History of Science coverage from Scientific American, featuring news and articles about advances in the field.

Early scientific theories—such as those explaining basic phenomena like gravity, burning, and the movement of molecules in water—centered on presumed inherent properties rather than external factors, ...

According to a familiar story, science was born as a pastime of seventeenth-century European gentlemen, who built air pumps, traded telescopes, and measured everything from the size of the earth to ...

Astronomers once believed the Sun revolved around the Earth. In the 19th century, scientists thought the shape of a person’s skull could reveal their mental strengths or weaknesses. And in the 20th ...

IN his recent book on “Clothes”, Mr. Eric Gill says that “in our hearts we know science for what it is—the greatest frivolity of history.... If it was not that science enables a lot of people to get ...

We all know the scene -- James Watson and Francis Crick, discoverers of the DNA double helix, walk into a pub in Cambridge and declare, "We have discovered the secret of life!" The rest is Nobel Prize ...

The history of science and technology links many disciplines and cultures: scientific, technological, humanistic and social. Smith’s program in the history of science and technology is designed to ...

WE cordially recommend this book to the general reader as well as to educable teachers and students of science. It is admirably written, the work of a scholar and thinker who knows the value of ...

A range of tours that cover the historical development of scientific thought and practice from the 16th century onwards whilst visiting some of the most stimulating European cities and worldwide sites ...