THE FORGOTTEN REVOLUTION by Lucio Russo, Silvio Levy (Trans) ( 9783540200680 )

Item Details

Title:

THE FORGOTTEN REVOLUTION
HOW SCIENCE WAS BORN IN 300 BC AND WHY IT HAD TO BE REBORN

By:

Format:

Hardback

List price:	£89.99
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ISBN 10:

3540200681

ISBN 13:

9783540200680

Publisher:

SPRINGER-VERLAG BERLIN AND HEIDELBERG GMBH & CO. KG

Pub. date:

26 November, 2003

Edition:

2004 ed.

Pages:

487

Description:

What were the landmarks in the meteoric rise of science 2300 years ago? Why are they so little known today, even among scientists, classicists and historians? How do they relate to the post-1500 science that we are familiar with from school? This book discusses these questions.

Synopsis:

The period from the late fourth to the late second century B. C. witnessed, in Greek-speaking countries, an explosion of objective knowledge about the external world. WhileGreek culture had reached great heights in art, literature and philosophyalreadyin the earlier classical era, it is in the so-called Hellenistic period that we see for the ?rst time - anywhere in the world - the appearance of science as we understand it now: not an accumulation of facts or philosophically based speculations, but an or- nized effort to model nature and apply such models, or scienti?ctheories in a sense we will make precise, to the solution of practical problems and to a growing understanding of nature. We owe this new approach to scientists such as Archimedes, Euclid, Eratosthenes and many others less familiar todaybut no less remarkable. Yet, not long after this golden period, much of this extraordinary dev- opment had been reversed. Rome borrowed what it was capable of from the Greeks and kept it for a little while yet, but created very little science of its own. Europe was soon smothered in theobscurantism and stasis that blocked most avenues of intellectual development for a thousand years - until, as is well known, the rediscovery of ancient culture in its fullness paved the way to the modern age.

Illustrations:

IX, 487 p.

Publication:

Germany

Imprint:

Springer-Verlag Berlin and Heidelberg GmbH & Co. K

Returns:

Returnable

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