• Question: What do you think was the kick start for science

    Asked by to Ben, Dave, Ditte, Heather, Rebecca on 20 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Rebecca Gladstone

      Rebecca Gladstone answered on 20 Jun 2014:

      Science is almost a way of thinking, asking questions, finding answers and testing them to see if you are right, this kind of scientific thought has been part of human existence and can even be recognised in primates when they learn from their experiences of what new foods are in-edible and using tools!
      Science as we know it today really formally developed in western europe between 1110-1500AD but it had roots in ancient Eygpt and Greece.
      The creation of universities greatly accelerated the science we know but it was also the abilty to more widely share knowledge through common languages such as Latin. Now English is the major language of science, this makes us very lucky that we can learn it in our first language!

    • Photo: Ben White

      Ben White answered on 22 Jun 2014:

      Probably the wheel or the discovery of fire. The earliest record of the wheel was in 3500 B.C.E; long before Sir Francis Bacon came up with the impractical method for science that we know today. Agriculture has also played a big role in our progression from primitive hunter-gatherers to wise men/women.

    • Photo: Heather Ritchie

      Heather Ritchie answered on 24 Jun 2014:

      In terms of marine science we know it stretches back to the days of Aristotle. (Hence why the mouth part of urchins is called an Aristotle’s lantern!) But the various branches of science all have different ages. Deep sea research was undertaken over a century ago but the man who led the expedition, called Edward Forbes, looked at a part of the sea that had hardly any species in it so he told everyone there was no live in the deep sea past several hundred meters. It wasn’t until the 1950s that research in the deep sea started again and we now know that there is lots of life down there. There are still less than 10 universities in the world looking at deep sea research. New branches of science are always emerging and who knows what we will be studying next!

    • Photo: Ditte Hedegaard

      Ditte Hedegaard answered on 25 Jun 2014:

      I think the kick start to science has been the human curiosity in exploring new things, which is something we and our ancestors have done for thousands of years. Having this natural curiosity help us learn about and adapt to new things. Just the other day I learned that putting Mentos in my diet coke would make it explode because the mentos will cause carbon dioxide to be released from the coke. I lost half my coke, so I definitely won’t be doing that again.

      You can see a video of what happens when you mix mentos with diet coke here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKoB0MHVBvM

    • Photo: Dave Baker

      Dave Baker answered on 27 Jun 2014:

      Science is all around us and has been around since the beginning of time. The study of science has been around in one form or another since human existence however the acceleration to where we are now came about only 200 years or so.

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