HIST401 Syllabus
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Study Questions
  Topic 1
  Topic 2
  Topic 3
  Topic 4
  Topic 5
  Topic 6

Essay Reviews
  Essay Review Instructions
  Assignment #1
  Assignment #2
  Example #1 by Student
  Example #2 by Student
  Example by Instructor

Instructor:
Dr. Stephen G. Brush
Distinguished University Professor of the History of Science
Department of History
  and
Institute for Physical Science & Technology
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742 USA

Stephen G. Brush Home Page

Last modified:
November 13, 2006
© Stephen G. Brush

University of Maryland - Fall 2004
HIST 401
The Origins of Modern Science
from Aristotle to Newton

Instructor: Stephen G. Brush

*** ALERT (updated 9/28/2004) *** Please note change to Essay Review Instructions. For the FIRST essay review, simply choose a topic from I or II.  Ignore previous instruction limiting the period to "before 1700."

Lectures: Tu & TH 12:30-1:45 pm, Computer Science Instructional Center (CSI), room 2107
        beginning August 31 , last lecture December 9

Instructor's offices: Computer & Space Science Bldg. (CSS) 4341 and Taliaferro Hall (TLF), Room 2117
Phone: x-54846 (from off campus, 301-405-4846
E-mail: Stephen Brush has changed his email address. Please write to him an actual paper letter to

Stephen Brush
IPST, University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
USA

to request the new email address. Unless you do this, you may not get a reply from him.

Sorry for the inconvenience but the ever increasing amount of SPAM has made him take this extreme but necessary measure.

Office hours: Tu 2-2:30 in TLF 2117; Th 11:45-12:15 in CSS 4341
        other times Tu & Th in CSS 4341 (call first)
Course website:  http://punsterproductions.com/~sciencehistory/H401/syll_p1.php

Course description:
      The course offers an introduction to the history of physical science, focusing on the transformation in our understanding of the world during the 16th and 17th centuries.  Topics: (1) The Aristotelian World-View; Science in Antiquity; (2) Islam & China: Where Modern Science Might have Started; (3) Decline of Islamic & Chinese Science; The European Renaissance; (4) The Astronomical Revolution; (5) Science in the 17th Century; (6) Newton and the "Scientific Revolution."
      HIST401 is the first half of a two-semester sequence.  HIST402, to be offered in the Spring, will cover the history of physical science from Newton to Einstein.

Prerequisite:
      Any course that satisfies the CORE Physical Sciences requirement, plus any course that satisfies the CORE Professional Writing requirement.  No specific knowledge of science and mathematics is assumed, beyond normal high school graduation requirements.

Required Texts:

  • Cohen, I. B., The Birth of a New Physics (rev. ed. 1985)
  • Dear, P., Revolutionizing the Sciences
  • Drake, S., Galileo
  • Gleick, Isaac Newton
  • Huff, T. E., The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China, and the West
  • Lindberg, D. C., The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, 600 B.C. to A.D. 1450
  • Matthews, M. R., The Scientific Background to Modern Philosophy, Selected Readings

Recommended book (parts of this book will be required reading):

  • Diamond, J., Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies


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