| SES # | TOPICS | KEY DATES |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1: Introduction | ||
| 1 | Introductory Lecture | |
| Week 2: Beginnings | ||
| 2 | "What is Science?" | |
| 3 | The Presocratics | |
| Week 3: The World According to Plato and Aristotle | ||
| 4 | Plato's World | |
| 5 | Aristotle's Physics | |
| Week 4: Aristotle's Biology | ||
| 6 | Aristotle and Hippocrates on Biology and Medicine | First Paper Due |
| Week 5: Ancient Mathematics, Astronomy, and Engineering | ||
| 7 | Ptolemy and Euclid | |
| 8 | Galen and Alexandrian Engineers | |
| Week 6: Science in the Middle Ages | ||
| 9 | Arabic Science | |
| 10 | Medieval European Universities | |
| Week 7: Medieval Technology | ||
| 11 | Medieval Technology | |
| Week 8: The European Renaissance | ||
| 12 | No lecture | In-class Midterm Exam |
| 13 | Patronage, Alchemy, and Humanism | |
| Week 9: Revolutions in the Body and in the Stars | ||
| 14 | Vesalius and Anatomy | |
| 15 | The Copernican Revolution | Second Paper Due |
| Week 10: Observatories and Ellipses | ||
| 16 | Tycho Brahe and the New Astronomy | |
| 17 | Kepler: Mysticism and Mars | |
| Week 11: Galileo: Astronomy, and the Church | ||
| 18 | Interpreting Scripture and the Heavens | |
| Week 12: Galileo's Physics and Bacon's Collecting | ||
| 19 | Galileo's Physics | |
| 20 | Bacon and the Culture of Collecting | Second Paper Revision Due |
| Week 13: Descartes's New Methods for the New Sciences | ||
| 21 | Descartes's Mechanical Philosophy | |
| Week 14: Newton and Newtonianism | ||
| 22 | Newton's Dynamics and Gravitation | |
| 23 | Newton's Optics and the Culture of Newtonianism | |
| Week 15: Laboratories, Societies, and Gentlemen | ||
| 24 | England's Royal Society | |
| 25 | No lecture | Final Paper Due |