Historical antecedents in

the course of science and

technology
Chapter 1
What is Science?
Science – Latin “scientia” meaning
“knowledge”

– defined as the system of knowledge of the

natural world gained through the scientific
method.
Humans have persistently observed
and studied the natural and physical world to
find meanings and seek answers to many
questions.
According to Bertrand Russell, science in
its beginnings was due to men who were
in love with the world because they
perceived the beauty of the star and the
sea, of the winds and the mountains,
their thoughts dwelt upon them, and they
wished to understand them more
intimately.
Man’s achievements in
science and technology are
governed by two elements:
Discovery and Invention
• Discovery is the recognition and careful
observation of new natural objects and
phenomena; it is considered a very subjective
event until it leads to some practical application.
• Invention is a mental process wherein a
person's diverse discoveries and observations
are combined and guided by experience,
leading them to create new ways or means of
obtaining useful things.
Stone Age: Paleolithic Age
- The first tool formed were made of stone, the earliest of which
were apparently pebbles, pre-shaped by nature.

- As those early men slowly learned to shape such stones by

striking them with other stones, they soon developed various
stone tools.

- Of all Paleolithic man’s discoveries sometime in 1000 B.C., the

most important one was fire, through the percussion method, he
was able to produce heat to warm his body and cook his food.
 Evidence Of Science And Technology
During Ancient Time

Sumerian Civilization
• World’s earliest known civilization
• Ancient region in southern Mesopotamia
• Some time in 3000 B.C., Sumerians invented the world’s
first writing system called cuneiform (a set of word
pictures depicted in symbols made of triangular marks)
Babylonian Civilization
• Was the ancient region bordering the Tigris and Euphrates rivers
in what is now known as southern Iraq.
• The best-known king of the dynasty was Hammurabi who ruled
for 42 years from 1792 BC to 1750 BC.
• HAMMURABI set up limits for maximum prices and minimum
wages and gave his kingdom a fair system of taxation.
• He compiled the first law of codes in history, known by his name
code by Hammurabi.
• They adopted the Sumerian sexagesimal system of counting in
units of 60 which served as the basis of the 360-degree circle
and the 60-minute hours.
Chinese Civilization

Here are some of the notable inventions and discoveries made

by the engineers and scientists of Ancient China:
• Silk – a soft and light material much desired by the wealthy
throughout the world. It became such a valuable export that
the trade route running from Europe to China became known
as the Silk Road. The Chinese learned how to make silk from
the cocoons of silkworms. They managed to keep the process
of making silk a secret for hundreds of years.
• Paper – Paper was invented by the Chinese as well as many
interesting uses for paper like paper money and playing cards. The
first paper was invented in the 2nd century BC and the manufacture
later perfected around 105 AD.
•
Printing – woodblock printing was invented in AD 868 and then
moveable type around 200 years later. This was hundreds of years
before the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg in Europe.
•
The Compass – The Chinese invented the magnetic compass to
help determine the correct direction. They used this in city planning
at first, but it became very important to map makers and for the
navigation of ships.

• Gunpowder – invented in the 9th century by chemists trying to find

the Elixir of Immortality. Not long after, engineers figured out how to
use gunpowder for military uses such as bombs, guns, mines, and
even rockets. They also invented fireworks and made great beautiful
displays of fireworks for celebrations.
Arabic / Islamic Civilization

• Arabia, the land of Arabs, is a rocky peninsula in southwestern Asia.

• The Red Sea separates its western coastline from Egypt while the
Arabian Sea surrounds its southern shores.

• The rise and fall of the Babylonian and Assyrian empires eventually
left Arabia divided into separate states and kingdoms, relatively
untouched by the outside world until the Macedonian-Greek
ALEXANDER THE GREAT's planned but failed invasion.
Indus-Hindu Civilization

• The peninsula where the ancient Indus civilization emerged

covers the area from the mountain borders of Afghanistan to the
Bay of Bengal in the east, and from the towering Himalayas to its
southern tip, presently occupied by the independent countries of
India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
• Although science and technology in ancient India appeared quite
advanced when accidentally discovered in 1850, our knowledge
of them remains scarce. This is mainly because the manuscripts
left by its people were inscribed on clay tablets and seals, which
have yet to be deciphered. Additionally, only a few scholars cared
to investigate.
Scientific Revolution
- The period of “enlightenment”
- The Scientific Revolution was a series of events that
marked the emergence of modern science during the early
modern period. Developments in mathematics, physics,
astronomy, biology, and chemistry transformed society's
views about nature.
Nicolaus Copernicus
- A mathematician and astronomer who formulated a model of the universe that
placed the Sun, rather than the Earth, at the center of the universe.
- A polyglot and polymath, he wrote 'De revolutionibus orbium coelestium' (On the
Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres).

Charles Darwin
- An English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, best known for his contribution to
the science of evolution. He proposed that all species of organisms arise and
develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase
the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce.
- Darwin's theory consisted of two main points:
1. Diverse groups of animals evolve from one or a few common ancestors;

2. The mechanism by which evolution takes place is natural selection.

Information Age

- Starting in the last quarter of the 20th century, a period emerged during
which information became effortlessly accessible through publication and
the management of information by computers and computer networks.
- Digital Age
- New Media Age

- The Information Age is a truly new era based upon the interconnection of
computers via telecommunications, with this information system operating
in both real-time and as-needed capacities. Furthermore, the primary
factors driving this new age forward are convenience and user-friendliness
which, in turn, will lead to user dependence.
 THE Advancement OF
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
DURING THE RENAISSANCE
(1300-1600 A.D.) IN THE
WESTERN WORLD
The Renaissance (French word meaning
“rebirth”) in the history of Western Europe was
a time of rebirth, traditionally described as the
three centuries of remarkable revival and
outpouring of intellectual and cultural pursuits
and talents. This period energized and
transitioned Europe from the Medieval Times
to the Modern Times.
Many historians have argued that
the Renaissance must be divided
into two periods (Wink et al.
1990):
The first period was a revival based on the
Classical learning of ancient Greece and Rome,
spread through conventional means.

The second period was characterized by

innovation, marked by the generation of much
more new knowledge. This knowledge was
spread much faster and farther through new
technological means such as printing and media.
Others have characterized this period of rebirth as the
age of preparation for the 17th-century Scientific
Revolution of Galileo and Newton.

Considered the most significant invention of the

Renaissance, the technology of printing books had a
profound global impact on the production of books,
enabling them to be created more accurately, quickly,
and affordably. This, in turn, facilitated the spread of
knowledge and the preservation of culture.
The revolutionary technology of printing books
was originally developed by the Chinese in 700
A.D. (Greaves et al., 1990).

The Chinese printing technique was

accompanied by the process of papermaking
from shredded old rags.
The Muslims adopted the Chinese printing
technique and introduced it to Spain in 1200
A.D.

From Spain, the printing technology quickly

spread throughout Europe, culminating in the
crucial invention of the movable metal type
printing press in the 1440s by a German
goldsmith, Johann Gutenberg (1394-1468).
His printing invention consisted of a type mold for
casting individual letters, ink daubers, and sticky
ink. The first known attempt to devise movable
print type was also in China (c. 1041-1048 B.C.).
Along with the evolution of printing mechanics,
the process of paper-making gradually improved.

In 1870, the use of wood pulp (instead of the old

rags used by the Chinese in the 200s A.D.)
began in Sweden.
 Also considered as a major contribution of
this age which payed the way for the
advancement of science was the translation of
scientific knowledge from Greek to Latin. The
translation considerably multiplied the people`s
access to ancient scientific achievement of
authorities like Galen, Ptolemy, Archimedes,
Aristotle, and many others.
 LEONARDO da VINCI (1452-1519) was the great Italian
genius who personified the Renaissance spirits: he
explore everything an excelled in nearly all ventures [Hale
1966].
He was one of the greatest artist of his time but left only a
few pictures because he had little time for painting. Driven
by curiosity, he was deeply engrossed in studying
astronomy, anatomy, botany, geology, and mechanics. He
left behind thousands of pages of notes where historians
found the plans he drew up that anticipated such inventions
like the helicopter, the submarine, the machine gun, and the
motor car. He signed his name in one of his collections of
works.
 Perhaps as he wanted to be remembered,
“Leonardo da Vinci, disciple of experiment.”

One of stumbling block that thwarted the advance of

science during the Renaissance was the scholars`
doubts about their capabilities to improve or disprove the
popular scientific works of the ancient men of science.
Nevertheless, those dared did not risk in vain.
 The rebirth of science in Europe really began in
1543 with the publication of two books which shook
the ancient foundations of the scientific world.
In the book, on the Revolutions of the Heavenly
Sphere, its author, NICOLAUS COPERNICUS
(1473-1543), an astronomer from Poland, challenged
the centures-old geocentric universe of CLADIUS
PTOLEMY (the last great Greek astronomer of
antiquity who lived around 100`s A.D.).
 The second book,
On the Fabric of the Human Body, was written by
ANDREAS VESALIUS (1514-15640/1640), the brilliant
surgeon and anatomist at the University of Padua while
he was still in his twenties [Hale 1966].
Vesalius is now recognized as the founder of modern
medicine. Based on personal observations made while
dissecting human cadavers(corpses), Vesalius laid out
in detail the first scientifically accurate description of
human anatomy.
 Vesalius` anatomy text eventually replaced those
earlier written by Galen (100`s A.D. Greek physician)
and Avicenna (1000`s A.D. Arab physician).

During the same centuries of the Renaissance`s

cultural unfolding in Europe, two great civilizations quite
different and far from the western world, rose and
flourished: the Aztec Empire in mexico and Ming
Dynasty in China.
 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
DURING THE SCIENCTIFIC
REVOLUTION (1600-1700 a.d.:
Europe`s century of genius)
The Scientific Method
The observation and gathering of data based on
experimentation, promoted by the English thinker and statesman
FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626), was the new Scientific Method
that revolutionized the medieval approach to deductive reasoning,
as it involved the process of empirical inductive reasoning.
When the Italian mathematician and astronomer GALILEO
GALILEI (1564-1662) applied this new scientific method to his
study of astronomy, his conclusions led him to the confirmation of
the heliocentric universe proposed a hundred years earlier by the
Polish astronomer NICOLAUS COPERNICUS (1473-1543).
 By rejecting the established Aristotelian and
Ptolemaic view of a heliocentric universe and ridiculing
blind acceptance of these ancient authorities. Galileo
experienced conflict with the Catholic Church.
One legacy of the Renaissance that pushed forward
the spread of scientific knowledge was the growing
emphasis on the supremacy of reason over religion in
human affairs. And while no conflict necessarily existed
between science and religion, Galileo`s defense of the
Copernican theory launched the SCIENTIFIC
REVOLUTION.
 Likewise, the quality powerful conclusions reached in
philosophy by the brilliant French philosophy and
mathematician RENE DESCARTES (1596-1650) strengthened
the power of reason against the unverified arguments based on
Aristotle`s philosophy and Ptolemy`s astronomy which the
Catholic Church supported.
The Scientific revolution that catalyzed the intellectual world
during the 1600`s and the 1700`s unexpectedly went far
beyond the theories of the scientists and philosophers of the
period [Winks et al. 1990]. From then on, science became a
respected separate body of knowledge which eventually
displaced theology and philosophy as the guiding spirit of the
Age.
 And before the end of the 17th century, the world was aptly
described as scientific, international in scope, cosmopolitan in
character, in which knowledge was systematically
communicated, new theories debated, and new talents
recognized [Greaves et al. 1990]
Inspired by the works of the ancient Greek
mathematician ARCHIMEDES (297-212 B.C.) who
tried to describe the mystery of the universe in purely
mathematical terms, Galileo was able to construct the
new physics of motion and discovered the principle of
accelerated motion in which he connected velocity and
distance to variable time [Greaves et al. 1990].
 Galileo believed that observation was the guide, experiment
the test, and mathematics the language that proved physical
reality. The German astronomer and mathematician
JOHANNES KEPLER (1571-1630) made the crucial discovery
that the orbits of the planets were not circular, as both Ptolemy
and Copernicus assumed, but elliptical, while he considered,
with geometric calculations and mathematical precision the
meticulously accurate celestial observation made by the Danish
astronomer TYCHO BRAHE (1546-1601).
 Since the publication of Copernicus` treatise on the
heliocentric inverse, whose publication he authorized only on
his deathbed in 1543, it took about 150 years before the three
Renaissance astronomers – Galileo, Kepler, and Tycho –
finally laid to rest the Aristotelian Ptolemaic universe.

Their careful and accurate way of conducting investigative,

recording observations, using scientific instruments like the
telescope and the sextant, formulating mathematical solutions,
and arriving at logically valid conclusions enabled them to make
the breakthrough that ushered in the century of Scientific
Revolution in Europe.
Discoveries and Inventions
Revolutionary basic discoveries and inventions were
achieved during the 17th century of scientific and technology
output in the fields of astronomy, physics, mathematics, biology,
chemistry, anatomy, and medicine.
- The discovery of Logarithms in 1614 by the Scottish
mathematician JOHN NAPIER (1550-1617) shortened the
laborious processes of multiplying, dividing, and finding the
square roots.
- The analytical geometry worked out by the French
philosopher and mathematician RENE DESCARTES (1596-
1659) brought together geometry and algebra.
- The calculus was invented, apparently
simultaneously but quite independently, by the
English ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727) and German
GOTTFRIED WHILHELM von LEIBNIZ (1642-1727).

Without analytical geometry and calculus, Isaac

Newton could never have arrived at the calculation
that proved his revoutionry hypotheses in astronomy
an physics.
 In 1665-1666, Newton conducted a series of experiments
on the composition of light. Initially guided by the works of
Kepler and Descartes.

Newton`s main discovery in optics was that visible light

(White) is composed of primary colors. His experiments
proved how prisms separate the composition colors in the
spectrum. In 1704, Newton`s most comprehensive work on
light and colors, The Optiks, was published. Its perpose
was, in Newton`s own words, “not to explain the
Properties of Light by Hypothesis, but to propose and
prove them by Reason and Experiments.”
- Newton`s fundamental contributions in mathematics
were made in analytic geometry, algebra, and
calculus.

Specifically, he discovered the binomial theorem,

new method of fluxions. Moreover, Newton
transformed the underlying principles in physical
science with his three laws of motion and law of
universal gravitation.
 The future of science and technology was actually
insured by the new tool and methods for science which
the 17th century scientific Revolution left for us to work on.
Most histories of science give us the impression that
the progress of science depends mainly on the new
theories made by the scientist, usually.
The other half is the scientists` dependence on the
availability and capability of their instruments to aid them
in proving their theories right.
 The solution for the Copernican controversy in
astronomy was finally found when the telescope was
invented and aimed at the heavenly bodies.
Likewise, achievements in the biological and
medical science could have been impossible without
the microscope.
Those two invaluable scientific by scientists
[Brown 1986].
 Galileo was among the first of the many
who contributed to the invention of the basic
scientific instruments that permitted the
more exact measurements and detailed
observations needed by the inductive
scientific method.
In 1583, while comparing the regularity of his pulse rate
with the oscillations of a swing lamp in a Pisa cathedral,
Galileo first noted the constancy of a pendulum`s
characteristic swinging intervals as a potential device to
measure time. Later in 1656, the Dutch mathematician,
astronomer, and physicist CHRISTIAN HUYGENS
(1626-1695) started the use of the pendulum as a time-
controller in clocks Galileo is believed to have invented
the thermometer in 1592.
 Using an invented long-necked glass vessel
partially filled with a liquid substance, Galileo
observed its changing temperature caused by
the expansion and contraction of the air trapped
in the vessel`s long neck as manifested by the
rise and fall of the liquid`s level.
The first Dutch lens makers who put two
lenses together may have realized that by doing
so, they see greater magnification.
 The telescope that first appeared in Holland
in 1608 is believed to be the invention of a
spectacle maker, HANS LIPPERSHEY (1570-
1619) after he saw a clearer view of a church
steeple while looking with two lenses he was
holding up, one in each hand.
By 1610, Galileo applied this same
technique when he devised his own telescope to
study the heavens.
 Employing the same technique downward instead
upward, two Dutchman were able to invent the
microscope JAN SWAMMERDAM (1637-1723) used it
to analyze blood and, in the process, probably
discovered the red corpuscles and ANTHONY van
LEEUWENHOEK (1632-1723) found it quite powerful;
in revealing the appearance of animals (protozoa and
bacteria) usually invisible to the naked eye while he
looked at them under the optical instrument he made.
 In 1628, the English physician WILLIAM
HARVEY (1578-1657) published his 1616
discovery of blood circulation with a diagram
of the human heart pumping the blood
refuting the 100`s A.D. hypothesis of Galen
that the blood in the arteries moved
separately from the veins.
 Harvey`s 1616 discovery of the blood`s
circulation was made even clear in 1661 when the
Italian MARCELLO MALPIGHI (1628-1694)
discovered the capillaries while doing microscopic
studies of a frog`s lung. ROBERT HOOKE (1635-
1703), the English physicist who discovered in 1665
the “cell” the term he used to describe what he saw
while looking at the very thin layers of cork under his
microscope.
 The Italian physicist and mathematician
EVANGELISTA TORRICELLI (1698-1647)
invented the barometer in 1643. Torricelli`s
output in geometry contributed immensely to the
eventual development of integral BLAISE
PASCAL (1623-1662) demonstrated how air
pressure diminished with altitude.
 The invention and exhibition of the
mechanical air pump in 1654 by German
physicist, engineer, and national philosopher
OTTO von GUERICKE (1602-1686) clarified our
understanding of what a vacuum is and the
essential role that air plays in combustion and
respiration.
 Guericke's studies revealed that light
can pass through a vacuum, but sound
cannot.

In 1663, by applying friction against a

revolving ball of sulfur, Guericke also
invented the first electric generator which
produced static electricity.
 Critically replying on the credibility of the
conclusions drawn from the experimental results
and mathematical calculations of the
mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers
before him, ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)
embarked on his own investigation and, in the
process, arrive at what is now referred to as the
Newtonian Synthesis [Greaves et al. 1990].
 With a mater`s touch, Newton combined
with his works the contributions of
Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, and
others into a new and powerful synthesis
which became the keystone of the 17th-century
Scientific Revolution.
 While many scientists still published in Latin,
their inventions and discoveries were popularized in
books and articles in the vernacular.
The publication of these discoveries and the
diffusion of scientific argument helped bridge the
gap between theory and practice.
It showed the scientists where their work
related to that to others and helped indicated which
problems most needed attention.
 An international scientific community arose
through the formal exchanges of corresponding
secretaries and the publications of such academies,
and also through the extensive private correspondence
among the members and their acquaintances.
The Royal Society for Improving Natural
Knowledge, founded in 1662, and its French
counterpart, the Academie des Sciences established
in 1666, were important promoters of scientific
investigations.
Science and technology during the
age of industrialization (1703-1930
A.D. in the modern world)
 Quite clear in the history of the ancient civilizations is
the fact that primitive man`s basic needs urged him to
find and devise ways and means which insured his
survival.
Having satisfied his basic needs, he soon realized that
by living harmoniously with others like him, life offered
more security, benefits, and pleasures.
Thus, primitive societies were formed where culture
developed and flourished through time. And while their
civilization progressed and got stabilized, their population
increased,
 And as their population increased, to satisfy their
basic need as well as to extend their territorial
power and boundary, they either engaged in trade or
weapons for war, developed as the beginnings of
modern man`s science and technology.
From the dawn of history until the nineteenth
century, all physical labor was accomplished by
human hands, either directly or with tools held or
rigged by human hands or with animals guided by
human hands.
 Gradually, the power for production supplied by the
human muscle was reinforced by simple machines like
the lever, pulley, and weights that were soon
supplemented by running water (waterwheels), moving
air (windmills), or fire/heat (wood, coal).
Then as the simple machines were replaced by
more complex ones, production multiplied; hence,
more factories were constructed while the forests were
systematically depleted by industrial demand and
booming towns in cleared agricultural areas.
 That phenomenal transforming process ushered
by the transfer of work from human hands to
machines was aptly called “The Industrial
Revolution” by British historian ARNOLD
TOYNBEE.
Since is beginning in the early 1700`s in
Western Europe, specifically in Britain, work has
been accomplished quantitatively more at a faster
rate within shorter time [Greaves et al. 1990].
 This phenomenon is predominantly experienced in
the more developed, scientifically and technologically
advanced countries, where work is usually done by
complicated machines powered by steam, electricity,
combustible gases, and the exploding atom
(Nuclear fission of fusion).
The use of new sources of power to operate
increasingly complex machines is rapidly accelerating
as can be seen in such contemporary devices as the
computers and the lasers.
 The incredible consequent increase of the human
capacity to be productive as technical masters of the
world`s natural resources made possible by the
Industrial Revolution is arguably transforming, for
better and/or for worse, life in our society.
The windmill and the waterwheel had given way to
the steam engine, the domestic workshop to the
factory, the horse and cart to the locomotive and the
automobile, messages through letters, and telegraphs
to the telephone.
 In the construction of harbor, bridges, buildings,
and machinery, metals from iron to steel replaced
wood the way coal had replayed it as the source of
power.
Then coal was in turn replaced by petroleum
and then petroleum itself, having succeeded animal
and vegetable oils for lighting, was soon replaced by
electricity.
 At the same time, the nature of works and of the
social organization which revolved around it was no
less radically transformed [Greaves et al., 1990].
The artisan who saw a job through from start to
finish was replaced by the skilled factory worker
confined to a single part of a process and integrated
into a complex market structure which determined
the wages, working conditions, benefits, and
availability of employment.
 The population explosion which accompanied
the Industrial Revolution began in the mid-1700`s
and continued unabated and the processes of
change and upheaval transformed the world.
Population pressure spurred agricultural and
industrial development.
Success in sustaining an ever-growing
population generated the market and product
demand that led to technological breakthroughs.
 In 1733, the British JOHN KAY invented the
flying shuttle the machine that enable cloth weavers
to produce cloth more quickly in greater widths.
Thirty years later, faster spinning machines
were developed. Because the new machines were
too big and hard for the hands to drive, factories
which housed the machines were built beside rivers
where water wheels were used to provide the
power.
 The first steam engines built in the late 1600`s
were very inefficient.
Finally in 1765, a Scottish engineer, JAMES
WATT, invented the first satisfactory efficient
condensing steam engine.
Employed as an instrument maker at Glasgow
University, he noticed the prodigious amout of heat
wasted by the engine he was repairing.
 In consultation with his friend, JOSEPH BLACK
who discovered latent heat, Watt made a systematic
study of the heat losses in the engine and then
related his findings on the physical properties of
steam to the condition of heat by metals.
Finally, when he used a separate condenser,
the overall efficiency of the engine was increased by
a factor of about four.
 According to Brown [1986], this was the major
breakthrough which ushered in the age of Steam and
introduced the steam engine, the almost universal
prime mover of industry and transport in the 19th
century.
Watt`s condensing steam engine was the first
source of power applied on a large scale to driver and
machine anywhere, needing only fuel and watere. In
1775, Matthew Boulton a company to manufacture
them.
 Using steam as the new source of power
considerably accelerated production.
Since coal was fuel used to produce the steam
which powered the engines, factories were located
near coal mines.
The relocation of the factories not only changes
in the workers` living condition.
 To work in the factories, the peasants who used to
grow their own food in their backyard were forced to
abandon the farms, lived in cramped houses with no
garden in factory sites, and became very dependent on
their meager wages even for basic needs [Greaves et
al. 1990].
Finding alternative source of power to operate the
machines more efficiently led to the development
machines for various factory productions.
 By the early 1800`s, engineers experimented on
using mobile steam engines to replace horses as
means of transportation.
In 1813, the first practical was used to haul coal
from a mine to riverside loading wharves. British
engineers built the first passenger rail way transport
in 1825.
Within ten years, travelers in continental
Europe and North America used the railways.
 Britain celebrated in 1851 its role as the
“workshop of the world” with a great international
industrial exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London.
The Industrial Revolution in Britain during the
mid-18th century showed the profound effect
advances in technology can have on our daily life
[Brown 1986].
The mechanization of industrial processes
proved of knowledge, the material welfare of the
society could be advanced.
 However, although knowledge obtained through
scientific research promoted and maintained
technological advances, the Industrial Revolution was
not its direct consequences.
And although enlightened by science, the
technological developments on which the Industrial
Revolution were based were made not by the
scientist, but by the engineers who were regarded as
the principal authors of material progress achieved in
the 18th and 19th centuries.
 Before the dawn of the 1900`s, new
technological developments directly and
systematically based on the application of both the
theoretical and applied sciences, particularly,
ultimately created new productions, processes, and
energy sources [Greaves et al. 1990].
Consequently, the lag time between basic
scientific discovery and technological application
was considerably shortened.
 The scientific and technological interests that
sparked soon after electricity was discovered was as
crucial to the 1900`s as the discovery, a natural
phenomenon, generated a lot of practical products from
scientists and technologies.
The self-educated, remarkable, American,
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1706-1790), was the 10th of 17
children of a soap and candle-maker. He had to quit
formal education at the age of 10 and started working as
an apprentice in a print shop when barely 12 years old.
 In spite of the odds, he became a versatile printer
and well-known and most admired in the Western world.
Only his signature appears on all the four most
important state documents upon which the American
independence is based.
His valuable contributions to science were his
experiments in electricity, particularly his dramatic
demonstration of proving that lightning is electricity by
flying a wired kite in a thunderstorm [Meadows 1989]
which led him to invent the lightning.
 Among his other practical inventions are the
Franklin stove and bifocal eyeglasses.
For public service, he established in America
the first circulating library, the first fire insurance
company, and a school that grew to be the
University of Pennsylvania.
In 1780, LUIGI GALVANI discovered that
electric current could be generated by putting two
different metals in contact with the muscle of a frog.
 But in 1794, experiments conducted by the Italian
physicist ALESSANDRO VOLTA (1745-1827) with
metals alone proved that animal tissue was not needed
to produce an electric current. Volta successfully ended
his experiments with his invention of the electric battery
in 1800.
In his honor, a unit of electromotive force that
drives current was called the volt.
Another invention is the electrophorus, a device for
generating static electricity.
 In 1831, the British physicist and chemist
MICHAEL FARADAY (1791-1867) Carried out several
experiments that greatly enlightened our understanding
of electromagnetism [Meadows 1989].
His Discovery of electromagnetic conduction was
stimulated by an expected result obtained by HANS
OERSTED (1777-1851), a Danish scientist.
In his 1821 experiments on electricity, Oersted
noticed that electricity flowed along a wire and
deflected the needle of a magnetic compass held
nearby.
 That result led to the realization that the magnetic
force generated by an electric current, acts not in a
straight line, but in circles around the wire.
Such realization inspired Faraday to conclude
that Oersted`s experiment could be used to produce
continuous motion.
So, he built, in 1821, two sets of apparatuses
which led to his invention of the electric motor, a
device for converting electricity into mechanical
motion.
 When the French physicist ANDRE AMPERE
(1775-1836) explained the observed magnetic in
terms of electric currents plowing in small loops,
Faraday deduced that, if the flow of electricity
produced magnetism, then magnetism should be able
to generate an electric current.
Experimenting on his inverse effect, he made
the first dynamo, using a copper disk spun between
the poles of an electromagnet [Meadows 1987].
 By mid-19th century, powerful electromagnet had
been developed in America by JOSEPH HENRY
(1797-1878) and were used for lifting heavy loads.
Also utilizing the electromagnet, the American
SAMUEL F.B. MORSE (1791-1872) produced the
first practical telegraph in 1837.
 In 1838, he developed the Morse Code, a
system of signals composed of dots and
dashes combined to represent letters of the
alphabet used in wire telegraphy, the famous
line keyed by Morse was “What hath God
wrought!” thus, telegraph ignited a
communication revolution.
 At the age of 29, the American ALEXANDER
GRAHAM BELL (1847-1922), who invented the
telephone, had the pleasure of carrying out the
world`s first successful telephone conversation in
1876.
The first transcontinental telephone line from
New York to San Francisco was opened Bell in
1915.
 America`s largest telephone network connecting
all parts of the United Sates is called the “Bell
System” in his honor For Bell, “The singing (of the
telephone wires) never stops, for it is singing the
story of life, and life never stops. Those copper
wires up there are carrying the news of birth and
death failure and success station to station around
the world,”
 Selling sandwiches and candy on a railroad
train was he first jobs of THOMAS ALVA EDISON
(1847-1931), the last and the greatest of inspired
tinkerers who was thankful that he was deaf,
claiming that his deafness enabled him to
concentrate.
He saw in outstanding inventions serving
humanity are the electric light bulb, the storage
battery, the phonograph, and the motion picture
equipment.
 Between 1885 and 1889, the German
physicist HEINRICH HERTZ (1857-1894)
was able o produce electromagnetic
waves in his laboratory; he sent them
through space and measured their length
and velocity.
He was the first to broadcast and
receive radio