Discussion 2 – Science in a historical context

As you read the textbook, you will come across profiles of the most famous scientists throughout history. While some of their contributions are obviously extraordinary (e.g., Einstein), it is sometimes more difficult to comprehend how significant the contributions of some others are. Newton’s second law (F = ma) is an extremely simple mathematical relation, and it is a concept that we consider extremely basic today. Yet, it revolutionized the way humans saw the world at the time. Concepts that we take for granted today often required major leaps of logic to obtain.

With that in mind, I’d like you to do some light research on a famous scientist of your choice. You can pick one of the ones discussed in Ch. 1-6, or you can pick another scientist that you might have read about before taking this course (or you can skim future chapters to find someone that interests you). Please check the posts before you begin your research, so that there is as little overlap as possible. If you start your research and write your post, only to find that someone has already posted on your scientist, that is perfectly fine, but try to avoid duplicates if at all possible. Some topics to discuss include, but are not limited to:

· What was the state of our knowledge before their major discovery? What did people believe to be true that this discovery countered?

· Who else was working on this problem? What were their conclusions and/or missteps? (For example, Newton is generally credited with the discovery of calculus, but Gottfried Leibniz and others were very closely working on it as well, and may even have discovered them independently)

· Any scholarly analysis (meaning something well researched and backed up with facts) of myths or other interesting facts surrounding the discovery (e.g., did an apple really fall on Newton’s head causing him to realize what gravity truly is, or is that just an embellishment?)

Please include the source of any major facts you find (you don’t need to cite anything in the textbook). Wikipedia is a fine place to start, but please take note of their sources, and use those if possible. Remember, this only needs to be 300 words, so you don’t need to write a full essay on the person.

Secondary posts: You can either ask a question of the original poster, or add something new about the topic/person.