Questions tagged [science]
Part of human activity related to gaining, classifying and improving knowledge about the world. There exist commonly adopted rules and requirements to make a method scientific. The history itself is one of humanity sciences.
170
questions
96
votes
10
answers
25k
views
Did medieval scholars believe the Earth was round?
There seems to be almost a consensus that the medieval belief on flat earth is a myth. Wikipedia even has a whole article dedicated to this subject, and the general argument is that the "flat earth ...
- 918
91
votes
10
answers
54k
views
Why does the United States keep using "old" date representations and imperial system, while being in the minority?
Other than the US (and a few other countries), the vast majority of countries use
International System of Units (SI).
Celsius temperature scale.
DMY or YMD date format¹.
24-hour clock when written².
...
- 979
72
votes
4
answers
13k
views
Did ancient peoples ever hide their treasure behind puzzles?
I just saw the film Dora and the Lost City of Gold, in which there is a somewhat meta running commentary over whether so-called "jungle puzzles", intellectual challenges typically requiring explorers ...
- 3,510
68
votes
3
answers
9k
views
How and when did the word "nuclear" replace the word "atomic"?
In the early "Atomic Age", nuclear technology was generally termed "atomic" in English. There was "A-bomb", "atomic reactor" and "Atomic Energy Commission&...
- 4,364
63
votes
16
answers
22k
views
What were the reasons for the Renaissance / scientific revolution in Europe?
One of the common reasons given for the Renaissance and the subsequent scientific revolution is the rediscovery of classical works by scholars in Europe and the social change that the study of those ...
- 3,812
55
votes
9
answers
5k
views
History of scientific regression [closed]
Throughout history, humans have made many subtle and many substantial scientific advancements. Humans have explored, examined, learned, applied and at times seemingly "forgotten" and/or were unable ...
- 3,810
52
votes
4
answers
40k
views
Did Albert Einstein really receive this rejection letter from the University of Bern?
I saw this image on Facebook and I usually take what's posted there with a grain of salt. I have reversed image searched and googled, but with no luck. I'm curious about the authenticity surrounding ...
- 655
37
votes
1
answer
9k
views
Why did the Royal Society in 1771 believe that a continent further south than Australia should exist?
In reading the wikipedia article on Captain Cook's 2nd voyage, I noticed the
comment:
Despite this evidence to the contrary, Alexander Dalrymple and others of the Royal Society still believed that a ...
- 70.2k
34
votes
2
answers
7k
views
Why would graphite have been confused with lead?
I was reading the wikipedia page for pencil, and came across an interesting fact:
Prior to 1565 (some sources say as early as 1500), a large deposit of graphite was discovered on the approach to ...
- 1,279
32
votes
1
answer
5k
views
Were the first sonic booms predicted?
Applying the Doppler Effect to the breaking of the sound barrier would have allowed scientists to predict that a shockwave (a "boom") would be created before pilots began actually breaking the sound ...
- 737
32
votes
6
answers
10k
views
What was the first solar eclipse that was demonstrably predicted in advance?
There is a famous story going back to Herodotus according to which Thales of Miletus predicted the solar eclipse of May 28, 585 BC, which interrupted a battle. Given that we have not a single ...
user4656
27
votes
1
answer
11k
views
Why was uranium mined in the 1500s, but only "discovered" in 1789?
This Guardian article talks about how uranium was mined at the beginning of the 1500s. The Guardian is a pretty reputable newspaper as far as I’m aware, so I am willing to believe them. Out of ...
- 373
27
votes
1
answer
4k
views
How did Hedy Lamarr acquire scientific education?
Hedy Lamarr was a famous actress and an inventor. According to Wikipedia, her inventions included:
Improved traffic stoplight.
Tablet that would dissolve in water to create a carbonated drink.
...
- 471
26
votes
4
answers
2k
views
Why did Jodrell Bank assist the Soviet Union to collect data from their spacecraft in the mid 1960's?
I've just listened to the short BBC News audio podcast clip How British academics spied on the superpowers:
Tim O’Brien from the Jodrell Bank radio telescope discusses 50 year old recordings which ...
- 1,767
26
votes
1
answer
41k
views
Who discovered first that the Moon does not have its own light?
Who (and when) discovered first that the Moon does not have its own light?
- 379
25
votes
2
answers
4k
views
What language did Brahe talk with Kepler?
What language did Tycho de Brahe use to talk with Johannes Kepler? Latin? They met in February 1600 and Brahe died in October 1601. Brahe was Danish, Kepler was German, i.e. a different nationality.
- 267
24
votes
3
answers
6k
views
Did pre-Columbian Americans know the spherical shape of the Earth?
The Maya are known for their astronomy and mathematics, most notably their famous calculation of the length of a year. I was surprised to learn that they supported a flat Earth model, though to be ...
- 447
23
votes
3
answers
8k
views
Did the Ancient Egyptians understand the importance of the brain?
I remember hearing recently that new research has suggested that the ancient Egyptians did not view the brain as a useless organ, and had a reason for disposing of it in the manner they did. I can't ...
- 231
22
votes
2
answers
4k
views
What is the name of the theory that says an early discovery can stop technological development?
Some time ago I read a claim that an early discovery can lead to a great scientific stagnation. The example given was the Chinese porcelain, that resolved all the known problems, and stopped the ...
- 467
22
votes
3
answers
5k
views
Why was Newton's observation of the falling apple significant?
As described in this article at Wikipedia, in 1666, Newton was in a garden when he noticed an apple falling. Surely, Newton could not have been the first person to notice that things fell when dropped....
- 1,547
21
votes
5
answers
7k
views
Why was decimal time unsuccessful?
Under the metric system (and later SI), units of weight can be related to each other based on multiples of ten (e.g. 1 metric tonne = 1,000 kg = 1,000 × 1,000 g). Likewise with length (e.g. 1 ...
user3521
20
votes
6
answers
5k
views
How accurately could ancient astronomers find latitude and longitude?
In classical times, say, 200 BC to 400 AD, how accurately could an astronomer determine their latitude and longitude? Could they find their position to the nearest degree? Minute? Second?
I'm ...
- 10.4k
20
votes
2
answers
4k
views
How could Eratosthenes measure the circumference of the Earth?
Some 2,200 years ago, Eratosthenes calculated the radius of the Earth.
A brief recap
Plant a stick in the ground vertically, and wait until the sun is directly above the stick, that is until ...
- 309
19
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Was there any theological opposition to the lightning rod?
Apparently, there was some opposition to the lightning rod at the time of its invention because lightning was seen as "the wrath of God" and should not be controlled.
I'd like to find some citations ...
- 404
18
votes
3
answers
6k
views
What did the top minds of the late 17th century have to say about Salem witch trials?
I think of Newton, Hooke, Leibniz, Wren, Locke -- assuming they knew hard to believe they would not have thought it crazy but I have read nothing about Newton, et al saying anything.
- 3,703
18
votes
4
answers
7k
views
Did the Tamil People discover that the earth was round 2000 years ago?
I heard "Tamil People found that the earth was round 2000 years ago.
They named the planets 2000 years ago." Is this true?
The Tamil poet Manikkavachakar wrote about the earth in Tiruvacakam:
By ...
- 339
18
votes
1
answer
2k
views
How wide-spread was antisemitism in the USA during WWII?
Richard Feynman writes in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, chapter Who stole the door, that:
At MIT the different fraternities all had "smokers" where they tried to get the new freshmen to be ...
- 1,589
18
votes
3
answers
1k
views
Before European influence circa 1600, did any Chinese believe the Earth was spherical, and did they ever try to measure it?
The Pythagorans, Aristotle, and Eratosthenese believed the Earth was spherical. Eratosthenes made a measure based on shadows at two cities on the same meridian. An Indian mathematician, Aryabhata, ...
- 17.1k
17
votes
3
answers
2k
views
In the first half of 20th century, how was gold inspected for authenticity?
Let's say this for the years 1900 - 1950, before we had modern analysis tools. When trade payments were made in gold, how was the gold inspected for quality? How did they assess the purity of gold, ...
- 17.1k
16
votes
5
answers
3k
views
When was it discovered that the stars are not all lying on the same plane?
In Ptolemy and Copernicus' systems, the stars were believed to rest upon a single plane, the 'celestial sphere'. People thought they were all the same distance away from earth. Kepler's insight was ...
- 13.4k
16
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Where was Carl Sagan working on a plan to detonate a nuke on the Moon? Where was he applying when he leaked it?
At 18:49 in Scott Manley's video The Craziest Things You Can Do With Nuclear Weapons he says:
This was an idea to… it was a number of ideas; they thought it could raise morale with the US. The idea ...
- 1,767
16
votes
1
answer
39k
views
What was the early understanding of static electricity shocks?
What was the common understanding of electric shocks caused by static electricity in the ancient world and middle ages? I'm talking about the shock when you touch something on a dry day for example.
...
- 273
15
votes
2
answers
4k
views
Why did Stalin deem Quantum Mechanics 'counter-revolutionary'?
I've read that in the late 1940s Stalin planned to hold a conference to discuss the ideological difficulties of physics in the Soviet Union, but called it off (presumably because of the successful ...
- 159
15
votes
3
answers
810
views
Was Nazi science that involved human experimentation ever actually used for anything?
There is a rather ferocious debate about using Nazi human experimentation and whether citation should be given for obvious ethical reasons. What I noticed however is that most of the research on ...
- 395
15
votes
1
answer
5k
views
What were the responses to Copernicus' heliocentric theory?
Popular explanations often mention that the "Catholic Church" had a problem with Copernicus and his heliocentric theory, neglecting that even a scientific disagreement at that period would likely have ...
- 615
15
votes
0
answers
395
views
Are there any references to entombed animals in ancient India?
The 13th century Hindu philosopher Arulnandi Shivacharya wrote a work called the Shiva Jnana Siddhiyar, which among other things contains a refutation of Buddhist philosophy. In this excerpt, various ...
- 2,551
14
votes
3
answers
6k
views
What happened in 1914 that ended the golden age of microbiology?
I was reading a microbiology textbook and all it said was "The work that began with Pasteur started an explosion of discoveries in microbiology. The period from 1857 to 1914 has been
appropriately ...
14
votes
3
answers
1k
views
What happened to the undergrad students who attended the Feynman Lecture Series in 1961-63?
In the academic years of 1962-2 and 1962-3, Richard Feynman gave his celebrated series of lectures to a cohort of undergraduate physics students at Caltech. It has been claimed, probably tongue in ...
- 70.2k
14
votes
3
answers
990
views
How did the "Standard Model" physics theory get that name?
I want to know how the Standard Model theory got such "generic" name.
(I've made this question in Physics StackExchange, but it was considered off-topic, and someone suggested to reask it here.)
- 259
13
votes
7
answers
2k
views
The Needham Question: What stunted China's technological and proto-scientific advancement?
According to Joseph Needham
Why did modern science, the mathematization of hypotheses about Nature, with all its implications for advanced technology, take its meteoric rise only in the West at the ...
- 231
13
votes
2
answers
5k
views
Did Andrew Jackson think the earth was flat?
You will occasionally see references to the possibility that Andrew Jackson believed the earth was flat. One source for this claim is a well-respected history of the period by Edward Pessen:
[James]...
- 18.1k
13
votes
2
answers
1k
views
As many Germans fled Nazism, did some spies mix in?
Many German citizens fled Germany in the 1930s to escape persecution or discrimination. Some among them got jobs in the industry, or other potentially sensitive positions. Albert Einstein obtained ...
- 2,528
13
votes
1
answer
377
views
Was the State of Indiana's legislation changed to fix the value of Pi?
Is the following an anecdote?
Mathematicians describe Pi as an irrational number, that is, a number that cannot be expressed as the ratio of any two integers. This was an irksome fact to the State ...
user2237
13
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Did any Chinese scholars propose a heliocentric model?
After this related question, I now want to ask about the heliocentric model. Did any Chinese scholars propose a heliocentric model of the universe? The time period I'm interested is any time before ...
- 17.1k
12
votes
4
answers
2k
views
How did the Egyptian engineers of the Third and Fourth Dynasty construct the Pyramids and Sphinx without modern science and mathematics? [closed]
How did the Egyptian engineers of the Third and Fourth Dynasty construct the Pyramids and Sphinx without modern science and mathematics?
What was the "state of the art" in engineering, science, and ...
- 4,528
12
votes
2
answers
4k
views
What caused this cratering pattern at Hiroshima?
I was reading this article here, which includes an interesting photo of Hiroshima:
The caption on the photo indicates that it was taken three weeks after the atomic bomb was dropped.
The photo seems ...
- 223
12
votes
1
answer
4k
views
Origin of scientific racism?
Modern scientific racism became wide spread during the age of enlightenment. Is there a single person that could be labeled as the 'father' of modern scientific racism?
user28033
12
votes
2
answers
640
views
Have the current polar ice caps receded further than those that existed before the beginning of the last Ice Age?
Has science been able to determine from the geologic record how our current ice caps compare to those that existed before before the beginning of the last Ice Age? If so, how do they match up? (I ...
- 1,614
12
votes
2
answers
589
views
When did humans understand the science of hail?
I am asking this question intrigued by the fact that in certain religious books (mostly Arabic) it is stated that rain and hail comes from the sky (heaven) and not from Earth. They probably did not ...
- 221
11
votes
2
answers
6k
views
Is there any science behind this graph that suggests we'd be exploring new galaxies if not for the dark ages?
I stumbled on this "graph". While it is clearly a dank meme, I was wondering if there was any actual science behind it: Is there anywhere a measure of scientific discovery per unit time? Do we have ...
