Teresi - Lost Discoveries - The Ancient Roots of Modern Science (Simon, 2002).pdf
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Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science--from the Babylonians to the Maya (2002)
V
COVER
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DICK TERES
U.S. $27.00
Can. $41.00
Lost Discoveries,
DickTeresi s innovative history of science,
explores the unheralded scientific breakthroughs
from peoples of the ancient world— Babylonians,
Egyptians, Indians, Africans, New World and Oceanic
tribes, among others—and the non-European medieval
world. They left an enormous heritage in the fields of
mathematics, astronomy, cosmology, physics, geology,
chemistry, and technology.
The mathematical foundation of Western science is
a gift from the Indians, Chinese, Arabs, Babylonians,
and Maya. The ancient Egyptians developed the
concept of the lowest common denominator, and they
developed a fraction table that modern scholars estimate
required 28,000 calculations to compile. The Babylonians
developed the first written math and used a place-value
number system. Our numerals, 0 through 9, were
invented in ancient India; the Indians also boasted
geometry, trigonometry, and a kind of calculus.
Planetary astronomy as well may have begun with
the ancient Indians, who correctly identified the relative
distances of the known planets from the sun, and knew
the moon was nearer to the earth than the sun was. The
Chinese observed, reported, dated, recorded, and inter-
preted eclipses between 1400 and 1200 B.C. Most of
the names of our stars and constellations are Arabic.
Arabs built the first observatories.
Five thousand years ago, the Sumerians said the
earth was circular. In the sixth century, a Hindu
astronomer taught that the daily rotation of the earth
on its axis provided the rising and setting of the sun.
Chinese and Arab scholars were the first to use fossils
scientifically to trace earth's history.
Chinese alchemists realized that most physical sub-
stances were merely combinations of other substances,
which could be mixed in different proportions. Islamic
scholars are legendary for translating scientific texts of
many languages into Arabic, a tradition that began
(continued on back flap)
(continuedfrom front flap)
with alchemical books. In the eleventh century, Avi-
cenna of Persia divined that outward qualities of metals
were of little value in classification, and he stressed
internal structure, a notion anticipating Mendeleyev's
periodic chart of elements.
Iron suspension bridges came from Kashmir, printing
from India; papermaking was from China, Tibet,
India, and Baghdad; movable type was invented by Pi
Sheng in about 1041; the Quechuan Indians of Peru
were the first to vulcanize rubber; Andean farmers were
the first to freeze-dry potatoes. European explorers
depended heavily on Indian and Filipino shipbuilders,
and collected maps and sea charts from Javanese and
Arab merchants.
The first comprehensive, authoritative, popularly
written, multicultural history of science,
Lost Discoveries
fills a crucial gap in the history of science.
DICK TE
R E S I is the author or coauthor
of several books about science and technology, including
The God Particle.
He is cofounder of
Omni
magazine
and has written for
Discover, The New York Times
Magazine,
and
The Atlantic Monthly,
and is a frequent
reviewer and essayist for
The New York Times Book
Review.
He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Jacket design by'Marc Cohen
Author photograph © Michael Zide
Printed in the U.S.A.
Copyright © 2002 Simon & Schuster
"If you think, as I did, that science flowered in ancient Greece—the way Athena
sprang fully formed from the brow of Zeus—then read Dick Teresi's
Lost Discov-
eries
and revel in the global expression of early genius, from Sumerian
mathematics and ancient Indian particle physics to the sky maps of the Skidi
Pawnee and the rubber 'factories' of the Aztecs."
—Dava Sobel, author of
Galileo's Daughter una Longitude
"Wow, Teresi's
Lost Discoveries
is a romp through the history of mathematics,
astronomy, cosmology, physics, geology, chemistry, and technology. Teresi must
have pored through tons of ancient manuscripts and scholarly compendia to
unearth a rich mine of historical achievements of largely non-Western civilizations
that preceded and enabled the Golden Age of Greece. For science buffs who are
curious about 'How do we know?' and 'How did we learn?' this is a spectacular
canvas, and it illuminates the power of cultural diversity. Yes, there were peaks in
the progress of science, but today science is the only universal culture, the same in
the West, East, North, and South. Teresi's important book helps to explain why."
—Leon Lederman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics and coauthor of
The God Particle
>BN D-baM- 03710-
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