The main scientific achievements of the Middle Ages. Inventions of the Middle Ages Achievements and discoveries in the Middle Ages

Federal Agency for Education

State educational institution

higher professional education

Kola branch of Petrozavodsk State University

The most important discoveries of the Middle Ages in the field of science and technology

Introduction

1. Science and technology

Chronology and structure of the Middle Ages

Creators of discoveries

The genius of da Vinci

5. Biological knowledge in the Middle Ages

6. Advances in medicine

In the language of mathematics

Forward to progress

Conclusion

List of sources and literature used

Introduction

The purpose of this essay is to analyze the scientific and technological progress of the Middle Ages. Tasks:

Consider the Middle Ages as an era.

Consider the main discoveries of science and technology from the 5th to the 17th centuries.

The relevance of this topic is due to the fact that from the beginning of the 5th century science began its difficult journey into the age of knowledge and inventions. Amazing discoveries have occurred in its most important areas, and various studies have been carried out based on the combination of science and technology.

In our modern life, electricity, cars, and what can I say, a book - what could be simpler, sheets of paper with typed text have become commonplace. But several centuries ago, printing a book required a lot of effort and time. The Middle Ages - that's what this era is called. The era of the beginning of leading achievements in the field of science and technology. From this era, poetic works have come down to us in which peoples have captured their genius, wonderful monuments of folk art, magnificent masses of Gothic architecture, wonderful, beautiful artistic and poetic creations of the Renaissance, the first successes of awakening scientific thought. This era gave us a number of great people of whom humanity is proud. Such as Copernicus, Galileo, Bruno, Brahe, Newton. All these and many other outstanding personalities, who accelerated the progress of mankind with their lives and activities, belong to the Middle Ages. The great technical inventions made in the Middle Ages had a huge impact on all areas of the economy and culture, including the development of science. Thus, the Middle Ages contributed their considerable share to the common treasury of material and spiritual values ​​of all humanity.

1. Science and technology

Science as knowledge and the activity of producing knowledge arose from the beginning of human culture and formed part of the spiritual culture of society, although the word “science” itself is of relatively recent origin. Translated from Latin, "scientia" (science) means knowledge.

The word "technology" comes from the Greek "techne" - art, skill, skill. The main meaning of this word today is the means of labor and production.

Historically, technology has gone from primitive tools to the most complex modern automatic machines, developing on the basis of scientific achievements.

Science and technology have gone hand in hand throughout the history of mankind and have become especially inseparable in our days, when science is a direct productive force, when without scientific research it is impossible to create samples of new technology. The development of a new technology model, as a rule, begins with scientific research - with scientific research work (R&D). Radical improvement of technology is possible only thanks to science. Nowadays, it is almost impossible to separate the spheres of influence of science and technology. Not a single significant modern scientific discovery is practically feasible on a sheet of paper, that is, without the involvement of technology and experimental equipment. At the same time, the functions of science are broader. The main ones are: descriptive, systematizing, explanatory, production-practical, prognostic, ideological. Only the production-practical function is directly related to the creation of equipment.

2. Chronology and structure of the Middle Ages

The Middle Ages (Middle Ages) is a historical period following the Ancient World and preceding the New Age. The beginning of the Middle Ages is considered to be the collapse of the Western Roman Empire at the end of the 5th century. The Middle Ages contains several stages: the dark time - the early Middle Ages; high - middle period of the Middle Ages; late (mature, developed, classical) Middle Ages.

The Early Middle Ages is a period of European history that began shortly after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Lasted about five centuries, from approximately 500 to 1000 AD.

The High Middle Ages is a period of European history that lasted from approximately 1000 to 1300. The era of the High Middle Ages replaced the Early Middle Ages and preceded the Late Middle Ages. The main characteristic trend of this period was the rapid increase in the population of Europe, which in turn led to dramatic changes in social, political and other spheres of life.

The Late Middle Ages is a term used by historians to describe the period of European history in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The Late Middle Ages was preceded by the High Middle Ages, and the subsequent period is called the New Age. Historians differ sharply in defining the upper limit of the Late Middle Ages. If in Russian historical science it is customary to define its end as the English Civil War, then in Western European science the end of the Middle Ages is usually associated with the beginning of the church reformation or the era of great geographical discoveries. The Late Middle Ages is also called the Renaissance.

The most general chronological framework of the period: mid-5th century. - mid-15th century However, any periodization of the Middle Ages is conditional.

Geography of the Middle Ages. The most common geographic areas of development of “scientific” thinking and technological innovation in the period under review: “Western Europe”; "Byzantium" and its zone of influence; "Arab East"; "East" (India, China, Japan); "Pre-Columbian America". The first three areas were most closely connected.

The structure of medieval scientific knowledge includes four main areas: physical-cosmological, the core of which is the doctrine of movement. Based on Aristotle's natural philosophy, it brings together an array of physical, astronomical and mathematical knowledge; doctrine of light; optics is part of the general doctrine - “metaphysics of light”, within the framework of which a model of the Universe is built that corresponds to the principles of Neoplatonism; doctrine of living things,understood as the science of the soul, considered as the principle and source of plant, animal, and intelligent life; complex astrologer - medicalknowledge, the study of minerals and alchemy.

Technical innovations that had a radical impact on the entire culture of the Middle Ages include: the borrowing of gunpowder, which quickly led to the creation of a gunpowder production plant (the first plant); development of powder granulation technology that increases its efficiency; the rapid development of the production of firearms has radically changed the methods of warfare and led to the development of new technologies in foundry aimed at increasing the accuracy of throwing; windmills, the borrowing of paper, which led to the creation of printing; the creation and introduction into economic and cultural circulation of various mechanical devices, which over time created an entire infrastructure; development of watchmaking.

3. Discoverers

Roger Bacon (1214-1292)English alchemist, outstanding philosopher. In 1240, he was the first in Europe to describe the technology for making gunpowder. He did a lot of experiments looking for ways to transform some substances into others. For refusing to reveal the secrets of obtaining gold (which he did not know), Bacon was condemned by his fellow believers and spent 15 long years in a church dungeon. At the behest of the general of the order, the works of the monk-naturalist were chained to a table in the monastery library in Oxford as punishment. Bacon foresaw the great importance of mathematics, without which, in his opinion, no science could exist, and a number of discoveries (telephones, self-propelled vehicles, aircraft, etc.).

Johann Gutenberg (1397 -1468) German jeweler and inventor of printing.

Gutenberg's ingenious invention consisted in the fact that he made movable convex letters from metal, cut in reverse, typed lines from them and stamped them on paper using a press.

With limited funds and no skilled workers or advanced tools, Gutenberg nevertheless achieved remarkable success. Until 1456, he cast no less than five different types, printed the Latin grammar of Aelius Donatus (several sheets of which have come down to us and are kept in the National Library in Paris), several papal indulgences and, finally, two Bibles, 36-line and 42-line; the latter, known as the Mazarin Bible, was printed in 1453-1465. with high quality.

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)Polish astronomer, mathematician, economist, canon. He is best known as the author of the medieval heliocentric system of the world.

Heliocentric theory, which stated that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and not vice versa, as scientists have been accustomed to think since ancient times. Observing the movement of celestial bodies, Copernicus came to the conclusion that Ptolemy’s theory was incorrect. After thirty years of hard work, long observations and complex mathematical calculations, he convincingly proved that the Earth is only one of the planets and that all planets revolve around the Sun. True, Copernicus still believed that the stars are motionless and are located on the surface of a huge sphere, at a great distance from the Earth. This was due to the fact that at that time there were no such powerful telescopes with which one could observe the sky and stars. Having discovered that the Earth and the planets are satellites of the Sun, Nicolaus Copernicus was able to explain the apparent movement of the Sun across the sky, the strange entanglement in the movement of some planets, as well as the apparent rotation of the sky.

The fate of the new hypothesis was not easy. The book on the revolutions of the celestial spheres (1543) was a shock for astronomers of the 16th century. Many scientists who doubted the infallibility of Ptolemaic constructions were ready to accept the Copernican theory. But, of course, the replacement of the old theory with a new one did not happen immediately. Not the entire scientific world accepted the heliocentric system - and not at all for ideological reasons. Of course, the sharply negative position of the Christian Church towards the teachings of Copernicus played a role. Initially, the church did not pay attention to the philosophical consequences of the very possibility of placing the Earth on a par with other planets, but in 1616 it corrected its “oversight” - by decree of the Inquisition, the book of Copernicus was included “pending correction” in the index of prohibited books and remained banned until 1828 of the year. The solitary life and later publication of the work saved Nicolaus Copernicus from the persecution to which his followers were subjected. Copernicus was a clergyman and a devout Catholic. Creating his model of the Universe, he sought not to come into conflict with the church, but to find a “golden mean” between faith and scientific truth: both were equally important for Copernicus. However, the heliocentric theory proposed by Copernicus ultimately overturned established ideas about the Universe and marked the beginning of the first scientific revolution.

Tycho Brahe (1546-1601)Danish astronomer, astrologer and alchemist. Kepler was the first in Europe to begin conducting systematic and high-precision astronomical observations, which Kepler used to discover the laws of planetary motion. In 1572, he noticed a supernova - immeasurably distant and very bright - whose appearance in the “unchanging” space behind the Moon would have been impossible. A few years later, Brahe observed an equally incredible appearance of a comet. As a result of large-scale and systematic observations, the researcher determined the positions of many celestial bodies and published the first modern catalog of stars.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)Italian scientist, physicist, mechanic and astronomer, one of the founders of natural science; poet, philologist and critic. He laid the foundations of modern mechanics: he put forward the idea of ​​the relativity of motion, established the laws of inertia, free fall and the movement of bodies on an inclined plane, addition of movements; discovered the isochronism of pendulum oscillations; was the first to study the strength of beams.

The famous story of Archimedes jumping out of his bath and running naked through the streets shouting “Eureka!” was as widely known in Galileo’s time as it is today. Archimedes then found a way to determine whether the royal crown was made of pure gold or not. Galileo decided to improve this ancient method. He invented hydrostatic scales, which could be used to weigh objects in air and water. After this, he repeated Archimedes' experiment and presented the results in a short treatise called "The Little Scales."

In 1609, Galileo independently built his first telescope with a convex lens and a concave eyepiece. The tube provided approximately threefold magnification. Soon he managed to build a telescope that gave a magnification of 32 times and discovered mountains on the Moon, 4 satellites of Jupiter, phases of Venus, spots on the Sun. A number of Galileo's telescopic discoveries contributed to the establishment of the heliocentric system of the world, which Galileo actively promoted, for which he was subjected to the Inquisition trial (1633), which forced him to renounce the teachings of Nicolaus Copernicus. Until the end of his life, Galileo was considered a “prisoner of the Inquisition” and was forced to live in his villa Arcetri near Florence. In 1992, Pope John Paul II declared the decision of the Inquisition court erroneous and rehabilitated Galileo.

Isaac Newton (1642-1727)great English physicist, mathematician and astronomer. Isaac Newton was the greatest scientist since Galileo. His work “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy” (1687) convincingly demonstrated that the earthly and celestial spheres are subject to the same laws of nature, and all material objects are subject to the three laws of motion. Moreover, Newton formulated the law of universal gravitation and mathematically substantiated the laws governing these processes. Newton's model of the Universe remained virtually unchanged until the new scientific revolution of the early 20th century, which was based on the works of Albert Einstein.

4. The genius of da Vinci

I would also like to highlight one great personality of the Middle Ages.

This is an Italian painter, skilled architect, engineer, technician, scientist, mathematician, anatomist, musician and sculptor, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). The abilities and capabilities of Leonardo da Vinci were, without exaggeration, supernatural. There is a version that Leonardo da Vinci could penetrate into parallel worlds, where he took the ideas for his many wonderful inventions. At that time they were truly perceived as a miracle.

Leonardo da Vinci was an excellent magician (his contemporaries called him a magician). He could create a multi-colored flame from a boiling liquid by pouring wine into it; easily turned white wine into red; with one blow he broke a cane, the ends of which were placed on two glasses, without breaking either of them; I put a little of my saliva on the end of the pen and the writing on the paper turns black. The miracles that Leonardo showed impressed his contemporaries so much that he was seriously suspected of serving “black magic.” In addition, near the genius there were always strange, dubious personalities, like Tomaso Giovanni Masini, known under the pseudonym Zoroaster de Peretola, a good mechanic, jeweler and at the same time an adept of the secret sciences...

Leonardo encrypted a lot so that his ideas would be revealed gradually, as humanity “matured” to them. Scientists only last year, five centuries after the death of Leonardo da Vinci, were able to understand the design of his self-propelled cart and build it. This invention can easily be called the predecessor of the modern car.

In 1499, Leonardo da Vinci, to meet the French king Louis XII, designed a wooden mechanical lion, which, after taking a few steps, opened its chest and showed its insides “filled with lilies.” The scientist is the inventor of a spacesuit, a submarine, a steamship, and flippers. He has a manuscript that shows the possibility of diving to great depths without a spacesuit thanks to the use of a special gas mixture (the secret of which he deliberately destroyed). To invent it, it was necessary to have a good understanding of the biochemical processes of the human body, which were completely unknown at that time! It was he who first proposed installing batteries of firearms on armored ships (he gave the idea of ​​a battleship!), invented a helicopter, a bicycle, a glider, a parachute, a tank, a machine gun, poisonous gases, a smoke screen for troops, a magnifying glass (100 years before Galileo!).

Leonardo da Vinci invented textile machines, weaving machines, machines for making needles, powerful cranes, systems for draining swamps through pipes, and arched bridges. He created drawings of gates, levers and screws designed to lift enormous weights - mechanisms that did not exist in his time. It is amazing that Leonardo da Vinci describes these machines and mechanisms in detail, although they were impossible to make at that time due to the fact that ball bearings were not known at that time (but Leonardo himself knew this - the corresponding drawing has been preserved). Sometimes it seems that da Vinci simply wanted to learn as much as possible about this world by collecting information. Why did he need it in this form and in such quantity? He did not leave an answer to this question.

Biological knowledge in the Middle Ages

Sources of information about biological enterprises in the early Middle Ages are works such as “Physiologist”, “Bestiary”, etc. These books contained descriptions of animals and fantastic monsters mentioned in the Bible, as well as stories based on motives (very freely interpreted) from the lives of animals , the purpose of which was religious and moral teachings. Information about animals and plants was contained in the “Teachings of Vladimir Monomakh” (11th century), which was circulated in lists in Rus', and other sources.

The most fundamental sources of information about the biological knowledge of the Middle Ages are the multi-volume encyclopedic works of Albertus Magnus and Vincent de Beauvais, dating back to the 13th century. The Encyclopedia of Albertus Magnus has special sections “On Plants” and “On Animals”. Detailed descriptions of the species of the plant and animal kingdoms known at that time were largely borrowed from the ancients, mainly from Aristotle. Following Aristotle, Albert linked the vital activity of plants with the “vegetative soul.” Developing the doctrine of the functions of individual parts of plants (trunk, branches, roots, foliage, fruits), Albertus Magnus noted their functional similarity with individual organs in animals. In particular, he considered the root to be identical to the animal’s mouth.

In the Middle Ages, the presence of vegetable oils and toxic substances in the fruits of some plants was discovered. Various facts on the selection of cultivated plants have been described. The idea of ​​plant variability under the influence of the environment was expressed in rather fantastic statements that beech turns into birch, wheat into barley, and oak branches into grapevines. Plants in Albert's writings were arranged in alphabetical order. His zoological information is also presented in great detail. They are given, like botanical ones, in a purely descriptive manner with references to Aristotle, Pliny, Galen as the highest authorities. The division of animals into those without blood and those with blood was borrowed from Aristotle. Physiology comes down exclusively to a description, often very expressive, of the behavior and customs of animals. In the spirit of medieval anthropomorphic views, they talked about the intelligence, stupidity, caution, and cunning of animals. The mechanism of reproduction in animals was explained by Hippocrates: the seed arises in all parts of the body, but is collected in the reproductive organs. The idea was borrowed from Aristotle that the female seed contains the matter of the future fetus, and the male one, in addition, encourages this matter to develop.

The ears, according to Vincent de Beauvais, are designed to perceive the words of people, while the eyes, seeing creations, are designed to perceive the word of God. In accordance with these tasks, the eyes are located in front, and the ears are on the sides, as if indicating that our attention should, first of all, be drawn to God, and only then to our neighbor.

Alchemical treatises can serve as sources of information not only about chemical, but also about biological knowledge. Alchemists operated not only with objects of the mineral kingdom, but also with plant and animal objects. The Book of Plants by the famous 15th century alchemist John Isaac Holland is of considerable interest as a kind of alchemical body of biological knowledge. By studying the processes of decay and fermentation, alchemists became acquainted with the chemical composition of plant matter. In connection with healing, a different, sometimes purely practical attitude was allowed to the study of animals and plants. The healing effects of herbs and minerals became the subject of special interest for healing monks of the late Middle Ages.

The question of the instincts and behavior of animals and humans was considered by Roger Bacon. Comparing the behavior of animals with the conscious activity of humans, he believed that animals are characterized only by perceptions that arise independently of experience, while humans have reason.

The range of then ideas about animals and vegetation of distant countries was expanded by poetic descriptions of travel to overseas lands. For example, the Byzantine poet Manuel Phil (XIII-XIV centuries) visited Persia, Arabia, and India. He authored three poetic works that contained a great deal of educational biological material. These are the poems “On the Properties of Animals”, “A Brief Description of the Elephant” and “On Plants”. Phil loved to talk about exotic, sometimes fantastic, animals. However, his fantastic images of animals are also composed of very real, well-known and accurately conveyed elements that reflected the level of zoological knowledge of the 14th century.

Achievements

Medicine in the Middle Ages developed in difficult and unfavorable conditions. Nevertheless, the objective laws of social development and the logic of scientific thinking inevitably contributed to the formation in its depths of the prerequisites for the future medicine of the great Renaissance. In connection with technical discoveries, the role of scientific research has increased even more. Since dogmatic views disappeared and mysteries no longer seemed insoluble, everything became the object of study, including the human body and its diseases. Until the 16th century, it was assumed that the disease was a consequence of abnormal displacement of the four body fluids (blood, sputum, yellow and black bile). The Swiss alchemist was the first to challenge this theory. Paracelsus (1493-1541 famous alchemist, physician andophthalmologist) , who argued that diseases were associated with disorders of various organs and could be cured with the help of chemicals. Around this time, the first thorough anatomical study of humans was carried out Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564 doctor and anatomist.) . However, the foundations of modern medical science were laid almost a hundred years later, when an English scientist William Harvey (1578-1657 English physician, founder of physiology andembryology.) discovered that blood circulates in the human body in a closed circle thanks to the contractions of the heart, and not the liver, as previously believed.

Medieval medicine was not sterile. She has accumulated extensive experience in the field of surgery, recognition and prevention of infectious diseases, and has developed a number of anti-epidemic measures; hospital care, forms of organizing medical care in cities, sanitary legislation, etc. arose.

In the language of mathematics

The new science tried to confirm the validity of observations through experiments and translate the results into the universal language of mathematics. Galileo was the first scientist to realize that this approach was the key to understanding all things, and argued that "the book of nature... is written in mathematical symbols." The progress of the mathematical method was rapid. By the beginning of the 17th century, the most common arithmetic symbols (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and equalities) came into widespread use. Then in 1614 John Napier (1550-1617Scottish baron, mathematician, one of the inventors of logarithms, the first publisher of logarithmictables.) introduced logarithms into use. The first adding machine - a distant ancestor of the computer - was constructed Blaise Pascal (1623-1662 French mathematician, physicist, writer and philosopher. Classic of French literature, one of the founders of mathematical analysis, probability theory and projective geometry, creatorthe first samples of computing technology, author of the basic law of hydrostatics.) in the 1640s, and 30 years later the great German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716 German philosopher, mathematician, lawyer, diplomat.) invented a machine capable of multiplication. Leibniz was also one of the creators of differential calculus, which became the most important mathematical method of the time. Isaac Newton came to similar results independently of Leibniz, and these two great men, with far from scientific fervor, entered into a discussion about which of them belonged to the laurels of primacy.

Forward to progress

So, by the 17th century, science had really advanced far in its development and there is a lot of evidence for this.

Mechanical watches were invented in the 13th century. Improvements in their design, in turn, led to the invention of parts (for example, speed indicators, ratchets, gears), which were subsequently used in other mechanisms.

Water supply systems developed in medieval European cities. For this purpose, pumping stations were built, driven by the same hydraulic motor. Some cities had such a water supply system already at the beginning of the 16th century.

In the 14th century, the use of gunpowder began in Europe, which, although it was invented in China, it was again in Europe that it received widespread use and further improvement. Bows, spears and crossbows began to be exchanged for firearms and cannons, which later determined the dominance of Europeans on the world stage. In addition, the telescope, instruments such as a microscope, thermometer, barometer and air pump were invented. Scientific achievements constantly multiplied. Newton discovered the wave nature of light and demonstrated that the stream of light that appears white to us consists of spectral colors into which it can be divided using a prism. Two other famous English experimenters were William Gilbert (1544-1603 English physicist, scientist and doctor.) , who laid the foundations for the study of electricity and magnetism, and Robert Hooke (1635-1703 English naturalist, encyclopedist) , who introduced the concept of “cell” to describe what he saw through the lenses of the microscope he improved.

Irishman Robert Boyle (1627-1691 physicist, chemist and theologian) carried out physical work in the field of molecular physics, light and electrical phenomena, hydrostatics, acoustics, heat, mechanics. In 1660, Guericke improved the air pump and established new facts, which he presented in “New physical and chemical experiments concerning the elasticity of air.” He showed the dependence of the boiling point of water on the degree of rarefaction of the surrounding air and proved that the rise of liquid in a narrow tube is not related to atmospheric pressure. In 1661 he discovered Boyle's law, designed a barometer and introduced the name barometer. He made the first studies of the elasticity of solids and was a supporter of atomism. In 1663 he discovered colored rings in thin layers (Newton's rings). In 1661 he formulated the concept of a chemical element and introduced the experimental method into chemistry, laying the foundation for chemistry as a science.

And the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens(1629-1695 Dutch mathematician, physicist, astronomer and inventor.) invented a pendulum clock with an escapement mechanism, proving Galileo's conclusion that a pendulum device could be used to control time was correct.

There will still be inventions ahead, such as the steam engine, electricity and the telephone. The earth will be entangled with wires and railways, and astronauts will go into outer space. In the meantime... while a lonely medieval scientist in his darkened room forged the history of science...

Conclusion

“Never has the history of the world assumed such importance and significance, never has it shown such a multitude of individual phenomena as in the Middle Ages.”

(N.V. Gogol)

Technology arose along with the emergence of man, and for a long time developed independently of any science. For a long time, science itself did not have a special disciplinary organization and was not focused on the conscious application of the knowledge it created in the technical field. Recipe-technical knowledge has been opposed to scientific knowledge for quite a long time; the question of special scientific-technical knowledge has not been raised at all. “Scientific” and “technical” actually belonged to different cultural areas. It was the engineers, artists and practical mathematicians of the Middle Ages who played a decisive role in the adoption of a new type of practically oriented theory. The ideal of a new science, capable of solving engineering problems by theoretical means, and a new science-based technology were put forward. This ideal eventually led to the disciplinary organization of science and technology. The great technical inventions made in the Middle Ages had a huge impact on all areas of the economy and culture, including the development of science. For a long time, the Middle Ages were characterized as a period of spiritual decline, a period between the great eras: antiquity and renaissance. But without this time, without its discoveries and technical improvements, the advent of a new time would have been impossible. The technological advances of the Renaissance were made possible by the use and development of the inventions and discoveries of the Middle Ages, which together opened up to Europeans greater possibilities for controlling and, ultimately, understanding the world than they could have gained from the classical inheritance.

List of sources and literature used

science discovery middle ages newton

1. Bernal J. Science in the history of society / J. Bernal; lane from English A.M. Vyazmina; total ed. B.M.Kedrova, I.V.Kuznetsova. - M.: Foreign lit., 1956.-735p.

Gorelov A.A. Concepts of modern natural science: textbook. manual.- M.: Higher Education, 2008.-335 p. - (Fundamentals of Sciences)

Solomatin V.A. History and concepts of modern natural science: a textbook for universities. - M.: PER SE, 2002.-464 p. - (Modern education)

"100 people who changed the course of history" weekly publication, issue No. 9, 2008

History of biology from ancient times to the present day [Electronic resource] http://www.biolhistory.ru/

Historical physics. Leonardo da Vinci [Electronic resource] http://www.abitura.com/

Wikipedia Free encyclopedia[Electronic resource] http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/

XI century
Alhazen's research on physiological optics. The theory of visual rays of ancient Greek thinkers is being replaced by Alhazen's theory of vision, according to which visual images of bodies are created by rays emanating from visible bodies. When these rays enter the eye, they cause visual sensations. Alhazen is already familiar with the camera obscura.

Decomposition of the velocity of a thrown body into two components - parallel and perpendicular to the plane (Alhazen).

Rediscovery by the Arabs of the orientation properties of a magnetic needle (arrow), the appearance of a compass (the ability of a magnetic needle to orient itself in a certain direction was known to the Chinese back in 2700 BC).

1121...1122
The Arab scientist Algatzini wrote a treatise - “The Book of the Scales of Wisdom” - a kind of course in medieval physics. It contained tables of specific gravities of solid and liquid bodies, a description of experiments on “weighing” air, and an observation of the phenomenon of capillarity; it also indicated that Archimedes' law also applies. for air, that the specific gravity of water depends on temperature, the weight of a body is proportional to the amount of substance contained in it, speed is measured by the ratio of the distance traveled to time, the use of a hydrometer is described.

1269
The first handwritten treatise on magnetism appeared, “On Magnets” by P. Peregrino (published in 1558), which describes methods for determining the polarity of a magnet, the interaction of poles, magnetization by touch, the phenomenon of magnetic induction, some technical applications of magnets, etc.

1272
A treatise on optics by Erasmus Vitellius (Vitello) was published, which became widespread in the Middle Ages. It, along with a statement of what Euclid and Alhazen did, contains the law of reversibility of light rays discovered by Vitellius during refraction, proves the fact that parabolic mirrors have one focus, and examines the rainbow in detail.

XIII century
R. Bacon measures the focal length of a spherical mirror and discovers spherical aberration, puts forward the idea of ​​a telescope, is one of the first to consider lenses as scientific instruments, considers the speed of light to be finite, and sees the basis of knowledge in experience. It is a harbinger of the experimental method.

OK. 1250
Discovery of the 33rd element - arsenic (Albert the Great).

XIII century (end)
Invention and distribution of glasses. The time and place of their invention is unknown. They may have originated in Venice. Glasses quickly spread to Western Europe and then to Asia. They appeared in Russia no later than the 15th century.

XIV century
The concept of acceleration was introduced (probably by W. Gatesbury from (early) Oxford).

XIV century
Albert of Saxony introduced the division of movements into translational and rotational, uniform and variable.

The concept of uniformly variable motion and angular velocity is introduced.

The French mathematician N. Oresme was the first to give a graphic representation of motion and establish the law of uniformly variable motion, connecting the path traveled by a body with time.

Renaissance (XV – XVI centuries)
XV century
N. Kuzansky in his treatises (published in 1515) develops the idea that movement is the basis of all things, there is no fixed center in the Universe (the idea of ​​relative motion), the latter is infinite, the Earth and all celestial bodies are created from one and the same primal matter.

The 83rd element is known - bismuth.

Study of free fall and movement of a body thrown horizontally, impact of bodies, expansion of the concept of moment of forces, determination of the center of gravity of the tetrahedron, invention of a number of mechanisms for transforming and transmitting movements - cone ball bearings, chain and belt drives, double joint (now called "cardan") and others (Leonardo da Vinci).

The origin of dynamics (clarification of the nature of inertia), the establishment of the fact that action is equal to and opposite to reaction. Study of the mechanism of friction and its influence on equilibrium conditions, determination of friction coefficients, study of the resistance of beams to tension and compression (Leonardo da Vinci).

Study and description of the flight of birds, the discovery of the existence of environmental resistance and lift, the creation of a design for the first aircraft, parachute and helicopter (Leonardo da Vinci).

The creation of a number of hydraulic devices by Leonardo da Vinci (he knew the law of communicating vessels for liquids of different densities and the law discovered over time by Pascal).

Study of sound reflection and formulation of the principle of independence of the propagation of sound waves from various sources (Leonardo da Vinci).

Study of the laws of binocular vision, study of the influence of the environment on the color of bodies, an attempt to experimentally determine the intensity of light depending on distance, the first description of a camera obscura (Leonardo da Vinci).

Familiarization in translation with the treatises of the ancient Greek scientists Archimedes, Heron, Euclid and others.

The Italian scientist N. Tartaglia, in the treatises “New Science” (1537) and “Problems and Various Inventions” (1546), studies the trajectory of projectiles, proves that the trajectory of their movement is curvilinear and the greatest flight range is achieved when the cannon barrel is tilted under an angle of 45° to the horizontal.

THE FIRST SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 1543

Heliocentric system of Nicolaus Copernicus – 1473-1543– a scientific revolution in natural science: for the first time he explained the actual picture of the visible movement of celestial bodies by the movement of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun and around its axis (the book “On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres”, 1543). The work of N. Copernicus “On the Rotation of the Celestial Spheres” was published, containing a presentation of the heliocentric system of the world, reflecting the true picture of the universe and leading to revolutionary changes in worldview and natural science.

1. There is no one center for all celestial orbits or spheres. 2. The center of the Earth is not the center of the world, but only the center of gravity and the center of the lunar orbit.
3. All spheres move around the Sun .The doctrine was prohibited by the Catholic Church from 1616 to 1828.

Giordano Bruno (1550-1600) and the infinite universe. For Bruno, who takes a further step into development of Kuzan's pantheistic tendencies, not only God is infinite, but also the world . The distinction between God and the world, so fundamental for Christianity, is essentially removed by Bruno , which causes his persecution by the church, which ultimately ended so tragically.

The term "Middle Ages" is often used in the context of underdevelopment. But this period in history in many ways turned the life of mankind upside down. Many scientific discoveries in the Middle Ages became the starting point for large-scale progress and gave us something without which it is no longer possible to imagine modern life.

Scientific discoveries and inventions in the Middle Ages

1. Mechanical watches.

At first, the function of the clock was performed by bells, which were rung by the sentries every hour, determining the time intervals using the hourglass. In 1288, the first clock mechanism adorned the wall of the tower of Westminster Abbey, and later the Germans, French, and Italians began to use clocks. A century later, pocket watches appeared. It is not known for certain who exactly invented the mechanism. Some historians attribute this to the millmasters, citing the idea of ​​​​the continuity and periodicity of the movement of the mill drive

2. Nautical compass.

A device resembling it was known a couple of centuries before the medieval era in China. However, all the important properties of the compass were presented by the Frenchman Pierre da Maricourt, who studied the magnetic properties and the phenomenon of magnetic induction. Since the 12th century, the compass began to be widely used in practice in maritime affairs, which led to a number of great geographical discoveries. In addition, the compass became the first model taken as a basis for studying the characteristics of gravity, and remained so until the advent of Newton's theory.

3. Water engine.

Since the 14th century, miners and artisans began to use water mills, the mechanism of which was based on a water wheel. A fence was built on the river and gutters were diverted from it. Water from the reservoir filled them and through the top fell onto the wheel blades, rotating it faster.

4. Melting furnaces.

In the Middle Ages, the size of blast furnaces reached 4 meters in height; it became impossible to manually maintain the temperature in the furnace. Then a water wheel was attached to the bellows of the furnace, which made it possible to increase the melting temperature and melt much more metal: ore, liquid iron, etc.

5. Gunpowder and firearms.

Scientific discoveries in the Middle Ages also revolutionized military affairs. Europe is where gunpowder was invented and firearms developed. The Chinese were the first to make an explosive mixture and even learned to use it in everyday life, but no one before the medieval Europeans thought of using and improving the composition of gunpowder in warfare as a means of eliminating the enemy. This revolutionary idea came from the monk Berthold Schwarz, who once mixed saltpeter, coal and sulfur and got so carried away with the grinding process that the mixture exploded and lost his beard. Impressed, he decided that this energy could be used to throw stones, which is what the soldiers adopted. A little later, for the rational use of gunpowder in military affairs, the first cannon was invented, and after it muskets and guns appeared.

6. Typography.

Until the 15th century, books throughout the world were handwritten. It often took years to create one copy; not a single scribe changed. With the development of society, the desire for education and new knowledge, it was necessary to accelerate this process. In the mid-15th century, a solution to the problem was found by the German Johann Gutenberg, the inventor of printing. He cast individual metal letters, composed the required text from them and made an imprint on paper, creating many copies of pages at a time. Improving the idea, Gutenberg designed a printing press. The emergence and development of printing made it possible to publish about a thousand book copies annually.

7. Alchemy.

Medieval fever, thirst for profit, desire for wealth and possession of gold led to the emergence of alchemy. Despite the fact that it is recognized as a pseudoscience, and the main goal of alchemists - the transformation of any metal into gold - was never achieved, alchemy created the basis for the development of chemistry: many experiments were carried out, methods for obtaining substances, alloys, medicines were discovered, devices were created for conducting chemical experiments.

These are just a few of the important inventions of the Middle Ages. Scientific discoveries in the Middle Ages were not limited to them. The era of “darkness and obscurantism” gave rise to new discoveries and gave humanity valuable knowledge and skills in various fields of science and spheres of life.

What do you think were the main discoveries in the Middle Ages?

🙂 Greetings to regular and new readers of the “Ladies-Gentlemen” site! The article “Scientists of the Middle Ages and their discoveries: facts and videos” contains information about famous scientists in the fields of alchemy, medicine, and geography. The article will be useful for schoolchildren and history buffs.

Scientists of the Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is an era in history from the 5th to the 15th centuries. The medieval world was full of prejudice and ignorance. The Church jealously watched those who strived for knowledge, and literally persecuted them. Knowledge was considered useful if it brought one closer to knowledge of the Lord.

Medicine more often caused harm than good - you had to rely only on the strength of the body. People did not understand what the Earth looked like and came up with various fables about its structure.

But even in this ignorance there was room for an analogue to the modern scientist. Of course, such a concept did not exist, because no one yet had any idea about scientific methods. The main activity of philosophers was aimed at searching for the philosopher's stone, which would turn any metal into gold, and the elixir of life, which would give eternal youth.

Alchemy

Even 400 years before Newton’s work, the monk Roger Bacon conducted an experiment in which a beam directed through water was decomposed into a spectrum. The natural scientist came to the conclusion, as Newton later did, that the color white has an unchanging geometry. Roger Bacon wrote that mathematics is the key to other sciences.

Like most 13th-century alchemists, Bacon was one of the experimental philosophers searching for the philosopher's stone. Medieval alchemists were obsessed with gold for a reason. Gold is a very remarkable metal. First of all, it cannot be destroyed. Experimenters asked this question constantly.

Why does the variability of matter inherent in other substances not apply to gold? This metal can be heated, melted, given a new shape - it remains with unchanged qualities.

The study of gold became a search for perfection on earth. All manipulations with metal were not aimed at enrichment; alchemists did not strive for wealth, but to understand the secrets of shiny metal.

Numerous experiments made it possible to make a lot of discoveries. Alchemists discovered the technique of applying gilding. They obtained concentrated acids, discovered various distillation methods, and, in fact, laid the foundations of chemistry.

Famous alchemists of the Middle Ages:

• Albert the Great (1193-1280)
• Arnoldo de Villanova (1240-1311)
• Raymond Lull (1235-1314)
• Vasily Valentine (1394-1450)
• (1493-1541)
• Nicola Flamel (1330-1418)
• Bernardo, the Good Man of Treviso (1406-1490)

Church

No matter how much we scold the clergy, these people were the most educated for many centuries. They were the ones who pushed the boundaries of science, conducted scientific experiments, and took notes in church libraries.

In the 11th century, the monk of Malmesbury Abbey, Aylmer, attached a pair of wings to himself and jumped from a high tower. The aircraft carried him almost 200 meters before he hit the ground, breaking his legs.

Aylmer of Malmesbury - English Benedictine monk of the 11th century

During the treatment, he told the abbot that he knew what his mistake was. His flying invention is missing a tail. True, the abbot forbade further experiments, and controlled flights were postponed for 900 years.

But church ministers had the opportunity to make discoveries in other areas of human activity. The medieval church did not oppose itself to science; on the contrary, it wanted to use it.

The most perspicacious expressed their boldest thoughts. They assumed that humanity would have ships driven not by a hundred oarsmen, but by one person, carts that moved without any manpower, an aircraft that lifted a person from the ground and returned him back.

This is exactly what happened, and progress is delayed by humanity, perhaps due to the reluctance to objectively evaluate the past.

Medicine

Today people need one thing from medicine - to make us feel better. But medieval doctors had more ambitious goals. For starters, eternal life.

For example, Artefius is a philosopher who lived in the 12th century. He wrote a treatise on the art of prolonging human life, claiming that he himself lived for at least 1025 years. This charlatan boasted of his acquaintance with Christ, although at that time it turned out that he had already lived for more than 1200 years.

Alchemists believed that if they could turn the metal into perfect gold using the philosopher's stone, then they could use it as the elixir of eternal life and make humanity immortal. And although the elixir of eternal life was not found, there undoubtedly were experts in this field.

Doctors who lived 600-800 years before our time quite rightly believed that disease is not caused by external factors, but occurs when the body lacks health. Therefore, doctors tried to restore health with the help of diets and herbs.

There were entire pharmaceutical shops where there were a large number of medicinal drugs. At least 400 plants with various healing properties were mentioned in medical treatises.

The main advantage of medieval doctors is that they perceived the body as a single whole.

The most ancient scientist and doctor (Avicenna) (980-1037) worked for many years on his encyclopedia “The Canon of Medicine”, which absorbed the medical knowledge of the medieval East.

Mondino de Luzzi (1270 - 1326) - Italian anatomist and physician resumed the practice of public dissections of dead people for teaching students, which had been prohibited by the Catholic Church.

Alchemist, physician, philosopher, naturalist Paracelsus (1493-1541)

The famous healer and alchemist from Switzerland, Paracelsus (1493-1541), knew anatomy very well. In practice he had the skills of surgery and therapy. He criticized the ideas of ancient medicine and independently developed a classification of diseases.

Geography

People have long believed that the earth is flat. But it is known for sure that Robert Bacon wrote in his writings: “The rounding of the earth explains why, having climbed to a height, we see further.” The dissent of the church authorities hampered the development of many sciences, but geography suffered, perhaps, the most.

This is proven by maps found by archaeologists. Only sailors needed accurate maps, and they had them. We do not know who drew these maps and how the process of their creation went. Their accuracy amazes modern specialists.

Among the travelers of the Middle Ages, the Russian merchant Afanasy Nikitin (date of death 1475) should be noted. He traveled from the city of Tver to India! At that time this was incredible! His notes made during the journey are called “Walking across the Three Seas.”

The Italian merchant and traveler Marco Polo (1254 - 1344) was the first European to describe China. “The Book of Marco Polo” was one of the main sources for compiling a map of Asia.

The great technical inventions made in the Middle Ages had a huge impact on all areas of economics and culture, and on the development of science. Among these inventions, the most significant were water and windmills, a marine compass, gunpowder, glasses, paper, and mechanical watches. Almost all of these inventions came to Europe from the East.

The water mill and water engine were described, as we have already noted, by Vitruvius, but it was only in the Middle Ages that they began to be widely used. The idea of ​​a water drive (motor) was implemented first for grinding grain (actually for building mills), but then also for performing other work, for example in. cloth production, for drawing wire, for crushing ore. The use of the initially rotational motion of a wheel with a horizontal axis of rotation to carry out translational motion or rotation in other planes required the use of mechanisms that transform the motion. For this purpose, a lantern (finger) type gearing and a cranked lever were invented.

Windmills appeared in Europe at the beginning of the 12th century, but became widespread in the 15th century. The manufacture of mechanisms for water and windmills and their assembly required highly qualified craftsmen who had to have extensive knowledge not only in mechanics, but also in blacksmithing, hydraulic engineering and aerodynamics (in modern terminology).

Mechanical clocks appeared in medieval Europe primarily as tower clocks, used to indicate the time of worship. Before the invention of mechanical watches, a bell was used for this, which was struck by a sentry, which determined the time using an hourglass - every hour. Therefore, the terms “clock” and “watch” have the same origin. A mechanical clock on the tower of Westminster Abbey appeared in 1288. Later, mechanical tower clocks began to be used in France, Italy, and the German states. There is an opinion that mechanical watches were invented by mill masters, developing the idea of ​​continuous and periodic movement of the mill drive. The main task in creating a clock mechanism was to ensure precision or constant speed of rotation of the gears. The manufacture of watches required high precision processing of parts, high precision assembly, selection of material for parts: The development of watch mechanisms was impossible without technical knowledge and mathematical calculations. The measurement of time has a direct connection with astronomy. Thus, watchmaking combined mechanics, astronomy, and mathematics in solving the practical problem of measuring time.

The compass, a device that uses the orientation of a natural magnet in a certain direction, was invented in China. The Chinese attributed the ability to orient natural magnets to the influence of stars. In the I - III centuries. The compass began to be used in China as a “pointer to the South.” How the compass got to Europe is still unknown. The beginning of its use by Europeans in navigation dates back to the 12th century. The use of a compass on ships was an important prerequisite for geographical discoveries. The property of the compass was first presented in detail by the French scientist Pierre da Maricourt (Peter Peregrine). In this regard, he described both the properties of magnets and the phenomenon of magnetic induction. The compass became the first working scientific model, on the basis of which the doctrine of attractions developed, right up to Newton’s great theory.

Gunpowder was used in China already in the 6th century. in the manufacture of rockets and fireworks. Many European alchemists worked on discovering the secret of gunpowder, namely, how to prepare a mixture that burns without air. But luck smiled on the Freiburg monk Berthold Schwartz. Gunpowder began to play an important role in military affairs from the 14th century. only after the invention of the cannon, the ancestor of which was the “fire trumpet” of the Byzantines. Soon guns and muskets appeared behind the cannon.

The invention of gunpowder had more than just military consequences. The production of gunpowder and its explosion, the flight of a projectile from a cannon raised questions of a scientific and theoretical nature. This is primarily the study of combustion and explosion processes, issues related to the release and transfer of heat, issues of precision mechanics and technology related to the manufacture of gun barrels, issues of ballistics.

The cannon thus “organized” not only military training grounds, but also extensive “testing grounds” for scientific research.

Science needed paper “like air.” Invented in China in the 2nd century, it appeared in the 6th-7th centuries. in Japan, India, Central Asia, in the 8th century. - in the Arab East. Paper came to Europe through the Arabs in the 12th century. In Spain, for the first time in Europe, at the beginning of the 12th century. Paper production was organized, first from cotton, then from cheaper raw materials - from rags and textile waste. Following paper, which became an incomparably cheaper writing material than parchment, printing also appeared. The predecessor of book printing was woodcut (from the Greek “xylon” - felled tree and “grapho” - writing), that is, engraving on wood. Woodcuts could be used to reproduce printed texts. Chinese masters invented movable type at the beginning of the 11th century, but it appeared in Europe only in the 15th century. The role of printing in scientific progress and the dissemination of knowledge cannot be overestimated.

Glasses were invented in Italy. According to some sources, this invention dates back to 1299 and belongs to Silvino Armati. Others believe that glasses appeared in Italy no earlier than 1350. There is an opinion that the successes of enlightenment during the Renaissance were achieved largely thanks to the invention of glasses. Spectacle lenses became the basis for the creation of optical instruments such as microscopes and telescopes.

32) Science of the Renaissance (Features of the period)

If in the art of the Renaissance sensual physicality became the universal ideal and natural criterion, then in science this role was assigned to rational individuality. It was not individual knowledge or opinion, but the reliability of individuality itself that turned out to be the true basis of rational knowledge. Everything in the world can be questioned; only the fact of doubt itself is certain, which is direct evidence of the existence of reason. This self-justification of reason, accepted as the only true point of view, is rational individuality. The science of the Renaissance differed little from art, since it was the result of the personal creative search of the thinker. An artist is a seeker of true images, a thinker is a seeker of true ideas. The artist has a technique of depiction, the thinker has a technique of clarification, or a method of cognition. The thinker is able to penetrate beyond the sensory world into the plans of the Creator. And just as in the artist’s work the creation of the world continued on the basis of perfect images, so in the scientist’s work God’s plans for the world were revealed. It may seem strange, but the tradition of seeing pure reason as a means of comprehending God and his plans, which was adhered to by Renaissance scientists, developed in medieval mysticism. This tradition dates back to antiquity - in the teachings of the Pythagoreans, in the philosophy of Plato. What could have fueled Plato’s conviction that he was given the ability to comprehend the world of ideas, according to the model of which the world of things was created? An idea is the self-evidence of reason, taken without any images, itself acting as an instrument for creating and constructing images. The idea, which a mortal can comprehend with great difficulty, is at the same time the initial principle of the construction of being, and therefore must be the principle of the construction of true knowledge. This was the case with Plato, but M. Eckhart, whose opinion we have already cited, was also convinced that a thinker who knows God “without the help of an image” becomes identical with God. Renaissance scientists also believed that truths discovered by reason and not having visual expression were given, as it were, by God himself. On the one hand, scientists paid tribute to their time, when it was generally accepted that the highest truths could be established only by God. On the other hand, there was a kind of “heroism of consistency” in the appeal to God. After all, the logic of thinking required going beyond the limits of imagination, i.e. into the sphere of the unnamed, which still needed to be named and designated somehow. The knowledge of what cannot be visually imagined, which is unnatural from the point of view of earthly existence, only in modern times began to be called natural laws of nature, and Renaissance thinkers referred to God or to universal Reason. Although the consciousness of Renaissance scientists was a mixture of rationalism and mysticism, it should be noted that their God is not the Old Testament God who forbade Adam to eat the fruits of the “knowledge of good and evil.” It was this circumstance that served as the basis for the persecution of some scientists by the Inquisition. The Catholic Church opposed the teachings of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) on heliocentrism. The victim of persecution was the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno (1548-1600). Galileo Gililei (1564-1642), who is usually considered one of the founders of modern science, was put on trial by the Inquisition. He shared the Renaissance idea of ​​human self-creativity, one of the consequences of which was the scientific worldview. This idea was presented in the teachings of Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), one of the deepest thinkers of the Renaissance; According to him, the essence of the human personality is its expression of the universal, i.e. God. And the Italian philosopher Pico Della Mirandola (1463-1494), author of the famous “Speech on the Dignity of Man,” argued that if God is the creator of himself, then man must also create himself. The humanistic orientation of the Renaissance was manifested in the fact that the scientific worldview of the era was associated with the problem of human existence.