Module 1b: Historical antecedents in which social considerations changed the course of science and technology

Question 1

True or False: Egyptian medicine was always successful.

Answer 1

False.

Egyptian medicine was trial and error.

Question 2

Egyptian doctors learned that if
you covered an open wound with __________, the wound would heal quickly and cleanly.

Answer 2

Moldy bread

Question 3

Modern science
tells us that certain bread molds produce

Answer 3

Penicillin, a chemical that
kills germs that infect wounds.

Question 4

Egyptian doctors would feed the patient seeds from a flowering plant called

Answer 4

The Poppy

Question 5

What does Poppy seeds contain and what does it do to patient’s pain?

Answer 5

Morphine and codeine, which are excellent pain-relieving drugs still used today.

Question 6

An ancient form of paper, made from a plant of the same name.

Answer 6

Papyrus

Question 7

Before papyrus, Egyptians, Sumerians, and other races wrote on

Answer 7

clay tablets or smooth rocks

Question 8

Making pottery using the first known potter’s wheel.

Answer 8

Mesopotamians

Question 9

1,000 BC, the Chinese were using _________ to aid themselves in their travels.

Answer 9

Compasses

Question 10

As far as historians can tell, the first true scientists were the

Answer 10

Ancient Greeks

Question 11

He studied the heavens and tried to develop a unifying theme that would explain the movement of the heavenly bodies (the planets and stars).

Answer 11

Thales

Question 12

Thales is known because of this particular planetary event prediction.

Answer 12

Solar eclipse or the “short-term disappearance of the sun”.

Question 13

He was probably a pupil of Thales. He was much more interested in the study of life, however. As far as we know, he was the first scientist who tried to explain the origin of the human race without reference to a creator. He believed that all life began in the sea, and at one time, humans were actually some sort of fish.

Answer 13

Anaximander

Question 14

He was probably an associate of Anaximander. He believed that air was the most basic substance in nature. In fact, he believed all things were constructed of air. When air is thinned out, he thought, it grows warm and becomes fire. When air is thickened, he thought, it condenses into liquid and solid matter.

Answer 14

Anaximenes

These ideas led to the idea of atoms.

Question 15

Historians believe that he built on the concepts of Anaximenes and proposed that all matter is composed of little units called “atoms.” As a result, he is known as the father of atomic theory.

Answer 15

Leucippus

Question 16

He believed that all matter was similar to sand. Even though a piece of wood appears to be solid, it is, in fact, made up of little individual particles that they called atoms.

Answer 16

Democritus

Question 17

True or False: Democritus was well received in his time and praised for his ideas.

Answer 17

False

Democritus was not well received in his time,
but later scientists picked up on his ideas and refined them.

Question 18

He is often called the father of the life sciences. He wrote volumes of works on many things, including philosophy, mathematics, logic, and physics.

Answer 18

Aristotle

Question 19

The idea of Aristotle with flaw: He believed that certain living organisms spontaneously formed from non-living substances.

Answer 19

This idea was called spontaneous generation.

Question 20

He is probably best known for his work with fluids. He was the first to show how you could predict whether or not an object would float in a liquid.

Answer 20

Archimedes

Question 21

True or False: During the Progress of Science Stalls for a While, Roman Empire had a great deal of influence throughout the known world, and Rome had a distinct dislike of science.

Answer 21

True

The Roman Empire did not mind inventions, especially those that made work more productive, but it had little use for the practice of explaining the world around us. As a result, real science was actively
discouraged in most parts of the world.

Question 22

This is one of the best examples of what passed for science during this time period. They mostly wanted to find a means by which lead (or
some other inexpensive substance) could be transformed into gold (or some other precious substance).

Answer 22

Alchemy

Question 23

True or False: Alchemists never tried to use their observations to draw conclusions about how the natural world works.

Answer 23

True

Instead, they were content to just write down their observations and move on to the next experiment, searching for the next useful substance they could make.

Question 24

True or False: Many historians refer to this period (500 AD to 1000 AD) as the Dark Ages, because compared to the previous time period in history as well as the next time period
in history, little was learned.

Answer 24

True

Since the Romans actively discouraged science
and concentrated on inventions, the progress of science slowed. Since the crumbling government caused trade and communications to become more difficult, scientific progress slowed even more.

Question 25

True or False: Both Arabs and Chinese during this time period were not involved in making careful studies of the heavens.

Answer 25

False

They made observations that were much more detailed and precise than those of the Greek scientists who came before them.

Question 26

Chinese records from 1054 A.D. include detailed observations of a phenomenon that Chinese scientists called a “guest star” in the heavens. You see, the scientists were familiar with the stars and
knew some formed patterns called

Answer 26

Constellations

Question 27

Modern scientists have been able to use those observations to determine that the Chinese had seen a ________, which is essentially the explosion of a star.

Answer 27

Supernova

Question 28

The observations were so detailed that modern scientists were able to look at that same part of the night sky, and when they did, they found a cloud of dust and gas, this forms because of the explosion of a star.

Answer 28

Nebula

Question 29

He was a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church in the early 1200s A.D., he wanted to explain why things happened the way they did. He is often called the father of the scientific method, because he was the first to thoroughly explain and use it.

Answer 29

Robert Grosseteste

Question 30

True or False: Copernicus believed that Ptolemy’s view of the universe was wrong.

Answer 30

True

Copernicus placed the sun at the center of everything and assumed that the planets (including the earth) traveled around the sun unlike the Ptolemy’s idea that the Earth is the center of everything.

Question 31

Copernicus placed the sun at the center of everything and assumed that the planets (including the earth) traveled around the sun.

Answer 31

Heliocentric system or Copernican System

Question 32

The other important work he published in 1543, a book that tried to show all the details of the human body. It contained incredibly detailed and amazingly accurate illustrations of the organs, muscles, and skeleton of the human body. This was the first book that illustrated all of the “insides” of the human body, and it revolutionized how medicine was taught.

Answer 32

Andreas Vesalius

Question 33

He demonstrated that the air we breathe exerts pressure on everything, an effect we call atmospheric pressure today.

Answer 33

Blaise Pascal

Question 34

Newton wrote most of his revolutionary scientific work in a three-volume set we call the

Answer 34

Principia

Question 35

What is the content of Newton’s principia (first volume)?

Answer 35

The three laws of motion

Question 36

What is the content of Newton’s principia (second volume)?

Answer 36

Newton built on the work of Pascal and added many details to the understanding of the motion of fluids.

Question 37

What is the content of Newton’s principia (third volume)?

Answer 37

The universal law of gravitation.

Newton used detailed experiments and
observations to show that gravity was the cause of both effects. The same gravity that attracts objects to the earth (making them fall) also keeps the planets in their orbits
around the sun.

Question 38

The founder of modern chemistry was a contemporary of Newton. He did many experiments with gases, formulating laws that are still used today in chemistry.

Answer 38

Robert Boyle

Question 39

What was Robert Boyle’s last words to the Royal Society (a group of scientists in England).

Answer 39

“Remember to give glory to the One who authored nature”

Question 40

He revolutionized the study of life by building the first microscope. His microscope allowed him to see a world that had been invisible up to this point, which enabled him to discover many tiny (microscopic) life forms, including bacteria.

Answer 40

Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek

Question 41

Up to this time period, the production of almost anything was done mostly by hand.
Increased scientific knowledge, led to the invention of many devices that turned hours
of manual labor into just a few minutes of work. This changed forever the way things were made, and so this period in history is also called

Answer 41

The “Enlightenment” and the Industrial Revolution

Question 42

In 1735, He published a book in which he tried to classify all living creatures that had been studied. This work is often used to mark the beginning of the Enlightenment, because it revolutionized the study of living things.

Answer 42

Carolus Linnaeus

Question 43

He was the first to analyze chemical reactions in a systematic way, and he was the first to realize that matter cannot be created or destroyed – it can only change forms. This is known as the Law of Mass Conservation, and it was his most important contribution to science.

Answer 43

Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier

Question 44

He was the first to properly explain combustion, which is the process of burning.

Answer 44

Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier

Question 45

His most important work was his atomic theory, and he is considered the founder of modern atomic theory.

Answer 45

John Dalton

Question 46

He was able to finally destroy the idea of spontaneous generation (idea of Aristotle) once and for all. He also made great advances in the study of bacteria and other living organisms.

Answer 46

Louis Pasteur

Question 47

This process is called ______ which he originally used to
keep wine from souring and this process is now applied to milk.

Answer 47

Louis Pasteur - pasteurization

Question 48

He was an Augustinian monk. He was a devout Christian who devoted much of his life to the study of reproduction. The entire field of modern genetics, which studies how traits are passed on from parent to offspring, is based on his work.

Answer 48

Gregor Mendel

Question 49

His experiments and ideas about electricity earned him the title of “the electrical giant.”

Many of the terms used in the study of electricity today are terms that were first used by him.

Answer 49

Michael Faraday

Question 50

He is known as the founder of modern physics.

Answer 50

James Clerk Maxwell

Question 51

True or False: Faraday believed that nature was all interconnected at a fundamental level, because he thought that all nature derived its characteristics from God.

Answer 51

True

Question 52

James Clerk Maxwell earned the title of the founder of modern physics because he was able to develop mathematical equations that showed Faraday was right, that electricity and magnetism
are both different aspects of the same phenomenon, now called

Answer 52

Electromagnetism

Question 53

Building on the work of Lavoisier, he determined that, like matter, energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only change forms.

Answer 53

James Joule

Question 54

It is the guiding principle in the study of energy.

Answer 54

First Law of Thermodynamics

Question 55

In order to explain certain experiments that could not be explained in terms of Newton’s laws, Planck proposed an idea: Much like matter exists in tiny packets called atoms, energy exists in tiny packets, which he called

Answer 55

Quanta

Question 56

He proposed that energy comes in tiny packets. You can give one packet of energy to an object, or you can give two packets of energy to an object. You cannot, however, give an object any amount of energy in between one and two packets.

Answer 56

Max Planck

Question 57

Planck produced a lot of evidence for his idea, and after a long while, it became accepted by the scientific community. Eventually, an entirely new way of looking at energy and matter, called

Answer 57

Quantum Mechanics

Question 58

Einstein used Planck’s idea of energy quanta to explain a problem that had perplexed scientists for years and this problem is called

Answer 58

Photoelectric Effect

Question 59

True or False: Scientists did not want to believe that Planck was right. After all, Newton’s laws had been so successful at
explaining so much of physics that scientists did not want to believe there was something wrong with them.

Answer 59

True

Question 60

He developed a picture of the atom, which we call the _____.

Answer 60

Neils Bohr; Bohr’s Model

Question 61

True or False: It is important to note that quantum mechanics really contradict Newton’s laws.

Answer 61

False

Newton’s laws are still considered valid today. When the objects you study are large, Newton’s laws are valid, because they are equivalent to the laws of quantum mechanics. However, as the size of the object decreases, there are differences
between the laws of quantum mechanics and Newton’s laws. In those cases, the laws of quantum mechanics are correct.