SCIENCE AND SOCIETY (FC)

UNIT-I

III SEM BCOM, BBA

Unit 1: Introduction to Science

A. What is science and History of science?

What is science? The revolutions in physics- contributions of Copernicus and Galileo; A

brief history of the Renaissance in Europe; Age of Enlightenment; Industrial revolution;
Science of 20th century
Modern science and scientific methods
A discussion on hypothesis, experimentation, criteria for experimentation, theorizing and
the open-ended nature of the scientific quest
Science in other cultures
A brief exploration of science and technology in pre-modern era with emphasis on India
in areas of mathematics, Metallurgical Sciences, Medicine and health

B. The interdependence of Science and Technology

Molecular basis of disease and vaccination

Laser and photonics applications
Microscopy and applications

C. Science and the public

Discussion on the need for an informed public in a democracy about S&T, Science policy
and research funding, S&T and development

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SCIENCE AND SOCIETY (FC)

UNIT-I

III SEM BCOM, BBA

1. Science is the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the
structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and
experiment.
2. "Science" also refers to this body of knowledge.
3. The word comes from the Latin- scientia, "knowledge, a knowing;
expertness"
4. From their beginnings in Sumer (now Iraq) around 3500 BC, the
Mesopotamian people began to attempt to record some observations
of the world with numerical data.
5. Mesopotamian record shows a number of Pythagorean triplets (3, 4, 5)
(5, 12, 13). ..., dated 1900 BC, before Pythagoras.
6. Mesopotamian scientists are still widely used in Western calendars
such as the solar year and the lunar month.
7. The ancient people who are considered the first scientists may have
thought of themselves as natural philosophers.
8. Aristotle produced many biological writings that were empirical in
nature, focusing on biological causation and the diversity of life.
9.

Aristotle classified more than 540 animal species, and dissected at

least 50.

10.
Some ancient knowledge was lost during the fall of the Roman
Empire.
11.
During medieval period Many Greek science texts were
preserved in Syriac translations done by groups such as Nestorians and
Monophysites.
12.
The House of Wisdom was established in Baghdad, Iraq.( 9th to
13the century)
13.
The texts of Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Euclid, preserved in the
Houses of Wisdom.
14.
By the late middle Ages, a synthesis of Catholicism and
Aristotelianism known as Scholasticism was flourishing in Western
Europe.
15. All aspects of scholasticism were criticized in the 15th and 16th centuries.

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SCIENCE AND SOCIETY (FC)

UNIT-I

III SEM BCOM, BBA

16.
Medieval science carried on the views of Socrates, Plato, and
Aristotle.
17.
Copernicus formulated a heliocentric model of the solar system
unlike the geocentric model of Ptolemy's.
18.
Galileo had used arguments from the Pope and put them in the
voice of the simpleton in the work "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief
World Systems" which caused great offense to him.
19.
In Northern Europe, the new technology of the printing press was
widely used to publish many arguments.
20.
12th century Toledo School of Translators from Arabic to Latin
started
21.
European university put many works about the natural world and
the study of nature at the center of its curriculum, with the result that
the "medieval university laid far greater emphasis on science than
does its modern counterpart and descendent."
22.
The first half of the 14th century saw much important scientific
work
being
done,
largely
within
the
framework
of scholastic commentaries on Aristotle's scientific writings. Scholars
such as Jean Buridan and Nicole Oresme started to reinterpret
elements of Aristotle's mechanics.
23.
In 1348, the Black Death and other disasters sealed a sudden
end to the previous period of massive philosophic and scientific
development.
24.
the rediscovery of ancient texts was improved after the Fall of
Constantinople in 1453.
25.
The willingness to question previously held truths and search for
new answers resulted in a period of major scientific advancements,
now known as the Scientific Revolution.
26.
The Scientific Revolution is traditionally held by most historians
to have begun in 1543.
27. The period culminated with the publication of thePhilosophi Naturalis Principia
Mathematica in 1687 by Isaac Newton, representative of the unprecedented growth
of scientific publications throughout Europe.

Madhusudhan T K

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SCIENCE AND SOCIETY (FC)

UNIT-I

III SEM BCOM, BBA

28.
The Age of Enlightenment was a European affair. The 17th
century "Age of Reason" opened the avenues to the decisive steps
towards modern science, which took place during the 18th century
"Age of Enlightenment".
29.
The generation of Benjamin Franklin (17061790), Leonhard
Euler (17071783), Mikhail Lomonosov (17111765) and Jean le Rond
d'Alembert (17171783), epitomized in the appearance of Denis
Diderot's Encyclopdie between 1751 and 1772.
30.
During the 19th century, the practice of science became
professionalized and institutionalized in ways that continued through
the 20th century.
31. Major inventions of 19th & 20th century
32. 1900 Max Planck discovers quanta - the basis of quantum theory
33. 1901 Guglielmo Marconi in Newfoundland receives the first telegraph signal, sent from
Cornwall in Great Britain
34. 1903 The Wright brothers successfully demonstrate motor powered flight
35. 1905 Albert Einstein publishes the Special Theory of Relativity
36. 1909 Paul Ehrlich finds a cure for syphilis
37. 1913 Niels Bohr and Ernest Rutherford discover the structure of the atom
38. 1913 Henry Ford invents the moving assembly line for mass production of automobiles
39. 1920 First radio broadcast
40. 1920's Household appliances appear - the vacuum cleaner, electric shaver, spin dryer,
electric refrigerator, frozen foods, speaker radio
41. 1922 Frederick Banting and Charles Best discover insulin
42. 1923 Vladimir Zworykin invents the television camera
43. 1924 Edwin Hubble discovers the first new galaxy besides our own
44. 1926 John Logie Baird makes first television broadcast over radio waves
45. 1927 Georges Lemaitre puts forward Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe

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SCIENCE AND SOCIETY (FC)

UNIT-I

III SEM BCOM, BBA

46. 1928 Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin

47. 1929 Edwin Hubble puts forward the theory of the expanding universe
48. 1930 The British Broadcasting Corporation starts TV broadcasts
49. 1931 Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron to study the behaviour of accelerated atomic
particles
50. 1932 James Chadwick describes the nucleus of the atom as composed of protons and
neutrons
51. 1935 Invention of nylon and plastics - the first nylon stockings
52. 1942 Enrico Fermi demonstrates the first controlled nuclear reaction
53. 1945 The first atomic bomb is detonated in New Mexico. Atomic bombs were dropped on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan a month later.
54. 1945 The first electronic computer - The Electronic Numerical Integrator Analyzer and
Computer (ENIAC) - is demonstrated. It used so much power it caused lights to dim
55. 1947 William Shockley invents the transistor
56. 1948 Percy Julian develops synthetic cortisone
57. 1950 Gertrude Elion develops chemotherapy to treat leukaemia
58. 1952 Jonas Salk produces a vaccine against poliomyelitis
59. 1952 Henri Laborit's discovery of chlorpromazine founds the basis for drug therapies to
treat mental illness
60. 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick, with the contribution of Rosalind Franklin and
others, discover the double helix structure of DNA, the building block of life
61. 1954 First successful kidney transplant
62. 1957
The
Soviet
Union
launches
the
1960 Peter Medawar discovers basis of immuno-suppression

Sputnik

satellite

63. 1960 Stephen Hawking publishes his Grand Unified Theory of the origin of the universe
64. 1960s Discovery of restriction enzymes - the 'scissors' used to splice genes in genetic
engineering

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SCIENCE AND SOCIETY (FC)

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III SEM BCOM, BBA

65. 1961 The Soviet Union puts the first astronaut into orbit around the Earth
66. 1964 Murray Gell-Man predicts the existence of quarks
67. 1967 Christiaan Barnard carries out first human heart transplant
68. 1967 Jocelyn Bell identifies pulsars (neutron stars)
69. 1969 Dorothy Hodgkin describes the molecular structure of insulin
70. 1969 US Apollo astronauts walk on the moon
71. 1970's Computerised tomography (CT scan) to look at soft tissues
72. 1970s Some US university campuses linked by a computer network, ARPAnet
73. 1971 Gilbert Hyatt and Intel make the first commercial computer microprocessor
74. 1975 Discovery of endorphins - natural pain killers in the brain
75. 1975 Cesar Milstein and co-workers develop monoclonal antibodies, the 'magic bullets'
that can seek out specific antigens and therefore disease-causing organisms
76. 1980s Discovery of prions - a new class of infectious agents unlike viruses. A prion
causes Bovine Spongiform Encephaly or 'mad cow disease'
77. 1983 Luc Montagnier and Robert Gallo isolate HIV, the virus that causes AIDS
78. 1987 Discovery of fluoxetine (Prozac) as a therapy for depression
79. 1990 Tim Berners-Lee, a consultant at CERN, the European laboratory for particle
physics, along with his colleague Robert Cailliau author software that gave birth of the
World Wide Web
80. 1990 Hubble space telescope launched
81. 1996 'Dolly' the sheep is born in Scotland. She was produced by cloning a single
mammary cell
82. 1997 Scientists accurately predict the El Nio climatic phenomenon in the tropical
Pacific, greatly reducing the social and economic effects of the floods and droughts that
follow in many parts of the world.

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SCIENCE AND SOCIETY (FC)

UNIT-I

III SEM BCOM, BBA

83. An influenza pandemic, Spanish Flu, killed anywhere from 20 to 100 million people
between 1918 and 1919.
84. Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution, is often credited with saving over a
billion people worldwide from starvation.
85. Disease threatened to destabilize many regions of the world. New viruses such
as SARS and West Nile continued to spread. Malaria and other diseases affected large
populations. Millions were infected with HIV, the virus which causes AIDS. The virus
was becoming an epidemic in southern Africa.
86. The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the
period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840.
87. The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain, and spread to Western Europe and
North America within a few decades.
88. The First Industrial Revolution evolved into the Second Industrial Revolution in the
transition years between 1840 and 1870, when technological and economic progress
continued with the increasing adoption of steam transport (steam-powered railways, boats
and ships), the large-scale manufacture of machine tools and the increasing use of
machinery in steam-powered factories.

89. Contributions of Galileo

By 1590 Galileo Galilei had developed a number of criticisms of the Aristotelian
system's view of the physical world. Primary among these was his theory on falling
objects.
In 1591, he demonstrated from the leaning tower of Pisa that weights of one pound and
one hundred pounds, dropped from the top of the tower at the same time, hit the ground
at the same time. Aristotle's claim that the rate of fall was determined by the weight of an
object was thus overthrown, and replaced by Galileo's correct theory that the Earth's
gravity produced a universal acceleration of objects toward its surface.

In 1638 Discourses Concerning Two New Sciences, Galileo explores and goes on to
reject the Aristotelian explanation of the acceleration of falling bodies and substitutes his
own, which has become the foundation of modern dynamics.

Madhusudhan T K

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SCIENCE AND SOCIETY (FC)

UNIT-I

III SEM BCOM, BBA

90. Contributions of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)-Poland

Polish mathematician and astronomer who proposed that the planets have the Sun as the
fixed and the Earth is a planet which, besides orbiting the Sun annually, also turns once
daily on its own axis.
This representation of the heavens is usually called the heliocentric, or Sun-centred,
systemderived from the Greek helios, meaning Sun. Copernicuss theory had
important consequences for later thinkers of the scientific revolution, including such
major figures as Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, and Newton.
Copernicus probably hit upon his main idea sometime between 1508 and 1514, and
during those years he wrote a manuscript usually called the Commentariolus (Little
Commentary).
91. Modern Science and scientific methods

Experimentation is the scientific research method.

Hypothesis is the assumptions or the tentative statements

Data is the generalized explanation or the observation

Scientific quest is finding answer to the questions

Criteria for experimentation is repeatability, reproducibility

92. During 5th century Aryabhata wrote Aryabhatiya (astronomy and mathematics)
93. During 7th century Brahmagupta proposed a theorem, which explained the use of Zero
94. In 12th century Bhaskara wrote Siddantha Shiromani
95. During 2500 BC ayurveda medicine system practice in India
96. Stainless steel discovered in India
97.
98. A Vaccine is a substance which is administered to an individual to acquire immunity
against particular disease.
99. The administration of vaccines is called vaccination
100.

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Types of vaccines are-

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SCIENCE AND SOCIETY (FC)

UNIT-I

III SEM BCOM, BBA

Inactivated- Some vaccines contains inactivated, but previously virulent, microbs

that have been destroyed with chemicals, heat radiation etc

Toxoid - These are made from inactivated toxic compounds

Sub unit- Made up of protein sub unit of a microbe

Conjugate- Outer coats of bacteria are used

101. LASER = Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation

102. Electromagnetic radiations are used in LASER
103. LASER in having industrial applications like cutting of metals, joining of metals
104. LASER is having many medical applications like dentistry, eye, and skin and also various types
of surgery can be done by using LASER.
105. Vision treatment from LASER is called LASIK
106. LASIK =laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis
107. LASER used in data storage, communication technology, spectroscopy etc
108. Military application of LASER is in LIDAR- Light Detection and Ranging
109. The word photonics is derived from Greek word Photos means light
110. Photonics is the science and technology of generating, controlling, and detecting photons, which
are particles of light.
111. Microscope is an optical instrument used for viewing very small objects
112. TEM= Transmission Electron Microscopy
113. SEM= Scanning Electron Microscopy
114. Applications of Microscopy- Cell biology, Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Forensic science,
pathology etc.
115. CSIR- Council for Scientific and Industrial Research

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SCIENCE AND SOCIETY (FC)

UNIT-I

III SEM BCOM, BBA

116. UGC- University Grant Commission

117. Some of the research funding agencies in India are

DBT- Dept of Biotechnology

DST- Dept of Science and Technology

DRDO- Defense Research and Developmental Organization

ICAR- Indian Council of Agricultural Research

ISRO- Indian Space Research Organization

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