HSS 130E: A History of Science and Technology: HoST

Tues:  4:00-4:50 and 5:00-5:50  Babbio 203

Thurs: 4:00-4:50  Babbio 203

Daniel Newsome Presiding

Office Hours by Request

Email me: host@mifami.org

 

 

Warning... This is the Fall 2010 Syllabus, not the 2011 syllabus.

Warning... This is the Fall 2010 Syllabus, not the 2011 syllabus.

Warning... This is the Fall 2010 Syllabus, not the 2011 syllabus.

Warning... This is the Fall 2010 Syllabus, not the 2011 syllabus.

 

:images for syllabus:HoSTBannerImageAtest.jpg

Astronomer and Anatomical images (slightly altered) from Gregor Reisch's Margarita Philosophica

[The Philosophical Pearl] (1503 and 1535 editions respectively)

 

Class Policies-HoST- F10

 

Updated: 8/31/11 4:18 PM

 

Week

Dates

Topic

Assignment Links and Other Information

0

8/31-9/2

Intro and Creation

Assignment 0:  Intro and Genesis

McClellan and Dorn: pp. 31-42.

1

9/7-9/9

Babylonian Creation of Cosmos

Assignment 1: Enuma elish and the "comic book."

McClellan and Dorn: pp. 45-54.

2

9/14-9/16

Women, The Cave, and Math

Assignment 2: Pythagoras, Plato, arithmology, numerism, and numerology.

McClellan and Dorn: pp. 55-65.

Course package readings: Plato and Iamblichus

3

9/21-9/23

Greek Numerological Cosmos

Assignment 3: Maths, Cosmology, Lucretius I

McClellan and Dorn: pp. 65-78.

Music Lab

Lucretius Book I

Course package readings: Newsome on Er and Quadrivium

4

9/28-9/30

Atoms and

Medicine

Assignment 4: , Aristotle, Eratosthenes, Ptolemy, Galen, Lucretius,

Lucretius Books II.

5

10/5-10/7

Atoms and Elements

Assignment 5: Lucretius, Medieval Islamic Natural Philosophy.

Lucretius Book III.

McClellan and Dorn: pp. 103-115

Course package readings: Hyman and Walsh

6

10/14-Thurs

short

middle

Atoms and NeoPlatonic Aristotle

Assignment 6: Ibn Tufayl

Course package readings: Ibn Tufail

7

10/19-10/21

Lucretius and Some China

Thursday: First Exam

Assignment 7: Lucretius, odds and ends, and Exam I on Thursday

Lucretius Book IV.

McClellan and Dorn pp.128-140.

8

10/26-10/28

World Agriculture

and Lucretius

Assignment 8: World Agriculture, Corn, The French Disease

Lucretius Book V

Course package readings: Pollan and Mann

 

 

 

 

9

11/2-11/4

Nitro....

Assignment 9: Nitrogen and Atomic Meteorology

Course package readings: Bown, Leigh, Lucretius

10

11/9-11/11

SciRev I

Assignment 10: Vesalius, Copernicus, Tycho, Kepler, Cardano, magic, and witches

Course package readings: Vesalius, Copernicus, Tycho, Kepler, Cardano

McClellan and Dorn: Chapter on Copernicus et al.

11

11/16-11/18

Lucretius' Epicurean Atoms Revived

Quadratics Squared

Assignment 11: Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, Boyle, and Hooke, Boscovich, etc.

McClellan and Dorn: Chapter 12 and 13 (11 and 12 in older editions), ÒThe CrimeÉof GalileoÓ and ÒGod said,

 

12

11/23

short

Boom!

Assignment 12:

Industrial Revolution and more N fixing and explosives.

Read Bown: Chs. 3-5.

Course package readings: Pollan

break

11/24-28

 

 

13

11/30-12/2

Industrial Revolution

 

Assignment 13:  Malthus and Guano, and the Industrial Revolution.

Read Bown: Chs. 7-8. 

McClellan and Dorn ch. 14.

Course package readings: Leigh, Romero

14

12/7-12/9

Life and Mutually Assured Destruction

Assignment 14:

Bown: Chs. 9-end.

Darwin, Wallace, geology, racism and relativism, Einstein and Quantum Mechanics, the meaning of life, and a few more things we didnÕt get to yetÉ..

Final

Starts 12/19 at noon

Due 12/21 at noon

Final Exam

Final:

All materials have been posted.  Good Luck.