04 January 2008

Welcome

Hello and welcome to Days of Science, my new blog on topics of scientific history. From now on, each post will look at a different historical event, or series of events, that impacted the world of science in some significant way. These posts are organized by date, with each post occurring on the same date as the event it describes. Though my background is in biology, I will try to touch on as many subjects and disciplines as possible. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy the blog.

It seems appropriate to start such a venture on the 365th birthday of Sir Isaac Newton, one of my scientific heroes. Newton's PhilosophiƦ Naturalis Principia Mathematica remains today one of the most influential books in the history of science, introducing his theories on gravity and motion. One of the great true geniuses in history, his legacy is so much more than this one book, and includes the entire discipline of calculus (which he co-created along with Gottfried Leibniz). His ideas were some of the most fundamental seeds of the Enlightenment, and lives on today as perhaps the most recognized name in the history of science.

Happy birthday, Sir Isaac. You wear 365 years surprisingly well.

Tomorrow, Kathleen Kenyon and the Birth of Quantitative Archaeology

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