Asimov Isaac, Ames Lee. Great Ideas of Science

Houghton Mifflin Company, 1969 — 152 p. — ISBN: 9780395065808, 0395065801In this companion volume to his BREAKTHROUGHS IN SCIENCE, Isaac Asimov continues his description of the development throughout history of revolutionary scientific ideas. In his familiar clear, concise, and eminently readable style, Dr. Asimov discusses the background of thought leading up to each discovery. He tells us why the truth was often difficult to arrive at and how the individual who made the breakthrough was able to come to his conclusions. He lets us see such scientists as Darwin, Pythagoras, Newton, and Galileo in the process of their revolutionary discoveries. Step-by-step the reader learns how one scientific theory, right or wrong, led to a progression of others until theories were formed that still hold true. He sees the logical development of such great ideas as natural selection, intertia, atomic theory, conservation of matter, kinetic theory of heat, and the theory of evolution, along with many others that form the basis of current scientific thought.Thales and Science Itself
Pythagoras and Number
Archimedes and Applied Mathematics
Galileo and Experimentation
Democritus and Atoms
Lavoisier and Gases
Newton and Inertia
Faraday and Fields
Rumford and Heat
Joule and Energy
Planck and Quanta
Hippocrates and Medicine
Wohler and Organic Chemistry
Linnaeus and Classification
Darwin and Evolution
Russell and Stellar Evolution
Index