I have borrowed this " reference " book from the Providence Public Library for more than a month now. Sometimes late at night I browse it for hours -re-reading critical moments in the HISTORY of Science. To be sure , the historical perspective on Science helps to understand all the better its really critical discoveries . I still wonder : why were the ABC s of physics , chemistry , and biology mostly UNKNOWN to the brilliant ancient Greeks ? Why did seemingly simple instruments like the microscope , the telescope , the spectroscope , the electric battery, the steam engine, the simple electric motor escape this otherwise brilliant civilization ? And so long for humanity to arrive at the germ theory of disease - not even two centuries old yet !
One observation : the top scientists were invariably from the privileged classes. Of course, consider the also fairly recent invention of the printing press . Only in the last two centuries has it been possible for ordinary people to even become literate . There were no public libraries in much of the ancient world. As the freed black slave Frederick Douglass observed : popular literacy was dangerous to the ruling class .
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Ron