CHAPTER 1

• From Ancient Times to 600 BC - Science during ancient times involved practical arts like healing practices and metal tradition. Some of the earliest records from history indicate that 3,000 years before Christ, the ancient Egyptians already had reasonably sophisticated medical practices. Sometime around 2650 B.C.,
• The Egyptian medicine was considered advanced as compared with other

  ancient nations because of one of the early inventions of Egyptian civilization
• The papyrus is an ancient form of paper, made from the papyrus plant,

  a reed which grows in the marshy areas around the Nile river. As early as 3,000

  years before Christ, Egyptians took thin slices of the stem of the papyrus plant, laid them crosswise on top of each other, moistened them, and then pressed and dried them.
• The invention of this ancient form of paper revolutionized the way

  information was transmitted from person to person and generation to generation. Before papyrus, Egyptians, Sumerians, and other races wrote on clay tablets or smooth rocks.
• Egyptian writings became easy to store and transport. As a result, the knowledge of one scholar could be easily transferred to other scholars. As this accumulated knowledge was passed down from generation to generation, Egyptian medicine became the most respected form of medicine in the known world.
• Papyrus was used as a writing material as early as 3,000 BC in ancient Egypt, and continued to be used to some extent until around 1100 AD.
• the Mesopotamians were making pottery using the first known potter’s wheel. Not long after, horse-drawn chariots were being used.
• As early as 1,000 years before Christ, the Chinese were using compasses to aid

  themselves in their travels. The ancient world, then, was filled with inventions that, although they sound commonplace today, revolutionized life during those times. These inventions are history’s first inklings of science.
• The Advent of Science (600 BC to 500 AD) The ancient Greeks were the early thinkers and as far as historians can tell, they were the first true scientists. They collected facts and observations and then used those observations to explain the natural world.
• Scientific thought in Classical Antiquity becomes tangible from the 6th

  century BC in pre-Socratic philosophy (Thales, Pythagoras).
• In circa 385 BC, Plato founded the Academy. With Plato's student Aristotle begins the "scientific revolution" of the Hellenistic period culminating in the 3rd to 2nd centuries with scholars such as Eratosthenes, Euclid, Aristarchus of

  Samos, Hipparchus and Archimedes.