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Chronology of the History of Science

Calendars Available Again Since 1993 we've been producing an assortment of calendars highlighting the history of science. They're back! All are 17x11 when open, displaying artwork on the top half and the calendar with the birthdates of scientists on the bottom. They are $12 each, postpaid in the U.S. Available now are:

 
 3000 BCE     Dust abacus is invented, probably in Babylonia.

Imhotep,  Born: 2635
Died: 2595  Poet, architect and physician-priest; vizier and high priest of Ptah during the reign of Djoser I. 

 2635 BCE   Related Links:
http://touregypt.net/who/imhotep.htm
http://emuseum.mnsu.edu/prehistory/egypt/history/people/imhotep.html
http://this.com/imhotep.htm#
http://classes.yale.edu/hsar112a/pga071.html
http://www.uh.edu/admin/engines/epi1074.htm

 
c. 2600 BCE   Imhotep,    Imhotep lives in Egypt, designs step pyramid at Sakkara. Many other achievements attributed to him.


 
c. 1800 BCE     Babylonian mathematician develops algorithms to resolve numerical problems.

Related Links:
http://www.math.tamu.edu/~don.allen/history/babylon/babylon.html


 
 1650 BCE   Ahmose,    Ahmose, Egyptian scribe, writes Directions for Attaining Knowledge of All Dark Things, a text which deals with the solutions of many simple equations such as finding volumes and areas.

Related Links:
http://www.sienahts.edu/~jmiller/egypt.html
http://home.clara.net/beaumont/egypt/index.htm
http://www.thekeep.org/~kunoichi/kunoichi/themestream/egypt_maths.html
al-Tusi,  Nasir al-Din
Born: 2/18/1201
Died: 6/26/1274 

 1201 BCE   Related Links:
http://www-groups.dcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Al-Tusi_Nasir.html
http://216.230.204.167/islam/Sience/Scentists/tusi.html

 
c. 600 BCE   Anaximander,    Anaximander introduces sundial to Greece, is first person to attempt to draw map of world, believes world is made of apeiron, a word meaning infinite. Thales predicts an eclipse of the moon, generalizes Egyptian geometry, invents deductive mathematics, studies magnetism and states that fundamental material of universe is water.

Related Links:
http://plato.evansville.edu/public/burnet/ch1b.htm#13

 
c. 535 BCE   Anaximenes,    Anaximenes believes air the fundamental element

Related Links:
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/a/anaximen.htm

 
c. 530 BCE   Pythagoras,    Pythagoras developed mathematical theory



 
c. 520 BCE   Xenophanes,    Xenophanes believes earth is the fundamental element and that the mountains were originally covered by the seas

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/e22oh


 
c. 500 BCE   Pythagoras,    Pythagoras flourishes in Greece and southern Italy. Founds mystery cult unique in its emphasis on mathematics, including belief that the whole universe rested on numbers. Heraclitus says the only permanent thing is change, hence fire is the fundamental element. Hanno, a Carthaginian, is perhaps the first person to sail around Africa.

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/budpc

 
c. 500 BCE   Anaximenes,    Anaximenes introduced the ideas of condensation and rarefaction


 
 500 BCE     Bead and wire abacus originates in Egypt


 
 450 BCE   Anaxagoras,    Anaxagoras believes earth and stars created of identical materials


 
c. 450 BCE   Anaxgoras,    Anaxagoras proposed the first clearly materialist philosophy the universe is made entirely of matter in motion


 
 420 BCE   Democritus,    Democritus develops first atomic theory


 
 400 BCE     Ideas about physics remain in fashion for almost two thousand years


 
c. 370 BCE   Democritus, Leucippus,    Leucippus and Democritus proposed that matter is made of small, indestructible particles



 
 335 BCE   Aristotle,    Aristotle established the Lyceum; studied philosophy, logic, science

Related Links:
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/images/platoaristo.jpg

 
c. 300 BCE   Euclid,    Euclid wrote "Elements", a treatise the center of the solar system


 
 300 BCE   Aristarchus,    Aristarchus attempts to measure distances from earth to moon and to sun, but large experimental error causes him to be wrong by factor of twenty. Euclid writes The Elements, still the standard in geometry


 
 250 BCE   Archimedes,    Archimedes, the greatest scientist of ancient times, develops principles of density, buoyancy, simple machines and much else


 
 240 BCE   Eratosthenes,    Eratosthenes, librarian at Alexandria, determines that the Earth is a sphere with a circumference of about 25,000 miles


 
 50 AD   Hero,    Hero, Greek engineer, builds first steam engine and many other devices.


 
 60 AD   Hero,    Hero of Alexandria writes Metrica Mechanics and Pneumatics


 
 80 AD     The Antikythera Device, a bronze mechanical lunar month calculator, is constructed in Greece



 
 150 AD   Ptolemy,    Ptolemy places earth at center of universe with planets and sun moving around it. Publishes Megale mathematike syntaxis, generally known as the Almagest, a star catalog


 
 190 AD     Chinese mathematicians calculated pi to five decimal places


 
 200 AD     Saun-pan computing tray is used in China; soroban computing tray used in Japan


 
 271 AD     Chinese mathematicians invented the magnetic compass


 
 415 AD     A mob of rioters burned down the Library of Alexandria, and much of the recorded knowledge of the western world was lost

Boethius,  Born: c. 480
Died: 10/23/526 

 480 AD   Related Links:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02610b.htm
Alcuin,  Born: c. 735
Died: 5/19/804 

 736 AD   Related Links:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01276a.htm

 
 750 AD   Geber,    Geber, at height of Arab empire, adds sulfur and mercury to the list of elements



 
 830 AD   Al-khwarizmi,    Al-khwarizmi introduces zero to west

Related Links:
http://users.erols.com/zenithco/khawariz.html

 
 1000 AD     Cam (wooden gears)


 
 1000 AD     Magnifying lens

Related Links:
http://www.eye.utmem.edu/history/glass.html

 
c. 1000 AD     Gunpowder and firework signals


 
 1000 AD   Gerbert of Aurillac/Pope Slvester II,    Gerbert of Aurillac or Pope Sylvester II devises a more efficient abacus


 
 1000 AD     Viking longboat


 
 1025 AD     Understanding of how the eye sees


 
 1038 AD   Alhazen,    THe idea of the camera obscura described first by the Arabian Scholar Hassan ibn Hassan (or Ibn Al-Haitham, generally known by his LAtinized name, ALhazen). This precedes by some time those who were thought to have described the instrument first--Roger Bacon, Alberi, Leonardo, and della Porta.


 
 1040 AD     Movable type

Khayyam,  Omar
Born: 5/15/1048


 1048 AD  

 
 1060 AD     Monk tries human-powered flight from monastery tower Eilmer


 
 1077 AD     Fork Byzantium


 
 1088 AD     Magnetic needle compass


 
 1100 AD     Chinese junk with batten sails


 
c. 1100 AD   Sultan of Baghdad,    Carrier pigeons Sultan of Baghdad


 
c. 1100 AD     Smoke signals


 
 1101 AD   Henry I,    Standard yard Henry I


 
 1137 AD     Flying buttresses


 
 1180 AD     Vertical sail windmill


 
 1180 AD     Sternpost rudder

Ibn Rosch,  Averrhoes
Died: 12/12/1198 

 1198 AD  

 
 1200 AD     Spinning wheel


 
 1200 AD     Magnifying glass


 
 1202 AD     Arabic numerals introduced to Europe


 
 1202 AD   Fibonacci,    Fibonacci explains use of Arabic numerals

Bacon,  Roger
Born: 6/11/1214
Died: 1294 

 1214 AD  

 
 1228 AD     Coal used for heat


 
 1232 AD     Rockets invented in China to defend city of Kaifeng against Mongol invaders

Nemorarius,  Jordanus
Died: 2/13/1236 

 1236 AD  

 
 1250 AD     Screw jack


 
 1250 AD     Water-powered saw


 
 1250 AD     Tinplate


 
 1252 AD   Pope Innocent IV,    Pope Innocent IV approved the use of torture in witchcraft trials

Grosseteste,  Robert
Died: 10/9/1253 

 1253 AD  

 
 1260 AD   Bacon,    R.
Roger Bacon calculates distance to stars as 130,000,000 miles


 
c. 1267 AD   Bacon,    Roger.
Bacon was one of the earliest to describe the camera obscura, as attested by passages in his "Perspectiva" and "dde muliplicatione specierum" (both ca. 1267). According to Gernsheim he was "well acquainted with Alhazen's works" (Origins, p 7).


 
 1267 AD   Bacon,    R.
Bacon Roger. +clipses en Chambre Naturelle


 
 1269 AD   De Maricourt,    P.
Pelerin de Maricourt discovers magnetic poles


 
 1279 AD   Peckham,    John.
PEckham, a pupil of Roger Bacon and Archbishop of Canterbury, addresses the camera obscura in his "Perpectiva communis" of 1279.


 
 1286 AD     Eyeglasses


 
 1290 AD   De Saint Cloud,    Guillaume de Saint Cloud France Chambre Claire Naturelle


 
 1291 AD     Mirror


 
 1295 AD   Polo,    M.
Marco Polo returns to Venice after 20 years in China, introduces ice cream to Europe


 
c. 1300 AD     Lacemaking


 
 1300 AD     Distilled alcohol


 
 1300 AD     Sulfuric acid


 
c. 1300 AD     Long-wagon passenger vehicles


 
 1304 AD   Giotto,    Realistic depiction of a comet by Giotto


 
 1305 AD   Von Freiburg,    D.
Dietrich von Freiberg uses crystalline spheres and flasks filled with water to study the reflection and refraction in raindrops that


 
 1316 AD   de Luzzi,    M.
First book on anatomy Mondino de Luzzi

Wallingford,  Richard
Died: 5/23/1335 

 1335 AD  

 
 1340 AD   Ockham,    W.
William of Ockham has a close shave with the Pope, states that "Entities must not needlessly be multiplied" [that is, the simplest theory explaining facts is the correct one.]


 
 1348 AD     The plague appears in Europe


 
 1350 AD     Alarm clock


 
c. 1370 AD     Playing cards brought to Europe

Oresme,  Nicole
Died: 7/11/1382 

 1382 AD  

 
 1390 AD     The first paper mill begins operating in Germany


 
 1403 AD     Quarantine first used

Alberti,  Leone
Born: 2/18/1404
Died: 4/25/1472 

 1404 AD  

 
 1405 AD     Wood screw

University of Leipzig founded 12/4/1409 

 1409 AD  
Flamel,  Nioclas
Died: 3/22/1418 

 1418 AD  

 
 1421 AD     First patents

Purbach,  Georg
Born: 5/23/1423


 1423 AD  
von Peuerbach,  Georg
Born: 5/30/1423


 1423 AD  
Behaim,  Martin
Born: 7/29/1436


 1436 AD  
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