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.
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Was Leonardo da Vinci recognized as an inventor during his lifetime, or mainly as an artist?
Leonardo da Vinci is remembered today not only for masterpieces like the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, but also for his notebooks filled with mechanical drawings and innovative ideas. Because of ...
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Did Humboldt record words of an extinct language from a parrot?
When Alexander von Humboldt traveled through the Orinoco region near the end of the 18th century, he heard about the last vestige of the Atures language being spoken not by people, but by a parrot ...
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How were complex structures built before Newtonian physics?
I am baffled that, prior to the discovery of Newton's laws of physics (beginning with Principia in 1687), people were able to build complex cathedrals and castles. Unlike other simple structures like ...
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With what arguments did Lanfranc propose the integration of medicine with surgery; what were the counterarguments?
Guido Lanfranchi (Lanfranc of Milan) is noted for defending the integration of medicine and surgery. What were the primary arguments he put forth to propose this integration; additionally, besides ...
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What is a quarter in 19th-century England converted to contemporary pints?
Note: I do have an analogous post up on the mathematics stack exchange here
Copy-Pasted from there: "I've been going through and writing up solutions for Euler's Elements of Algebra Practice ...
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Today, do we celebrate anniversaries of events that happened in time of Julian calendar, on Julian date or at corresponding Gregorian date?
Today do we celebrate anniversaries of events that happened in time of Julian calendar, on the Julian date or at the corresponding Gregorian date?
Do historians write the dates of scientific works in ...
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Exactly what year did Newton first write about calculus, 1664, 1665 or 1666? [closed]
Exactly what year did Newton first write about calculus?
I find from different sources three years; 1664 citation needed
, 1665 and 1666, but which year is correct?
1665 source
1666 source
1665 source
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Why didn't eclipses cause mass vision damage in historical societies?
We recently had an eclipse in the US and the accompanying warnings about potential vision damage from looking at the eclipse directly outside of the full totality.
What I'm wondering is how eclipses ...
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Did the quality of prisms affect the acceptance of Newton's light experiments?
My question starts with the following statement from a book I'm reading
"Moreover, repetition of a well-established experience could give results that made it be called into question: an ...
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How would our ancestors have judged which days were solstices or equinoxes?
I have no idea if there is any evidence or even informed speculation about this, so I thought I'd ask the community most likely to know.
Megalithic and other prehistoric structures are widely ...
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What is/was a 'cardsetting engine'?
V. 1, Ch. 15 of Capital discusses carding machines extensively. Footnote 6 mentions
[Only recently have] machine tools been made in England by machinery, and not by the same manufacturers who make ...
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How can I review Cole MSS XXXIII, the description of the English polymath John Michell?
On the wikipedia page for the polymath John Michell, it gives a description of him. The source for this description is “Cole MSS XXXIII, 156, British Library.” According to this article on Harvard’s ...
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Who was this person in the Early Modern Period who wrote a manual on writing "good science"?
In a history lecture a while back the teacher spoke about a person who wrote something that (to me) sounded like an instruction manual on how to write "good science". The basic point was ...
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Has anyone ever used an eclipse to scare people?
It is a recurring theme in fiction that a knowledgeable person scares off some ignorant person/people by pretending that the solar eclipse is caused by the wrath of gods, or similar. For example, see ...
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How did PHS researchers prevent Tuskegee experiment participants from obtaining treatment on their own?
According to the Wikipedia article:
During World War II, 256 of the infected subjects registered for the draft and were consequently diagnosed as having syphilis at military induction centers and ...
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