in a thunderstorm with a key and succeeded in drawing off electrical fire - from this, he developed the lightning rod, but no real epistemic knowledge Luigi Galvani - frog leg experiments - led to theory of animal electricity 1818 - Mary Shelley - wrote Frankenstein Alessandro Volta - inspired by Galvani, created the first practical method of generating electricity - first battery known as Voltaic Pile - still, no one could really explain how it worked, because no one had figured out the relationship between electricity and magnetism Hans Christian Orsted - showed that electric currents actually produce neatly circular magnetic fields when they flow through wires. This became known as Orsted's Law. 1820 - Andre Ampere - tried to work out the math from Orsted's experiment - two parallel wires attract each other if current flows in same direction, repel each other if current flows in opposite direction. Force of currents was also inversely proportional to the distance between them and proportional to intensity of current flowing in each - Ampere's law. Theorized that there must be some kind of "electrodynamic molecule" that carried the currents of electricity and magnetism - basis for electron. Georg Ohm - an electrical current between two points is directly proportional to the voltage - Ohm's Law. Resistance - difficulty of passing an electric current through that conductor. I = V/R where I is current in Amperes, V is voltage in Volta, and R is resistance in Ohms. Michael Faraday 1821 - started inventing electric motors. 1831 - the generation of electricity in one wire via the changing magnetic field created by the current in another wire. This became the basis of the electromagnetic technologies that we use today. in the same year, also discovered magneto electrical induction. the electricity created by magnetic induction, the electricity produced by a voltaic battery, and good ole static electricity were all the same phenomenon. James Clark Maxwell colleague of Faraday, 1855 - published equations that explained Faraday's inventions He theorized that electromagnetic waves travel at the speed of light, and that light must exist in the same medium as electrical and magnetic energy. By connecting light, electricity, and magnetism, Maxwell laid the groundwork for modern physics. Was a major influence on Einstein. Menlo Park, NJ - Thomas Edison - also known as the Wizard of Menlo Park - may or may not have been much of a scientist. Started his career as a telegraph operator at 16, worked his way up, until he could open his own workshop in 1876. Mostly, we remember Edison for his practical work on incandescent lightbulbs, but we should also see him as one of the first people who saw potential for an entire electrical grid. Late 1870's - people didn't understand or see the need for a source of electricity. Edison befriended J.P. Morgan - the richest man in the world at the time. With Morgan's financial backing, he could do further research on filaments, to show off his lights, and to electrify downtown Manhattan. **He didn't invent the components of his electrical system, he just improved upon them thanks to his workshop and the financial backing. He became embroiled in an intense public battle called the "current war" - his DC (direct current) vs. Westinghouse's AC (alternating current).

28. Ford, Cars, and a New Revolution

First Industrial Revolution - ramped up around 1800, started in Britain, ran on steam, ran on trains and factories, led to a lot of scientific discoveries by individual researchers such as Volta, Faraday, Maxwell Second Industrial Revolution - resulted from the industrialization of electricity and mass manufacturing. it happened around 1900, started in the United States, and ran on electricity, cars, and communication technologies. led to technological innovations owned by corporations. Brooklyn Bridge, Eiffel Tower, Automobile Karl Benz - invented the practical automobile in 1885, but cars at this time were very expensive, most people didn't use them Henry Ford - raised in Michigan, 1879 became an apprentice machinist, 1891 joined the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit, became chief engineer only two years later, worked on experimental projects on the side. Ford loved Edison, modeled his life on Edison. 1903 founded Ford Motor Company. Until this point, cars were expensive, unreliable, and there were no standard car parts. Ford wanted to build a car that was affordable, easy to operate, and tough. 1908 released Model T, which changed the world. In 1910, they produced 10,000. In 1916, they sold 500,000, each for less than half 1914 price. 1927, 15 million cars and other machines. These large production numbers highlight the phrase most often associated with Ford: mass production. This style of production meant specialization and standardization. The Ford plants at Highland Park and River Rouge only produced one thing - the Model T. They used assembly lines. "Fordism" - build sophistication into the product, making it modular, using standardized parts. and take skill out of the work involved. Ford hoped the Model T would help preserve small towns in America and keep farmers on their farms. He published a Model T repair catalog to help people start their own small businesses repairing his cars. Ironically, his large company created an environment hostile to small auto entrepreneurs. Working on an auto line was boring, Ford faced a 300% employee turnover rate. So he doubled the pay to $5 a day. In reality, only white men were eligible to earn the full $5. He also wanted to encourage his employees to become model citizens. To earn the premium pay: 1. They had to work for six months. 2. They had to be clean-living: sober, thrifty, possessed of good moral habits, and involved in civic life. 3. They had to swear off all involvement with union activity. Ford's legacy is complicated. He was racist and viewed Jewish immigrants as threats to democracy.

30. The Mind/Brain

Historically, mental illness, or madness, was thought to be: 1. divine punishment 2. possession by spirits 3. imbalance of the humors Scientific study of the human mind/brain started around the Industrial Revolution, with the rise of the therapeutic asylum, or mental hospital. Phillipe Pinel - ordered mental hospital patients to be unchained, advocated for moral treatment. Began a shift in thought from "madness" to a medical condition of the mind. Over the 1800's proto-neuroscientists shifted from offering moral explanations for madness to material explanations tied to brains. John Hughlings Jackson - studied epilepsy, argued that different bodily functions are tied to different areas of the brain. Ivan Pavlov - focused on conditioned reflexes. taught dogs to associate the sound of a metronome with being fed, causing them to salivate when presented with the sound alone. became foundational to the school of psychology called behaviorism - focused on environmental stimuli. Santiago Ramon y Cajal - found that brain tissue is made up of cells, like the rest of the body - the Neuron Doctrine Wilhelm Wundt - 1879 established psychology as a discipline separate from other sciences. Wundt's student Titchener founded structuralism, a philosophy that tries to understand things by seeing how their parts fit together, regardless of what they do. William James - heavily influenced by Darwin, wrote Principles of Psychology in 1890, founded functionalism, a philosophy that tries to understand things by working out the purpose for them. G. Stanley Hall - student of both Wundt and James, founded experimental psychology lab at Johns Hopkins, went on to professionalize the field, started American Journal of Psychology in 1887, founded American Psychological Association in 1892. Sigmund Freud - in 1885, attended Charcot's lectures on hysteria and became obsessed with mental illness. (Hysteria is a diagnosis no longer used today, was a diagnostic trash can, applied to 1. loss of motor control 2. paralysis 3. unexplained fears 4. fainting 5. emotional outbursts often applied to women with independent ideas) Started working with talk therapy, started to realize many hysterical patients were smart and normal. 1893 - Studies on Hysteria - theorized mental disorders not the result of bad biology but bad memories. The supposed best therapy was helping them recover repressed memories - psycholanalysis. 1900 - The Interpretation of Dreams. For Freud, sexuality was a form of psychic energy called libido that floated around the brain and had to go somewhere. Iceberg theory of consciousness. 1914-1918 - Soldiers returning from WWI experienced shell shock (now known as PTSD), talk therapy played a role in helping some Carl Jung - the collective unconscious - a deep part of the mind supposedly derived from ancestral memory and myth, not individual experience. Advertisers including Freud's nephew Edward Bernays, adopted theories of mind and behavior in order to sell consumers increasingly mass-produced goods. J.B. Watson, founder of behaviorism, became an advertiser.

25. Genetics

How are traits passed down??? Darwin knew perfectly well that he didn't know. He theorized a hypothetical unit of heredity he called the pangene. Gregor Mendel - his work was under appreciated during his lifetime. From a family of poor farmers, he was always interested in plants and in beekeeping. He studied philosophy, physics, and agriculture at university, then became a monk. He asked his abbot for some land to set up an experimental garden. 1856-1863, he studied variation in pea plants. Importantly, he found that these traits seemed to be inherited independently of each other, which made the traits he studied really useful for doing quantitative, or measurement-based, biology. He noticed that some traits seemed to be passed down often, while others disappeared after one generation. He categorized these as dominant and recessive traits. He noticed 1 in 4 pea plants had purely recessive traits, 2 in 4 were hybrids with recessive and dominant traits, and 1 in 4 were purebred dominant traits. He came up with three general claims that are known as the Laws of Mendelian Inheritance: 1. Law of Segregation - genes that control traits are distinct. (*some of them, anyway) 2. Law of Independent Assortment - genes that control different traits switch around when organisms breed. changing a pea's seed color in breeding, doesn't seem to change its height. 3. Dominance - some traits are dominant, and others recessive. Shared these laws in Experiments on Plant Hybridization in 1865. *Gregor Mendel was not trying to be the next famous scientist, and was unbothered by lack of notoriety. He was just trying to improve plant hybrids. He was in an isolated abbey, far away from scientific centers. The next plant he experimented with, hawk weed, didn't reproduce in the same way as pea plants, so he wasn't able to replicate his experiments. In 1868, he was promoted to Abbott, and didn't publish after that. He was also so far ahead of his time, that no one recognized the importance of his work. When he died, genetics was lost for decades. Around 1900, four scientists rediscovered his work independently of each other. They became champions of Mendelism, or genetics. The Fly Boys - researchers at Columbia University who conducted experiments on the genetics of fruit flies. Sturtevant - Genetic Linkage Maps Linkage maps are markers of order - of which genes come after which - not exact locations. But they were still very useful in working out how traits are passed down. The flies they used were the first Model Organism. Barbara McClintock - American geneticist who did most work on chromosomes transmit genetic information. She experimented with corn and discovered some incredibly important things, but stopped publishing her data in 1953 due to her colleague's skepticism. Like Mendel, she was too far ahead of her time. Eventually awarded Nobel in 1983.

38. Ecology

How whole systems of living and nonliving things change together over time. Ecology became a formal science in the late 1800's, early 1900's. Ernst Haeckle - Art Forms in Nature - masterwork of scientific illustration - coined the word "ecology" Ecologists include: life scientists, earth scientists, geneticists, botanists In addition to field research, botanical gardens and natural history museums were key places of research. Ynes Mexia - grew the wealth of knowledge on South American plant species. Collected more than 150,000 wild botanical specimens, at least 500 which were new species. Vladimir Virnetsky - geochemistry, or using the methods of chemistry to understand minerals. another was biogeochemistry, which analyzes living and nonliving processes. He promoted a new mode of ecological thought. What is life? Geosphere - non-living, abiotic surroundings which cradle and interact with biosphere Biosphere - animals/people, living elements Noosphere - totality of human thought, cradled by and interacting with lower levels Also pioneered radio geology - the study of radioactive elements in crust **also worked on Soviet atomic bomb Arthur Tansley - obsessed with ferns, and later, all plants, tried to map plants across England. first editor of Journal of Ecology. remembered for his use of the word ecosystem. Frederic Clements - argued that plants should be studied as communities. plant communities aren't "like" a living organism, they *are* a living organism. focused on how an area's climate determines which plants will live there. ecological succession. Tansley and Clements fought about ecology, but both agreed that conservation should be promoted. Teddy Roosevelt - created first National Parks system in early 1900's. 1972 - Marine Mammal Protection Act Hutchinson/Odom - established ecology as a richly quantitative discipline. used experiments to generate mathematical models tracing the flow of energy from non-living sources into: primary producers primary consumers meat eaters eaters of dead things The first to use very small amounts of radioactive particles as tracers to map how particles move around in a pond, including how plants take up radiation. Radiation ecology - the effect of radioactive materials on living systems. Odom pushed all biology students to study ecology - which got a big laugh in the forties, but is now part of the common sense of the life sciences. of course you have to study how weather, plants, animals, and soils relate! Fundamentals in Ecology - 1953 - revised, is still in use in classrooms today Systems ecology - the holistic study of complex living systems as systems James Lovelock - NASA hired him to build instruments to measure conditions on Mars Gaia hypothesis - the Earth's biogeosphere is self-regulating within broad limits - very controversial - suggested a self-awareness of the earth Lynn Margulis -supported the Gaia hypothesis - discovered that some of the tiny organelles inside cells like mitochondria and chloroplasts used to be free floating bacteria - endosymbiosis Human ecology - how do humans affect ecology and earth systems the landscape isn't just a supply depot, but is also the ooikos, the home in which we must live. Eugene Odom

5. The Americas

Mesoamerica - Mexico and Central America Records of this civilization were destroyed by Spanish conquistadors after 1500 CE. Only four codices survive today. More engravings and stone works remain. Olmecs - southern Mexico, invented art style, writing system, mathematics, calendar system Maya - 2000 BCE - 1600 CE. Step pyramids, astronomical observations, vigesimal math systems, calculation tables. We aren't sure what the ancient maya thought, but it's true that they made a lot of calculations about time for religious reasons. Intensive cultivation with irrigation. Nahual/Aztecs -created a system of canals, floodgates, and aqueducts. They used dikes fo separate fresh and salt water. This allowed them to practice intensive lake-marsh agriculture, growing maize, amaranth, fish and ducks. Aztec life expectancy exceeded Spanish colonizers. Inka - 1100 - Spanish conquest, Machu Pichu, extremely advanced society, but no writing system. Quipu - knot tying system used to keep records.

10. Alchemy

Skilled experimentalists, backed by theories of matter. Played a role in the development of our knowledge about matter. Parallels the medieval scholastic medical tradition. Alchemists did publish books, but typically encoded their philosophies in complicated allegories, or stories wherein the characters and actions stand for something other than what they are. A lot of alchemical books focused on transmutation, or changing metals into other metals. In theory - all the way back to Aristotle - transmutation mimicked a natural process: metals were compounds, formed deep in the earth when different quantities of sulfur and mercury were crushed together. In alchemical framework, illnesses were reactions gone wrong. Chinese alchemists detected its vital channels of energy transmission using magnets, formalizing that system of earth magic called feng shui. This work eventually led to the invention of gunpowder. Indian alchemy focused on medicine, on forms of mercury, and on how to preserve health and hopefully create an undecayable body. Gutenberg - made printing much more economical using alchemical experimentation. Publicly, alchemy was attacked as superstition, even as practitioners keep doing it in private. Alchemy went underground for most of the 18th century, maintained in secret societies, before dying out.

1. Nullius in verba

The Royal Society's motto 'Nullius in verba' is taken to mean 'take nobody's word for it'. It is an expression of the determination of Fellows to withstand the domination of authority and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment.

44. Life and Longevity

The links between particular alleles, or versions of genes, and specific diseases - like cancers, immune diseases, and psychiatric disorders - remained to be proven. 1990's - cheaper, better, faster genetic testing for alleles related to disease Biosociality - how people are relating to each other differently based on what they know about their genetics (example: people with breast cancer genes forming support groups) Genetic testing has helped with prevention/early diagnosis of many cases of cancer. Some medical researchers have experimented with genetic therapies. These would involve replacing a region of DNA giving rise to a disease with a doctor-designed "therapeutic gene." Basicaly, patients' genes get taken out, changed, and put back in. Personalized medicine - a new idea in medicine where treatment would be tailored to a person's unique genome. Even with more information, engineering life using 20th century technology still meant painstakingly creating new synthetic DNA parts and proteins by hand, and testing over and over again to find the rare successful result. CRISPR - Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats - the most efficient way we have to edit genes at the moment, may revolutionize medicine and agriculture. Bacteria and archaea led to development of CRISPR. Bacteria use a similar process to fight off viral infection. Francisco Mojica - 2003 - CRISPR must be an adaptive immune system - a way for microbes to protect themselves against viruses. The paper on his findings was rejected from the scientific journal Nature. When a virus enters the microbe's cell, if it's recognized as being on the list, a crispr-associated protein cuts up the virus. And they system is a good editor: it reads for specific DNA sequences and only cuts these. How to use this system for the benefit of humans? First, scientists had to move beyond finding the palindromic repeats in different microbes to understanding how the whole system worked: what told the cutting protein where to cut? How could the system be reprogrammed? Reprogenetics - engineering babies - not just to make them healthier, but to make "designer babies" with specific traits - resurgence of eugenics??? Microbiomics - the genomics of microbes, how does the human microbiome function? Brain - MRI can created non-invasive map of brain, fMRI allows scientists to see blood flow in real time, Human Connectome Project Think about neuroenhancement: what if there was a drug that targeted specific brain regions linked to logic problems, memory, or creativity? Brain-Computer Interface - could transform lives of people suffering with disabilities like paralysis ETHICS: ***All these technologies have one thing in common: rich people will get them way before poor people.*** While access remains uneven, or stratified, new groups may arise based on healthcare - not genetics or other forms of biosociality. As some epidemiologists have said: "zip code is a better predictor of health than genetic code."

46. Gender, science, and the limits of history

There is no one list of the greatest stories of knowledge-making. Doing history involves making choices about which events could be seen as making history. Objectivity - neutrality of opinion on a certain topic. We can't really be truly objective when we're choosing which stories to highlight. The history of science isn't really about lone hero scientists, but rather... complex systems of understanding and controlling the world - systems that aren't always moral or just, by present standards. Historically women in science have been ignored, underrepresented, or ridiculed. Anyone who makes knowledge has a standpoint - as does the person writing history about that person. And this standpoint isn't some subjective, personal opinion, it's a way of understanding reality. Science is awesome! Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood." - Marie Curie Now is the time to understand more, so we may fear less.

39. Controlling & polluting the environment

We share one fragile house. U.S. & Soviet powers tried weather control experiments, didn't work Other projects around the world focused on agriculture and power. US Bureau of Reclamation. Artificial fertilizers - nitrogen - Haber & Bosch - requires fossil fuels to work - runoff - eutrification Improvement of staple crop yields - hybrid varieties - monoculture The Dust Bowl - Depression era Paul Ehrlich - The Population Bomb - could agriculture keep up with population growth? Green Revolution - 1950s & 1960s - crop yields went way up for farmers in less industrialized countries Organized by International Agricultural Research Centers (IARC's). The IARCs believed that the best way to improve yields was through smart breeding. They wanted to focus on breeding plants resistant to pest in specific areas. Norman Borlaug - worked with Rockefeller Foundation in Mexico for 16 years, developing a pest resistant form of wheat. How? Lots of painstaking research into plant genetics, courtesy other geneticists, and lots of field trials. The Ford Foundation pushed the Indian government to adopt the same changes. So Indian scientists worked with Mexican scientists, and hybrid semi-dwarf Mexican wheat seeds were shipped to Indian in time for the 1963 planting seasons. This lead to astounding growths in yields. International team of scientists also developed IR8, or Miracle Rice. Rockefeller & Ford Foundations created the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. Borlaug won Nobel in 1970, but no Mexican, Indian, or Japanese scientists shared the prize with him. China - Maoist state fostered its own agricultural development with experimental agricultural stations - hybrid sorghum & rice. Green Revolution - was an immediate success in terms of yields. However it meant that way more farmers started practicing monoculture, essentially betting their chips on a small number of hybrid crops. Thousands of traditional crops are no longer cultivated, often replaced by wheat, maize, rice, and soy, which make up more than half our food today. Industrial farming requires investing in expensive equipment and hybrid seeds, which aren't produced by the previous year's harvest. Famine has always been linked to distribution, or the political-economic process of moving food around, not only how much food is produced. The Green Revolution was also about US political power, in essence buying allies and influence with bread. Soft power. Synthetic pesticides used to control bugs that spread disease in humans - DDT one of the most common - it was sprayed on fields, urban landscapes, everywhere. Helped fight malaria and typhus during WWII. It turned out that while DDT wasn't immediately toxic to humans, it was toxic to a lot of other living things, like birds and fish. It also wasn't good for humans either in the long-term. Rachel Carson - American biologist and pioneering environmentalist. her work in changing national pesticide policy made her a pest to chemical companies. years of careful research. Silent Spring - 1962 Helped spark the modern environmental movement in the US. Bhopal, India - 1984 - chemical plant producing Sevin exploded - considered worst industrial disaster in history Chernobyl, Ukraine - 1986 - nuclear reactor meltdown

9. Ancient and Medieval Medicine

Early medical systems allowed people to make sense of bodies and health. Traditional Chinese Medicine - health is a balance between yin and yang. Disease is imbalance, health care is restoring balance by moving chi - energy. Aryuveda - India - Etiology - what causes diseases Symptomatology - what diseases look like 1088CE University of Bologne - Aristotelian Biology and Physics, Four humors - blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile, disease caused by imbalance in humors, health care involves restoring humoral balance, most simple treatment was offering good dietary advice, Hippocrates - Hippocratic corpus, Hippocratic oath. Galen - treated Roman gladiators, then court physician to Emperor Marcus Aurelius, wrote huge number of texts, built on the systems of Hippocrates and Aristotle, but also made detailed notes on human anatomy drawn from experience. Human dissection was still illegal in imperial Rome. Al-Razi - al-Hawi al-Kabir The Canon of Medicine - Ibn Sina (also known as Avicenna) The Trotula - written by a woman, became foundational to gynecology and all other topics related to women's health. But you might not know that this foundational text on women's health was written by a woman, because her identity was systematically written out of history until the late 20th century.

2. Presocratics

Greek philosophers before the time of Socrates approx. 600-400 BCE Natural Philosophy - self-conscious inquiry into nature. They didn't make detailed, accurate knowledge of nature based on observation. But they did come up with theories that tried to account for why stuff is the way it is. Schools of thought - groups of teachers and students who thought about the same problems. Rational debate - reason, logic, observation. Thales - the Milesians Anaximander - the apeiron Empedocles Pythagoras - that triangle guy. also a cult leader. idealism. created an abstract proof. Democritus - atomism.

8. Medieval China

Hydraulic civilization - many big rivers, that were diverted for irrigation. Unbroken scientific and literary tradition. 900-1300 CE - Northern and Southern Song Dynasties. Confucius - official state ideology of Song dynasty was neo-Confucianism. Giant State Beauracracy - Mandarinate Too many technological inventions to even list. 700 CE - Printing press 1040 CE - first movable type printing press 12th century - perfected gunpowder Infrastructure revolution - massive iron production The Grand Canal - 1327 - stretched 1100 miles. Allowed merchants to ship 400,000 tons of grain per year. Like Roman Empire, useful science was prioritized.

4. India

India presents a convenient counterpoint to Greece because knowledge-making in India was inseparable from a long religious tradition, sponsored by the state, and focused on applications. 1. Hinduism 2. Buddhism 3. Jainism 4. Ajivika Vedas - meaning "knowledge." sacred texts passed along orally, then written down in Sanskrit. Some parts of the vedas concerned math and astronomy, but mostly they concerned gods and rituals. Panini - rules about language The first science in India was linguistics. This tradition of memorizing the vedas and trying to understand words eventually led to the study of acoustics and musical tones. Chandragupta Maurya - inspired by Alexander the Great, conquered nearly entire subcontinent. Son Ashoka, convert to Buddhism. Outlawed unnecessary hunting, opened hospitals, spread Buddhism widely. Half of arable land in India was irrigated, with two harvests a year. Indian states developed whole government departments to supervise the building and maintenance of irrigation systems. To control the irrigation systems for harvests required a great deal of knowledge. A debate about the relative merits of applied versus pure science - knowledge of the immediately useful versus the abstractly true - is still raging today. Aryabhata & Brahmagupta - The Solutions - astronomy textbooks around 500 CE Aryuveda - "life knowledge" or "science of life" rational approaches to diseases and cures, based on years of study and experience. Indian medicine and surgery was probably the most advanced of any contemporary ancient civilization.

7. The Medieval Islamicate World

Islamicate scholars - people influenced by Islamic civilization, regardless of their religious views. Blend of cultures and belief systems made early Islamicate science cosmopolitan - that is, generally inclusive in character. Further, Islam-the-religion called on its adherents to treat others as equals, helping make Islamicate knowledge production more egalitarian. High literacy rate. Baghdad was largest city in the world around 930 CE, with a population of about a million. Al-Mansur - House of Wisdom - international center of translation and research. Largest library in the world by 850. Translation movement - fostered strong appreciation for reasoned thought. Madrasas also critical sources of knowledge transmission. Zij - astronomical handbooks. Al-Khwarizmi - the word algorithm derived from Latinization of his name The Abbasid state privileged public service and the interests of the state, focusing on improving useful arts such as hydraulic engineering and agricultural science. The Book of Ingenious Devices. Urban centers of trade and knowledge exchange populated by natural philosophers with a keen desire to build upon earlier insights regardless of their origins.

20. Earth Science

No one could confidently know the age of the earth before radiometric dating. 17th century it was generally thought that the age of the earth would be about the same age as human history. Although many geologists of this time were devout Christians, they thought the genesis narrative could be read as more of a metaphor that complemented, rather than contradicted, scientific evidence. Georges Cuvier - each epoch has its own flora and fauna. Gaps in fossil layers - extinction events - catastrophism Charles Lyell - uniformitarianism Deep time/ Geological time - before humans, earth was around for a very, very long time

6. Roman Engineering

Remembered chiefly for feats of engineering. Invented concrete - Opus Caementitium. Built roads, arches, domes, and acqueducts, ***many of which are still around***. Appian Way - still around. "all roads lead to Rome." Perhaps the most important technology the Romans optimized was the state itself: they developed a complicated legal system, a well-supplied army, public food assistance, and massive public games. All these public works required a great deal of labor. Approx. 1 in 3 Romans were slaves. Roman slave system different than in the American South. Slaves might be highly educated. They could potentially vote and buy their freedom. Spartacus - slave revolt. The technologies that engineers make are, like the sciences, political - only as good or as bad as the humans who use them. Inherited much knowledge from the Greeks. 321-31 BCE - Hellenistic world. In the ancient Mediterranean, the job of building warmachines was called architecton, or architect. Most were anonymous, but Archimedes was one of the most famous. Claudius Ptolemy - epicycles, mathematical syntaxis, geography Vitruvius - inspired DaVinci **No Greco-Roman philosophers thought the world was flat.**

11. Universities and Cathedrals

Scriptoria - rooms where monks would copy manuscripts by hand Gothic cathedrals - they weren't simply places to go on Sunday to worship, a cathedral was the seat of a bishop, or regional church leader, and the administrative, spiritual, and educational center of the bishopric or diocese - the district under the bishop's control. Height of cathedral building 1000-1500 CE - this was an era of frantic economic growth in Europe. The construction of these spaces required immense technical knowledge. Black death - plague that swept across Europe from 1348-1350, bacteria spread by fleas, killed 75-200 million people, 60% of Europe's total population, came back periodically after that until 18th century. Pre-plague period - universities took off.

3. Plato and Aristotle

Socrates - knowledge comes from asking questions. Socratic method - method in which you constantly ask questions so that students can steadily break down a big problem into smaller parts, parts they can test hypotheses against. Plato - Socrates' student. The Academy - taught Athenians how to think like Socrates. Republic. Timaeus. Aristotle - Plato's student. Ideas based on empirical evidence. You observe the world and come up with a theory to explain it. Peripatetic.

26. Thermodynamics

Thermodynamics - the physics of heat, energy, temperature, and work. For most of human history, people didn't even have a good way to measure temperature, let alone understand how it works. Gabriel Fahrenheit - Count Rumford (second husband of Madame Lavoisier!) - He noticed that certain materials insulated better than others, and that air seemed to be involved in the transfer of heat...and concluded that air is a great insulator. Nicolas Sadi Carnot - pioneered the discipline of thermodynamics for his successors, Kelvin and Clausius. His work with steam engines led him to think a lot about thermodynamics, which led to the Second Law of Thermodynamics - the total entropy in a closed system can never decrease, only stay steady or incease: heat can't randomly flow from a colder point to a hotter one. In the 1840's several scientists independently discovered what we now (confusingly) refer to as the First Law of Thermodynamics - The Conservation of Energy - energy can change from one form to another. But energy is not lost. It has to go somewhere. 1840's - James Jule & Julius von Mayer independently concluded that heat transfer and mechanical work were essentially the same thing, called energy transfer. Heat = Motion. Motion = Heat. **Neither of their theories was accepted at the time! 1845 - Joule - On the Mechanical Equivalent of Heat von Mayer - tried to publish his ideas, but was rejected. attempted suicide, but only broke his legs. he was declared insane and locked in an asylum. Jule received most of the credit. Mayer also hypothesized that plants take light and change it into mechanical energy - photosynthesis - way ahead of his time. Joule = unit of energy Lord Kelvin - heard Jule talk in 1847, wanted more evidence. Ultimately Kelvin rejected caloric theory and teamed up with Joule. Today, Kelvin is best known for working out the science of absolute temperatures. The unit of absolute temperature is named the Kelvin. Rudolf Clausius - 1850s & 1860s - rewrote 1st and 2nd laws: Heat can never pass from a colder to a warmer body without some other change, connected therewith, occurring at the same time. Gave a mathematical explanation of entropy in 1865. Summary of 1st and 2nd laws: "The energy of the universe is constant. The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum."

14. The Scientific Methods

Today, there is one established scientific method. Historically speaking, there was no one scientific method. If you look at some of the great minds that helped shape today's concept of the scientific method, a set of basic principles starts to emerge: 1. rationality 2. experimentation 3. ruthless self-examination Galileo - became a professor of mathematics at the University of Pisa, also a ballistics consultant at the Arsenal of Venice. Then in 1609 he started working with telescopes. As he made more observations of the night sky, he became more convinced that Copernicus was right. Telescopes are a good example of how scientific instruments change the nature of scientific practice. After telescope success, he took a new job at University of Padua, as well as chief mathematician and philosopher of Florence. By 1611, he was on the Inquisition's radar. Galileo believed that science and God were not at odds, science was simply the uncovering of God's work. 1623 - The Assayer - scientists should be free to do their work. 1632 - Called to Rome to speak to the Inquisition. He was then placed under house arrest for the rest of his life. 1638 - Two New Sciences - treatise on how bodies fall through the air. He called for specific tests that would let experimenters confirm his laws with their own senses. This, in his words, was the mark of a "true scientist": independent confirmation. This is an awesome norm to try to live up to! Francis Bacon - Was cast out of public office for taking bribes. Most of his contribution to science was posthumous. A new approach to science, which was practical, instrumental, and supported by the state. Bacon described nature as female and passive, while humanity was male and active. Yikes. Rene Descartes - known as founding figure in modern math and philosophy. Bridged geometry and algebra, Cartesian plane, stopped publication of his own Copernican book in 1633, because he didn't want to run afoul of the Inquisition, the way Galileo did. 1637 - Discourse on Method 1. Knowledge obtained through the senses lacks absolute certainty, because the senses often deceive us. 2. Human reason can also be decieved! Logical conclusions from false premises will lead you to the wrong answers. For Descartes, the universe consists only of things math can describe. Systematic doubting - when in doubt, doubt yourself!

13. The New Astronomy

Tycho Brahe observed and took precise measurements of the same sky all the time, noting that sometimes "stars" streaked around - these were comets. Nova stella - new star - turned out to be supernova. Tycho's assistant - Johannes Kepler optical physics Astronomia Nova - 1609 He rejoiced at a harmony of ideas: his faith, empirical data, and elegant math, all in sync Galileo Galilei - 1609 - obtained telescope, refined this technology for years, resulting in more and better observations of planets 1610 - Siderius Nuncius - The Starry Messenger description of Earth's moon and bodies orbiting Jupiter A planet could not orbit another planet other than earth. So this represented an empirically based break with the older model. 1632 - Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems - explained the new astronomy of Copernicus to a wide audience. The Inquisition banned him from publishing any new work. But Galileo eventually found a Dutch publisher for his magnum opus, Two New Sciences, published in 1638.

18. The New Chemistry

Until the 1770's, mainstream chemistry was based on phlogiston theory - idea that "ether" was released during combustion. Phlogisticated air = we now understand is carbon dioxide. De-phlogisticated air = we now understand this as oxygen. The Enlightenment - 1750 -1789 The enlightenment was a shift in ideas about knowledge, away from traditional sources of authority, like the church, and toward the kind of scientific rationality described by Bacon. "Dare to Know" 1. Individual liberty 2. Progress of civilization 3. Religious tolerance 4. Separation of church and state Statistics was developed at this time to serve the interests of nation-states and early corporations. So we can also call this the age of empire. Encyclopedie - 22 volumes, attempted to organize all knowledge available to humanity. Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier - worked on chemistry and the metric system. He began his chemical research with the hypothesis that, during combustion, something is taken out of air rather than put into it. That hypothesis turned out to be correct, and that something turned out to be oxygen. Also discovered that the mass of matter remains the same even when it changes form or shape. Working carefully over years, he generated the first modern list of elements. 1789 - Elementary Treaties of Chemistry 1789 - French Revolution 1794 - Lavoisier executed by guillotine, as a noble tax collector **Marie Lavoisier played a key role in the forwarding of her husband's scientific work.