history-of-science

This is another follow up in my campaign to have a separate forum for history of science. Similar to my on-going thread Interesting anecdotes in the history of physics? this one would be about specific quotes. What are some of the memorable quotes said by physicists? [I will allow... Read more

Built in 1612, this massive astrolabe could track stars, time, and location with great accuracy—and now it’s heading to auction in London.

A long-overlooked writing system from 5000 years ago is still largely undeciphered, but could mark the moment humans first represented their speech with written words

Obituary Sally A. McKee, 61, a renowned computer science professor and beloved friend, passed away Feb. 12 in Greenville, S.C., after a short illness. She received her bachelor’s degree from Yale University, master’s degree from Princeton University and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, all in computer science. She worked for Digital Equipment Corporation and Microsoft Corporation and held i…

Ninad Uddhav Gole, New Law College, BVDU, Pune Anushkaa Naik, New Law College, BVDU, Pune ABSTRACT Between 1975 and 1977, the National Emergency was declared in India by Indira Gandhi. During this time frame, the constitutional liberties, as well as the press censorship and state control, were curtailed to a large extent. Following Indira Gandhi's v. Raj Narain case, the government utilised a com…

An early version of Codex H was revealed under text that had been written over it.

In this excerpt from "The Story of Birds", author Steve Brusatte explores the moment where paleontologists realized they had critical evidence to show birds came from dinosaurs — a fluffy fossil from China.

_Intellectual History Review_. forthcomingHistorically oriented Kant commentators like John Zammito have long maintained that serious Kant scholarship must include attention to the socio-cultural influences on Kant and his contemporaries. While significant historiographical work has been done on Kant and the French Revolution, the impact of the American Revolution on German thinkers—and Benjamin …

On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear reactor melted down, but the rest of the world wouldn't learn how close it came to nuclear Armageddon until weeks later.

Ancient skeleton evidence suggests congenital infection doesn’t prove syphilis, pointing instead to multiple treponemal diseases in history. New research led by a Charles Sturt University scientist is challenging a long-held assumption about ancient diseases.  The findings could reshape a major debate in medical history: where syphilis originated. The research underscores the increasing difficult…

"I take this step for my country, for my people, and for the Marxist-Leninist way of life."

The checks and balances that hold a functioning democracy together may be coming under threat in the US.

The book titled "Public Trust and Information Management: Mitigating the Crisis of Faith Arising from Newly Discovered Archaeological Evidence" is a research-based work authored by Venerable Dhammasami. Book Overview This research examines the relationship between traditional Buddhist beliefs—specifically regarding the number and location of the Buddha's tooth relics—and new archaeological eviden…

I'm following a history of science course, and it mentions that several of the presocratics had gone to Egypt to study mathematics. Thales of Miletus and Pythagoras being among them. How did they ...

Let us try to promote some physics history in this sub. What are some anecdotes in the history of physics that you want to share? Be it a true story or a popular myth. I'll start: I recently tried to check if the story of Schrödinger's equation was true: Schrödinger going out for the... Read more

_Quaestio: Yearbook of the History of Metaphysics_ 22:261-279. 2022Hume’s empiricist reason for rejecting “school metaphysics” makes it natural to assume that Hume rejects all metaphysics. A.J. Ayer certainly reads Hume this way. The natural assumption is wrong, however. Hume only rejects the aprioricity of metaphysics, and not the science itself. I will argue that his empirical science of human …

_Abiroun Journal for Interdisciplinary Studies_:e.g. 19-31. 2026This study examines the relationship between grammar and logic in the Arabic-Islamic intellectual tradition as a complex epistemological problem rather than a merely technical dispute between two independent disciplines. It argues that this debate constitutes a critical intersection where philosophy of language, epistemology, history…

On April 26, 1848, English naturalists Alfred Wallace and Henry Bates set sail for the Amazon from England. The expeditions that followed varied in duration for both men, but yielded profound insights for both. A.S.Ganesh chirps in about Wallace, Bates, and how they contributed to natural history…

I am interested in knowing something about the background of the mathematician S. M. Kerawala, the author of a 1947 article in the Bulletin of the Calcutta Mathematical Society, "Poncelet Porism ...

Background: Cause-of-death analysis is an important part of demographic research nowadays, but this has not always been the case. These analyses were introduced to the discipline in the 1980s, which eventually led to the development of the health transition framework. One of the pioneers of this work was France Meslé. Objective: We interviewed France Meslé to better understand the history of caus…