Subsections
[Cr:2, Lc:2, Tt:0, Lb:0]
- Definitions of science, rational enquiry, history of ideas. The
historicity of the concepts of space, time, number, infinity,
perception. Paradoxes and paradigms. Calendars through the ages and
the concept of time-keeping. The search for infinity.
- Science & Society: the emergence of twentieth-century science as a
dominant societal force and how science came to have such authority
over human progress. Examples of evolution of scientific thought. The
crisis in physics in the twentieth century and the paradigm shift from
the classical to the quantum domain. Scientists and the nuclear
debate. The social context of Darwin's theory of evolution. A gendered
perspective of science.
- Science in ancient civilizations. Historic periodizations:Babylon,
Egypt, Greece, India, China. Early Greek Science: Thales to Plato.
Pythagoras. Greek astronomy. Greek mathematics. Greek medicine.
Aristotelian science. Islamic science.
- The emergence of modern science: The Scientific Revolution:
Copernicus, Brahe,Kepler,Galileo. Galilean Relativity. Atomism and
Empiricism. Boyle, Hooke, Lavoisier Newton.
- The Method of Science: Bacon, Descartes,logical positivism. Thomas
Kuhn and the theory of scientific revolutions.
- Indian Science: positioning science in a non-Eurocentric,
post-modernist world. Critique of the history of science from a
non-Western perspective.
- T. S. Kuhn, The structure of scientific revolutions, University
of Chicago Press (1996).
- T. S. Kuhn, The Copernican revolution, Harvard University Press
(1992).
- D. C. Lindberg, The beginnings of western science, University
of Chicago Press (1992).
- S. Shapin, The scientific revolution, University of Chicago
Press (1998).
- A. Bala, The dialogue of civilizations in the birth of modern
science, Palgrave Macmillan (2006).
- I. Habib and D. Raina, Social history of science in colonial
India, Oxford University Press USA (2007).
