Early scientific theories—such as those explaining basic phenomena like gravity, burning, and the movement of molecules in water—centered on presumed inherent properties rather than external factors, ...

Why history matters in science education For decades, research has shown students better understand how science works "behind the curtains"—what has been called "nature of science"—when they learn how ...

The history of science and technology links many disciplines and cultures: scientific, technological, humanistic and social. Smith’s program in the history of science and technology is designed to ...

According to a familiar story, science was born as a pastime of seventeenth-century European gentlemen, who built air pumps, traded telescopes, and measured everything from the size of the earth to ...

We’re celebrating 180 years of Scientific American. Explore our legacy of discovery and look ahead to the future. Since at least the 17th century, science has struggled with words. Francis Bacon, ...

THE first volume of Dr. Sarton's “Introduction to the History of Science”, already reviewed in NATURE, was universally and deservedly acclaimed as a major contribution to our knowledge of the growth ...

We all know the scene -- James Watson and Francis Crick, discoverers of the DNA double helix, walk into a pub in Cambridge and declare, "We have discovered the secret of life!" The rest is Nobel Prize ...

IN his recent book on “Clothes”, Mr. Eric Gill says that “in our hearts we know science for what it is—the greatest frivolity of history.... If it was not that science enables a lot of people to get ...

Sir Ronald Ross had just returned from an expedition to Sierra Leone. The British doctor had been leading efforts to tackle the malaria that so often killed English colonists in the country, and in ...

A range of tours that cover the historical development of scientific thought and practice from the 16th century onwards whilst visiting some of the most stimulating European cities and worldwide sites ...