Lost Discoveries - The Ancient Roots of Modern Science - from the Babylonians to the Maya by Dick Teresi (2002).pdf - różne - R5700

COVER

e Ancient .Roots oi

JVLoaern ocience

from the

Babvl

s to the May

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

Printed in the U.S.A.

"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-

Lost Discoveries - The Ancient Roots of Modern Science - from the Babylonians to the Maya by Dick Teresi (2002).pdf

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: