Early scientific theories—such as those explaining basic phenomena like gravity, burning, and the movement of molecules in water—centered on presumed inherent properties rather than external factors, ...

History of Science coverage from Scientific American, featuring news and articles about advances in the field.

According to a familiar story, science was born as a pastime of seventeenth-century European gentlemen, who built air pumps, traded telescopes, and measured everything from the size of the earth to ...

IN his recent book on “Clothes”, Mr. Eric Gill says that “in our hearts we know science for what it is—the greatest frivolity of history.... If it was not that science enables a lot of people to get ...

Astronomers once believed the Sun revolved around the Earth. In the 19th century, scientists thought the shape of a person’s skull could reveal their mental strengths or weaknesses. And in the 20th ...

Sir Ronald Ross had just returned from an expedition to Sierra Leone. The British doctor had been leading efforts to tackle the malaria that so often killed English colonists in the country, and in ...

The history of science and technology links many disciplines and cultures: scientific, technological, humanistic and social. Smith’s program in the history of science and technology is designed to ...

A NEW token of the growing interest in the history of science. is provided by the appearance of the first number of “a quarterly review of the history of science since the Renaissance”, under the ...