History of Science 1543 - 2001

Author: John Gribbin

Dear reader, here is a complete history of science and scientists, written from the perspective of a professional scientific researcher—as the author describes himself, though he is one of the greatest and most famous science writers—and written in an engaging and simplified narrative style. John Gribbin is a best-selling science author and, primarily, a British physicist and astrophysicist. Through the pages of this encyclopedic work, you gain a comprehensive and rapid understanding of the science that launched us from the understanding that the Earth is not the center of the universe and that humans are no exception within the animal kingdom, leading us to the Big Bang theory, and then to a complete map of the human genome over just 450 years. Fully explained with illustrations and definitions of terms, it takes us from the Renaissance, with its emergence from darkness, to the Faculty of Medicine at Louvain, to the motion of the planets and the supernova. It then introduces us to the early scientists and their inventions, moves on to the founding fathers, their coordinates, and their greatest works, and from them to the Newtonian revolution, to discover that the most profound change that occurred during the century following Newton in our understanding of humanity's place in the universe was represented by a growing awareness of the vastness of space and the grandeur of the past cycle of time. From lectures on comparative anatomy and reflections on extinction, we arrive at ideas about evolution. The Age of Enlightenment begins, and chemistry booms. It expands to a broader horizon with the steam engine and the Industrial Revolution. A new era begins with experiments in electricity. The journey reaches its midpoint in the late eighteenth century, as the second half of the scientific journey begins with the Darwinian revolution and its precursors. Then comes the age of molecules, atoms, and elements. We learn about the science of thermodynamics, and the twentieth century brings us to the great leap forward with Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, where the constancy of the speed of light represents its cornerstone. Amazing discoveries accelerated after that in all aspects of science, making the twentieth century the century of science par excellence. The encyclopedic journey ends with the end of this century, after knowing all its scientific achievements and discoveries.