Birth of Science and AI

(4 Credits)

When was science invented or discovered? And is this issue still relevant to our interpretation and use of the scientific method? Because of the great wealth of scientific results obtained in the Hellenistic period of ancient Greece, the course will take up such questions starting from that period. We will analyze the works of Euclid and Archimedes and others in Mathematics, Physics, Astronomy, and Geography, with a particular focus on very modern, and maybe still undiscovered, contents. The achievements of Hellenistic science and the issues it raised will be compared with some of those appearing in other golden ages of science, such as ancient Babylonia, the Islamic Golden Age, the Renaissance, and our times. The course will not consist of a review of established facts, but rather the exploration of sometimes controversial interpretations.