Chapter 7
Science and ideas
Some turning points happened in libraries and laboratories rather than on battlefields. Indian mathematicians made zero a number, and a Persian scholar in Baghdad gave us algebra. The Renaissance revived old learning, Newton explained gravity, and the Enlightenment put reason first. Then came vaccines, germ theory, radioactivity, relativity, antibiotics and the double helix of DNA, ideas that changed how long and how well people live.
11 cards
See the 11 cards
- Number Indian mathematicians first treated as a numberZero
- Persian scholar whose name gave us "algorithm"Al-Khwarizmi
- Rebirth of art and learning that began in FlorenceThe Renaissance
- Wrote the laws of motion and gravity in 1687Isaac Newton
- 18th-century movement that put reason firstThe Enlightenment
- Doctor who made the first vaccine, against smallpoxEdward Jenner
- Showed that germs, not bad air, cause diseaseLouis Pasteur
- First person to win two Nobel PrizesMarie Curie
- Scientist behind E = mc²Albert Einstein
- Antibiotic Alexander Fleming found in 1928Penicillin
- Molecule whose double helix was described in 1953DNA