STS.003
Ancient Greeks to Modern Geeks: A History of Science
Covers the development of major fields in the physical and life sciences, from 18th-century Europe through 20th-century America. Examines ideas, institutions, and the social settings of the sciences, with emphasis on how cultural contexts influence scientific concepts and practices.
Fall 2010 · The Rise of Modern Science
This subject introduces the history of science from antiquity to the present. Students consider the impact of philosophy, art, magic, social structure, and folk knowledge on the development of what has come to be called "science" in the Western tradition, including those fields today designated as physics, biology, chemistry, medicine, astronomy and the mind sciences. Topics include concepts of matter, nature, motion, body, heavens, and mind as these have been shaped over the course of history. Students read original works by Aristotle, Vesalius, Newton, Lavoisier, Darwin, Freud, and Einstein, among others.
Readings
- Lloyd, G. E. R. Early Greek Science: Thales to Aristotle . W. W. Norton & Co., 1974, pp. 125-146. ISBN: 9780393005837.
- Starkey, George. Alchemical Laboratory Notebooks and Correspondence . Edited by William R. Newman, and Lawrence M. Principe. University of Chicago Press, 2005, pp. 127-129, and 170-175. ISBN: 9780226577012.
- Dear, Peter. Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and its Ambitions, 1500-1700. 2nd ed. Princeton University Press, 2009, pp. 127-144. ISBN: 9780691142067.
- Lavoisier, Antoine-Laurent. Elements of Chemistry, in a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries. Illustrated with Thirteen Copperplates . Translated by Robert Kerr. Gale ECCO, 2010. ISBN: 9781140937531.
- Hoddeson, Lillian. “Mission Change in the Laboratory: The Los Alamos Implosion Program, 1943-1945.” In Big Science: The Growth of Large-Scale Research . Edited by Peter Galison, and Bruce Hevly. Stanford University Press, 1992, pp. 265-289. ISBN: 9780804718790.
- Grant, Edward. “Introduction to The Art of Falconry .” In A Source Book in Medieval Science . Edited by E. Grant. Harvard University Press, 1974, pp. 657-659. ISBN: 9780674823600.
- Tufty, Barbara. “Falconry Sport Allowed.” The Science News-Letter 86, no. 6 (August 8, 1964): 95.
- Linnaeus, Carl. “Observations on The Three Kingdoms of Nature.” In Systema Naturae 1735 . Translated by S. J. Engel-Ledeboer, and H. Engel. Amsterdam, The Netherlands. HES & De Graaf Publishers, 2003, pp. 17-30. ISBN: 9789060041048.
- Foucault, Michel. “Classifying.” In The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences . Vintage Books, 1994, pp. 125-145. ISBN: 9780679753353.
- Oreskes, Naomi, and Erik M. Conway. “Challenging Knowledge: How Climate Change Science Became a Victim of the Cold War.” In Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance . Edited by Robert Proctor, and Londa L. Schiebinger. Stanford University Press, 2008, pp. 55-89. ISBN: 9780804756525.
- Forbes, Stephen A. “The Lake as Microcosm” [1887]. In Foundations of Ecology: Classic Papers with Commentaries . Edited by Leslie A. Real, and James H. Brown. University of Chicago Press, 1991, pp. 17-27. ISBN: 9780226705941.
- Freedman, Andrew. “Scientists Launch Climate Science Counterattacks.” Washington Post , November 8, 2010.
- Newton, Isaac. Selections from The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy [1687], in Newton Texts, Backgrounds, Commentaries . Edited by I. Bernard Cohen, and Richard S. Westfall. W. W. Norton & Co., 1995, pp. 221-246. ISBN: 9780393959024.
- Smith, Crosbie. “Everything in the Material World is Progressive.” The Science of Energy: A Cultural History of Energy Physics in Victorian Britain . University of Chicago Press, 1999, pp. 100-125. ISBN: 9780226764207.
- Galison, Peter, and David Kaiser. “Special Relativity Primer.” 2nd ed. Unpublished manuscript, 2006.
- Porter, Roy. “The Body.” In Blood and Guts: A Short History . W. W. Norton & Co., 2004, pp. 53-75. ISBN: 9780393325690.
- Park, Katharine. “The Criminal and the Saintly Body: Autopsy and Dissection in Renaissance Italy.” In The Renaissance: Italy and Abroad, Rewriting Histories . Edited by J. J. Martin. Routledge, 2002, pp. 224-252. ISBN: 9780415260626.
- Schwann, Theodor. Excerpts from Microscopical Researches into the Accordance in the Structure and Growth of Animals and Plants [1839]. London, UK: The Sydenham Society, 1847, pp. ix-xviii, 36-40, and skim 41-64. ISBN: 9781149465820.
- Hall, Thomas S. “‘The Cell’ through Schwann 1800-1840.” Ideas of Life and Matter . Vol. II. Edited by T. S. Hall. University of Chicago Press, 1969, pp. 179-192. ISBN: 9780226313603.
- Ptolemy. Excerpts (Book I: 1-10 and Book III: 3) from The Almagest . Translated by R. C. Taliaferro. In Great Books of the Western World . Vol. 16. Edited by Mortimer Adler, and Robert M. Hutchins. Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1994, pp. 5-14 and 86-93. ISBN: 9780852295311.
- Nasir al-din al-Tusi. Memoir on Astronomy . Vol. 1. Translated by F. J. Ragep. Springer, 1993, pp. 194-204, 212-214, and 222 (even-numbered pages only). ISBN: 9780387940519.
- Copernicus, Nicolas. Introductions and prefaces, Book I, chapters 1-4 and 10, and Book V, chapter 5 from On the Revolutions of the Heavens [1543]. In Nicholas Copernicus Complete Works . Vol. 2. Translated by Edward Rosen, edited by Jerzy Dobrzycki. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978, pp. xv-xvii, 3-11, 18-22, and 244-247. ISBN: 9780801820397.
- Kepler, Johannes. “Preface.” In Mysterium Cosmographicum [1596]. Translated by A. M. Duncan. Arabis, 1981, pp. 62-73. ISBN: 9780913870648.
- Gingerich, Owen. “The Great Copernicus Chase.” In The Great Copernicus Chase and Other Adventures in Astronomical History . Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 69-81. ISBN: 9780521326889.
- Newton, Isaac. “Four Letters to Richard Bentley.” In Newton: Texts, Backgrounds, Commentaries . Edited by I. Bernard Cohen, and Richard S. Westfall. W. W. Norton & Co., 1995, pp. 330-339. ISBN: 9780393959024.
- Kragh, Helge. “Newton’s Inifinite Universe,” and “Enlightenment Cosmologies.” In Conceptions of Cosmos: From Myths to the Accelerating Universe, a History of Cosmology . Oxford University Press, 2007, pp. 67-89. ISBN: 9780199209163.
- Kaiser, David. “General Relativity Primer: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Curved Spacetime.” 2nd ed., unpublished manuscript, 2006.
- Offray de La Mettrie, Julien. Chapters II – VI in “Natural History of the Soul” [1745]. In Man A Machine . Translated by Gertrude C. Bussey, and M. W. Calkins. Open Court Publishing, 1912, pp. 153-161. ISBN: 9781151057761.
- Cottingham, John. “The Cartesian Method.” Descartes . Wiley-Blackwell, 1991, pp. 22-46. ISBN: 9780631150466.
- Metzl, Jonathan M. “Voyeur Nation? Changing Definitions of Voyeurism, 1950-2004.” Harvard Review of Psychiatry 12 (2004): 127-131.
- Porter, Roy. “The Century of Psychoanalysis.” Chapter 2 in Madness: A Short History . Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780192802668.
- ———. “Psychological Explanation.” Part I, chapter III in Psychology: General and Applied . D. Appleton and Company, 1914, pp. 21-43.
Prerequisites & course information
Prereq: None Acad Year 2027-2028: Not offered Acad Year 2028-2029: U (Fall) 3-0-9 units. HASS-H; CI-H
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
- MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Fall 2010
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.