History_of_science

qas: question: What are natural and social sciences a subcategory of?
answers: text: The history of science

question: What is the history of arts and humanities called?
answers: text: the history of scholarship

question: What kind of phenomena does science study?
answers: text: real world

question: Intellectual history and social history are used in what?
answers: text: Historiography of science
context: The history of science is the study of the development of science and scientific knowledge, including both the natural sciences and social sciences. (The history of the arts and humanities is termed as the history of scholarship.) Science is a body of empirical, theoretical, and practical knowledge about the natural world, produced by scientists who emphasize the observation, explanation, and prediction of real world phenomena. Historiography of science, in contrast, often draws on the historical methods of both intellectual history and social history.

qas: question: Who coined the word "scientist"?
answers: text: William Whewell

question: When was the word "scientist" created?
answers: text: 19th century

question: What are people who study nature called?
answers: text: natural philosophers

question: Ibn al-Haytham and Roger Bacon were scientists in which time period?
answers: text: the Middle Ages

question: When was the beginning of modern science considered to be?
answers: text: the scientific revolution
context: The English word scientist is relatively recent—first coined by William Whewell in the 19th century. Previously, people investigating nature called themselves natural philosophers. While empirical investigations of the natural world have been described since classical antiquity (for example, by Thales, Aristotle, and others), and scientific methods have been employed since the Middle Ages (for example, by Ibn al-Haytham, and Roger Bacon), the dawn of modern science is often traced back to the early modern period and in particular to the scientific revolution that took place in 16th- and 17th-century Europe. Scientific methods are considered to be so fundamental to modern science that some consider earlier inquiries into nature to be pre-scientific. Traditionally, historians of science have defined science sufficiently broadly to include those inquiries.

qas: question: What replaced false beliefs?
answers: text: true theories

question: Who depicts the history of science in a wider matrix?
answers: text: Thomas Kuhn

question: What time period did the history of science begin to take a progressive narrative?
answers: text: the 18th century

question: Thomas Kuhn used conceptual systems and what other term to define the history of science?
answers: text: competing paradigms
context: From the 18th century through late 20th century, the history of science, especially of the physical and biological sciences, was often presented in a progressive narrative in which true theories replaced false beliefs. More recent historical interpretations, such as those of Thomas Kuhn, tend to portray the history of science in different terms, such as that of competing paradigms or conceptual systems in a wider matrix that includes intellectual, cultural, economic and political themes outside of science.

qas: question: The advancement of agriculture made what possible?
answers: text: a surplus of food

question: Having a surplus of food allowed farmers and hunter-gatherers to spend less time working on what?
answers: text: food production

question: Before agriculture advancements, what were farmers having to do?
answers: text: work towards bare survival

question: What advancement aided in spreading knowledge across generations?
answers: text: The development of writing

question: Who was able to support the people who were adding to the written knowledge of nature?
answers: text: community
context: The development of writing enabled knowledge to be stored and communicated across generations with much greater fidelity. Combined with the development of agriculture, which allowed for a surplus of food, it became possible for early civilizations to develop, because more time and effort could be devoted to tasks (other than food production) than hunter-gatherers or early subsistence farmers had available. This surplus allowed a community to support individuals who did things other than work towards bare survival. These other tasks included systematic studies of nature, study of written information gathered and recorded by others, and often of adding to that body of information.

qas: question: Which civilization advanced in astronomy, mathematics, and medicine?
answers: text: Ancient Egypt

question: What did Egyptians use to better organize their farmland?
answers: text: geometry

question: What theory did the Egyptians use to build rectilinear structures?
answers: text: The 3-4-5 right triangle

question: What research was Egypt known for?
answers: text: alchemy

question: What is the name of the earliest medical document?
answers: text: The Edwin Smith papyrus
context: Ancient Egypt made significant advances in astronomy, mathematics and medicine. Their development of geometry was a necessary outgrowth of surveying to preserve the layout and ownership of farmland, which was flooded annually by the Nile river. The 3-4-5 right triangle and other rules of thumb were used to build rectilinear structures, and the post and lintel architecture of Egypt. Egypt was also a center of alchemy research for much of the Mediterranean.The Edwin Smith papyrus is one of the first medical documents still extant, and perhaps the earliest document that attempts to describe and analyse the brain: it might be seen as the very beginnings of modern neuroscience. However, while Egyptian medicine had some effective practices, it was not without its ineffective and sometimes harmful practices. Medical historians believe that ancient Egyptian pharmacology, for example, was largely ineffective. Nevertheless, it applies the following components to the treatment of disease: examination, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis, which display strong parallels to the basic empirical method of science and according to G. E. R. Lloyd played a significant role in the development of this methodology. The Ebers papyrus (c. 1550 BC) also contains evidence of traditional empiricism.

qas: question: Where did the Mesopotamian people originate from?
answers: text: Sumer

question: How far back do the Mesopotamian people go?
answers: text: 3500 BC

question: What did the Mesopotamian use to record data about the world around them?
answers: text: numerical data

question: What was the earliest recording of Pythagoras' law?
answers: text: 18th century BC

question: Which tablet had Pythagorean triplets on it?
answers: text: Plimpton 322
context: From their beginnings in Sumer (now Iraq) around 3500 BC, the Mesopotamian people began to attempt to record some observations of the world with numerical data. But their observations and measurements were seemingly taken for purposes other than for elucidating scientific laws. A concrete instance of Pythagoras' law was recorded, as early as the 18th century BC: the Mesopotamian cuneiform tablet Plimpton 322 records a number of Pythagorean triplets (3,4,5) (5,12,13). ..., dated 1900 BC, possibly millennia before Pythagoras,  but an abstract formulation of the Pythagorean theorem was not.

qas: question: Who wrote on the clay tablets in Babylonian astronomy?
answers: text: scribes

question: Where are Mesopotamian astronomical periods still used?
answers: text: in Western calendars

question: Who was Kidinnu?
answers: text: a Chaldean astronomer and mathematician

question: Who believes that the Hellenistic world relies on Babylonian astronomy?
answers: text: A. Aaboe

question: Where can Kidinnu's solar year be found in use?
answers: text: today's calendars
context: In Babylonian astronomy, records of the motions of the stars, planets, and the moon are left on thousands of clay tablets created by scribes. Even today, astronomical periods identified by Mesopotamian proto-scientists are still widely used in Western calendars such as the solar year and the lunar month. Using these data they developed arithmetical methods to compute the changing length of daylight in the course of the year and to predict the appearances and disappearances of the Moon and planets and eclipses of the Sun and Moon. Only a few astronomers' names are known, such as that of Kidinnu, a Chaldean astronomer and mathematician. Kiddinu's value for the solar year is in use for today's calendars. Babylonian astronomy was "the first and highly successful attempt at giving a refined mathematical description of astronomical phenomena." According to the historian A. Aaboe, "all subsequent varieties of scientific astronomy, in the Hellenistic world, in India, in Islam, and in the West—if not indeed all subsequent endeavour in the exact sciences—depend upon Babylonian astronomy in decisive and fundamental ways."

qas: question: Which era was marked by investigating the universe?
answers: text: Classical Antiquity

question: What type of science are making a calendar and finding cures for diseases a part of?
answers: text: natural philosophy

question: What is an example of skilled professionals?
answers: text: physicians

question: What is an example of religious devotee?
answers: text: temple healers

question: What would the first scientists have been considered?
answers: text: natural philosophers
context: In Classical Antiquity, the inquiry into the workings of the universe took place both in investigations aimed at such practical goals as establishing a reliable calendar or determining how to cure a variety of illnesses and in those abstract investigations known as natural philosophy. The ancient people who are considered the first scientists may have thought of themselves as natural philosophers, as practitioners of a skilled profession (for example, physicians), or as followers of a religious tradition (for example, temple healers).

qas: question: What are early Greek philosophers known as?
answers: text: pre-Socratics

question: What question were Greek philosophers trying to answer?
answers: text: How did the ordered cosmos in which we live come to be?

question: Who was named "the father of science"?
answers: text: Thales

question: Which religious deity did Thales undermine with his scientific theories?
answers: text: Poseidon

question: Who was the first person to determine that the Earth is round?
answers: text: Samos
context: The earliest Greek philosophers, known as the pre-Socratics, provided competing answers to the question found in the myths of their neighbors: "How did the ordered cosmos in which we live come to be?" The pre-Socratic philosopher Thales (640-546 BC), dubbed the "father of science", was the first to postulate non-supernatural explanations for natural phenomena, for example, that land floats on water and that earthquakes are caused by the agitation of the water upon which the land floats, rather than the god Poseidon. Thales' student Pythagoras of Samos founded the Pythagorean school, which investigated mathematics for its own sake, and was the first to postulate that the Earth is spherical in shape. Leucippus (5th century BC) introduced atomism, the theory that all matter is made of indivisible, imperishable units called atoms. This was greatly expanded by his pupil Democritus.

qas: question: Plato and Aristotle are known for systematically discussing what?
answers: text: natural philosophy

question: What discussion technique are Plato and Aristotle responsible for?
answers: text: deductive reasoning

question: What year was the Platonic Academy founded?
answers: text: 387 BC

question: Aristotle introduced what theory?
answers: text: empiricism

question: How many species of animals were classified by Aristotle?
answers: text: 540
context: Subsequently, Plato and Aristotle produced the first systematic discussions of natural philosophy, which did much to shape later investigations of nature. Their development of deductive reasoning was of particular importance and usefulness to later scientific inquiry. Plato founded the Platonic Academy in 387 BC, whose motto was "Let none unversed in geometry enter here", and turned out many notable philosophers. Plato's student Aristotle introduced empiricism and the notion that universal truths can be arrived at via observation and induction, thereby laying the foundations of the scientific method. Aristotle also produced many biological writings that were empirical in nature, focusing on biological causation and the diversity of life. He made countless observations of nature, especially the habits and attributes of plants and animals in the world around him, classified more than 540 animal species, and dissected at least 50. Aristotle's writings profoundly influenced subsequent Islamic and European scholarship, though they were eventually superseded in the Scientific Revolution.

qas: question: Anatomy, zoology, geography, and studies like them are considered what?
answers: text: factual knowledge

question: What era utilized Greek theories?
answers: text: the Hellenistic age

question: What scientific theory was created by the Greeks?
answers: text: the Socratic method

question: Who employed logic, geometry, and natural sciences?
answers: text: the Ancient Greeks

question: Greek thought is predominately applying mathematics and what other method?
answers: text: deliberate empirical research
context: The important legacy of this period included substantial advances in factual knowledge, especially in anatomy, zoology, botany, mineralogy, geography, mathematics and astronomy; an awareness of the importance of certain scientific problems, especially those related to the problem of change and its causes; and a recognition of the methodological importance of applying mathematics to natural phenomena and of undertaking empirical research. In the Hellenistic age scholars frequently employed the principles developed in earlier Greek thought: the application of mathematics and deliberate empirical research, in their scientific investigations. Thus, clear unbroken lines of influence lead from ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophers, to medieval Muslim philosophers and scientists, to the European Renaissance and Enlightenment, to the secular sciences of the modern day. Neither reason nor inquiry began with the Ancient Greeks, but the Socratic method did, along with the idea of Forms, great advances in geometry, logic, and the natural sciences. According to Benjamin Farrington, former Professor of Classics at Swansea University:

qas: question: Who created the sun-centered model of the solar system?
answers: text: Aristarchus of Samos

question: Who was able to determine the circumference of the Earth?
answers: text: Eratosthenes

question: Who made the first catalog of stars?
answers: text: Hipparchus

question: What was used to determine the position of planets within the solar system?
answers: text: the Antikythera mechanism

question: When was the Antikythera mechanism used?
answers: text: 150-100 BC
context: The astronomer Aristarchus of Samos was the first known person to propose a heliocentric model of the solar system, while the geographer Eratosthenes accurately calculated the circumference of the Earth. Hipparchus (c. 190 – c. 120 BC) produced the first systematic star catalog. The level of achievement in Hellenistic astronomy and engineering is impressively shown by the Antikythera mechanism (150-100 BC), an analog computer for calculating the position of planets. Technological artifacts of similar complexity did not reappear until the 14th century, when mechanical astronomical clocks appeared in Europe.

qas: question: Who wrote the book Elements?
answers: text: Euclid

question: What was contained within the book Elements?
answers: text: the foundations of mathematical rigor

question: Who was able to determine the the area under a parabola?
answers: text: Archimedes

question: What method did Archimedes employ to determine the area under a parabola?
answers: text: exhaustion

question: Which mathematical figure did Archimedes approximate?
answers: text: Pi
context: In Hellenistic Egypt, the mathematician Euclid laid down the foundations of mathematical rigor and introduced the concepts of definition, axiom, theorem and proof still in use today in his Elements, considered the most influential textbook ever written. Archimedes, considered one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, is credited with using the method of exhaustion to calculate the area under the arc of a parabola with the summation of an infinite series, and gave a remarkably accurate approximation of Pi. He is also known in physics for laying the foundations of hydrostatics, statics, and the explanation of the principle of the lever.

qas: question: What classification guide did Theophrastus create?
answers: text: the first taxonomy

question: In what year did Pliny the Elder publish the largest encyclopedia?
answers: text: 77 AD

question: What did Pliny the Elder observe about diamonds?
answers: text: the octahedral shape

question: Who do engravers use diamond dust for?
answers: text: to cut and polish other gems

question: What characteristic was Pliny the Elder the first to recognize about amber?
answers: text: was a fossilized resin
context: Theophrastus wrote some of the earliest descriptions of plants and animals, establishing the first taxonomy and looking at minerals in terms of their properties such as hardness. Pliny the Elder produced what is one of the largest encyclopedias of the natural world in 77 AD, and must be regarded as the rightful successor to Theophrastus. For example, he accurately describes the octahedral shape of the diamond, and proceeds to mention that diamond dust is used by engravers to cut and polish other gems owing to its great hardness. His recognition of the importance of crystal shape is a precursor to modern crystallography, while mention of numerous other minerals presages mineralogy. He also recognises that other minerals have characteristic crystal shapes, but in one example, confuses the crystal habit with the work of lapidaries. He was also the first to recognise that amber was a fossilized resin from pine trees because he had seen samples with trapped insects within them.

qas: question: The Indus Valley Civilization was the first to have traces of what?
answers: text: mathematical knowledge

question: What proportional size were the bricks that the civilization used?
answers: text: 4:2:1

question: What characteristic determined the proportions of the bricks?
answers: text: stability

question: What was the name of the ruler that they created?
answers: text: the Mohenjo-daro ruler

question: How long were the units in inches of the Mohenjo-daro ruler?
answers: text: 1.32 inches
context: Mathematics: The earliest traces of mathematical knowledge in the Indian subcontinent appear with the Indus Valley Civilization (c. 4th millennium BC ~ c. 3rd millennium BC). The people of this civilization made bricks whose dimensions were in the proportion 4:2:1, considered favorable for the stability of a brick structure. They also tried to standardize measurement of length to a high degree of accuracy. They designed a ruler—the Mohenjo-daro ruler—whose unit of length (approximately 1.32 inches or 3.4 centimetres) was divided into ten equal parts. Bricks manufactured in ancient Mohenjo-daro often had dimensions that were integral multiples of this unit of length.

qas: question: When did Aryabhata live?
answers: text: 476-550

question: What were the trigonometric functions that Aryabhata discovered?
answers: text: sine, versine, cosine and inverse sine

question: What theory did Brahmagupta suggest in 628 AD?
answers: text: gravity was a force of attraction

question: What did Brahmagupta use the number zero for?
answers: text: a placeholder and a decimal digit

question: What language did the work of Brahmagupta and Aryabhata have to be translated from?
answers: text: Arabic
context: Indian astronomer and mathematician Aryabhata (476-550), in his Aryabhatiya (499) introduced a number of trigonometric functions (including sine, versine, cosine and inverse sine), trigonometric tables, and techniques and algorithms of algebra. In 628 AD, Brahmagupta suggested that gravity was a force of attraction. He also lucidly explained the use of zero as both a placeholder and a decimal digit, along with the Hindu-Arabic numeral system now used universally throughout the world. Arabic translations of the two astronomers' texts were soon available in the Islamic world, introducing what would become Arabic numerals to the Islamic World by the 9th century. During the 14th–16th centuries, the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics made significant advances in astronomy and especially mathematics, including fields such as trigonometry and analysis. In particular, Madhava of Sangamagrama is considered the "founder of mathematical analysis".

qas: question: Which text was the first to have concepts of astronomy in it?
answers: text: the Vedas

question: Who wrote the first 12 chapters of the Siddhanta Shiromani?
answers: text: Bhāskara

question: In what time period was the Siddhanta Shiromani written?
answers: text: 12th century

question: The second section of the Siddhanta Shiromani has how many chapters?
answers: text: 13

question: What topic does the second part of the Siddhanta Shiromani contain?
answers: text: the nature of the sphere
context: Astronomy: The first textual mention of astronomical concepts comes from the Vedas, religious literature of India. According to Sarma (2008): "One finds in the Rigveda intelligent speculations about the genesis of the universe from nonexistence, the configuration of the universe, the spherical self-supporting earth, and the year of 360 days divided into 12 equal parts of 30 days each with a periodical intercalary month.". The first 12 chapters of the Siddhanta Shiromani, written by Bhāskara in the 12th century, cover topics such as: mean longitudes of the planets; true longitudes of the planets; the three problems of diurnal rotation; syzygies; lunar eclipses; solar eclipses; latitudes of the planets; risings and settings; the moon's crescent; conjunctions of the planets with each other; conjunctions of the planets with the fixed stars; and the patas of the sun and moon. The 13 chapters of the second part cover the nature of the sphere, as well as significant astronomical and trigonometric calculations based on it.

qas: question: Where are the Neolithic graveyards?
answers: text: Pakistan

question: What do the findings in the graveyards show evidence of?
answers: text: proto-dentistry

question: What kind of medicine was practiced in India before 2500 BC?
answers: text: Ayurveda

question: What is the name of the text that has information regarding Ayurveda?
answers: text: Suśrutasamhitā of Suśruta

question: What information is in the Susrutasamhita of Susruta?
answers: text: surgical procedures
context: Medicine: Findings from Neolithic graveyards in what is now Pakistan show evidence of proto-dentistry among an early farming culture. Ayurveda is a system of traditional medicine that originated in ancient India before 2500 BC, and is now practiced as a form of alternative medicine in other parts of the world. Its most famous text is the Suśrutasamhitā of Suśruta, which is notable for describing procedures on various forms of surgery, including rhinoplasty, the repair of torn ear lobes, perineal lithotomy, cataract surgery, and several other excisions and other surgical procedures.

qas: question: What method did early Chinese mathematicians use to calculate?
answers: text: a positional decimal system on counting boards

question: One rod in the second box from the right is what number?
answers: text: 10

question: When did negative numbers and decimals start being used?
answers: text: 1st century BC

question: What text includes Horner's method?
answers: text: The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art

question: What advanced mathematical methods did the Tang dynasty have?
answers: text: Cubic equations
context: Mathematics: From the earliest the Chinese used a positional decimal system on counting boards in order to calculate. To express 10, a single rod is placed in the second box from the right. The spoken language uses a similar system to English: e.g. four thousand two hundred seven. No symbol was used for zero. By the 1st century BC, negative numbers and decimal fractions were in use and The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art included methods for extracting higher order roots by Horner's method and solving linear equations and by Pythagoras' theorem. Cubic equations were solved in the Tang dynasty and solutions of equations of order higher than 3 appeared in print in 1245 AD by Ch'in Chiu-shao. Pascal's triangle for binomial coefficients was described around 1100 by Jia Xian.

qas: question: What observations in astronomy did China record?
answers: text: sunspots

question: What kind of predictions were made during the 12th century?
answers: text: eclipses

question: Who made predictions in 1601?
answers: text: Jesuit Matteo Ricci

question: What year did Chinese astronomers start to observe comets?
answers: text: 635

question: How many records of sunspots are there?
answers: text: 112
context: Astronomy: Astronomical observations from China constitute the longest continuous sequence from any civilisation and include records of sunspots (112 records from 364 BC), supernovas (1054), lunar and solar eclipses. By the 12th century, they could reasonably accurately make predictions of eclipses, but the knowledge of this was lost during the Ming dynasty, so that the Jesuit Matteo Ricci gained much favour in 1601 by his predictions. By 635 Chinese astronomers had observed that the tails of comets always point away from the sun.

qas: question: What was invented in 132 CE?
answers: text: a seismometer

question: What occurrence is measured by a seismometer?
answers: text: an earthquake

question: What is the Chinese name for a seismometer?
answers: text: Houfeng didong yi

question: What did the Chinese caused earthquakes?
answers: text: enormous compression of trapped air

question: What was Luoyang renamed to?
answers: text: Gansu
context: Seismology: To better prepare for calamities, Zhang Heng invented a seismometer in 132 CE which provided instant alert to authorities in the capital Luoyang that an earthquake had occurred in a location indicated by a specific cardinal or ordinal direction. Although no tremors could be felt in the capital when Zhang told the court that an earthquake had just occurred in the northwest, a message came soon afterwards that an earthquake had indeed struck 400 km (248 mi) to 500 km (310 mi) northwest of Luoyang (in what is now modern Gansu). Zhang called his device the 'instrument for measuring the seasonal winds and the movements of the Earth' (Houfeng didong yi 候风地动仪), so-named because he and others thought that earthquakes were most likely caused by the enormous compression of trapped air. See Zhang's seismometer for further details.

qas: question: Who discovered the idea of true north?
answers: text: Shen Kuo

question: When was Shen Kuo alive?
answers: text: 1031–1095

question: What are drydocks used for?
answers: text: to repair boats

question: What did silt and marine fossils teach Shen Kuo?
answers: text: geomorphology

question: What did Shen Kuo study to discover climate change?
answers: text: petrified bamboo
context: There are many notable contributors to the field of Chinese science throughout the ages. One of the best examples would be Shen Kuo (1031–1095), a polymath scientist and statesman who was the first to describe the magnetic-needle compass used for navigation, discovered the concept of true north, improved the design of the astronomical gnomon, armillary sphere, sight tube, and clepsydra, and described the use of drydocks to repair boats. After observing the natural process of the inundation of silt and the find of marine fossils in the Taihang Mountains (hundreds of miles from the Pacific Ocean), Shen Kuo devised a theory of land formation, or geomorphology. He also adopted a theory of gradual climate change in regions over time, after observing petrified bamboo found underground at Yan'an, Shaanxi province. If not for Shen Kuo's writing, the architectural works of Yu Hao would be little known, along with the inventor of movable type printing, Bi Sheng (990-1051). Shen's contemporary Su Song (1020–1101) was also a brilliant polymath, an astronomer who created a celestial atlas of star maps, wrote a pharmaceutical treatise with related subjects of botany, zoology, mineralogy, and metallurgy, and had erected a large astronomical clocktower in Kaifeng city in 1088. To operate the crowning armillary sphere, his clocktower featured an escapement mechanism and the world's oldest known use of an endless power-transmitting chain drive.

qas: question: Who was the Needham Research Institute named after?
answers: text: Joseph Needham

question: What type of bridge originated in China?
answers: text: suspension

question: What type of map originated in China?
answers: text: raised-relief

question: What type of fan originated in China?
answers: text: rotary

question: What type of globe did Zhang Heng invent?
answers: text: water-powered celestial
context: The Jesuit China missions of the 16th and 17th centuries "learned to appreciate the scientific achievements of this ancient culture and made them known in Europe. Through their correspondence European scientists first learned about the Chinese science and culture." Western academic thought on the history of Chinese technology and science was galvanized by the work of Joseph Needham and the Needham Research Institute. Among the technological accomplishments of China were, according to the British scholar Needham, early seismological detectors (Zhang Heng in the 2nd century), the water-powered celestial globe (Zhang Heng), matches, the independent invention of the decimal system, dry docks, sliding calipers, the double-action piston pump, cast iron, the blast furnace, the iron plough, the multi-tube seed drill, the wheelbarrow, the suspension bridge, the winnowing machine, the rotary fan, the parachute, natural gas as fuel, the raised-relief map, the propeller, the crossbow, and a solid fuel rocket, the multistage rocket, the horse collar, along with contributions in logic, astronomy, medicine, and other fields.

qas: question: What was a consequence of the Roman Empire being divided?
answers: text: the Western Roman Empire lost contact with much of its past

question: Where was support found for Greek philosophy?
answers: text: Arab Empire

question: What time period was marked by the spreading of Islam?
answers: text: the 7th and 8th centuries

question: How long did the Islamic Golden Age last?
answers: text: until the 13th century

question: What language did Muslim philosophers speak?
answers: text: Arabic
context: With the division of the Roman Empire, the Western Roman Empire lost contact with much of its past. In the Middle East, Greek philosophy was able to find some support under the newly created Arab Empire. With the spread of Islam in the 7th and 8th centuries, a period of Muslim scholarship, known as the Islamic Golden Age, lasted until the 13th century. This scholarship was aided by several factors. The use of a single language, Arabic, allowed communication without need of a translator. Access to Greek texts from the Byzantine Empire, along with Indian sources of learning, provided Muslim scholars a knowledge base to build upon.

qas: question: What method did Muslim scientists use more than the Greeks?
answers: text: experiment

question: What book did Ibn al-Haytham write?
answers: text: Book of Optics

question: What law did the Persians know of?
answers: text: The law of refraction of light

question: What was Ibn al-Haytham's nickname?
answers: text: the father of optics

question: What theory did Ibn al-Haytham have proof for?
answers: text: the intromission theory of light
context: Muslim scientists placed far greater emphasis on experiment than had the Greeks. This led to an early scientific method being developed in the Muslim world, where significant progress in methodology was made, beginning with the experiments of Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) on optics from c. 1000, in his Book of Optics. The law of refraction of light was known to the Persians. The most important development of the scientific method was the use of experiments to distinguish between competing scientific theories set within a generally empirical orientation, which began among Muslim scientists. Ibn al-Haytham is also regarded as the father of optics, especially for his empirical proof of the intromission theory of light. Some have also described Ibn al-Haytham as the "first scientist" for his development of the modern scientific method.

qas: question: What was Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi's profession?
answers: text: mathematician

question: Where does the word "algebra" come from?
answers: text: al-jabr

question: Where did Arabic numerals originate?
answers: text: India

question: What did Muslim mathematicians add to Arabic numerals?
answers: text: decimal point notation

question: What area of science did Al-Razi contribute to?
answers: text: chemistry and medicine
context: In mathematics, the Persian mathematician Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi gave his name to the concept of the algorithm, while the term algebra is derived from al-jabr, the beginning of the title of one of his publications. What is now known as Arabic numerals originally came from India, but Muslim mathematicians did make several refinements to the number system, such as the introduction of decimal point notation. Sabian mathematician Al-Battani (850-929) contributed to astronomy and mathematics, while Persian scholar Al-Razi contributed to chemistry and medicine.

qas: question: Whose work did Al-Battani improve?
answers: text: Hipparchus

question: What does He Megale Syntaxis mean?
answers: text: The great treatise

question: Which measurement did Al-Battani improve upon?
answers: text: the Earth's axis

question: The geocentric model is similar to what other model?
answers: text: Copernican heliocentric model
context: In astronomy, Al-Battani improved the measurements of Hipparchus, preserved in the translation of Ptolemy's Hè Megalè Syntaxis (The great treatise) translated as Almagest. Al-Battani also improved the precision of the measurement of the precession of the Earth's axis. The corrections made to the geocentric model by al-Battani, Ibn al-Haytham, Averroes and the Maragha astronomers such as Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Mo'ayyeduddin Urdi and Ibn al-Shatir are similar to Copernican heliocentric model. Heliocentric theories may have also been discussed by several other Muslim astronomers such as Ja'far ibn Muhammad Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi, Abu-Rayhan Biruni, Abu Said al-Sijzi, Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi, and Najm al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī al-Kātibī.

qas: question: Who was most influential in Islamic philosophy?
answers: text: Ibn Sina

question: What method did Ibn Sina introduce?
answers: text: clinical trials

question: What does Kitab al-shifa mean?
answers: text: Book of Healing

question: The Kitab al-shifa and The Canon of Medicine are considered what?
answers: text: standard medicinal texts

question: What characteristic did Ibn Sina find out about infectious diseases?
answers: text: contagious
context: Ibn Sina (Avicenna) is regarded as the most influential philosopher of Islam. He pioneered the science of experimental medicine and was the first physician to conduct clinical trials. His two most notable works in medicine are the Kitāb al-shifāʾ ("Book of Healing") and The Canon of Medicine, both of which were used as standard medicinal texts in both the Muslim world and in Europe well into the 17th century. Amongst his many contributions are the discovery of the contagious nature of infectious diseases, and the introduction of clinical pharmacology.

qas: question: When were medieval universities created?
answers: text: the 12th century

question: Who sponsored the Toledo School of Translators?
answers: text: Raymond of Toledo

question: At the Toledo School of Translators, what language was Arabic text translated into?
answers: text: Latin

question: Which translator learned Arabic to be able to study the Arabic texts directly?
answers: text: Michael Scotus
context: An intellectual revitalization of Europe started with the birth of medieval universities in the 12th century. The contact with the Islamic world in Spain and Sicily, and during the Reconquista and the Crusades, allowed Europeans access to scientific Greek and Arabic texts, including the works of Aristotle, Ptolemy, Jābir ibn Hayyān, al-Khwarizmi, Alhazen, Avicenna, and Averroes. European scholars had access to the translation programs of Raymond of Toledo, who sponsored the 12th century Toledo School of Translators from Arabic to Latin. Later translators like Michael Scotus would learn Arabic in order to study these texts directly. The European universities aided materially in the translation and propagation of these texts and started a new infrastructure which was needed for scientific communities. In fact, European university put many works about the natural world and the study of nature at the center of its curriculum, with the result that the "medieval university laid far greater emphasis on science than does its modern counterpart and descendent."

qas: question: What language did the important scientific works get translated into for universities and monasteries?
answers: text: Latin

question: Who favored empirical methods?
answers: text: Bacon

question: Who favored mathematics?
answers: text: Grosseteste

question: Who wrote the Catholic Church's Condemnation of 1277?
answers: text: Pierre Duhem

question: What era was important for scientific advancements?
answers: text: the Middle Ages
context: At the beginning of the 13th century, there were reasonably accurate Latin translations of the main works of almost all the intellectually crucial ancient authors, allowing a sound transfer of scientific ideas via both the universities and the monasteries. By then, the natural philosophy contained in these texts began to be extended by notable scholastics such as Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus and Duns Scotus. Precursors of the modern scientific method, influenced by earlier contributions of the Islamic world, can be seen already in Grosseteste's emphasis on mathematics as a way to understand nature, and in the empirical approach admired by Bacon, particularly in his Opus Majus. Pierre Duhem's provocative thesis of the Catholic Church's Condemnation of 1277 led to the study of medieval science as a serious discipline, "but no one in the field any longer endorses his view that modern science started in 1277". However, many scholars agree with Duhem's view that the Middle Ages were a period of important scientific developments.

qas: question: Who pioneered parsimony?
answers: text: William of Ockham

question: What theory is based off of projectiles' motion?
answers: text: impetus

question: What theory did impetus pave the way for?
answers: text: inertia

question: What did the Oxford Calculators measure?
answers: text: the kinematics of motion
context: The first half of the 14th century saw much important scientific work being done, largely within the framework of scholastic commentaries on Aristotle's scientific writings. William of Ockham introduced the principle of parsimony: natural philosophers should not postulate unnecessary entities, so that motion is not a distinct thing but is only the moving object and an intermediary "sensible species" is not needed to transmit an image of an object to the eye. Scholars such as Jean Buridan and Nicole Oresme started to reinterpret elements of Aristotle's mechanics. In particular, Buridan developed the theory that impetus was the cause of the motion of projectiles, which was a first step towards the modern concept of inertia. The Oxford Calculators began to mathematically analyze the kinematics of motion, making this analysis without considering the causes of motion.

qas: question: What year did the Black Death occur?
answers: text: 1348

question: What caused ancient texts to be rediscovered by Byzantine scholars?
answers: text: the Fall of Constantinople in 1453

question: The invention of printing improved which society?
answers: text: European

question: Printed word enabled what?
answers: text: a faster propagation of new ideas

question: What type of mathematics aided in developing European science?
answers: text: Algebra
context: In 1348, the Black Death and other disasters sealed a sudden end to the previous period of massive philosophic and scientific development. Yet, the rediscovery of ancient texts was improved after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, when many Byzantine scholars had to seek refuge in the West. Meanwhile, the introduction of printing was to have great effect on European society. The facilitated dissemination of the printed word democratized learning and allowed a faster propagation of new ideas. New ideas also helped to influence the development of European science at this point: not least the introduction of Algebra. These developments paved the way for the Scientific Revolution, which may also be understood as a resumption of the process of scientific inquiry, halted at the start of the Black Death.

qas: question: The focus on learning in the 12th century is referred to as what?
answers: text: Scholasticism

question: What began at the same time Scholasticism ended?
answers: text: the Black Death

question: Which era came after Scholasticism?
answers: text: Italian Renaissance

question: What was the focus of the Northern Renaissance?
answers: text: chemistry and the biological sciences

question: Which scientist was known for working on human cadavers?
answers: text: Vesalius
context: The renewal of learning in Europe, that began with 12th century Scholasticism, came to an end about the time of the Black Death, and the initial period of the subsequent Italian Renaissance is sometimes seen as a lull in scientific activity. The Northern Renaissance, on the other hand, showed a decisive shift in focus from Aristoteleian natural philosophy to chemistry and the biological sciences (botany, anatomy, and medicine). Thus modern science in Europe was resumed in a period of great upheaval: the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation; the discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus; the Fall of Constantinople; but also the re-discovery of Aristotle during the Scholastic period presaged large social and political changes. Thus, a suitable environment was created in which it became possible to question scientific doctrine, in much the same way that Martin Luther and John Calvin questioned religious doctrine. The works of Ptolemy (astronomy) and Galen (medicine) were found not always to match everyday observations. Work by Vesalius on human cadavers found problems with the Galenic view of anatomy.

qas: question: What was the Scientific Revolution?
answers: text: a period of major scientific advancements

question: What year is considered to be the beginning of the Scientific Revolution?
answers: text: 1543

question: What book by Andreas Vesalius was published in 1543?
answers: text: De humani corporis fabrica (On the Workings of the Human Body)

question: What was the focus of De Revolutionibus by Nicolaus Copernicus?
answers: text: the Earth moved around the Sun

question: What book was printed by Isaac Newton in 1687?
answers: text: Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica
context: The willingness to question previously held truths and search for new answers resulted in a period of major scientific advancements, now known as the Scientific Revolution. The Scientific Revolution is traditionally held by most historians to have begun in 1543, when the books De humani corporis fabrica (On the Workings of the Human Body) by Andreas Vesalius, and also De Revolutionibus, by the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, were first printed. The thesis of Copernicus' book was that the Earth moved around the Sun. The period culminated with the publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1687 by Isaac Newton, representative of the unprecedented growth of scientific publications throughout Europe.

qas: question: The Age of Reason made way for which movement?
answers: text: Age of Enlightenment

question: What event is considered to be the start of political modernity?
answers: text: the French Revolution of 1789

question: What book did Denis Diderot write?
answers: text: Encyclopédie
context: The Age of Enlightenment was a European affair. The 17th century "Age of Reason" opened the avenues to the decisive steps towards modern science, which took place during the 18th century "Age of Enlightenment". Directly based on the works of Newton, Descartes, Pascal and Leibniz, the way was now clear to the development of modern mathematics, physics and technology by the generation of Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), Leonhard Euler (1707–1783), Mikhail Lomonosov (1711–1765) and Jean le Rond d'Alembert (1717–1783), epitomized in the appearance of Denis Diderot's Encyclopédie between 1751 and 1772. The impact of this process was not limited to science and technology, but affected philosophy (Immanuel Kant, David Hume), religion (the increasingly significant impact of science upon religion), and society and politics in general (Adam Smith, Voltaire), the French Revolution of 1789 setting a bloody cesura indicating the beginning of political modernity[citation needed]. The early modern period is seen as a flowering of the European Renaissance, in what is often known as the Scientific Revolution, viewed as a foundation of modern science.

qas: question: Which movement took place during the 19th century?
answers: text: The Romantic Movement

question: What theory did Darwin introduce?
answers: text: theory of evolution

question: Which physics subject was affected by The Romantic Movement?
answers: text: electromagnetism

question: What caused Romanticism to end?
answers: text: Positivism

question: What year did Positivism end?
answers: text: 1880
context: The Romantic Movement of the early 19th century reshaped science by opening up new pursuits unexpected in the classical approaches of the Enlightenment. Major breakthroughs came in biology, especially in Darwin's theory of evolution, as well as physics (electromagnetism), mathematics (non-Euclidean geometry, group theory) and chemistry (organic chemistry). The decline of Romanticism occurred because a new movement, Positivism, began to take hold of the ideals of the intellectuals after 1840 and lasted until about 1880.

qas: question: Which movement is considered to be a dividing line between ancient thought and classical physics?
answers: text: The scientific revolution

question: Who made the heliocentric model popular?
answers: text: Nicolaus Copernicus

question: Johannes Kepler created a model of what?
answers: text: planetary motion

question: What did Johannes Kepler's model suggest about the planets?
answers: text: the planets follow elliptical orbits

question: What was Galileo's nickname?
answers: text: Father of Modern Physics
context: The scientific revolution is a convenient boundary between ancient thought and classical physics. Nicolaus Copernicus revived the heliocentric model of the solar system described by Aristarchus of Samos. This was followed by the first known model of planetary motion given by Johannes Kepler in the early 17th century, which proposed that the planets follow elliptical orbits, with the Sun at one focus of the ellipse. Galileo ("Father of Modern Physics") also made use of experiments to validate physical theories, a key element of the scientific method.

qas: question: What work was printed by Isaac Newton in 1687?
answers: text: the Principia Mathematica

question: How many theories were included within the Principia Mathematica?
answers: text: two

question: What concept did the Law of Gravitation deal with?
answers: text: the fundamental force of gravity

question: What are Maxwell's equations about?
answers: text: electromagnetism
context: In 1687, Isaac Newton published the Principia Mathematica, detailing two comprehensive and successful physical theories: Newton's laws of motion, which led to classical mechanics; and Newton's Law of Gravitation, which describes the fundamental force of gravity. The behavior of electricity and magnetism was studied by Faraday, Ohm, and others during the early 19th century. These studies led to the unification of the two phenomena into a single theory of electromagnetism, by James Clerk Maxwell (known as Maxwell's equations).

qas: question: What science subject explains anomalous results?
answers: text: quantum theories

question: What year did Einstein discover the theory of general relativity?
answers: text: 1915

question: Quantum theories became which subject in 1925?
answers: text: quantum mechanics

question: Which scientist noticed the relationship between the speed and distance of galaxies?
answers: text: Edwin Hubble

question: Edwin Hubble's discovery about galaxies allowed for which theory by Georges Lemaitre?
answers: text: the Big Bang theory
context: The beginning of the 20th century brought the start of a revolution in physics. The long-held theories of Newton were shown not to be correct in all circumstances. Beginning in 1900, Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr and others developed quantum theories to explain various anomalous experimental results, by introducing discrete energy levels. Not only did quantum mechanics show that the laws of motion did not hold on small scales, but even more disturbingly, the theory of general relativity, proposed by Einstein in 1915, showed that the fixed background of spacetime, on which both Newtonian mechanics and special relativity depended, could not exist. In 1925, Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger formulated quantum mechanics, which explained the preceding quantum theories. The observation by Edwin Hubble in 1929 that the speed at which galaxies recede positively correlates with their distance, led to the understanding that the universe is expanding, and the formulation of the Big Bang theory by Georges Lemaître.

qas: question: Who discovered nuclear fission?
answers: text: Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann

question: Who edited the first paper about nuclear fission?
answers: text: Niels Bohr and John A. Wheeler

question: What event was going on during the creation of the atomic bomb?
answers: text: World War II

question: The atomic bomb was a part of which movement?
answers: text: Big Science

question: What is the problem with general relativity and quantum mechanics?
answers: text: inconsistent with each other
context: In 1938 Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann discovered nuclear fission with radiochemical methods, and in 1939 Lise Meitner and Otto Robert Frisch wrote the first theoretical interpretation of the fission process, which was later improved by Niels Bohr and John A. Wheeler. Further developments took place during World War II, which led to the practical application of radar and the development and use of the atomic bomb. Though the process had begun with the invention of the cyclotron by Ernest O. Lawrence in the 1930s, physics in the postwar period entered into a phase of what historians have called "Big Science", requiring massive machines, budgets, and laboratories in order to test their theories and move into new frontiers. The primary patron of physics became state governments, who recognized that the support of "basic" research could often lead to technologies useful to both military and industrial applications. Currently, general relativity and quantum mechanics are inconsistent with each other, and efforts are underway to unify the two.

qas: question: When did modern chemistry come into existence?
answers: text: the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries

question: Who decided that chemistry and alchemy were different?
answers: text: Robert Boyle

question: What book was written by Robert Boyle in 1661?
answers: text: The Sceptical Chymist

question: What was Antoine Lavoisier's nickname?
answers: text: Father of Modern Chemistry

question: Which theory did the law of conservation of mass disagree with?
answers: text: phlogiston theory
context: Modern chemistry emerged from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries through the material practices and theories promoted by alchemy, medicine, manufacturing and mining. A decisive moment came when 'chymistry' was distinguished from alchemy by Robert Boyle in his work The Sceptical Chymist, in 1661; although the alchemical tradition continued for some time after his work. Other important steps included the gravimetric experimental practices of medical chemists like William Cullen, Joseph Black, Torbern Bergman and Pierre Macquer and through the work of Antoine Lavoisier (Father of Modern Chemistry) on oxygen and the law of conservation of mass, which refuted phlogiston theory. The theory that all matter is made of atoms, which are the smallest constituents of matter that cannot be broken down without losing the basic chemical and physical properties of that matter, was provided by John Dalton in 1803, although the question took a hundred years to settle as proven. Dalton also formulated the law of mass relationships. In 1869, Dmitri Mendeleev composed his periodic table of elements on the basis of Dalton's discoveries.

qas: question: What scientific act is Friedrich Wohler known for?
answers: text: The synthesis of urea

question: What scientific field did Wohler discover?
answers: text: organic chemistry

question: Late 19th century is marked by what event?
answers: text: the exploitation of the Earth's petrochemicals

question: Mixing organic chemistry with living organisms created what early form of biochemistry?
answers: text: physiological chemistry

question: Who wrote The Nature of the Chemical Bond?
answers: text: Linus Pauling
context: The synthesis of urea by Friedrich Wöhler opened a new research field, organic chemistry, and by the end of the 19th century, scientists were able to synthesize hundreds of organic compounds. The later part of the 19th century saw the exploitation of the Earth's petrochemicals, after the exhaustion of the oil supply from whaling. By the 20th century, systematic production of refined materials provided a ready supply of products which provided not only energy, but also synthetic materials for clothing, medicine, and everyday disposable resources. Application of the techniques of organic chemistry to living organisms resulted in physiological chemistry, the precursor to biochemistry. The 20th century also saw the integration of physics and chemistry, with chemical properties explained as the result of the electronic structure of the atom. Linus Pauling's book on The Nature of the Chemical Bond used the principles of quantum mechanics to deduce bond angles in ever-more complicated molecules. Pauling's work culminated in the physical modelling of DNA, the secret of life (in the words of Francis Crick, 1953). In the same year, the Miller–Urey experiment demonstrated in a simulation of primordial processes, that basic constituents of proteins, simple amino acids, could themselves be built up from simpler molecules.

qas: question: What was the work of Theophrastus on rocks called?
answers: text: Peri lithōn

question: When were Theophrastus' ideas about fossils proven false?
answers: text: the Scientific Revolution

question: When did Shen Kua live?
answers: text: 1031–1095

question: What science did Shen Kua observe?
answers: text: land formation
context: Geology existed as a cloud of isolated, disconnected ideas about rocks, minerals, and landforms long before it became a coherent science. Theophrastus' work on rocks, Peri lithōn, remained authoritative for millennia: its interpretation of fossils was not overturned until after the Scientific Revolution. Chinese polymath Shen Kua (1031–1095) first formulated hypotheses for the process of land formation. Based on his observation of fossils in a geological stratum in a mountain hundreds of miles from the ocean, he deduced that the land was formed by erosion of the mountains and by deposition of silt.

qas: question: What happened to geology during the Scientific Revolution?
answers: text: individual theorists made important contributions

question: What did Robert Hooke study?
answers: text: earthquakes

question: What theory did Nicholas Steno discover?
answers: text: the theory of superposition

question: What book did Thomas Burnet right in 1681?
answers: text: Sacred Theory of the Earth

question: What text did Burnet base his work off of?
answers: text: the Bible
context: Geology did not undergo systematic restructuring during the Scientific Revolution, but individual theorists made important contributions. Robert Hooke, for example, formulated a theory of earthquakes, and Nicholas Steno developed the theory of superposition and argued that fossils were the remains of once-living creatures. Beginning with Thomas Burnet's Sacred Theory of the Earth in 1681, natural philosophers began to explore the idea that the Earth had changed over time. Burnet and his contemporaries interpreted Earth's past in terms of events described in the Bible, but their work laid the intellectual foundations for secular interpretations of Earth history.

qas: question: How old did biblical scholars think the Earth was?
answers: text: 6,000 years

question: Jean-Etienne Guettard and NIcolas Desmarest went to France and recorded what?
answers: text: the first geological maps

question: In the 18th century, what changed geology drastically?
answers: text: comprehensive classification systems for rocks and minerals

question: What are used to create geological maps?
answers: text: index fossils

question: What geological theory was applied to the Paris Basin?
answers: text: layers of rock could be dated by the fossils they contained
context: Modern geology, like modern chemistry, gradually evolved during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Benoît de Maillet and the Comte de Buffon saw the Earth as much older than the 6,000 years envisioned by biblical scholars. Jean-Étienne Guettard and Nicolas Desmarest hiked central France and recorded their observations on some of the first geological maps. Aided by chemical experimentation, naturalists such as Scotland's John Walker, Sweden's Torbern Bergman, and Germany's Abraham Werner created comprehensive classification systems for rocks and minerals—a collective achievement that transformed geology into a cutting edge field by the end of the eighteenth century. These early geologists also proposed a generalized interpretations of Earth history that led James Hutton, Georges Cuvier and Alexandre Brongniart, following in the steps of Steno, to argue that layers of rock could be dated by the fossils they contained: a principle first applied to the geology of the Paris Basin. The use of index fossils became a powerful tool for making geological maps, because it allowed geologists to correlate the rocks in one locality with those of similar age in other, distant localities. Over the first half of the 19th century, geologists such as Charles Lyell, Adam Sedgwick, and Roderick Murchison applied the new technique to rocks throughout Europe and eastern North America, setting the stage for more detailed, government-funded mapping projects in later decades.

qas: question: What changed about the way geology was implemented during the 19th century?
answers: text: shifted from description and classification to attempts to understand how the surface of the Earth had changed

question: The idea of an ice-age that completely covered a continent was suggested by whom?
answers: text: Louis Agassiz

question: What group did Andrew Crombie Ramsay belong to?
answers: text: fluvialists

question: What did Ramsay believe about river valleys?
answers: text: were formed, over millions of years by the rivers that flow through them

question: What happened after radioactivity was realized?
answers: text: radiometric dating methods were developed
context: Midway through the 19th century, the focus of geology shifted from description and classification to attempts to understand how the surface of the Earth had changed. The first comprehensive theories of mountain building were proposed during this period, as were the first modern theories of earthquakes and volcanoes. Louis Agassiz and others established the reality of continent-covering ice ages, and "fluvialists" like Andrew Crombie Ramsay argued that river valleys were formed, over millions of years by the rivers that flow through them. After the discovery of radioactivity, radiometric dating methods were developed, starting in the 20th century. Alfred Wegener's theory of "continental drift" was widely dismissed when he proposed it in the 1910s, but new data gathered in the 1950s and 1960s led to the theory of plate tectonics, which provided a plausible mechanism for it. Plate tectonics also provided a unified explanation for a wide range of seemingly unrelated geological phenomena. Since 1970 it has served as the unifying principle in geology.

qas: question: What was Ignac Fulop Semmelweis' profession?
answers: text: physician

question: How did Semmelweis reduce puerperal fever?
answers: text: requiring physicians to wash their hands

question: What came after the realization that physicians should was their hands before childbirth?
answers: text: the germ theory of disease

question: What did Joseph Lister prove?
answers: text: antisepsis

question: Who did Joseph Lister base his work off of?
answers: text: Louis Pasteur
context: In 1847, Hungarian physician Ignác Fülöp Semmelweis dramatically reduced the occurrency of puerperal fever by simply requiring physicians to wash their hands before attending to women in childbirth. This discovery predated the germ theory of disease. However, Semmelweis' findings were not appreciated by his contemporaries and came into use only with discoveries by British surgeon Joseph Lister, who in 1865 proved the principles of antisepsis. Lister's work was based on the important findings by French biologist Louis Pasteur. Pasteur was able to link microorganisms with disease, revolutionizing medicine. He also devised one of the most important methods in preventive medicine, when in 1880 he produced a vaccine against rabies. Pasteur invented the process of pasteurization, to help prevent the spread of disease through milk and other foods.

qas: question: Which scientist championed the idea of evolution?
answers: text: Charles Darwin

question: What was the name of the book that Darwin wrote about evolution?
answers: text: On the Origin of Species

question: What was the reception of Darwin's ideas about evolution?
answers: text: both opposition and support from different parts of society

question: Who rediscovered the laws of inheritance?
answers: text: Moravian monk Gregor Mendel

question: What was the major break through for the study of genetics?
answers: text: the basic structure of DNA
context: Perhaps the most prominent, controversial and far-reaching theory in all of science has been the theory of evolution by natural selection put forward by the British naturalist Charles Darwin in his book On the Origin of Species in 1859. Darwin proposed that the features of all living things, including humans, were shaped by natural processes over long periods of time. The theory of evolution in its current form affects almost all areas of biology. Implications of evolution on fields outside of pure science have led to both opposition and support from different parts of society, and profoundly influenced the popular understanding of "man's place in the universe". In the early 20th century, the study of heredity became a major investigation after the rediscovery in 1900 of the laws of inheritance developed by the Moravian monk Gregor Mendel in 1866. Mendel's laws provided the beginnings of the study of genetics, which became a major field of research for both scientific and industrial research. By 1953, James D. Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins clarified the basic structure of DNA, the genetic material for expressing life in all its forms. In the late 20th century, the possibilities of genetic engineering became practical for the first time, and a massive international effort began in 1990 to map out an entire human genome (the Human Genome Project).

qas: question: The discipline of ecology is a combination of what two subjects?
answers: text: Darwinian evolution and Humboldtian biogeography

question: What did the work of Louis Pasteur and Ferdinand Cohn focus on?
answers: text: the cycle of life concept

question: Who came up with the word "ecology"?
answers: text: Ernst Haeckel

question: When was the Gaia hypothesis discovered?
answers: text: in the 1960s

question: What movement occurred during the 1970s?
answers: text: Deep Ecology
context: The discipline of ecology typically traces its origin to the synthesis of Darwinian evolution and Humboldtian biogeography, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Equally important in the rise of ecology, however, were microbiology and soil science—particularly the cycle of life concept, prominent in the work Louis Pasteur and Ferdinand Cohn. The word ecology was coined by Ernst Haeckel, whose particularly holistic view of nature in general (and Darwin's theory in particular) was important in the spread of ecological thinking. In the 1930s, Arthur Tansley and others began developing the field of ecosystem ecology, which combined experimental soil science with physiological concepts of energy and the techniques of field biology. The history of ecology in the 20th century is closely tied to that of environmentalism; the Gaia hypothesis, first formulated in the 1960s, and spreading in the 1970s, and more recently the scientific-religious movement of Deep Ecology have brought the two closer together.

qas: question: What larger group does political science belong to?
answers: text: social sciences

question: Where did the ideas of political science begin?
answers: text: prehistory

question: In history, where could you find someone studying politics?
answers: text: in almost every geographic area
context: Political science is a late arrival in terms of social sciences[citation needed]. However, the discipline has a clear set of antecedents such as moral philosophy, political philosophy, political economy, history, and other fields concerned with normative determinations of what ought to be and with deducing the characteristics and functions of the ideal form of government. The roots of politics are in prehistory. In each historic period and in almost every geographic area, we can find someone studying politics and increasing political understanding.

qas: question: Where did studying politics originate?
answers: text: Ancient Greece

question: What did Plato study?
answers: text: political systems

question: What method did Plato use to understand political systems?
answers: text: philosophy

question: What did Aristotle add to Plato's work?
answers: text: historical empirical evidence
context: In Western culture, the study of politics is first found in Ancient Greece. The antecedents of European politics trace their roots back even earlier than Plato and Aristotle, particularly in the works of Homer, Hesiod, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Euripides. Later, Plato analyzed political systems, abstracted their analysis from more literary- and history- oriented studies and applied an approach we would understand as closer to philosophy. Similarly, Aristotle built upon Plato's analysis to include historical empirical evidence in his analysis.

qas: question: Who are Kautilya and Vishnugupta usually grouped with?
answers: text: Chāṇakya

question: What did the Arthasastra say a king must use?
answers: text: brutal measures

question: When was Chanakya alive?
answers: text: 350–-283 BCE
context: An ancient Indian treatise on statecraft, economic policy and military strategy by Kautilya and Viṣhṇugupta, who are traditionally identified with Chāṇakya (c. 350–-283 BCE). In this treatise, the behaviors and relationships of the people, the King, the State, the Government Superintendents, Courtiers, Enemies, Invaders, and Corporations are analysed and documented. Roger Boesche describes the Arthaśāstra as "a book of political realism, a book analysing how the political world does work and not very often stating how it ought to work, a book that frequently discloses to a king what calculating and sometimes brutal measures he must carry out to preserve the state and the common good."

qas: question: What allowed political studies to spread?
answers: text: the fall of the Western Roman Empire

question: What new idea caused politics to cover a larger spectrum?
answers: text: monotheism

question: Where did politics touch in the Middle Ages?
answers: text: churches and courts

question: Who wrote The City of God?
answers: text: Augustine of Hippo

question: What did The City of God change?
answers: text: the borders between what was religious and what was political
context: With the fall of the Western Roman Empire, there arose a more diffuse arena for political studies. The rise of monotheism and, particularly for the Western tradition, Christianity, brought to light a new space for politics and political action[citation needed]. During the Middle Ages, the study of politics was widespread in the churches and courts. Works such as Augustine of Hippo's The City of God synthesized current philosophies and political traditions with those of Christianity, redefining the borders between what was religious and what was political. Most of the political questions surrounding the relationship between Church and State were clarified and contested in this period.

qas: question: What new subject surface at the end of the 18th century?
answers: text: Historical linguistics

question: Who realized that languages like Sanskrit, Persian, and Greek share the same foundation?
answers: text: Sir William Jones

question: What did Sir William Jones do to document his work?
answers: text: catalog all languages of the world

question: What did Noam Chomsky add to the study of linguistics?
answers: text: the development of generative linguistics

question: What method did Chomsky use to develop generative linguistics?
answers: text: a mathematical model of language
context: Historical linguistics emerged as an independent field of study at the end of the 18th century. Sir William Jones proposed that Sanskrit, Persian, Greek, Latin, Gothic, and Celtic languages all shared a common base. After Jones, an effort to catalog all languages of the world was made throughout the 19th century and into the 20th century. Publication of Ferdinand de Saussure's Cours de linguistique générale created the development of descriptive linguistics. Descriptive linguistics, and the related structuralism movement caused linguistics to focus on how language changes over time, instead of just describing the differences between languages. Noam Chomsky further diversified linguistics with the development of generative linguistics in the 1950s. His effort is based upon a mathematical model of language that allows for the description and prediction of valid syntax. Additional specialties such as sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics, and computational linguistics have emerged from collaboration between linguistics and other disciplines.

qas: question: Who wrote An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations?
answers: text: Adam Smith

question: What did Adam Smith's work cover?
answers: text: The basis for classical economics

question: What idea did Adam Smith disagree with?
answers: text: mercantilism

question: What idea did Adam Smith propose?
answers: text: an "invisible hand"

question: Who is Marxian economics named after?
answers: text: Karl Marx
context: The basis for classical economics forms Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published in 1776. Smith criticized mercantilism, advocating a system of free trade with division of labour. He postulated an "invisible hand" that regulated economic systems made up of actors guided only by self-interest. Karl Marx developed an alternative economic theory, called Marxian economics. Marxian economics is based on the labor theory of value and assumes the value of good to be based on the amount of labor required to produce it. Under this assumption, capitalism was based on employers not paying the full value of workers labor to create profit. The Austrian school responded to Marxian economics by viewing entrepreneurship as driving force of economic development. This replaced the labor theory of value by a system of supply and demand.

qas: question: What did John Maynard Keynes want to separate?
answers: text: microeconomics and macroeconomics

question: What concept did Milton Friedman propose after World War II?
answers: text: monetarism

question: How did monaterism aim to control the economy?
answers: text: using the supply and demand of money

question: In the 1970s, what did monaterism turn into?
answers: text: supply-side economics

question: How did supply-side economics try to increase the amount of money in the market?
answers: text: reducing taxes
context: In the 1920s, John Maynard Keynes prompted a division between microeconomics and macroeconomics. Under Keynesian economics macroeconomic trends can overwhelm economic choices made by individuals. Governments should promote aggregate demand for goods as a means to encourage economic expansion. Following World War II, Milton Friedman created the concept of monetarism. Monetarism focuses on using the supply and demand of money as a method for controlling economic activity. In the 1970s, monetarism has adapted into supply-side economics which advocates reducing taxes as a means to increase the amount of money available for economic expansion.

qas: question: When was Wealth of Nations written?
answers: text: 1776

question: How present was Smith's invisible hand intended to be?
answers: text: frequently

question: What happens in a market when there is competition?
answers: text: lower prices

question: What is the most important part of "Wealth"?
answers: text: the division of labour
context: The above "history of economics" reflects modern economic textbooks and this means that the last stage of a science is represented as the culmination of its history (Kuhn, 1962). The "invisible hand" mentioned in a lost page in the middle of a chapter in the middle of the to "Wealth of Nations", 1776, advances as Smith's central message.[clarification needed] It is played down that this "invisible hand" acts only "frequently" and that it is "no part of his [the individual's] intentions" because competition leads to lower prices by imitating "his" invention. That this "invisible hand" prefers "the support of domestic to foreign industry" is cleansed—often without indication that part of the citation is truncated. The opening passage of the "Wealth" containing Smith's message is never mentioned as it cannot be integrated into modern theory: "Wealth" depends on the division of labour which changes with market volume and on the proportion of productive to Unproductive labor.

qas: question: What was the beginning of psychology classified as?
answers: text: a scientific enterprise

question: What year is most commonly referred to as the beginning of psychology?
answers: text: 1879

question: Who has the first lab completely dedicated to psychology?
answers: text: Wilhelm Wundt

question: What did Hermann Ebbinghaus study?
answers: text: memory studies

question: What was Ivan Pavlov known for?
answers: text: classical conditioning
context: The end of the 19th century marks the start of psychology as a scientific enterprise. The year 1879 is commonly seen as the start of psychology as an independent field of study. In that year Wilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory dedicated exclusively to psychological research (in Leipzig). Other important early contributors to the field include Hermann Ebbinghaus (a pioneer in memory studies), Ivan Pavlov (who discovered classical conditioning), William James, and Sigmund Freud. Freud's influence has been enormous, though more as cultural icon than a force in scientific psychology.

qas: question: What is the group that human psychology belongs to?
answers: text: cognitive science

question: What is investigated in cognitive science?
answers: text: the mind

question: What inventions advanced the study of cognitive science?
answers: text: PET scans and CAT scans

question: What new technology could be created as a result of studying cognitive science?
answers: text: artificial intelligence
context: The final decades of the 20th century have seen the rise of a new interdisciplinary approach to studying human psychology, known collectively as cognitive science. Cognitive science again considers the mind as a subject for investigation, using the tools of psychology, linguistics, computer science, philosophy, and neurobiology. New methods of visualizing the activity of the brain, such as PET scans and CAT scans, began to exert their influence as well, leading some researchers to investigate the mind by investigating the brain, rather than cognition. These new forms of investigation assume that a wide understanding of the human mind is possible, and that such an understanding may be applied to other research domains, such as artificial intelligence.

qas: question: What was Ibn Khaldun's profession?
answers: text: scientific systematic sociologist

question: When did modern sociology surface?
answers: text: early 19th century

question: What is the main goal of sociology?
answers: text: understanding the cohesion of social groups

question: How did Max Weber view rationalization?
answers: text: he believed would trap individuals in an "iron cage"
context: Ibn Khaldun can be regarded as the earliest scientific systematic sociologist. The modern sociology, emerged in the early 19th century as the academic response to the modernization of the world. Among many early sociologists (e.g., Émile Durkheim), the aim of sociology was in structuralism, understanding the cohesion of social groups, and developing an "antidote" to social disintegration. Max Weber was concerned with the modernization of society through the concept of rationalization, which he believed would trap individuals in an "iron cage" of rational thought. Some sociologists, including Georg Simmel and W. E. B. Du Bois, utilized more microsociological, qualitative analyses. This microlevel approach played an important role in American sociology, with the theories of George Herbert Mead and his student Herbert Blumer resulting in the creation of the symbolic interactionism approach to sociology.

qas: question: Who was the major proponent of American sociology?
answers: text: Talcott Parsons

question: What did Parsons believe made a functional society?
answers: text: structural integration

question: What was the problem with the views of Parsons?
answers: text: inequalities present in the status quo

question: What idea from Karl Marx was used to combat the problems with structural integration?
answers: text: conflict theory

question: What is the main belief of conflict theory?
answers: text: different groups compete for control over resources
context: American sociology in the 1940s and 1950s was dominated largely by Talcott Parsons, who argued that aspects of society that promoted structural integration were therefore "functional". This structural functionalism approach was questioned in the 1960s, when sociologists came to see this approach as merely a justification for inequalities present in the status quo. In reaction, conflict theory was developed, which was based in part on the philosophies of Karl Marx. Conflict theorists saw society as an arena in which different groups compete for control over resources. Symbolic interactionism also came to be regarded as central to sociological thinking. Erving Goffman saw social interactions as a stage performance, with individuals preparing "backstage" and attempting to control their audience through impression management. While these theories are currently prominent in sociological thought, other approaches exist, including feminist theory, post-structuralism, rational choice theory, and postmodernism.

qas: question: What science is based on linguistics, mathematics, and engineering?
answers: text: Computer science

question: How has computer science helped science as a whole?
answers: text: by facilitating large-scale archiving of scientific data

question: What is the differing characteristic of contemporary computer science?
answers: text: emphasising mathematical 'theory'
context: Computer science, built upon a foundation of theoretical linguistics, discrete mathematics, and electrical engineering, studies the nature and limits of computation. Subfields include computability, computational complexity, database design, computer networking, artificial intelligence, and the design of computer hardware. One area in which advances in computing have contributed to more general scientific development is by facilitating large-scale archiving of scientific data. Contemporary computer science typically distinguishes itself by emphasising mathematical 'theory' in contrast to the practical emphasis of software engineering.

qas: question: What text is the foundation of the study of the history of science?
answers: text: History of the Inductive Sciences

question: Who wrote a more professional version of History of the Inductive Sciences?
answers: text: George Sarton's

question: What was the history of science during the 20th century?
answers: text: the history of great men and great ideas

question: How could Sarton's ideas be described?
answers: text: Whiggish

question: Who studied the history of science?
answers: text: interested scientists and physicians
context: As an academic field, history of science began with the publication of William Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences (first published in 1837). A more formal study of the history of science as an independent discipline was launched by George Sarton's publications, Introduction to the History of Science (1927) and the Isis journal (founded in 1912). Sarton exemplified the early 20th-century view of the history of science as the history of great men and great ideas. He shared with many of his contemporaries a Whiggish belief in history as a record of the advances and delays in the march of progress. The history of science was not a recognized subfield of American history in this period, and most of the work was carried out by interested scientists and physicians rather than professional historians. With the work of I. Bernard Cohen at Harvard, the history of science became an established subdiscipline of history after 1945.

qas: question: What is the large question that the history of science answers?
answers: text: what science is

question: What did sociology in science explain?
answers: text: the ways in which scientists work

question: What was the most popular method in the 1960s regarding science studies?
answers: text: to emphasize the "human component" of scientific knowledge
context: Much of the study of the history of science has been devoted to answering questions about what science is, how it functions, and whether it exhibits large-scale patterns and trends. The sociology of science in particular has focused on the ways in which scientists work, looking closely at the ways in which they "produce" and "construct" scientific knowledge. Since the 1960s, a common trend in science studies (the study of the sociology and history of science) has been to emphasize the "human component" of scientific knowledge, and to de-emphasize the view that scientific data are self-evident, value-free, and context-free. The field of Science and Technology Studies, an area that overlaps and often informs historical studies of science, focuses on the social context of science in both contemporary and historical periods.

qas: question: What did Humboldtian science aim to do?
answers: text: combining scientific field work with the age of Romanticism sensitivity, ethics and aesthetic ideals

question: Who was the model for Humboldtian science?
answers: text: Alexander von Humboldt

question: What idea did positivism provide?
answers: text: the only valid knowledge is scientific
context: Humboldtian science refers to the early 19th century approach of combining scientific field work with the age of Romanticism sensitivity, ethics and aesthetic ideals. It helped to install natural history as a separate field, gave base for ecology and was based on the role model of scientist, naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt. The later 19th century positivism asserted that all authentic knowledge allows verification and that all authentic knowledge assumes that the only valid knowledge is scientific.

qas: question: Where did the social aspect of science originate?
answers: text: Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1962

question: What idea did social science add to science as a whole?
answers: text: positivism did not explain the actual interactions and strategies of the human participants in science

question: How did Kuhn view the history of science?
answers: text: competing paradigms or conceptual systems
context: The mid 20th century saw a series of studies relying to the role of science in a social context, starting from Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1962. It opened the study of science to new disciplines by suggesting that the evolution of science was in part sociologically determined and that positivism did not explain the actual interactions and strategies of the human participants in science. As Thomas Kuhn put it, the history of science may be seen in more nuanced terms, such as that of competing paradigms or conceptual systems in a wider matrix that includes intellectual, cultural, economic and political themes outside of science. "Partly by selection and partly by distortion, the scientists of earlier ages are implicitly presented as having worked upon the same set of fixed problems and in accordance with the same set of fixed canons that the most recent revolution in scientific theory and method made seem scientific."

qas: question: What did Scientific Knowledge and its Social Problems describe the scientific community as?
answers: text: a social construct

question: What was the era called when scientists were rejecting the notion of objectivity of science?
answers: text: The Science wars

question: What was positivism called after it was revived?
answers: text: scientism

question: What did scientism aim to do?
answers: text: settling enduring metaphysical and moral controversies
context: Further studies, e.g. Jerome Ravetz 1971 Scientific Knowledge and its Social Problems referred to the role of the scientific community, as a social construct, in accepting or rejecting (objective) scientific knowledge. The Science wars of the 1990 were about the influence of especially French philosophers, which denied the objectivity of science in general or seemed to do so. They described as well differences between the idealized model of a pure science and the actual scientific practice; while scientism, a revival of the positivism approach, saw in precise measurement and rigorous calculation the basis for finally settling enduring metaphysical and moral controversies. However, more recently some of the leading critical theorists have recognized that their postmodern deconstructions have at times been counter-productive, and are providing intellectual ammunition for reactionary interests. Bruno Latour noted that "dangerous extremists are using the very same argument of social construction to destroy hard-won evidence that could save our lives. Was I wrong to participate in the invention of this field known as science studies? Is it enough to say that we did not really mean what we meant?"