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Module 2-Historical Antecedents in The Course of Science and Technology
Module 2-Historical Antecedents in The Course of Science and Technology
INTRODUCTION
This lesson will give light to the development of Science and
scientific ideas in the heart of the society. It explores the dynamic
interactions between different societal factors on science and
technology. Along with the discussion of this antecedent during the
ancient period, Middle Ages and modern ages, it also discussed
Philippine invention and innovations. It is goal of this lesson to
articulate ways by which society is transformed by science and
technology.
Source:
https://www.ancienthistorylists.com/mesopotamia-history/top-10-
sumerian-inventions-followed-many-civilizations/
Babylonian Civilization
A civilization derived from Sumerian culture around
1800 B.C.E. the Babylonian Empire arose and again
unified much of Mesopotamia. This empire was headed by
Hammurabi which sets the Hammurabi’s law. The
Babylonians went on to greatly influence Mesopotamian
culture. More importantly, they had a great impact on the
history of western civilization. Among the most important
contributions of Babylonia are the first ever positional
number system; accomplishments in advanced
mathematics; laying the foundation for all western
astronomy; and impressive works in art,
architecture and literature.
One of the seven wonders of the ancient world, was
built on the banks of the Euphrates river. It may never
have existed except in the imagination of Greek poets and
historians although archaeologists claim to have found the
remains of its walls. Most scholars attribute its
construction to King Nebuchadnezzar II to console his
Median wife, Amytis, who missed the mountains and
greenery of her home land. The Gardens didn't really
"hang" but were built on terraces which were part of the
ziggurat and was irrigated by water lifted up from the
Euphrates. There is not a single mention of a "hanging
garden" in the Babylon cuneiform record but this is
probably because it was considered part of the ziggurat
structure and not a separate entity in itself.
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanging_Gardens_of_Babylo
n
Egyptian Civilization
Egyptian civilization formed by 3000 B.C.E along the
Nile River. They benefited from trade and technological
influence from Mesopotamia, but they produced a very
different society and culture. More stable that Sumer and
protected from the main invasion route by desert, Egyptian
civilization flourished for more than 2000 years before
beginning to decline about 1000 B.C.E.
Many inventions and developments of Science and
Technology are attributed to Egyptian. Among these are:
1. The Egyptians kept written records
using a writing system known as
hieroglyphics. Some writing was
preserved on stone or clay, and
some was preserved on papyrus, a
paper-like product made from reed
fiber. Papyrus is very fragile, but
due to the hot and dry climate of
Egypt, a few papyrus documents
have survived.
Mummification is a process in
which the skin and
4. Flesh of a corpse can be
preserved. They wanted to
preserve their pharaoh because
they believe in afterlife. When a
pharaoh died, his life force would
leave his body, but only
temporarily. It was important to
preserve the body because the
spirit would return.
Source:
https://www.an
cienthistorylists
.com/egypt-
history/top-10-
inventions-
discoveries-
ancient-egypt/
GREEK CIVILIZATION
Greek civilization began to take shaped around 800
B.C.E. on the peninsula and island of Greece and in the
surrounding territory in the eastern Mediterranean.
Source: https://www.ancienthistorylists.com/greek-history/
ROMAN CIVILIZATION
Roman and Greek achievements in science and
technology were closely intertwined but somewhat Roman
had more focused on engineering. Roman used and
copied Greek Science, monumental architectural styles,
sculpture and drama.
3. Roman numerals originated in
ancient Rome. Constituting one
of the most popular numbering
systems still in use today, the
first use of these numbers dates
back to somewhere between 900
and 800 BC.
Source:
https://www.ancie
nthistorylists.com/
rome-history/top-
10-ancient-
roman-inventions/
CHINESE CIVILIZATION
Chinese civilization started along Huanghe or yellow
river. Established by nomadic warriors and lasted for six
centuries. The vital irrigation systems that earlier
inhabitants of the yellow river basin had begun were
greatly expanded and improved. They also developed a
system of writing that has proved critical identity, unity and
civilized development among the chines
Science and Technology development arose in this era.
Among these are:
1. Silk was widely used in a variety
of sectors including writing,
fishing, and for musical
instruments. It was dominantly
used by emperors and high-
class society but later it spread
to the rest of the population.
3.
Source:
https://www.ancie
nthistorylists.com/
china-history/top-
18-ancient-
chinese-
inventions/
MEDIEVAL AGES
https://www.google.com/search?
q=image+of+great+cathedral
2. Building great castles for local nobility
https://www.google.com/search?
q=image+of+astrolabe&rlz=
https://www.google.com/
search=image+of+microscope+in+the+mwdieval
7. Lightning conductor
In1752, Benjamin Franklin, the
American statesman,
philosopher and scientist
proved that lightning was a
form of electricity when he
flew a kite in a thunderstorm.
Around 1754, Franklin and the
Czech scientist, ProkopDiviš
independently developed the
lighting conductor to protect
buildings from being hit and
damaged by lighting.
https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHNY
8. Mechanical clock
Among the traditional time-keeping devices used at
the time were water clocks, candle clocks, the use of
astrolabes for determining time and sundials. It was
during the High Middle Ages that new methods of time-
keeping were discovered and new instruments discovered
for the purpose.
8. Eyeglasses.
When eyeglasses were first produced, they were known
as iteros ab oculis ad legend or “glasses that
are for reading. Physical evidence for the use of
spectacles during the Concave glass is used to correct
nearsightedness, so that the rays of light are diverged.
Convex lenses are used to aid the correction of
farsightedness, so that the light rays are converged.
Cylindrical lenses used to correct astigmatism were
invented by Sir George Airy in 1825.
https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHNY_
eye+glassestheir+uses+inmiddle+age
MODERN ERA
The First Industrial Revolution
The Modern period is a cultural movement that has a
lasting impact on the world. The Romantic period provoked
everyone to rebellion and two of the greatest revolutions,
the American and French, were an outcome of that period.
Thus, the Modern period was born when the Romantics
faded out and this shift in culture changed the world
forever. Modernism changed the way people lived in a
number of different reasons, but there are three that stood
out from the rest.
The Modern Era changed the world through
literature, producing some of the greatest works in history,
through technology and science, this new scientific
movement invented groundbreaking technology, and lastly
through wars, people realized that being ruled by one all-
powerful monarchy is not the way they want to live. A lot of
credit can go to the Enlightenment and Romantic periods,
but the Modern period shaped the world so radically that it
would not be the same without it.
Modern history is the history of the world beginning
after the Middle Ages. Generally the term "modern history"
refers to the history of the world since the advent of the
Age of Reason and the Age of Enlightenment in the 17th
and 18th centuries and the beginning of the Industrial
Revolution.
https://www.utwente.nl/en/bms/steps/education/msc/
courses/162261sciencetechnmodernsociet/
The First Industrial Revolution
Steam power. This era saw the development of steam
engines to power factory machinery. Heating water in a
boiler to make steam to power a vehicle was a major
technological advance. James Watt is recognized as the
inventor of the steam engine in 1765. Water could be
pumped out of mines and industrial processes speeded
up. George Stephenson’s, Rocket was the first locomotive
to pull heavy loads a long distance. This led to the rapid
expansion of railways throughout Britain and the world.
The combination of iron and steam paved the way for the
great Victorian engineering projects of Isambard Kingdom
Brunel. He designed bridges, tunnels, viaducts and ships.
h
ttps/www..historyhit,com/key imventions
https://www.google.com/search1C1CHNphotography
Photography is the art, application and practice of
creating durable images by recording light or other
electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means
of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-
sensitive material such as photographic film.
https://www.google.com/search?
rlz=1C1CHNYCotton+gin&stick
Typewriters were a very good way to write books.
Typewriters were much more comfortable than writing in
hand. This helped the industrial revolution by allowing
people to write manuals for the workers and mass
produce them much more easier.
https://www.google.com/search?rlz+impact+of+typewriter
In the 1880s, when the typewriter was first adopted in
many offices, America was a country in the throes of rapid
change. The way in which the typewriter was adopted
reflected changes in w omen's roles, new ideas about the
organization of work, and the rapidly growing corporations
of the day.
Telegraph
Samuel F. B. Morse created the telegraph in 1836.
This invention changed the face of communication. Instant
communication became possible between the east and
west coasts and allowed people to know what was
happening. This would revolutionize media and personal.
It worked by transmitting electrical signals over a wire laid
between stations communication.
The telegraph revolutionized long-distance
communication.
Each new communications technology has had a
greater impact on society than the one before.
The telegraph changed society indirectly, by transforming
the workings of government and industry. But the
telephone and radio had direct impacts on people's
working and social lives.
https://www.google.com/search?
rlz=1C1CHNYAbS35jACg&q=i+imaget+of+telegraph
Sewing Machine
https://www.google.com/search?
rlz=1C1CHNYwAOgib6wBw&qsewing+machine
Power Loom
https://www.google.com/search?
rlz=1C1CHNYimage+of+telephone+in+second+industrial+
revolution
The motor car. Until the 1860s all prototype motor cars
were steam driven. German inventor Nicolas Otto created
an improved internal combustion engine in 1876 and this
is still the way cars work today. In 1885, the first car, the
Benz Patent Motorwagen, was developed by Karl Benz. It
was a long time before cars became common. Petrol, a
cleaning fluid, was only available from the chemist.
Famous names such as Rolls Royce and Henry Ford
developed the technology; Rolls Royce for the rich and
Henry Ford for the man in the street.
https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHNY_
imageof+motor i+second industrial+revolution
The movies. It has been only just over one hundred years
since the first movie, or film, was shown by the brothers
Auguste and Louis Lumière at the Grand Café in Paris.
The terrifying film was entitled The Arrival of a Train at
Ciotat Station. In 1889, George Eastman pioneered
celluloid film with holes punched in the side so that the
movie camera could show the film precisely frame by
frame.
https://www.google.com/search?
rlz=1C1CHNY_image+of+movies+
+in+second+industrial+revolution
X-rays Science is impressive when something is
discovered that cannot be seen. In 1895, German
physicist Wilhelm Rontgen working with electrical
discharges in glass tubes noticed that there was a faint
glow on a nearby screen. These rays were invisible and
could pass through most materials. He also recorded them
on photographic paper and thus the first X-ray image was
developed. He quickly realized the medical potential of his
discovery. Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity in
1896 while trying to find more out about X-rays. Marie
Curie, a Polish born French chemist and physicist and two
times Nobel Prize winner, is best remembered for her
research into radioactivity and new radioactive elements.
https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHNY-
QaWha+image+of++x-ray+machine
Communications Radio waves travel in all directions at
an incredible 300 000 km per second. The German
physicist Heinrich Hertz was the first to prove they existed
but it was Guglielmo Marconi who set up the world’s first
radio stations to transmit and receive Morse code. In
1896, he sent the first message across the Atlantic from
Cornwall to Newfoundland. He was awarded the Nobel
Prize for Physics in 1909. It was not until 1915 that
engineers were able to transmit sound effectively. The first
clear television pictures to be transmitted were sent by
Scottish-born John Logie Baird. He founded the Baird
Television Company Limited and worked on programs for
the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation).
https://www.google.com/search?
rlz=1C1CHNYof+communication+radio+in+second+indust
rial+revolution
https://www.google.com/search?
rlz=1C1CHNYi+image+ofcommunication+radio
Rockets and space flights. The earliest rockets were
used in China in the 11th century but by the 19th century
speed and accuracy were much improved. Knowledge of
astronomy meant that scientists knew the relative
movements of the planets in relation to the Earth. A
Russian mathematics teacher, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was
the first person to draw up plans for space stations and air
locks to allow space walks. He correctly calculated that a
rocket would have to travel at 8 km per second to leave
the atmosphere and that liquid rocket fuel would be
essential. American scientist Robert Goddard not knowing
of Tsiolkovsky’s ideas, independently developed liquid
fueled rockets from 1926. Ultimately, NASA took up the
challenge but the Russians eventually won the race to put
a man into orbit. Yuri Gagarin orbited the earth in 1961. In
the US, NASA scientists redressed the balance in the
space race with their moon landing in 1969.
https://www.google.com/search?
rlz=1C1CHNYspace+flights+in+second+industrial+revoluti
on
The atomic bomb. Science and technological advances
can be seen as good or bad. The invention of gunpowder
must have seemed like that. In 1932, physicists John
Cockcroft and Earnest Walton did the impossible. They
proved Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity and unlocked
the secrets of the atomic nucleus. Splitting the atom was a
brilliant scientific achievement. However, It allowed
scientists to develop the atomic bomb that was used to
destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan to end the
WWII in 1945.
https://www.google.com/search?
rlz=1C1CHNYatomic+bomb+
+in+second+industrial+revolution