The Ascent of Man - Rex M Heyworth PhD From running around the African savannah using rock/stone tools, to driving a “rover” on the moon to collect lunar rocks is certainly a huge leap in what man has achieved, and all in a relatively short time. This essay is about the evolution of man and how he came to be the dominant creature on Earth today, together with some of the key steps in his ascent. The idea of writing the essay came after reading the marvellous book The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski (written to accompany his BBC TV documentary series of the same title). I have also taken ideas from other sources and included some of my own. The title of the essay is the same as that of Bronowski's book as it does seen to be eminently appropriate.

Why are humans here at all? … Luck! About 65 million years ago, the dinosaurs, which are reptiles, ruled the earth. There were a few mammals around but these tended to be very small. With a couple of exceptions, the first mammals were tiny, inoffensive creatures, rarely more than a few centimetres long. Then it all changed! An asteroid about 10 km wide, hit the earth. This, together with the climatic aftereffects it caused, such as extremely acidic rain and dust clouds that darkened the earth possibly for decades, wiped out the dinosaurs and many other species.

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Some animals, however – including small mammals – managed to survive. Because these small mammals were quick to flee to underground burrows, where many lived, at the first sign of danger, they survived and from these mammals one day evolved humans. Without this asteroid and its effects, we would (probably) not be here today, at least not if huge, hungry dinosaurs were still around. Website Why did mammals survive the 'K/T (Cretaceous–Tertiary) extinction'? http://news.psu.edu/story/141227/2010/01/19/research/probing-question-why-did-mammals-survive-ktextinction Kinds of Evolution The evolution of man is divided very unequally into two parts: 1. Biological evolution These are the steps that separate man from his ape ancestors. These steps took many millions of years. There is a very important difference between the biological evolution and other animals that must be noted. For the other animals, evolution changed their bodies so that they were adapted to fit the environment in which they lived. For example, lions evolved to live in the African savannah; reindeer evolved to live in cold climates. They are well adapted to their environments. However, such adaptations made these animals prisoners of their environments. Thus lions can only survive in the savannah, while reindeer can only survive in the earth's cold, icy places. But this did not occur with man. Man has been able to fit into all environments on Earth, such as hot deserts and the frozen Arctic, Man is not a prisoner of his immediate environment and can fit all environments and move from one to another when necessary. Why? Because of the evolution of the brain, which allowed the development of imagination and creativity to occur and which led to what we call cultural evolution. Note: The ideas of imagination and creativity are very important in the ascent of man and will be referred to frequently throughout this essay. 2. Cultural evolution Unlike other animals, biological evolution produced in Man a brain that allowed for imagination and creativity, enabling him to devise ways to survive in every environment. Examples are the invention of clothing to keep warm in cold environments and tools and spears for hunting. Had chimpanzees, our nearest animal neighbours evolved as we did, they too might be wearing clothing. But they didn't, and so they are prisoners to their jungle environments. Neanderthal man with clothing for colder climates – cultural evolution. A chimp in clothes – and not because of biological or cultural evolution. -2-

Biological evolution of Homo sapiens [For more details on biological evolution, refer to the project above on this website, viz. “Some of the Origins History and Future of Religion”.] The first ancestors of man and the apes evolved about 30 million years ago [mya]. The line to humans split from the apes about 15 – 20 million years ago. The first major steps after this were to (a) descend from the trees and later (b) walk upright. We will have a quick overview beginning from about 2 to 3 million years ago (2 – 3 mya) which is still before the appearance of modern humans, that is, us. 2+mya Australopithecus africanus (pictured). Meaning: australo = south, pithecus = ape, africanus = Africa. Therefore: Southern ape of Africa, though it is misnamed as it is not an ape but an ancestor of humans! This species stood erect, was bipedal (i.e. walked on two feet). about 4 feet tall and had a largish brain (slightly larger than that of modern chimps). Australopithecus africanus had the imagination and creativity to make to create two major inventions, which were: 1. Rudimentary stone tools that could be used to cut meat. This was significant as meat contains more protein than plants and so less time needed to be spent of eating. This allowed more free time for social action, such as hunting in groups for larger animals. 2. Social organisation: According to Bronowski, large numbers of Australopithecus died before the age of 20, leaving many orphans. There must have been some social organisation in which children were looked after and made part of the community. This was a great step in cultural evolution. ~1+ mya Homo erectus (homo = man, erectus = erect/upright). One of the first human species. It had evolved a large brain. All earlier species lived only in Africa but erectus has been found not only in Africa but also in Europe and Asia including China and Indonesia. There is evidence that erectus probably used fire, and their stone tools were more sophisticated than those of earlier species. [Picture. right] Possible stone axes made by Homo erectus. Homo erectus gradually spread from Africa to western Asia, then east Asia and Indonesia, but not to the Americas.; its presence in Europe is uncertain. ~0.5 mya The first forms of Homo sapiens appeared about this time (sapiens = wise; Homo sapiens = wise man). The brain size is larger than erectus but smaller than most modern humans. Modern forms of Homo sapiens – us! – first appear about 195 000 years ago with a brain similar in size to ours.

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Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) are our closest but extinct human relatives, may have evolved about 0.4 mya. They lived in Eurasia 200 000 ya and became extinct probably about 40 000 ya. From about 70 000 ya, Homo sapiens spread from Africa to western Asia and then to Europe and southern Asia, eventually reaching Australia and the Americas replacing Homo erectus in the process! (This must have been a gruesome time!). [See earlier project for more details.] Biological evolution in Homo sapiens: Once modern man evolved, there have been almost no further physical changes. The biological changes in Homo sapiens in the past 70 000 years or so are not large. We are rather a homogeneous species because we spread so fast over the earth from a single centre (Africa). Physical differences do occur, of course, such as skin, eye and hair colour, shape of face. We call these “racial” differences, but really these are just minor variations as we all belong to just one human race.

Different, but the same Homo sapiens!

It is the brain that is crucial to our ascent. Had the brain not evolved as it did, we would probably just be another ape species in the jungle alongside our cousins the chimpanzees, orang-utans and gorillas. How would you like that? Footnote to biological evolution for those who think men and women evolved differently:

Note: In the cartoon, Wilma is named as Homo sapiens sapiens which is actually correct. This is because there was another human species, now extinct, called Homo sapiens idaltu. However, most of the time today, we just use the briefer term Homo sapiens.

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Cultural evolution of Homo sapiens Cultural evolution is a big step, not shared by our nearest relatives (apes) and was because the brain grew in size and developed in a way that enabled the use of imagination and creativity. This resulted in inventions (e.g. clothes) that fitted man to all environments and developed him culturally (e.g. tools, art). Man survived not by biological evolution but culturally through his inventions, through the use of his imagination. Other example are flint, knife, spear. What we call cultural evolution is the continual growing of the human imagination leading to the ascent of man. Science (which just means knowledge) and art are both uniquely human acts that are outside the range of anything any other animal can do. Those who created tools (science) and those who created cave paintings were essentially doing the same thing – using their imaginations in a way only man can do. Periods in the cultural evolution of Man: Time-line The cultural evolution of man can be divided into a number of periods (or ages). The names and dates for these periods vary enormously from region to region. The list below, which gives the main divisions for Western Europe, is the one that will be used in this essay. The dates are very approximate and not all experts agree. [Note: As there is no Year 0; I have just used a line to show the change from BC to AD.] ____________________________________________________________________________________ BC

10 000

8000

6000

4000

2000

2000 AD

Palaeolithic (pre c. 10 000 BC)

←--- Mesolithic -----> (c. 10 000 – 7000 BC)

←---- Neolithic -----> (c. 8000 – 5000 BC)

(c. 5000 – 3000 BC)

<- Bronze Age -> (c. 3000 – 1200 BC)

Iron Age (c. 1200 – 1 BC)

Almost all human cultural evolution has taken place in the last 12 000 years, i.e. since about 10 000 BC.

Roman (c. 1 – 500 AD)

Middle ages (c. 500 – 1400/1500 AD)

Renaissance (c. 1400 – 1550 AD)

Scientific Revolution (c. 1550 ~ 1700 AD)

The Enlightenment (c. 1685 – 1815 AD)

Industrial/Modern (c. 1760 AD -->)

_______________________________________________________________________________________ Not all these periods/ages will be discussed. Rather, just some of the key steps in the ascent of man are discussed. I am not writing a history of man!

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Website List of archaeological periods. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_archaeological_periods

The Stone Ages The Stone Ages (or Periods or Eras) are usually divided into three: The Palaeolithic Age, the Mesolithic Age, and the Neolithic Age. All of them are prehistory/prehistoric ages, that is, periods of time before there were written records. History began with the invention of writing around the 4th millennium BC.

The Palaeolithic Age The Palaeolithic Age is also called the Old Stone Age (palaeo- = old, -lithic = stone). It is a prehistoric era or period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools, and covers roughly 95% of human technological prehistory. It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools, probably about 2.6 million years ago, to the around 12 000 years ago (10 000 BC). Here are some of the key inventions of the Palaeolithic Age in chronological order that are important in the ascent of man: Fire: About 1 mya – 0.5 mya. Fire is probably the master invention above all others. During this time, there were several ice ages and survival in the coldest places would only have been possible by the use of fire. The picture is of a fire in the cave of Peking Man (Homo erectus) about 400 000 ya. Housing: About 0.5 mya. The picture is of a Homo erectus shelter of about 400 000 ya in southern France. It would have been temporary as the people then were nomads (people did not start to settle until the Neolithic Age). Caves of course were also used (providing there were no wild animals in them), as in the Peking Man picture above. Clothing: About 100 kya – 0.5 mya. According to archaeologists and anthropologists, the earliest clothing probably consisted of fur, leather, leaves or grass, draped, wrapped or tied about the body for protection from the elements. Using animal fur and being able to convert animal skins to leather was a large cultural leap. Tools: About 0.4 mya. Archaeological evidence documents that wooden spears were used for hunting 400 000 years ago. However, wood does not preserve well. From about 300 000 years ago humans began to make stone blades, which were used as spear points (as in the picture). From about 40 000 years ago, tools started becoming more sophisticated, using a wider variety of raw materials such as bone and antler, with new implements for making clothing, engraving and sculpting.

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Art: About 0.4 mya. Art requires creative imagination, which only Man seems to have. Fine artwork, as decorated tools, beads, ivory carvings of humans and animals, clay figurines, musical instruments, and spectacular cave paintings have been created. It is interesting to note that similar cave paintings have been found at the opposite ends of the earth, suggesting that Homo sapiens spread out of Africa very rapidly and took with him the same sets of skills. The picture on the right is one of several cave paintings (actually a stencil) discovered on the Indonesian island of Borneo and dated from about 35 000 to 40 000 ya. Similar paintings/stencils have been found on Sulawesi, another Indonesian island. Compare this hand stencil with that on the left which was discovered in a cave in Spain and is dated from... about 40 000 ya! Remarkably similar, aren't they? Websites 1. Other key inventions of the Palaeolithic Age (except for the wheel which is much more “modern”): http://listverse.com/2007/10/07/top-10-ancient-inventions/ 2. Cave artists of Sulawesi: http://www.aramcoworld.com/issue/201503/cave.artists.of.sulawesi.htm Video Cave artists of Sulawesi: http://www.aramcoworld.com/issue/201503/video-caves.htm

The Mesolithic Age Meso- = middle/intermediate. The Mesolithic Age is the stone age between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic Ages. This age is only mentioned in order to comment that it is a transition in the way of life of the Palaeolithic Age which was nomadic, and that of the Neolithic Age which was settled. Of course, this transition was not sudden, taking thousands of years, and occurred at different times in in different places. In fact there are still a few – but very few – nomadic peoples today. The life of the nomad In the Palaeolithic, early man lived on both meats and plants. They would have hunted single animals. Over time, this evolved into following the natural migrations of wild herds as it is easier to kill an animal from a herd rather than to stalk a single animal. The first nomadic societies may have developed in the period from 9000 – 7000 BC in the southern Levant. Nomads stay on the move looking for food, without a permanent home. Many nomadic tribes move only during the change of seasons as different foods became available. Finding food dominates their lives (in the past and still today). Every day was a struggle for the nomads to find enough food to feed the group. This prevented them from discovering new things, until the time when they didn’t have to worry about finding food each day, that is, when they switched to the life of a settler.

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Gradually nomadic peoples switched to a settled life based on farming. The dominant hunting way of life changed to one in which sedentary villagers depended on domesticated plants and animals. The picture shows a modern-day Bedouin family sitting in front of their tent in the Sahara desert. These nomads have herded sheep and goats for centuries to provide food, clothing, etc.

The Neolithic Age: – an explosion of cultural evolution Neo- = new. Neolithic age = new stone age. The Neolithic began about 12 000 years ago. It is the third and last of the stone ages. Almost the whole ascent of man as we think of it occurred in these few years to produce you and me. And it was much faster than biological evolution, which often requires millions of year for changes to occur. Cultural development really took off in the Neolithic Age. What caused this? This cultural evolution began when man began to change from being a hunter gatherer (i.e. hunting wild animals and foraging around in plants for grains and other food) to living a settled life in villages. There was a move from the nomadic life to the beginnings of the domestication of animals and the cultivation of some plants. For domestication, being settled is necessary because animals cannot be raised and plants cannot be grown while on the move, as in a nomadic life. Therefore man began to cease being a nomad and became a settler/villager. This was a social revolution (probably the first one) and was the single biggest step in the ascent of man. It was the beginning too of what we call civilisation. Note: civilisation = from Latin civis meaning someone who lives in a town. However, civilisation is more than a town; it has an advanced stage of organisation with things such as laws, rulers, food sources, protection, a common language and education of the young. The first settlements The first Neolithic settlers may have been in the south of the Levant in the area of Jericho (modern-day West Bank). It developed directly from an earlier semi-settled Natufian culture in the region. [For a little more on Natufian culture, refer to the first project on this website on “Some History of Syria and Palestine”.] The first settlers harvested wheat but did not know how to plant it. To harvest the wheat, they invented the sickle. According to Bronowski, the sickle and other simple artefacts were probably as significant in the ascent of man then as nuclear power and space are today. The picture (above, right) is a reconstruction of a sickle of that time.

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Agriculture: the role of luck (again!) Just as the asteroid allowed for the biological evolution of mammals, so luck seems to have also played a role in the move from hunter-gatherers to settlers. Had this not happened, we might still be nomads! Settling was possible because of the occurrence of two hybrid forms of wheat which provided a large head of seeds. Before about 8000 BC, wheat was merely one of many wild grasses. By some accident, wild wheat crossed with a natural grass to produce to produce Emmer wheat (pictured, right) which has much plumper seeds. The seeds were able to scatter in the wind and so the wheat could grow in many places. Then there was a second accident. Emmer wheat crossed with another wild grass (goat grass) to produce bread wheat (also known as common wheat) with a large head of wheat and a good source of food (pictured, left). However, its seeds do not scatter in the wind but just fall to the ground. It requires man to collect the seeds and to scatter them. So Man and wheat came to depend on each other. Fortified villages The presence of stored food in early villages made houses tempting targets for nomadic bands or rival settlements. For defence, settlements, such as Jericho, were surrounded by a wall and a ditch (as pictured, though this is not Jericho). This suggests that there were conflicts, not too far from organised warfare. Population increase A great increase in the number of sedentary farmers in Neolithic times is primarily responsible for a leap in human population. For tens of thousands of years before agriculture was developed, the total number of humans fluctuated between an estimated five and eight million persons. By 4000 BC, after several thousand years of farming, numbers had risen to 60 or 70 million. Hunting-and-gathering bands managed to subsist in the zones between cultivated areas and continued to war and trade with sedentary peoples. But villages and cultivated fields from this time on became the dominant features of human habitation over much of the globe. The end of the neolithic Towards the end of the Neolithic era (about 5000 BC), copper metal was introduced. This marked the beginning of the end of the use of stone tools and thus the Palaeolithic and Neolithic ages (remember 'lithic' = stone) and the beginning of the chalcolithic era (chalco = copper). Website Neolithic revolution and the discovery of agriculture. http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/hort_306/text/lec03.pdf

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The Ages of Metals – Copper, Bronze and Iron The cultural record of man’s existence can be divided into two great periods – the “Age of Stone” and the “Age of Metal”. The “Age of Stone” preceded the “Age of Metal”. The duration of these two periods was not equal. The Stone Age persisted far longer than the Metal Age. Metals came into use only recently. Metals were neither easy to be found, nor was it easy to make tools out of them. Although some pieces of free copper (in the ground) or iron (from meteorites) were available in nature, most metals are embedded in ores which were difficult to use unless the metal could be extracted from these ores. Smelting: Ores are compounds/substances in which the metal is combined with other elements which, when removed, leave the pure metal. The picture shows the copper ore malachite in which copper is combined with carbon and oxygen. The extraction of the metal from its ore is done by smelting, a process that involves heating to a high temperature and melting. We do not know for certain how the ancients did metal smelting. However it was done, it was a giant step in the ascent of man, requiring incredible imagination and creativity. Chalcolithic (Copper) Age – the first of the metal ages (c. 5000 – 3000 BC) Copper first appeared in the Old World particularly in Mesopotamia and the Levant. During the chalcolithic period, copper tools began to take over from those of stone.

Pictures, from left to right: Some copper tools and weapons (though weapons were of poor quality as copper is too soft; stone weapons were often better!) A copper crown of about 3800 BC, found near the Dead Sea. A small copper pointed tool 4 cm in length from about 5000 BC, the oldest metal object found in the southern Levant How was copper discovered? We don't know but it was probably by accident and may have been in kilns used to make pottery (and which are hot enough to smelt copper). People would have observed how substances, such as malachite, which is used to colour pottery, would occasionally have changed to copper metal. Ancient smelting was laborious at best: to keep the fire hot enough, assistants (most likely slaves) would have to pump air into the kiln using bellows for long periods of time. Look at the video below. The oldest dated evidence of copper smelting at high temperature is from about 5000 BC.

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Video How prehistoric man might have extracted copper metal from copper ore. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uHc4Hirexc Bronze Age (c. 3000 – 1200 BC) The invention of bronze in about 3000 BC was a technological revolution. Why? Because copper is too soft for many tools and not hard enough for weapons to endure combat conditions. Around 3000+ years ago, it was discovered that when copper is mixed at high temperatures with other metals, the resulting alloy (alloy = a mixture of a metal with two or more elements, often also metals) is harder than copper itself. This was bronze. Bronze is a mixture of copper and tin and forms when a mixture of the ores of two metals is heated. Bronze is much harder than pure copper and keeps a sharp edge better – great for swords! Because of this, bronze was used on a large scale – the plastic of its age! It was important also in China for art. The picture (left) shows a twohandled bronze gefuding gu. A “gu” 觚 is a type of bronze vessel from the Shang Dynasty (1600 – 1046 BC). By about 1800 BC, people were mining copper ore on a large scale, digging mines deep into the earth. Strong bronze pickaxes were used to collect the ore. The picture (right) shows a copper mine in Israel from as early as about 3500 BC in the chalcolithic era, making it the oldest known copper mine in the world. The ore extracted was used to obtain copper ore to get copper and later to combine copper with tin to make bronze. How was bronze discovered? Again, archaeologists are unsure how this alloy was discovered, but believe that bronze may have first been made accidentally as rocks/ores rich in both copper and tin are found together. When heated in camp-fires, as the fire heated the stones in the camp-fire ring, the metals may have melted out and mixed, forming bronze. Bronze was used to make cups, vases, battle-axes, helmets, knives, shields, and swords. It was also made into ornaments, and sometimes even into primitive stoves.

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Pictures, above, from left to right: Bronze Age man pouring molten bronze (formed in the small pit on the left) into a mould. Bronze age swords. A bronze age helmet. Iron Age (c. 1200 BC – ...) The Bronze Age lasted until about 1200 BC when iron came along. This led to a time of major turmoil in the Middle East and the collapse of civilisations and ushered in the Iron Age which replaced bronze almost overnight. [Look back at the earlier project entitled “The Ancient Near East, Canaan and Israel”.] Iron is a much stronger and more reliable metal. It also keeps a sharper cutting edge for longer than bronze, which is even greater for swords! [It seems that people just can't get away from warfare!] And iron ore needed to produce iron is found everywhere. But, it took longer for iron to become useful as the process to form iron from its ores is more complicated and needs a much hotter fire. On the right is a picture of an Ancient Greek vase showing a blacksmith extracting iron from its ore while a boy (slave?) works bellows to blow air in to make the fire hot enough. Video A (modern) blacksmith making something out of iron. First he heats up the metal so it will get softer, and then he beats it into shape with a hammer, a process similar to that used by the ancients. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-JGh-yRas7Q From about 1000 BC to the present day, iron has been the most used metal. The Iron Age in Europe is characterized by an elaboration of designs in weapons, implements and utensils. The Romans used iron to make weapons and armour. During the Industrial Revolution in England in the 18th century (see later – page 55ff.), John Wilkinson built the first iron bridge (opened 1781), the first iron boat (1787), the first iron lavatory and the first iron coffin – in which he was finally buried.

Pictures, above, from left to right:

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Viking iron keys (c. 900 AD). First bridge made of iron. [Constructed during the Industrial Revolution – see later in this essay.] An 18th century portable toilet (parts made of iron I think). Roman soldiers wore an iron helmet, iron armour, iron sword (though in this modern reconstruction, steel is used). Iron or steel? Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon. In fact, the “iron” referred to above and used for most of the Iron Age is called wrought iron and is actually a steel that contains a very small amount of carbon (0.04% or less). The iron used for the first “iron” bridge (picture above) is also a steel but contains a higher proportion of carbon (2 – 4%) than traditional iron. Modern steels (there are many kinds) have a carbon content between these extremes. In the modern manufacturing process, the carbon content can be varied to give steels with properties suitable for particular uses. All very complicated! Pure iron is a bright silvery-white metal and has little use – some is used in medicine. Iron is made much more useful in the form of steel which is how it has been used for thousands of years, even though it has been called iron. [See also page 59 for its use during the Industrial Revolution.]

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Some important inventions in the ascent of man Among the important inventions in the ascent of man from the late neolithic age through the bronze age (i.e. from about 5000 BC to about 1000 BC) were the wheel, writing, trade, metalworking, irrigation and the development of the city-state (which I suppose can be called an invention). We will look at four of these. Many of the early inventions came from Mesopotamia. Nothing came easy in Mesopotamia. There were few natural resources other than farmland. The building material was mud. To be successful, the people living there had to be resourceful; they had to be imaginative and creative. All the inventions discussed here have links with Mesopotamia. The picture is a contemporary map of Iraq and the surrounding region showing ancient Mesopotamia. Website Inventions and discoveries from prehistory to the 20th century. You can decide for yourself which you think are the most important. http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp? groupid=1406&HistoryID=ab23>rack=pthc The wheel What is interesting about the wheel is that wheels do not occur in nature (except in microscopic form), so man’s invention of the wheel was not a copy of something in nature. (However, the rolling motion of the wheel is seen in some animals that manipulate their bodies into the shape of a ball and roll.) There is no certainty as to when and where the wheel was first made though it is probably a late neolithic invention. Here are some examples of the early use of wheels. The picture (right) shows a replica of a wooden wheel found in Slovenia that is approximately 5000 years old (about 3300 BC), which makes it the oldest wooden wheel yet discovered. It was probably part of a two-wheel push cart (animals had not yet been domesticated for pulling vehicles). The earliest depiction of what may be a wheeled vehicle with four wheels and two axles, is on the Bronocice pot, a circa 3500 BC clay pot found in Poland. The picture (left) is a drawing of the pot. Can you see the wheeled vehicle drawn on it? The picture (right) is of a Sumerian war chariot of about 2600 BC drawn by asses (not horses).

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In China, the wheel was certainly present with the adoption of the chariot in c. 1200 BC during the late Shang dynasty (picture, left). On the other hand, perhaps the Flintsones had the first “wheeled” vehicle (though actually their car uses rollers and not wheels). Writing When writing was invented and used, history began. History is an account of past events, usually in the form of writing. Writing also helped to make human knowledge more objective and so to sift out acceptable from unacceptable ideas. Writing was a giant step in the ascent of man. Numbers first Numbers came before words. As societies produced more and more food, the surplus food could be stored, traded, or used as payment for goods and services. Some form of record keeping was needed for this. The first form of record keeping seems to have been invented about 10 000 BC (right at the end of the Palaeolithic!). These were clay tokens representing different commodities in specific quantities. Their use spread throughout the Middle East from then until about 5400 years ago. The picture (right) shows 11 clay tokens with circular clay envelope for holding them, ca. 3700 – 3200 BC. Now writing Writing evolved to replace numbers for record keeping. The first true writing of language (not only numbers) was invented in Mesopotamia (specifically, ancient Sumer) around 3200 BC They used wedge-shaped lettering called cuneiform made by a sharply cut reed on wet clay tablets. The first known examples were attached to bags of grain and agricultural products. Thousands of these clay tablets have been found, recording trading accounts, letters, medical texts, astronomical tables, law codes, literature and poetry, and even textbooks for children. Libraries of thousands of such clay tablets, maintained by the kings of Sumer, have been discovered, adding a lot to our knowledge of this civilisation. The scribes of the temple were the people who learned writing and made all the trading documents required for the goods being sent within Sumer and to other places. Priests became the most powerful men. The first picture (right, top) is an early form of cuneiform, while the other is the most advanced form of cuneiform. (Can you see the wedge-shapes on the tablets?) The Egyptian hieroglyphic system is believed to be from about the same time as the Sumerian writing. Hieroglyphs are characters in which symbols represent objects (such as tools, animals, or boats) and ideas (such as motion,

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time, and joy). The picture (above, right) shows Egyptian hieroglyphs with the corresponding letter from the English alphabet. It is not known when Chinese writing originated, but undisputed evidence of writing in China dates from about 1600 BC. The picture (right) shows ancient Chinese characters on bone and dating to the Shang Dynasty (1600 – 1046 BC). The alphabet The Phoenicians are believed to have invented the first true alphabet, though some debate this. Phoenicia was on the Mediterranean coast to the north of the Levant (roughly where modern-day Lebanon is). The Phonecians were the major sea-traders of the Mediterranean, and used their alphabet as a simple and easy way to keep a record of their trades. Their alphabet contained 22 letters (only consonants). The Greeks adopted this Phoenician alphabet, and added vowels to it. This later passed to the Romans who made their own changes to it, and this led to the alphabet we use today. The pictures show the 22 letters of the Phoenician alphabet, with the equivalent English letters) (left) and writing carved onto stone (right). Irrigation Most of early human advancement took place in the Middle East, such as in Mesopotamia, the Levant and Egypt. This whole region is hot and dry where water is critical to life and the growth of crops. As rainfall was (and still is) unreliable, the ancients developed systems of irrigation to get water. Irrigation began at about the same time in both Egypt and Mesopotamia about 6000 BC using the water of the flooding Nile or Tigris/Euphrates rivers. Later, about 3100 BC, the Egyptians also used dams and canals (one measuring 20 km) to use the diverted flood waters of the Nile. The "Hanging Gardens of Babylon" (artist's impression, left), one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, were created during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar II (634 – 562 BC) in Mesopotamia. What is lost to history is how the gardens were watered although it is known they were irrigated. No irrigation = no civilisation! Simple!

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Qanats and aqueducts Qanats and aqueducts are both forms of irrigation in which water is carried from a source to where it is needed. Qanats: [pronounced kəˈnɑːt, i.e. k-nart from Oxford dictionary] I find these interesting. A qanat is an underground irrigation channel that conveys water from an underground water source in mountains to lower dry plains by gravity. Vertical shafts are placed every 20 – 30 metres to allow for the removal of debris from the tunnel. (As they are underground, there is almost no loss of water due to evaporation.) The first qanats were built in Ancient Persia (modern Iran) possibly before 1000 BC. Many are still in use today and at least 20 000 operate from China to Morocco. Toady, qanats still provide 75% of the water used in Iran. The pictures above show a cross-section of a qanat (top) and qanats viewed from the air (right). Roman aqueducts: These came later and can be both underground (like qanats) or above ground, and water is carried in stone channels or pipes. Unlike qanats, Roman aqueducts are no longer in use. The picture (right) shows the famous, but no longer used, Pont du Gard aqueduct in southern France (with Nadine having a swim in the river beneath the aqueduct). The other picture is the view from the top of the Pont du Gard, with the actual water channel under the stone covering. (Both are my photos!) Website The water below: The story of qanats https://www.aramcoworld.com/pdf/2014/201405/files/assets/basichtml/page35.html City states During the Neolithic Age, once people began to settle, the population increased as did the number and size of villages. From 5000 BC to 3000 BC [chalolithic age] Mesopotania had become covered with small settlements. But around 4000 – 3500 BC, the larger ones had increased in size to become the world's first city states. (A city-state a city that with its surrounding territory, such as farms, forms an independent state; Singapore is a modern-day example.) One of these Mesopotanian city states is the well-knows Ur, at the mouth of the Euphrates River. Another was Mari (artist's impression, above right), much further north-west, also on the Euphrates

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(in modern Syria). Most Mesopotamian city-states were made out of mud brick due to a lack of stone and wood. The city states were often collected into an empire, but these rarely held together for long as the individual city states were always fighting each other (Mari was destroyed about 1800 BC in one of these wars). Although cities often did not survive, their civilisations/cultures did not die as succeeding rulers adapted the basic ideas of the cultures to meet their own needs. These city states constituted the first full civilisation as we would understand the term. In the step from village to city, a new community organisation was built based on division of labour. No longer were people just farmers; there were many kinds of workers just as in a city today. City states were ruled by a chief, warlord or king. Laws were needed to govern things such as land and water rights, and other social relations (quite different from nomad law that governs the theft of a sheep or goat). Thus a bureaucracy was needed to ensure all these laws could be implemented. The city-state was the typical political organisation in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean but not Egypt. Websites (optional) For more on civilisation and the city states of Mesopotamia. http://jmcentarfer.tripod.com/ch2_1.pdf http://www.penfield.edu/webpages/jgiotto/resources.cfm?subpage=1525827 http://ishk.com/HumanJourney/HistoryofWriting/?gclid=CMLWgL7F48YCFY6SvQodCZYFjQ http://www.angelfire.com/empire2/unkemptgoose/Civilization.html http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/government/polis.htm http://worldhistorymartinez.weebly.com/sumer---first-civilization.html Video Sumerian city states 4000 – 2300 BC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AiPRMp_6Kc Summary For those who are interested, the websites below contain useful summaries about ancient civilisations and include many of the topics discussed above. Websites 1. Ancient civilisations for kids: https://sites.google.com/site/1ancientcivilizationsforkids/ancient-history-before-civilizations 2. World History, beginning with Sumer, the world's first civilisation: http://worldhistorymartinez.weebly.com/sumer---first-civilization.html We now turn to three topics that Bronowski believes are very important in the ascent of man and which occupy three chapters in his book. These are: (1) Architecture, (2) Chemistry and (3) Mathematics The titles Bronowski uses for the topics are different from these.

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Architecture: from Mud to Plastic It is Bronowski's view that architecture shows the use of the imagination and creativity in Man and the changes in architecture over the ages show this. Architecture involves the use of physical materials and so involves matter that is visible. In Bronowski's book, his chapter on architecture is followed by the chapter that looks at what is inside matter and so is invisible and man's advances in understanding the invisible structure of matter, leading from working with stone to alchemy to chemistry and to the atomic theory. Natural materials for Stone Age houses In addition to living in caves and rock shelters, the first houses were just simple shelters, made from natural materials such as mud, straw, wood, bones, animal skins, stone, clay, lie and plaster. Houses were often temporary, due to the nomadic style of living. Here are examples using some of these materials:

Pictures, from left to right: About 0.4 mya. The picture shows a temporary wood tent (Homo erectus at that time) in southern France. A pit dwelling (partially dug into the ground and roofed over. The picture shows a reconstruction of the oldest pit dwellings, discovered in the Ukraine and dating back to about 12 000 BC. The houses were made of mammoth bones. The first mud bricks, formed using the hands, belong to the late Neolithic period and were found in Jericho dating to perhaps 9000 BC. The interior of a recreated mud brick house c. 7000 BC at a Neolithic settlement Çatalhöyük (Turkey). The houses were plastered and painted with scenes of humans and animals. Few sites (Jericho, for example) are older. Looks very modern, don't you think? The picture on the right is of an excavated dry stone houses in Scotland, Europe's most complete Neolithic village c. 3000 BC (the Neolithic arrived late in Europe!). According to Bronowski, the move from mud to stone was a very important step in the ascent of man, because through the splitting of stone (and wood) man learnt about the structure of stone (e.g. it splits easily along the grain), which later led to the start of theoretical science (see below on use of stone by Greeks onwards, and the later topic on Chemistry) Egypt / Greece: the BEAM We jump now about 2000 years to ancient Egypt and Greece. Before 650 BC, the now famous ancient Greek temples were built of wood, but after this date they began to be built of stone.

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Major buildings in Greece and also in Egypt, such as temples, were constructed using stone columns and beams. [Right] The Parthenon, in Athens, was built about 500 BC. [Left] Ruins of the Karnak complex at Luxor, Egypt. The site consists of several temples, many columns, pylons, obelisks, and avenues of sphinxes. Construction started about 2000 BC and was added to, with the majority built around 1500 BC. The use of the beam was a leap in the ascent of architecture as it allowed larger structures to be built. However, the beam has a major disadvantage; it cannot sustain great weight. If the pillars supporting a beam are far apart, the beam breaks under its own weight. Thus many close pillars are needed. So, inside there was little space and it was dark! For these reasons, the use of the beam got no further! Roman times: the ARCH: The Roman semi-circular arch was the next big advance in architecture. Structures were made of granite stone blacks with no cement needed to hold the blocks in place. It is the arch that holds the stones in place as the weight spreads down around the arch and down the pillars. So, unlike the beam structures of Egypt and Greece, narrower and fewer pillars are needed. The pictures show two examples of the use of the semi-circular arch.. Observe the arches and the rows of small, thin columns built in layers. These allow a tremendous weight to be supported. And the fact that they were built about 2000 years and are still standing, it testament to the usefulness of this arch. [Above, right] The Colosseum in Rome. [Right] The Aqueduct Segovia, Spain built by the Romans about 100 AD [my photo from a visit there!] Look back at picture of the Pont du Gard aqueduct (page 17), built in the first century AD and note the use of the same semi-circular arch. The Roman arch was used for centuries throughout the Near East and Arab countries, including Spain. The picture on the right shows the inside of the great mosque at Cordoba, Spain built in 785 AD [again, my picture]. Note the use of the Roman arch and the thin columns. The insides of buildings using the semi-circular are more spacious than Egyptian/Greek beam structures, but are still filled with masonry. So a new invention was needed. This came in Europe with the pointed arch.

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Gothic Cathedrals: the POINTED ARCH The pointed arch is based on the oval and not the circle. This seems to be a small difference but because of it, buildings can be higher, much more open to give more space and light. It was used in the construction of (so-called) Gothic cathedrals in the 12th and 13th centuries (that bore no relation whatsoever to the everyday buildings of the day)! The picture on the right shows Notre Dame cathedral in Paris (construction started in 1163, completed in 1345). [Note: The term "Gothic” architecture was originally a derogatory term meaning "crude and barbaric" that did not really relate to the historical Goths, who were a people living in Europe in the 3rd to 5th centuries.] One of the stunning achievements was that these huge buildings were constructed with basic tools and no knowledge of mathematics and most are still standing today! The advance was due to the use of a “flying buttress” to support the buildings. Compare a person pushing against a wall to stop it falling (as in the picture on the right) – this is the same idea. The pointed arch pushes through the arch to the outside of the building, so without this support of the buttress pushing against it, the cathedrals would collapse. This picture (right) shows flying buttresses on Notre Dame cathedral. Can you see them? Compare them with the person pushing against a wall. From this time on, no new basic principle of architecture was created until the invention of steel and reinforced concrete buildings in modern times. The tallest all-stone structure is the Washington Monument at 169 m, built in 1884. The tallest stone church in the world in in Ulm, Germany, started in 1377 and completed in 1890, its spire is 162 m in height [picture, right]. Again, can you see the flying buttresses? Very Gothic in construction showing how this architecture did not change much in the years since Notre Dame and other cathedrals were built. Steel and reinforced concrete These building materials were only possible because of a greater understanding of the chemistry of materials. Pure iron (like most pure metals) is weak but by adding impurities (in this case carbon), it gives a stronger material, the alloy steel. Once this was understood, the use of steel began in the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th Century. (See later in this essay for the Industrial Revolution – page 55ff.)

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[Picture, right] A model of the SS Great Britain. One of the first ships with a hull built of iron and the largest ship of her time. She was the first iron steamer to cross the Atlantic, which she did in 1845, in the time of 14 days. [Picture, left] The Woolworth building under construction in New York. Built with a steel frame and completed in 1913, it is 241 metres tall and is an example of an early US skyscraper. Stone buildings could not reach anywhere near that height as stone is not strong enough. Modern materials In the search for better construction materials, materials nowadays are actually designed for a structure. Two such modern materials are plastics and composites (or composite materials). [Picture, left] The Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Its weight includes 50% composite and 20% aluminium, (Metals used are alloys and not pure metals) Aluminium (alloy) is used for the wing and tail leading edges; titanium (alloy) is used mainly in engines and fasteners, while steel is used in various areas. Compare this with older aircraft which have mainly aluminium alloy airframes. Composites (or composite materials) are formed by combining materials together in a sandwich-like structure to form an overall structure that is stronger than the sum of the individual components [picture, right]. The primary composite in a Boeing 787 is a plastic reinforced with carbon fibres. Its advantage is that it is extremely strong but light in weight (and so makes an aircraft much more fuel efficient). Carbon composites are also finding application in an increasing number of high-end products that require stiffness and light weight, such as laptop cases (right). Note: Composites have actually been used for thousands of years. For example: The earliest man-made composite materials were straw and mud combined to form bricks for building construction. Plywood, made by gluing thin layers of wood at different angles, gives better properties than natural wood. First used by the Ancient Mesopotamians in 3400 BC. Concrete, in use for at least 2000 years, is a composite of cement + sand + stones + water. Website A site for those really interested in the history of composite materials. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_material#History

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The Ascent of Man: The path to Chemistry In the construction of mud and stone buildings, man only dealt with visible materials. But, with modern materials, a knowledge of the finer structure beneath the surface – at the level of atoms – is needed. In this section, we see how the opening up of the invisible structure of matter was done and how this was a major step in the ascent of man. Everything in the world, everything in the universe, is made of matter. People have always asked the question: What is matter made of? For thousands of years, people have believed that matter is made of elements. (An element is a single substance that cannot be broken down into any simpler substance.) Examples are copper, tin, iron, carbon, but not bronze, which is a mixture of two metals. Aristotle and other Greek philosophers, who lived about 2400 years ago, believed that everything is made up of the four elements: fire, air, earth and water. Other cultures, including the Chinese and Indian, had similar ideas. These pre-scientific ideas of elements lasted for a long time. Changes only began to be made about the mid-1500s, which eventually led to our modern scientific ideas of what matter is made of. And the study of matter is called Chemistry. Fire Man first used fire for practical uses, for example, for warmth, cooking, clearing land and keeping predators away. In the Age of Metals, fire was used to extract metals, one of the great technical steps in the ascent of man. As we saw earlier, metals became the backbone of civilised life. (Imagine life today without metals.) Man had learnt, that just as a knife can split open a rock, fire is a “knife” that can split open rocks to extract metals. The use of fire for extracting and alloying useful metals was the first source of our understanding of what matter is made of. The other was the study of alchemy (see next).

Alchemy The word "alchemy" comes from an Arabic word meaning "the chemistry", which itself means “the art of transformation”, originally from a Greek word meaning "fluids". [See the 'chem' in both 'alchemy' and 'chemistry'.] The art of alchemy (not a science as we think of it today) is ancient but changed from old alchemy to new alchemy in Europe in the 16th century when great changes were blowing up in Europe at this time, viz., the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution (page 35ff., 45ff.). The picture (right) is a reconstruction of an alchemist's laboratory of the late Middle Ages. - 23 -

With the rise of modern science in the 17th century, alchemy declined as its younger and scientific offshoot chemistry developed. Alchemy was however, a valuable and necessary phase in the development of modern chemistry. Alchemy was not directed at daily use (like the metals above). Its two main aims were: 1 to find the recipe for the Philosophers’ Stone, a legendary substance that reputedly could turn base metals into gold. 2 to find the elixir of life. [A base metal is a common metal not considered precious, such as copper, tin, or lead (in contrast to gold and silver). An elixir is a preparation believed to be capable of prolonging life.] Alchemists never achieved either aim, but along the way they did make some significant discoveries. They discovered five elements, as well as alcohol and many of the acids and alkalis we use today. They also perfected such basic chemical procedures as distillation and crystallisation. They also created a lot of the apparatus that is still used in chemistry laboratories today, labs that look quite similar to their labs.

Pictures [left to right] Distillation equipment used by a 3rd century Greek alchemist. Distillation equipment in a modern chemistry laboratory. Hasn't changed much in 1700 years! A famous painting of the discovery in 1669 of the element (white) phosphorus by the German alchemist Hennig Brandan (who was also a physician). Glass apparatus used by Isaac Newton. Yes, the world's greatest scientist – ever – also dabbled in alchemy (albeit secretly!). His apparatus also looks very modern. [More about Newton later – page 46ff..] Website Newton, the world's most famous alchemist. http://discovermagazine.com/2010/jul-aug/05-isaac-newton-worlds-most-famous-alchemist Alchemy was much occupied with gold, a metal important in all countries and cultures (especially for art) because of its lustre and because it does not tarnish (i.e. it is resistant to chemical attack, unlike, say iron, which rusts, or reacts with acids.) Because of this, alchemists believed gold was incorruptible and thus a symbol of immortality. Hence in the search to change base metals into gold, they were trying to change from the corruptible to the incorruptible. Thus, medicines to fight old age or prolong life contained gold. Alchemy was practised also in China. The picture (above, right) shows Ge Hong, a 4th century Daoist alchemist, brewing up pills of - 24 -

immortality. These elixir pills were melted together in a crucible using gold and other ingredients such as mercury, rare herbs and mushrooms. Alchemy also also a theory of what everything is made of. To many alchemists, the universe and the human body were believed to be made from just three elements – mercury, sulfur and salt. [Note: Mercury and sulfur are elements. Salt is not; it is a compound of two elements – sodium and chlorine – combined.] All metals were believed to “grow” inside the earth from mercury and sulfur. To other alchemists, all metals are a mixture of sulfur and mercury, while gold is a perfect balance of elements and if that balance can be found by mixing elements in the correct proportions – hey presto! – gold!! A modern note: We are made of stardust: Alchemists thought that elements can be changed into other elements. They are not entirely wrong. We now know that in the sun and stars, elements are made by changing smaller elements into larger ones. This starts with the simplest element, hydrogen, which changes into the next heaviest, helium. This continues to produce heavier elements such as carbon and oxygen up to the heaviest natural element uranium. In one chemistry textbook of mine, I include an exercise entitled “Are we made of stardust?” To view (or do) the exercise, go to the website below. Website Are we made of stardust? https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-VrJkhrRpl8Wk16MXhiWTg3TUk/view? usp=sharing From alchemy to chemistry: the Greeks were wrong! Fast forward about 250 years. With the birth of modern chemistry in the 18th century, alchemy declined. Gradually, scientists discovered that the four Greek elements – fire, air, earth and water are not elements. Fire and air Fire was found to be not an element but a process. Air was found to be a mixture of gases, some of which are elements. In 1774, Joseph Priestly (1733 – 1804), an English priest!, discovered one these gases which he called "dephlogisticated air" because until then, it was thought that burning involved some mystical substance called “phlogiston” (from the Greek word for burn) that was released during burning. Priestley told the great French chemist Antoine Lavoisier (1743 – 1798) about his discovery, who soon named this gas "oxygen". Lavoisier then showed that fire is not an element but a process – when substances burn, they combine with oxygen and give out heat. (Note the year Lavoisier died – he was executed during the French Revolution only because he was an aristocrat! See page 53.)

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Pictures [left to right] One painting (of many) of Joseph Priestley. Priestley's 1775 laboratory (in the lounge of his home! I wonder what his wife thought of this?). The apparatus Priestley used to prepare oxygen. A = the flask in which he heated mercury oxide, HgO, C = the flask in which he collected the oxygen gas formed when the mercury oxide was heated, E = the burner (to provide heat; no Bunsen burners then!). Numbers become involved: Lavoisier [pictured, right. with his wife] repeated Priestley's experiments. He also quantified the process. He found that when HgO is heated, it gives mercury (Hg) and oxygen. This can be reversed, that is, when mercury is heated in oxygen, HgO forms again. Lavoisier measured the volume of oxygen produced when HgO is heated; he then reacted mercury with the same volume of oxygen and obtained the same mass of HgO again! This was a very significant experiment in the ascent of man's understanding of matter. [See next] Atomic theory The most powerful idea in modern science is the idea of atoms. Some ancient Greeks had suggested the idea of atoms but little had come of it until about 1800 AD. That was when John Dalton (1766 – 1844) gave an explanation for Lavoisier's quantitative experiment as to why mercury and oxygen reacted in precise amounts. Dalton [pictured, right], was born into a poor Quaker family in England and became a school teacher at the age of 12!! Dalton's work resulted in his atomic theory published in 1805, one of the most important theories of all time. Like the Greeks, Dalton said that each element is composed of atoms. Also like the Greeks, atoms were indivisible (this is what the word “atom” means) but unlike the Greeks, the atoms of one element are different from those of other elements especially in their size and weight and that atoms can combine with other atoms. He also stated that elements combine in precise (i.e. mathematical) proportions. Example: Priestley and Lavoisier heated mercury oxide to get mercury and oxygen, and then the reverse, heating mercury in oxygen to obtain mercury oxide again. Using the symbols Dalton devised for the known elements of his time (pictured. right), he explained the reaction in terms of atoms as follows:

mercury

+

oxygen

--→

mercury oxide

This shows that one atom of mercury combines with one atom of oxygen to give one unit of mercury oxide. And because atoms have fixed weights: the weight of mercury + the weight of oxygen always gives the same weight of mercury oxide. On reversing this reaction, mercury oxide decomposes to give mercury and oxygen, again in the same - 26 -

proportions. Note: In Dalton's table of elements, the numbers shown represent atomic weights (not all are accurate). Also, some of the names for elements differ from those used today, for example, his Azote is the Nitrogen of today. From metals to alchemy to Dalton It is the exact arithmetic/numbers of the atoms that react together that makes of the atomic theory the foundation of modern chemistry and is a big leap forward in our understanding of matter. From the time of Dalton on, science advanced in leaps and bounds. The atomic theory is the profound result of all the work done in the past with copper, bronze, all the work and speculation about gold by alchemists, until it reaches its climax in Dalton. Note: Dalton is also noted for his research into colour blindness. He himself was colour blind and confused red and green. Do atoms really exist? Interestingly, about the turn of the 20th century (100 years after the Atomic Theory was published), there was a big argument as to whether atoms were actually real or not. Eventually it was agreed that they were. According to Bronowski, the ascent of man actually teetered on a fine balance, because, had the antiatomic idea won the day, advances in science would certainly have been set back by decades and perhaps a hundred years.

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The Ascent of Man: Mathematics Bronowski claims that mathematics is the most elaborated and sophisticated of the sciences. Here, we describe some of the progress/steps of mathematics from ancient times. Mathematics has been a ladder for mystical thought as well as rational thought in the intellectual ascent of man. The origin of mathematics Primitive peoples have a number system. (See also my earlier essay on “Cognitive and Social Development”, page 23). People may not have been able to count much beyond four, but they know that two things + two things always = four things. There is no place where we can say arithmetic began. But mathematics, that is, reasoning with numbers, is recent. It may have begun on the Greek island of Samos (close to the coast of modern Turkey – see map) by Pythagoras about 580 BC. Pythagoras (picture, left) was the founder of Greek mathematics and taught that nature is commanded by numbers (i.e. part of the mystical side of mathematics). Music and mathematics Pythagoras linked these two. He found that on a stringed instrument (e.g. harp, guitar, piano), sounds pleasing to the human ear correspond to exact divisions of the string by whole numbers. Start off with the sound of a whole string. If we halve the length of the string, the pitch is raised by exactly one octave. Halve the length again and the sound increases again by one more octave, and so on. This is why the fingers on a violin or guitar player move – to shorten or lengthen the string to produce different sounds. Picture (right): A Greek of the time of Pythagoras, playing an ancient lyre. Mathematics, music and heavenly bodies: The ancient Greeks believed that the heavenly bodies were carried round the earth on crystal spheres. Pythagoras and his followers believed that just as the sound of strings are controlled by simple numbers, this was a general principle of the universe as well: all nature must be controlled by (simple) numbers. Pythagoras proposed that the Sun, Moon and planets all emit their own unique “hum” (though not literally audible) and that the cosmos sings in harmony, the "Music of the Spheres" as they called it. This idea continued to appeal to thinkers about music until the end of the Renaissance. Note: We now know that space is full of sound. All of the planets and stars generate radio waves Inaudible to the human ear) that can be reproduced as sound. Contrary to popular belief, space is not a silent void, though its sounds probably do not fit into the exact numbers that Pythagoras was talking about. - 28 -

Video Go to this video to listen to the “music” some of the heavenly bodies produce: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obgeTFvdVqI The set square and the right angle: the idea of space The set square is an important instruments in the measurement of space (i.e. lengths, heights, 2dimensions, 3-dimensions). For thousands of years, people have used set squares for construction purposes. One side of the set square is for the horizontal, so that buildings are level/horizontal; one side is vertical (for gravity) so that buildings are vertical and do not lean. The picture (first right) shows an ancient Greek set square (and dividers). The other picture shows a set square being used for construction in ancient Babylonia. The theorem of Pythagoras The angle between the horizontal and vertical is a right angle (90o). But how did the ancients know how to make the angle precisely correct? (If they did not, their buildings would not be vertical!) The ancients knew (though how we have no idea) that certain lengths always formed right-angled triangles. For example, the Egyptians used a set square with the sides of the triangle of 3, 4 and 5 units. Ii was not until Pythagoras in about 550 BC was able to prove why such numbers work and not just for 3:4:5 but for every triangle that contains a right angle. (Note: the proof he used was quite different from that found in school textbooks today). His theorem is usually expressed as shown in the diagram, where a, b, and c are the lengths of the three sides (e.g. a = 3, b = 4, c = 5). Exercise 1. Do the calculation to show that the theorem of Pythagoras works for 3, 4, and 5. 2. The lengths 5:12:13 also make a right-angled triangle. Do the calculation to show this. To this day, the theorem of Pythagoras remains the most important single theorem is mathematics because it translates the space/real world in which we live (verticals and horizontals) into numbers. Go to the website below for a website that gives a proof that is probably similar to that devised by Pythagoras Website How Pythagoras probably proved his theorem. (Scroll down to the section on “Triangles” (from which the diagram on the right is taken). http://codon.com/a-lever-for-the-mind#triangles We have just looked a little at the idea of space. Now, we look at the idea of time. - 29 -

The ancients and time Ancient Greek (and Islamic) minds looked for what was static (unchanging) in the world, a timeless world of perfect order. For them, the perfect shape was the circle. Movement runs smoothly and uniformly (i.e. constantly, unvarying in speed) in circles. If movement is uniform, then planets, for example, move equal distances in equal times (as in the harmony of the spheres). This idea was generally accepted up to about the 16th century. Newton: Including time into mathematics No matter what the ancients might desire, movements in the real world are not uniform – sometimes they are fast, sometimes slow. Johannes Kepler (1571 – 1630) in about 1600 AD became convinced that the ancients were wrong and that motion of a planet is not circular and not uniform (i.e. moving at the same speed); the speeds of the planets can change – sometimes faster than at other times. For changing speeds, time becomes important. This requires a new mathematics. This new mathematics was invented by Isaac Newton (1643 – 1727, pictured right with one of his many famous quotes). It is called the calculus and is a major step in the ascent of man. [As this is not a mathematics tutorial and calculus is too complicated, we don't delve into it.] Pythagoras introduced numbers to describe space (lengths). Now, mathematics includes numbers that can describe time. Using his calculus, Newton derived laws of motion that were able to describe precisely the movement of any object. It also included the movement of the heavenly bodies (which was something Pythagoras and the ancients could not do; for them the movements were mystical, not rational/mathematical). Einstein: Is time travel possible? Travel in space is of course possible. Every time we walk, we are travelling through a space. But what about time? Can we travel into the future or into the past? Newton viewed time as always being the same no matter where you are, for example, sitting at home, in an aircraft, flying to another planet in a spaceship, that is, time is absolute. Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955, pictured right),using his mathematics, said this is not correct: time is different for different people depending on whether or not they are moving. That is, time is relative and not absolute (which is why Einstein's theory about this is called the Theory of Relativity). According to Einstein, for a person moving fast (such as in a plane or a spaceship), time is slower than for a person who is not moving (or moving slower, or sitting at home). Thus the watch of the person moving faster would be slower than for a person moving slowly or not moving. (Newton would say that the watches of all people would show the same time.) How to age more slowly: Take the Earth, which is spinning. At the equator, it is spinning very fast; at the North pole, it is moving very slowly. Thus, according to Einstein's Theory of Relativity, a person living at

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the equator is ageing more slowly than a person at the North Pole. (Of course, the difference is very, very small, so small that most clocks would not be able to detect it – but very accurate clocks do!). [This was proved in an experiment using a flat disc – like a music record – which is like the Earth squashed flat. One very accurate clock was placed at the centre (the “pole”) and another on the rim (the “equator”). Sure enough, as the disc turned, the clock on the rim kept time more slowly than the clock at the centre. So the centre is ageing faster than the rim with every turn. So, to keep yourself looking young, keep up your running exercise; while you are moving you are ageing more slowly than if you just sit around in the office all day! Also, live in a place on the equator, such as Singapore. So people living in Hong Kong age more quickly that those in Singapore!! Time travel: the case of the travelling twins Consider two twins. It is the year 2015. One twin stays at home on Earth. The other twin journeys into space in a very fast rocket, nearly as fast as the speed of light, before returning home. Afterwards, when the twins are reunited on Earth, the travelling twin is much younger, compared to his stay-at-home sibling. For example, if two years of flight-time have passed aboard the spaceship, according to the on-board clocks and calendars, the year is the rocket shows 2017 on its return to earth; this twin has aged just two years. On earth, however it may be 2045; a whopping 30 years may have passed between the spaceship's departure and its return (the actual time depends on the speed of the rocket and the time of the journey); this twin is now 30 years older. Thus, on returning from the journey, the rocket-traveller twin will arrive back in 2045 and so has travelled forward in time! But travelling back in time is impossible – at least according to our current scientific knowledge. [Notes: 1. You could never actually travel at the speed of light. Einstein's calculations also show that as the speed of an object increases, so does its weight/mass, and at the speed of light, the weight/mass would be infinite, which is impossible to achieve. Imagine if you weighed 300 kg, let alone an infinite weight! 2. Some argue that we don't actually travel into the future; the twin in the rocket just changed more slowly than his twin on the ground.] The work of Newton and Einstein deals with complicated ideas such as space and time. However, in the ascent of man, in terms of our understanding of nature, their contribution is immense; according to Bronowski, they are like gods.

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Knowledge makes prodigious journeys Knowledge often moves from one place to a new places where it further develops. For example, the mathematics of the ancient Greeks arrived in China less than 300 years later. The diagram (right) shows a proof of the Pythagorean theorem (as Pythagoras himself proved it) from the Zhou Bi Suan Jing (周髀算 經) and is one of the oldest Chinese mathematical texts dating from perhaps 300 BC. The movement of knowledge is particularly important when cultures/civilisations fade or die. If it didn't, their knowledge would be lost. The ancient world was much more global, much more interlinked than we often imagine. There was a lot of trade and at the same time, knowledge of techniques (e.g. metals) and ideas, etc. were exchanged. Consider mathematics. The work of Pythagoras and other Greeks did not come to us directly. Under Alexander the Great (356 – 323 BC), the Greek empire expanded across the Near East, including Egypt. There, in the city of Alexandria (named after Alexander), Euclid, a Greek mathematician (pictured, right) was active in about 300 BC. He is famous for his book Elements, which served as the main textbook for teaching mathematics (especially geometry) from then until the 20th century. (My geometry book at secondary school was almost identical to that of Euclid's book!) Now consider astronomy. Also in Alexandria, Ptolemy c. 150 BC (pictured, far left) proposed a model of the heavens with the Earth at the centre and the planets moving in circles around the Earth because (as we said earlier), the ancient Greeks thought that perfect motion is a circle (pictured, left). This model later became an article of faith/truth for Islam and Christianity through the Middle Ages and was to be the cause of a tremendous conflict between the Roman Catholic Church and Science. (This is discussed later in the essay when the Renaissance and Galileo are introduced – page 35ff. and 41ff. respectively). Ideas often requires a new impulse in order to spread When the Greek empire was defeated by the Romans, the importance of Alexandria faded. But eventually Greek knowledge did spread. However, it needed a stimulus for this to happen. One important impulse was the rise of Islam in the 7th century. At that time, Islam spread to Spain in the west and to the borders of China in the east. Baghdad (in modern Iraq) was then the centre of learning (while Europe lapsed in the Dark Ages and knew nothing of the knowledge of Pythagoras and other Greeks). The Science/Knowledge of the nations conquered by Islam, including Greece and Rome (and Alexandria), was collected and spread. For example, the first domed mosque was built with no more sophisticated apparatus than the

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ancient set square, knowledge from the ancients that Islam had gathered. This was in Mecca in about 630 (though the actual date unknown). This mosque has been rebuilt many times and the picture above shows the current mosque after further radical enlargement in 2010. Number systems: The most important innovation brought from afar was the writing of numbers, leading to new symbols for numbers. The decimal system, which originated in India in about 750 BC, invented the zero. This was a much better system than the Roman notation, which has no zero (pictured, right – see, no zero!). From India, the decimal system with its zero went first to Islamic/Arab countries then to Europe, though it took about 500 years following Roman times to take hold in Europe! The decimal system with the zero was a big leap in how arithmetic can be done. Take an example, 369 + 160: 369 + 160

is much easier to do than using Roman numbers

CCCLXIX +

CLX

which is almost impossible to understand!

In Spain, Islam faded in about 1492 and Christianity surged back by about 1000 AD. In the town of Toledo, Moors (Muslims from North Africa), Jews and Christians mingled and enriched each other's cultures. Toledo became the intellectual port of entry into Christian Europe of all the classics that the Arabs had brought together from Greece, Rome, the Middle East and from Asia. Ancient texts were translated from Greek (which Europe had forgotten) through Arabic and Hebrew into Latin, which was the lingua franca, (i.e. the language widely used in Europe as a means of communication among speakers of other languages), at least among intellectuals, just as English is a lingua franca today. The picture (above) is the cathedral of Toledo, which was a famous translation centre during the 12th century (my pic, during a visit to Toledo). In the next section, we look at the Renaissance, which is usually thought of as beginning in Italy in the 1500s. However, the conception of the Renaissance was probably in places such as Toledo 300 to 400 years before it began in Italy.

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FOUR MAJOR PERIODS IN THE ASCENT OF MAN We now turn to four (overlapping) periods in history that have had immense ramifications for the ascent of man. They are: 1. The Renaissance, 2. the Scientific Revolution, 3. the Enlightenment, and 4. the Industrial Revolution. The time-line below shows the approximate time spans for these periods. Note: There is a lot of disagreement about the precise times. Anyway, they do not have a sudden beginning or end. People did not suddenly wake one day and say ”Wow! We're now in the Renaissance” or go to sleep one night about 1800 and say “Well, that's the end of the Enlightenment. What period will we wake up to tomorrow?” No, there is a usually gradual transition over many years from one period to another. And, one period usually overlaps others. Approximate time-line for these four periods ___________________________________________________________________________________ 1300

1400

1500

1600

1700

1800

1900

←-------- The Renaissance --------> (1400 – 1650)

←------ Scientific Revolution ----→ (1543 – 1800)

← Enlightenment → (1680 – 1815)

←-- Industrial Revolution - - - (1760 – ……)

___________________________________________________________________________________ We begin by looking at the Renaissance.

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THE RENAISSANCE ca. 1400 – 1650 In order to adequately discuss the period known as the Renaissance, some comments need to be made about the period the immediately preceded it, viz. the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages Website The middle ages: Time-line http://www.ducksters.com/history/middle_ages_timeline.php The Middle Ages, also called Medieval Times, or even the Dark Ages (in Europe) was a long period of history of nearly 1000 years! It covers the time from the fall of the Roman Empire to the beginning of the Renaissance, that is from approximately 500 AD to 1400/1500 AD. (The Dark Ages often refers to just the first half of the Middle Ages – from 500 to 1000 AD.) After the fall of the Roman Empire, a lot of the Roman culture and knowledge was lost. This included art, technology, engineering, and history. Historians know a lot about Europe during the Roman Empire because the Romans kept excellent records of all that happened. However, the time after the Romans is "dark" to historians because of this loss. This is why historians call this time the Dark Ages. The Middle Ages was a time of castles and peasants, guilds and monasteries, cathedrals and crusades. Great leaders such as Joan of Arc and Charlemagne were part of the Middle Ages as were major events such as the Black Plague and the rise of Islam. Power of the church Throughout the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic church held almost all the civil and religious power. The local church was the centre of town life. Rarely before or after did the Roman Catholic Church have as much power as it had during those thousand years. The Church became very rich, very powerful, very corrupt and also very cruel. With its Inquisition, people branded as heretics were often tortured and killed (see the pictures above of a person being tortured on the rack (left, and a person being burnt at the stake (right). Such harsh injustices would eventually offend and scare Europeans into change. Science at this time Science, though encouraged by the Church in the late Middle Ages as a form of piety and appreciation of God’s creation, was frequently regarded as heresy, and those who tried to explain miracles and other matters of faith faced harsh punishment or death.

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Society Society was highly hierarchical, with serfdom a widespread practice. There were no such things as personal liberties or rights, and many Europeans feared religion –- either at the hands of an unmerciful God or at the hands of the sometimes brutal Church itself. This changed during the Enlightenment (see page 49ff.). A key event in the ascent of man In 1440, the German inventor Johannes Gutenberg perfected his the printing press. Some regard this as the signal for the start of the Renaissance. This was one of the most important inventions OF ALL TIME because of its effect on the ascent of man. It enabled large numbers of people to read. This was indeed revolutionary! Before this time, few people other than monks and intellectuals knew how to read and write. Books also helped to spread new scientific discoveries, allowing scientists to share their work and to learn from each other. The picture shows a replica of Gutenberg's press. What was the renaissance? The Renaissance began at the end of the Middle Ages. It lasted from the 15th century to the early 17th century in Europe. It bridged the time between the Middle Ages and modern times. The word "renaissance" means "rebirth". It was a major turning point in Western civilisation because of developments in Science, Philosophy, Art and even social behaviour. During the Renaissance, the Roman Catholic church became less influential in the daily lives of people. This led to the Reformation and its attempts to reform the Catholic church. Following the renaissance, there was the scientific revolution. During the Renaissance, people became more secular and the church gradually became out of touch with a rapidly growing middle class living in cities (rather than the countryside) and becoming increasingly educated. Why did the renaissance come about? The Renaissance was a time of "coming out of the dark". It was a rebirth of education, science, art, literature, music, and a better life for people in general. It came about because of a change in the way of thinking. In an effort to learn, people began to want to understand the world around them. This study of the world and how it works was the start of a new age of science. The start of the Renaissance was also the end of the Middle Ages. The Renaissance began in Italy. Why? Petrarch (1304 – 1374) was an Italian poet, who was fascinated by the ideas of ancient Greek and Roman philosophers. His looking back to these ancient times (often regarded as a glorious time) helped to initiate the Renaissance.

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The Renaissance really got going in Florence, Italy, around the years 1350 to 1400, and spread to other city-states in Italy. Part of the reason it began in Italy was because of the history of Rome and the Roman Empire, reminders of which were all around them (often just the ruins!). People looked back to ancient Rome for ideas in art (painting and sculpture), poetry and writing. They believed that answers to issues of the present could be found in books and ideas from ancient Greece and Rome. Another reason it began in Florence was because the city had become very wealthy and those with wealth were willing to spend their money supporting artists and geniuses. Art began to flourish and new thoughts began to emerge. All this spread to other city-states throughout Italy then to Europe and so the Renaissance spread. Architecture Looking back to the Roman and Greek times for inspiration is especially evident when people were designing buildings. Much of Renaissance architecture style was taken from Ancient Rome and Greece and then altered to fit the current lifestyle. Shown on the right is St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, a prime example of Renaissance architecture. Look at the columns and the arched dome. Do they look Roman? Video The start of the Renaissance The video refers to Petrarch and the architecture of ancient Rome that lay all around in Italy. http://www.history.com/topics/italian-renaissance/videos/humanism-triggers-the-renaissance Website How the renaissance began? http://www.ducksters.com/history/how_did_the_renaissance_start.php Time-line for the renaissance: http://www.ducksters.com/history/renaissance/timeline_of_the_renaissance.php Time-line for the Renaissance 1341 Petrarch, an Italian poet, becomes Poet Laureate of Rome. 1400 – 1500: Early Renaissance 1419 The Italian architect Brunelleschi (regarded as the first Renaissance architect) designs the dome for the Florence Cathedral. [Right] The dome above the cathedral of Florence designed by Brunelleschi, the largest dome built since Roman times.

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1434 The Medici family becomes the head of the city state of Florence. 1440 Johannes Gutenberg invents the printing press. 1469 Lorenzo de Medici (pictured, right) becomes head of the city state of Florence. He was one of the great patrons of the arts. 1495 – 1527: High Renaissance 1495 Leonardo da Vinci paints the Last Supper (pictured page 34). 1501 Michelangelo begins his work on the sculpture David. 1503 Leonardo da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa. 1508 Michelangelo begins his painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican (pictured, right). 1509 Henry VIII becomes king of England. 1510 Nicolaus Copernicus suggests that the planets orbit the Sun and not the Earth. 1517 Martin Luther posts his 95 theses (points) on the door of the Church of Wittenberg. This signalled the start of the Reformation. 1520 – 1650: Later Renaissance: 1534 Henry VIII separates the Church of England from the Catholic Church of Rome. 1558 Elizabeth I becomes Queen of England. 1599 William Shakespeare builds the Globe theatre. 1610 Galileo discovers the moons of Jupiter with his telescope. 1633 Galileo put on trial for confirming the idea of Copernicus. Humanism Petrarch was the first to suggest the idea of humanism. Humanism (from “human”) is a way of thinking that stresses the human rather than the divine or the supernatural. Humanist beliefs stress the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasise common human needs, and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems, rather than being told by those in authority). Humanism was a big part of the Renaissance. In the Middle Ages people thought that life was supposed to be hard. They grew up thinking that life was nothing but hard work and war. With humanism, there was a change in the way people thought about things. The Mona Lisa – shown here – is perhaps the world's most famous painting. It was painted during the Renaissance between, 1503 and 1506. They started to think that people should be educated and that things such as art, architecture, literature, music, and science could make life better for everyone. This was a real change in the way people thought. It was also okay for people to enjoy life and to pursue comfort, riches, and beauty.

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Don't spit! People (at least aristocratic men!) were now trained in civilised manners for everyday social living. Up till then, people behaved as their fancy took them: spitting and belching in public, blowing their noses anywhere, throwing the contents from their “chamber pots” out the window and shouting abuse at one another. Now they were taught how to behave, and books of etiquette began to appear (see pictures).

The Reformation The Reformation occurred towards the end of Renaissance times. It was a split in the Catholic Church where a new type of Christianity called Protestantism was born. (The word “protestant” is formed from the word “protest” because of the people who protested against the practices of the Roman church.) The reformation was helped in large part by the printing press. Because of the printing press, many Bibles and other books were printed and distributed allowing more and more people to become literate and educated. Martin Luther Martin Luther – Leader of the Reformation (left) The 95 theses Luther wanted to make (right) Martin Luther, a monk in the Roman Catholic Church in Germany began to question the practices of the Church as he studied the Bible. He found many areas where he felt the Bible and the Catholic Church disagreed. On October 31st 1517, Luther took a list of 95 points (called “theses”) where he thought the Church had gone wrong and nailed it to the door of a Catholic Church. Reform spreads through Northern Europe Many people agreed with Martin Luther that the Catholic Church had become corrupt. Much of northern Europe (including what we now call Germany) began to separate from the Catholic Church. Several new churches were formed such as the Lutheran Church and the Reformed Church. Also, new reform leaders, such as John Calvin in Switzerland, spoke out against the Catholic Church. In 1534, the reformation arrived in England, but for a different reason. Henry VIII (pictured, right) wanted to divorce his first wife, but the Pope would not allow it. The solution? Separation from the Catholic Church of Rome to form the (protestant) Church of England!

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English Renaissance One of the last areas of Europe to experience the Renaissance was England. The peak of the English Renaissance occurred during the reign of Elizabeth I (the second or two daughters of Henry VIII). During her time as Queen, England experienced peace and prosperity. A very important aspect of the English Renaissance was the Globe theatre, which included the plays of William Shakespeare (pictured, right, with its open-air stage). Websites Famous people of the renaissance: http://www.ducksters.com/history/renaissance_famous_people.php History of the renaissance: This is a very useful, and simple, site about the renaissance. I used material from it. You could look at it to revise what you have read and to extend your knowledge: http://www.ducksters.com/history/renaissance.php The Protestant Reformation encouraged not only religious thought but also scientific thought (as most scientists were also religious people) and played a part in the scientific revolution (after next topic) and it is no coincidence that many of these developments occurred in England. Refer to the video “Isaac Newton and a Scientific Revolution” (at end of the topic on the scientific revolution, page 47ff.).

Advances in Knowledge, then Silence! (...twice!) As mentioned above, the Roman Catholic Church of the time held most of the religious and civil power. People opposed the Church at their peril if they had views, religious or scientific, that the Church disapproved of. The punishment was often physical torture and death, especially death by burning at the stake. The famous scientist Galileo Galilei (pictured, right) was one such scientist and astronomer who clashed with the Church because of his views on the Solar System. Advances in Astronomy led to Silence Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 – 1543): In 1510, the distinguished Polish priest, lawyer, doctor and mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus, suggested that the Sun and not the Earth was at the centre of the solar system. This was rather a dangerous proposal to be made at the time (and doubly so as he was a priest) as the Catholic church had decided that the Greek system of Ptolemy had not been invented by a Greek but by God. And at that time, you did not oppose Church doctrine, for fear of your life. It was only in 1543 that Copernicus published his ideas. He died in the same year and only saw the book when it was put into his hands on his deathbed. - 40 -

Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642) born in the same year as Shakespeare. Galileo lived for a while in Venice (which was rather a tolerant city in which people were free to work). He never married but still had three children!! In 1609, Galileo made the first powerful telescope (not the first!) and with it was able to look at the moon, discover the four satellites (moons) of Jupiter, observe a supernova, and discover sunspots. These discoveries led him to believe the Copernican system that the earth and other planets revolve around the sun was correct. (Pictured, left) A replica of Galileo's telescope in Florence, with the cathedral in the background. This view did not please the prejudice of the establishment (Roman Catholic church) of his day. The Church believed that its doctrines alone should dominate; Galileo however believed that scientific findings should also be considered. A clash was inevitable! In 1633, Galileo was put on trial in front of the Inquisition (as the Church court was called) for his “false” beliefs. Such trials always had a predetermined outcome – guilty! Unlike others however, he was not tortured (to death); he was just shown instruments of torture and threatened, and his imagination could do the rest. He spent the rest of his life under house arrest. Galileo's trial and imprisonment led to a total stop in the study of science in the Mediterranean area. Total silence! Scientists were just too frightened. From then on, science moved to those parts of Northern Europe that were not under the control of the Catholic Church. Galileo died, still a prisoner in his house, in 1642. On Christmas day of the same year, in England, Isaac Newton was born. A different political and religious outlook in England allowed for the flowering of science there. Websites Galileo. http://www.ducksters.com/biography/scientists/galileo_galilei.php Renaissance astronomy. http://www.ducksters.com/history/renaissance_astronomy.php Video Galileo and his trial http://www.history.com/topics/galileo-galilei

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Cartoon strip: Life of Galileo For some excerpts on the life of Galileo, in comic-strip fashion, that I included in science books I have written, turn to page 44. Silence again in the 20th century Don't think clashes only occurred in the distant past. They still happen! In the 20th century, in Nazi Germany, anybody, who opposed Hitler and the beliefs of the Nazi Party, including scientists, suffered punishment and in some cases, extermination! One aim of science is to give an exact picture of the world. An important achievement in physics in the 20th century was to show that that is unattainable. (Bronowski explains this with the analogy of a blind person feeling a face to get an (unattainable) exact “picture” of the face.) German physicists in the 1920s were saying that all information is imperfect, there are errors in measurements and no two people observe the same thing in the same way, whether it is the stars, atoms (which we cannot see anyway) or people's faces (whether we are blind or not). There is always some uncertainty in what we can know. This is called the Principle of Uncertainty. Despite the huge advances in scientific understanding of the world, the knowledge obtained is never 100% correct. Knowledge is always limited and uncertain. Hitler and his Nazi Party in Germany in the 1930s, like the Catholic Church of earlier times, were certain that their ideology (especially Nazi racial ideology) was absolutely correct. Scientists with uncertainty of knowledge versus Hitler and his absolute certainty! Learning and freedom of imagination in Germany was destroyed. Silence fell, as after the trial of Galileo. Another clash was to occur, but fortunately, many of the scientists and other intellectuals managed to flee abroad, most to England or the United States. Being absolutely certain that knowledge is correct is destructive. In Nazi Germany, absolute certainty of beliefs led to the concentration camps and the extermination of about 11 million people!! Bronowski discusses this at length in his book.

The photograph on the left, shows prisoners at Auschwitz concentration camp prior to their extermination. (There are more gruesome pictures on the Internet.) They were there because Hitler and the Nazi Part believed Jews, gypsies and others were racially inferior and so needed to be exterminated.

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[Left] Combined gas chambers and crematorium (for cremating bodies after death in a gas chamber).

[Right] Bronowski at Auschwitz. What he is picking up from the pond is not mud but human ashes, which includes those of some of his own family! (See Video below.)

Video Bronowski at Auschwitz (last few minutes of Episode 11). What he says is the same as in the book page 374), which includes the scene at the ash pond in the photo above right. In it, he takes pains to convince us to always say we could be wrong. This is a very powerful and emotional video that some people have found difficult to watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXwj4jMnWZg Definitely not steps in the ascent of man! Can anything be done to prevent this sort of thing? We return to this in the last section of this essay (starting at page 66).

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THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION c. 1543 – c. 1800 The scientific revolution was major step in the ascent of man. When did the scientific revolution occur? The scientific revolution began in Europe towards the end of the Renaissance period and continued through to the late 18th century, influencing the intellectual social movement known as the Enlightenment (see the next topic). While its dates are disputed, the publication in 1543 of Nicolaus Copernicus's De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) is often cited as marking the beginning of the scientific revolution, and its completion is attributed to the publication of Isaac Newton's Principia in 1687 (see below). Website (optional) Time-line for the scientific revolution. http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/scientificrevolution/timeline.html What was the scientific revolution? The scientific revolution (as agreed by most historians) was the emergence of modern science when developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology (including human anatomy) and chemistry occurred and transformed our understanding of nature. The amount of new knowledge that emerged during this time was staggering (compared with what came before, but of course much less than is being produced today). Before this time nature was regarded as unknowable. The Church (as we saw above) was the ultimate authority about how the world worked and what people should believe. Now upstart scientists, such as Galileo are saying “No! No one, no ruler can tell us what reality is. We have to use our reason to find out for ourselves and to separate myths/beliefs/claims from what is real.” This kind of thinking was very, very revolutionary! Naturally, it led to a lot of scepticism towards the Church and what it was telling people to believe, especially about natural phenomena, such as the sun and the planets moving around the earth. The method that evolved to explore nature came to be called the scientific method. It resulted in a fundamental change in scientific ideas in our picture/understanding of the universe. Video: An interesting video which discusses many of the same things mentioned above. http://www.history.com/topics/enlightenment/videos/mankind-the-story-of-all-of-us-scientific-revolution? m=528e394da93ae&s=undefined&f=1&free=false

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Pre-scientific method From the time of Aristotle (pictured below right) and the ancient Greeks, people made observations of phenomena (e.g. the Sun and planets) and then used reason/thought to explain them. They did not do experiments. The best argument won and was accepted. Anything that seemed to contradict their conclusions were aberrations and were dismissed. So, as it seemed “logical” that the earth was the centre of the solar system, that became accepted “truth”. The scientific method The scientific method was not invented by one person, but was developed by different scientists and philosophers over the years. It is rooted in alchemy (see earlier). Galileo used it, before the term was coined. It aims to seek natural (rather than supernatural) explanations. And the key step in the method is the use of experiments to decide if something is right or wrong instead of a human deciding by thinking/arguing alone about an explanation as was the case in pre-scientific times. So, how does scientific method work? If you would really like to know, go to the link in the box below. It includes material that I have used in Chemistry textbooks I have written. Link The Scientific Method. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-VrJkhrRpl8X2NfaUc4S2hHdlE/view?usp=sharing Isaac Newton and the Scientific Method Isaac Newton (1642 – 1727) (or 1643 new calendar), made big contribution to the development of scientific method. The study of Physics really began with Newton (pictured, right – wearing a wig, as men people did in those days). Building upon the work of his predecessors, such as Copernicus and Galileo, he conducted experiments in physics and astronomy that revealed a number of natural laws, including gravity that had previously been credited to divine forces. He was able to explain the workings of the universe using this one idea of gravity. In 1687, Newton Published his book Philosophia Naturalis Principia Mathematica, often called simply the Principia, perhaps the most important book in the history of science. In it, he explains the laws of motion, and also lays out a model of the universe based of the idea of gravity. The Principia remains the basis of modern physics and astronomy. The picture (right) shows Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition (scarcely visible on the left-hand page). - 46 -

a

Website Biography of Isaac Newton. http://www.ducksters.com/biography/scientists/isaac_newton.php Videos Isaac Newton and a scientific revolution – and all his other interests besides physics and mathematics, such as alchemy, Biblical study/translation and predicting when the end of the world will happen: http://www.history.com/topics/enlightenment/videos/isaac-newton-and-a-scientific-revolution Newton and the law of gravity: http://www.history.com/topics/enlightenment/videos/beyond-the-big-bang-sir-isaac-newtons-law-ofgravity This inIncludes an interesting quote relating to all the other things that Newton did, besides Physics and Maths: “Thank God otherwise he would have finished the whole of Physics by himself in the 1700s and there would be nothing for us to do”. Cartoon strip: Life of Newton For some excerpts on the life of Isaac Newton, in comic-strip fashion, that I included in science books I have written, turn to the next page. [For those scientifically minded, the scientific unit for force – the Newton (N) – is named in honour of Isaac Newton.] The Scientific Revolution, spearheaded by Newton coincided with the Age of Enlightenment, which we turn to now.

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THE ENLIGHTENMENT 1680s – 1815 The word “Enlightenment” comes from “light” referring to illumination. The Age of Enlightenment (or simply the Enlightenment, or Age of Reason) is an era from about the 1650s to the 1780s that swept through Europe and which emphasised human reason, analysis, and individualism rather than traditional lines of authority. (France’s Enlightenment came a bit later than in other places, in the mid-1700s.) The Enlightenment challenged the authority of institutions that were deeply rooted in society, especially the Catholic Church and monarchies. It is important to note that there was no unified Enlightenment. Individual Enlightenment thinkers in different countries often had very different approaches. Not everyone participated in the Enlightenment, especially the many uneducated, rural citizens. But even their time would come, as the Enlightenment also prompted the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, which provided rural dwellers with jobs and new cities in which to live. Reasons for the Enlightenment Reasons include the scientific revolution plus centuries of mistreatment at the hands of monarchies and the church, which brought average citizens in Europe to a breaking point, and the most intelligent and vocal citizens finally decided to speak out. The Age of Enlightenment was a product of the Renaissance, but also resulted from an increase in literacy due to a departure from reading solely religious texts. Literacy rates increased a lot during the 18th century. People began to embrace the idea that humanity could be improved through rational change. Effects of the Enlightenment Effects of the Enlightenment included a loss of faith in traditional religious sources of authority and a turn toward human rights, science, and the so-called "democratic republic". It also produced three major revolutions: the Industrial Revolution (which Bronowski calls the English revolution), the United States Revolution (independence from England and its monarchy) and the French Revolution (which toppled the monarchy). Enlightenment ideas strongly influenced the Constitution of the United States.

“We the People ...”. Opening words of the US Constitution, 1787

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Interestingly, there was no similar toppling of the monarchy in England at this time; this was probably because of the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 (see below). By the late Enlightenment there was a rising demand for a more universal approach to education, particularly after the American and French Revolutions. The picture (right) is of an 18th century English(?) school room (though, I suspect, not one that you or I would have been allowed to attend!). The Enlightenment was also marked by the rise of capitalism and the wide availability of printed materials. The three main periods of the Enlightenment The enlightenment is sometimes divided into three periods: the early enlightenment, the high enlightenment and the late enlightenment. The Early Enlightenment: 1685-1730 This was the time of the scientific revolution and included scientists such as Galileo (in Italy) and Newton (in England). Also important at this time was the English philosopher John Locke (1632 – 1704), one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers (pictured, right). His writings and ideas provided a “tool-kit” for the Enlightenment’s major advances. Locke argued that human nature and thinking about truth was liable to change and so knowledge/truth could only gained through accumulated experience and scientific method rather than by accepting some sort of outside truth (such as church doctrine or the decrees of kings). Locke also argued against slavery (except for captives during a war). Francis Hutcheson (1694 – 1746), the father of the Scottish Enlightenment, was another philosopher, who had similar ideas to those of Locke, and who championed political liberty and the right of popular rebellion against tyranny. You may be able to guess where all these “dangerous” ideas might be leading! Website More about John Locke. http://europe.historyforkids.org/philosophy/locke.htm The High Enlightenment: 1730-1780 Some key dates: 1776: The United States “Declaration of Independence” was signed (pictured, far right). The principal author of the Declaration was Thomas Jefferson (pictured, near right), a philosopher and

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the third President of the United States. Jefferson used ideas from John Locke’s essays to frame the declaration, especially "All men are created equal," and his support of democracy in theory and practice. 1776: Adam Smith (1723 – 1790), the “father” of capitalism, in his important book Wealth of Nations (1776), advocated liberty in the sphere of commerce and the global economy. The Late Enlightenment and beyond: 1780-1815 1775 – 1783: US War of Independence. from Britain. 1789 – 1799: Period of the French Revolution. The French Revolution of 1789 was the culmination of the High Enlightenment vision of throwing out the old authorities (monarchy) to remake society along rational lines. However, it collapsed into terror, with people turning against its leaders (and everyone else). The chaos led to rise of Napoleon about 10 years later. The French Revolution began on July 14th, 1789, when mutinous troops stormed and destroyed the Bastille, a royal fortress that had come to symbolise the tyranny of the monarchs. Pictures: [Left] Me standing on pavement stones marking the location of the Bastille. [Right] The execution of Louis XVI, the king of France in 1793. The End of the Enlightenment Ultimately, the Enlightenment fell victim partly to competing ideas from several sources. Its was less appealing to less-educated common folk than to intellectuals and pulled them away from the scientific ideas of earlier Enlightenment philosophers. But what ultimately and abruptly killed the Enlightenment, however, was the French Revolution. Begun with the best intentions by French citizens inspired by Enlightenment thought, the revolution attempted to implement orderly a representative government but quickly degraded into chaos and violence. Many people cited the Enlightenment-induced breakdown of previously accepted ways of authority and life as the main cause of the instability and saw the violence as proof that only an “aristocracy” (e.g. church, kings), rather than the masses could, be trusted to govern themselves. Nonetheless, the ideas of the Enlightenment philosophers have continued to influence Western society. As to its end, most scholars use the last years of the century – often choosing the French Revolution of 1789 or the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars (1804–15) as a convenient time to date the end of the Enlightenment. Other effects of the Enlightenment Enlightened despots The Enlightenment broke through "the sacred circle," that is, the relationship between the hereditary aristocracy + the leaders of the church, + the text of the Bible. This interrelationship manifested itself as

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kings claiming for themselves the doctrine of "Divine Right of Kings" to rule (i.e. God and the Church put them there to rule). Thus, the church sanctioned the rule of the king and in return the king defended the church. The Enlightenment was an age of enlightened despots (well, some of them!). One was Frederick the Great (reigned 1740 – 1786), who unified, rationalised and modernised Prussia (a state in what is now Germany). Catherine the Great in Russia (reigned 1762 – 1796) played a key role in fostering the arts, sciences, and education. She promoted education and the Enlightenment among the elite. She kept up a correspondence with many figures of the Enlightenment in Europe. Note: They may have been “enlightened” but that did not extend to abdicating and letting “the people” take over. Catherine, in fact, made sure that the poor, downtrodden Russian serfs remained that way! The Glorious Revolution (1688) About 1690, John Locke promoted a government that represented the people, just the opposite to a monarchy. He proposed a Separation of Power – that power in government should be divided into separate branches – typically legislative, judicial, and executive – in order to ensure that no one branch of a governing body could gain too much authority. Locke’s message was close to the English people’s hearts and minds. Just before the turn of the century, in 1688, English Protestants helped overthrow the Catholic king James II and installed the Protestant monarchs William and Mary in a bloodless coup. (William was from Holland.) This was called the Glorious Revolution and it established the supremacy of parliament over the monarchy. The government then introduced a new Bill of Rights that granted more personal freedoms. The new monarchs, William and Mary (pictured), now with their “divine right” to rule gone, also allowed the additional personal liberties necessary for the Enlightenment to truly flourish. Meeting places and secret societies Coffee-houses, newspapers and literary salons became very popular at this time, where people would discuss the ideas being proposed. It also saw the emergence of secret societies (e,g, the Freemasons, of which Mozart was a member) and debating societies as new venues for ideas to circulate. The picture shows an Enlightenment era coffee-house in London.

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Arts and music Because of the focus on reason over superstition, the Enlightenment cultivated the arts. Emphasis on learning, art and music became more widespread, especially with the growing middle class. The music of Haydn (pictured as a child) and Mozart, with their Viennese Classical styles, are usually regarded as being the most in line with Enlightenment ideals. Science The Enlightenment thinkers celebrated the accomplishments of a wide number of scientists ranging from the 16th century astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus to the 18th century mathematician and physicist Sir Isaac Newton. However, Enlightenment thinkers disagreed on the impact science was having. Some praised scientific progress as beneficial to prosperity and liberty while others, including the French writer and philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, complained that science contributed to inequality and created technology for violence. Religion The Enlightenment thinkers found both the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches oppressive. They mistrusted traditional religious beliefs such as miracles, divine intervention and the claim that Jesus was the son of God. ... the majority of thinkers and scientists were deists, that is, they believed God created the universe and then left it alone, like a giant clockwork machine. The picture shows a Clockwork Universe sculpture in Canberra, Australia (2009). Politics The Enlightenment thinkers promoted the political concept known as natural rights. (e.g. John Locke). People are born with certain rights that the government can not take away such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness mentioned in the American Declaration of Independence. The promotion of natural rights prepared the way for the American and French revolutions. However, the majority of Enlightenment thinkers worked towards gaining civil liberties, such as free trade, freedom of religion and freedom of expression, from Europe's existing kings. Individualism, Relativism, and Rationalism Ultimately, from all the scientific, cultural, social, and political developments in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries emerged three fundamental ideas that encompassed everything the Enlightenment would stand for. 1. First among these was individualism, which emphasised the importance of the individual and his inborn rights. 2. Second, relativism, the concept that different cultures, beliefs, ideas, and value systems had equal

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merit. 3. Finally, rationalism, the conviction that with the power of reason, humans could arrive at truth and improve the world. These three ideas reveal the fundamental concepts that would pervade the Enlightenment – man’s ability to reason, to look past the traditions and conventions that had dominated Europe in the past, and to make decisions for himself. Moreover, these ideas represented the separation of man’s intellect from God – a development that opened the door to new discoveries and ideas and threatened the most powerful of Europe’s long-standing institutions (the Church and monarchies). Websites For more on the Enlightenment, including material I have used, these links may be useful (as well as information I did not include). http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/enlightenment/context.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment http://www.ehow.com/info_10013841_age-enlightenment-kids.html Video For readers from the US, here is a video about Thomas Jefferson's: As a young man, Jefferson pursues an education based on the ideals of the Enlightenment and the ideas of John Locke. http://www.history.com/topics/enlightenment/videos/jeffersons-pursuit-of-knowledge Note: The College of William and Mary takes its name from the monarchs of the Glorious Revolution. Additional videos The Enlightenment: Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddVcJT63LrE Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7q5oT-X_PI Others: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8iohPnq9go

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INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION c. 1760 – (still continuing today) A brief time-line for the Industrial Revolution 1709 Coke first used to smelt iron. 1712 Newcomen steam engine invented. 1719 First textile mill (for silk) to form thread using water wheel; term “factory” first used. 1733 Flying shuttle for weaving machine invented (pictured, right); this speeded up weaving (though weaving still done by hand). _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

1760: [taken as the start of Industrial Revolution] 1761 First canal built in England. 1764 Spinning jenny (machine) invented (pictured, right); allowed one worker to spin eight times the previous amount of yarn (still a hand machine). 1769 Arkwright builds the first cotton spinning machine operated by water (and not by hand). 1771 Arkwright's first cotton factory for cotton spinning opens. 1776 First commercial Watt steam engine built. 1779 First iron bridge, the world's first iron structure. 1783 Arkwright uses Watt's steam engine in a cotton mill in Manchester. 1784 Large-scale production of iron now became possible. 1785 A steam engine successfully used in place of water to drive a cotton spinning machines directly (but not to drive the weaving looms). 1785 Water-powered weaving looms to replace hand driven looms introduced, though didn't work well for another 40 years. 1787 First iron boat (for use on the canal). 1788 Watt steam engine first used for weaving but not a success and closed in 1790. 1789 Steam-powered looms/weaving factory (on a small scale). 1804 First locomotive-hauled railway journey. 1810 Steam engine used to replace water wheel in a cotton mill. 1829 Stephenson’s Rocket locomotive. 1830 First commercial steam train service opened, between Liverpool and Manchester. [This is where we end. Of course, the Industrial Revolution continues.] Disclaimer: I cannot guarantee that this list is completely accurate. Many sources do not detailed or precise information to be certain of its validity, and also different sources do not always agree, e.g. dates. Still, it is a good guide for what took place. Video A brief overview of the Industrial Revolution (both England and the United States) http://webs.bcp.org/sites/vcleary/ModernWorldHistoryTextbook/IndustrialRevolution/IntroVideoIR.html

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Website A time-line for the Industrial Revolution. http://celestetmoc.weebly.com/industrial-period-timeline.html Time-line plus interesting summary. http://www.smithlifescience.com/33-3IndustrialRevolution.htm The importance of the Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution is a long series of changes beginning about 1760 in England (not long after the death of Newton in 1727) and spreading to Western Europe and North America within a few decades. It resulted in the most profound and far-reaching changes in the ascent of man. It is a step as huge as, if not more so, than the Renaissance. It marks a major turning point in history; almost every aspect of daily life was influenced in some way. Its influence continues to affect our lives today more than any event or development in the past 12,000 years. The Industrial revolution forms the triad of social revolutions of which the other two are the American Revolution (starting about 1775) and the French Revolution (that started in 1789). We are still in the Industrial Revolution. As Bronowski points out, we had better be, as there are many social problems it caused that need to be put right. Why is it called a revolution? The Industrial Revolution began in England's textile industry. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, manufacturing was often done in people’s homes in villages, by hand or using simple hand-powered machines. For example, cotton (and wool) was spun to form thread, the thread was weaved to give textiles/cloth. The cloth were used to make clothes, etc.

Then there was a transition to new manufacturing processes This transition included going from hand production methods machines and the movement of manufacturing to cities and large factories (which could handle the new larger machines). There was now mass production, which produced cheaper products. This was the industrial revolution. The Industrial Revolution is what makes the modern world, well, “modern.” It is almost impossible to imagine what our world would be like if the Industrial Revolution had not occurred. Electric lights would go out (only candles!). Cars and aircraft would vanish. Telephones, radios, and television would disappear Most of the abundant stocks on the shelves of stores would be gone. The children of the poor would have little or no schooling and would work from dawn to dark on the - 56 -

farm or in the home. Before machines were invented, work by children as well as by adults was needed in order to provide enough food, clothing, and shelter for all. It was also a social revolution that established social equality (introduced in the Enlightenment which was still under way), equality of rights and above all, intellectual equality (most of the Industrial Revolution was brought about by “ordinary” men, many of whom had little or no education). This relatively sudden change in the way people lived deserves to be called a revolution. It differed from a political revolution in its greater effects on the lives of people and in not coming to an end, as for example, did the French Revolution. Why did the Industrial Revolution start in England? By the end of the 18th century, Britain was the world leader in the production and export of manufactured goods. But trade grew more competitive, and the organisation of work in villages was no longer productive enough. There was a need for greater productivity. This was possible in England because of these factors: the enlightenment, cotton, colonies, coal, iron, steam, population growth and peace. The enlightenment: The Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution encouraged scholars and craftspeople to apply new scientific thinking to mechanical and technological challenges. Cotton: The cotton industry was a major driver of the Industrial Revolution. Prior to the revolution, England was a major producer and exporter of cotton goods. The manufacture of these goods was done primarily in people's homes in villages/cottages (so called “cottage industry”). Colonies: Britain had a huge empire. The map shows its extent in the 18th century, with British territories in red. Many of its colonies (e.g. India, America, West Indies) grew cotton which was sent to England. Because of its colder climate, England could not grow its own cotton. Coal and iron: England had large deposits of coal and iron ore. Iron (and steel) was needed to make all the machines, which then were powered by coal, such as steam-powered machinery in textile factories and also to power locomotives. The picture shows the glow from iron furnaces at Coalbrookdale (near Ironbridge – see below) painted 1801. Coal is needed for the furnaces. Steam: The steam engine become the greatest single factor in the development of the new industrial era. First in factories to power machines, then in locomotives. The development of the railways led to a revolution in transportation throughout the world. The picture shows a steam-powered locomotive in 1829.

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Population growth: This, as well as industry moving away from villages, resulted in more people from the countryside being freed up to work for wages in the new cities that were springing up. One early city of importance was Manchester (shown in the picture as it was in 1750 when its population was only about 15 000). Peace: Unlike Europe, England was at peace, which enabled all the development to take place. (Note: England was still involved in wars, but these did not take place at home.) Website Why the Industrial Revolution began in England. http://webs.bcp.org/sites/vcleary/ModernWorldHistoryTextbook/IndustrialRevolution/IRbegins.html#IRst arts The Revolution began with cotton factories operated by water wheels Because village homes could not keep up with the increasing demand for clothing and other textile products, the textile industry – especially cotton – moved to a factory system (which could handle the new larger machines that were gradually being introduced – first driven by water power, then later by steam). Cotton became the world’s most important non-food agricultural product – and it remains so to this day. Note: Silk was also produced but on a small scale and only for the wealthy as it was expensive. Cotton was cheaper and stronger and from about the 1760s on, cotton productivity increased dramatically. Interestingly, the first industrial factory was for the production of silk and not cotton. (The word “factory” was itself new, being formed from the word manufacturing). Two key processes in production of cotton goods are spinning (to produce cotton thread from raw cotton) and weaving (making cloth/fabric from the threads). Spinning was the first to be mechanised. It took a long time for weaving to be mechanised as it is a more complicated process. Videos Hand-weaving looms with (a) hand shuttle, (b) flying shuttle (invented in 1733). http://webs.bcp.org/sites/vcleary/ModernWorldHistoryTextbook/IndustrialRevolution/IRbegins.html#texti les In 1769, Richard Arkwright ( pictured left – the “father” of the cotton industry, and another inventor who did not go to school) hooked up a new spinning machine to a water wheel and in 1771 opened a spinning factory powered by a large water wheel. He also built housing for the workers from nearby villages who now were out of work and so had to move to the mill to work. Note: Although the spinning was mechanised, the weaving at this time, was still done by hand. - 58 -

The picture (above right) shows housing built by Arkwright for the workers in his first mill. Most of the employees were women and children, the youngest being only 7 years old. The next picture (right) shows Masson Mill, Arkwright’s third mill, opened in 1783 and near his original water mill. (This is my photo and I include it rather than the first mill as I have actually been there; it is now a museum). Just a few years later, in 1783, Arkwright opened the first cotton mill in the rapidly growing industrial town of Manchester. Steam-power was also used, though not for driving the cotton machines; this was still done by waterpower. The steam engine was used to pump water that had passed through the water wheel back to an upper pond so that it could be reused. Manchester (and nearby) soon became the largest and most productive cotton spinning centre in the world In 1871, it produced 32% of global cotton. The number of cotton mills in Manchester peaked at 108 in 1853. Its population had now grown to about 1.6 million! Video The role of Arkwright. The development of the spinning machine by Sir Richard Arkwright in England led directly to the rise of the Industrial Revolution, and a new world of manufactured products. http://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution Coal and Iron Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the main fuel was wood. However, by 1700, nearly all of England's forests had been chopped down for the wood. Coal then replaced wood. Coal gives out more heat than wood and was also used to produce coke which became an important part of the iron and steel industry. Although textiles were the dominant industry of the start of the Industrial Revolution, the iron industry became more and more important; now was a time when many of the modern inventions we take for granted today were starting to be created. Developments in the iron industry played a central role in the Industrial Revolution. Remember that when the word “iron” is used, it usually refers to “steel”. (Refer back to page 13 for a comparison of iron and steel. Only later, in the 19th century did much stronger steel come along). Iron was used to make everything from appliances, tools and machines, to ships, buildings and infrastructure. In 1779, the world's first iron bridge, shown in the picture, was built at a village now called Ironbridge, which was a next to a centre of the iron-making industry. (Again, this is my photo as I have also been there.) John Wilkinson, the man who built the bridge, was buried in an iron coffin which he himself built (but which is now lost). - 59 -

In 1787, Wilkinson also built the first iron boat (a canal boat). The picture on the right shows a replica of Vulcan, an iron canal barge built in 1819 (though not built by Wilkinson) Iron products were also becoming common in 18th century homes. Here are some of them.

iron toaster

clothes iron door handle cooking pot large spoon pot hook

Website The iron industry. http://webs.bcp.org/sites/vcleary/ModernWorldHistoryTextbook/IndustrialRevolution/IRbegins.html#iron industry The Steam Engine The steam engine was central to industrialisation. It revolutionised manufacturing, transport and later (end of 19th century) was used in the generation of electricity. The first practical steam engine was built by Thomas Newcomen in 1712. These engines were used to pump water out of coal mines. By the 1770s, Scottish inventor James Watt (1736 – 1819) had improved on Newcomen’s work and made the steam engine more powerful. The steam engine went on to power machinery during the Industrial Revolution. (Note: Watt's engine was not used in locomotives and ships – see below.) From 1775 to 1800, over 500 Watt steam engines were made. The picture shows an early Watt steam engine. Water power continued to be an essential power source even during the height of steam engine popularity. Then, beginning in the early 20th century, electric motors began to replace steam power in cotton mills when electricity became available. [For the scientifically minded, the scientific unit for power – the Watt (W) – is named in honour of James Watt.] Transportation Prior to the 1700s, transportation in Britain was mainly by horse-drawn wagons on appalling roads full of mud and potholes. Long trains of pack horses (as in the picture) were the only means of transporting raw materials and finished products. Travel was very slow, and even slower on wet days.

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Canals In 1759, the Duke of Bridgewater, so frustrated with the road system, decided to use water transportation. He had built a 12 km long canal from his coal mines to Manchester. A canal barge/boat held much more than a wagon. The barge moved smoothly, if slowly, over the water, with just a single horse hitched to a tow-line (look at the picture, right for the horse), but it was much cheaper. This was a major step forward in transportation. Over 100 canals were dug/built across Britain between 1760 and 1820 for the transportation of food, coal, cotton and other freight. In this time, the canal system rapidly expanded to over 6 400 kilometres. [Many canals are still in use but mainly for pleasure boat tourists. Some of the barges are still horse-drawn; others are motor-driven. The picture (left) shows my cousin Wendy on such a tourist barge.] Website The canals http://gerald-massey.org.uk/Canal/c_chapter_01.htm Roads To improve the roads, around 1820, the Scottish engineer John McAdam (1756 – 1836) developed a new process for road construction. His technique, which became known as macadam, resulted in roads that were smoother, more durable and less muddy and could now compete with canals. The picture shows a painting depicting the construction of the first macadam road in the United States, in 1823. Railways In 1801, British engineer Richard Trevithick (1771 – 1833), another one of the self-educated men of the times, constructed the first primitive railway steam locomotive. The following year, in 1802, be built the first steam locomotive, in Coalbookdale, though it was not very useful (picture). In 1803, Trevithick built the first London bus – the London Steam Carriage, the first bus without a horse! [pictured, left, is a reconstruction] But it was way ahead of its time and it used to frighten the horses in the London streets!

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Trevithick built other steam locomotives but they were not a commercial success. A pioneer ahead of his time, he died in poverty. In 1825, George Stephenson built the locomotive called “Locomotion”, which was used to carry coal on the world's first public railway. In 1829, there was a competition to build a locomotive for the first real railway between Manchester (manufacturing city) and Liverpool (port city). This was won by “Rocket” built by Stephenson's son Robert. (It was noted that this was the first time a vehicle had travelled faster than a person riding on horseback.) The picture shows a working replica of “Rocket”. One year later, in 1830, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway became the first to offer regular, timetabled passenger services (with Stephenson's locomotive “Planet” – see video). The picture above shows two passenger trains on the line in 1831 – one for first class passengers, the other for second class passengers. (And it rains a lot in that part of England!!) The Railway Age had now really begun and transportation was revolutionised. By 1850, Britain had more than 10 000 km of railway track. So now, England had three efficient forms of transportation: roads, canals and railways. Videos Working model of Trevithick's 1802 loco. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLJaboxC3Do A very interesting video on the origins of train locomotives (~ 47 minutes). It includes Trevithick's steam engine, the first London bus, the railways, Stephenson's “Rocket” and “Planet”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOGYZC-IJPQ Website The iron industry. http://webs.bcp.org/sites/vcleary/ModernWorldHistoryTextbook/IndustrialRevolution/IRbegins.html#railr oads Quality of Life during the Industrial Revolution Factory-produced goods raised the standard of living for many people, particularly for the increasing middle and upper classes. Having simple things such as soap, glass windows, cotton shirts, underwear, coal fires to keep warm and a choice of food provided a standard of living that was unimaginable 100 years earlier.

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For others, such as craftspeople, especially in the villages, the standard of life dropped when machines eliminated their hand crafts. In addition, life for the poor and working classes in cities was often appalling. The picture (left) is of a London street in 1872; imagine what it was like 100 years earlier. Wages in factories were low and working conditions could be dangerous. Safety standards were practically non-existent. The photograph (right) shows boys working on machines in a textile factory. [Note: Photography only began about 1840; imagine conditions in the 1700s before there was photography.] Children were a large part of the labour force as unskilled labour was all that was often needed and children were cheap to employ. They were especially useful in textile factories. Boys and girls of four and five years of age worked in textile mills; their nimble little fingers could easily untangle jammed machines and they could crawl underneath machinery to do repairs even as the machine still worked, often with fatal results. They often worked long hours. The children were there to work so that the owners could make profits. (In the early 1860s, an estimated one-fifth of the workers in Britain’s textile industry were younger than 15.) Children were also employed in the coal mines. Girls as young as six years old were used to haul carts of coal (picture, right). Older girls carried baskets of coal which were far too heavy for them and caused deformities in their bodies. One woman gave birth one day in a mine and was forced to be back at work that very same day!! Cities became overcrowded and polluted, with unsanitary living conditions in which disease was rampant. The novels of Charles Dickens exposed this very clearly. Factory reforms and improvements did not begin until 1842. Video: http://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution/videos Summary: Before the Industrial Revolution, most things were produced by hand or on hand machines. The development of the spinning machine by Sir Richard Arkwright in England led directly to the rise of the Industrial Revolution, and a new world of manufactured products. Water and later steam powered machines. England became a powerhouse. Working conditions were terrible. Only much later did governments enact reforms to lessen some of the harsh conditions

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The Heyworth connection to the Industrial Revolution in England [Pictured, right] Sarah Ellen Heyworth, at her home in New Zealand ca. 1957. At the end of the 19th century, before emigrating to New Zealand, my grandparents (father's parents) lived not far from Manchester, in the middle of the textile and coal mining industries of the Industrial Revolution. When I was a young boy, my grandmother would talk to me about her experiences. Life for her was hard, but not as hard as it would have been 100 years earlier. My grandmother was born Sarah Ellen Bennett in 1880. Her mother had been a barmaid in a local inn and her father worked in a coal mine. She received little education, though she could read and write. My grandfather (Stanley Heyworth) was born in 1881. His father was a coal dealer. The photograph (right) is of a typical family (not theirs) at the end of the 19th century – poor and with many children. At the age of 11, Sarah Ellen (commonly known as Sally) worked as a weaver in a cotton mill. Under labour laws of the time, children 12 and under could not be employed full time. At age 12, she would be full time. That meant 55 hours a week, starting at 6.00 am and finishing at 5.30 pm Monday to Friday, with a 30 minute break for breakfast and an hour for lunch. Saturday was from 6.00 am to 12.30 pm with a 30 minute break. The picture (right) is of a weaving factory of about that time. In 1896, Sally's mother died (of TB). This made 16 year-old Sally the woman of the house, with much of the responsibility for bringing up younger children, aged 11, 9, 6, 4/5. Some time later (I do not know when) Sally began to work again in the cotton mills (full time/part time not known). The picture (left), shows the grim conditions in homes of that period; poor and with large families (picture is not of her family). In 1905, Sally married Stanley Heyworth and they soon had two sons (not my father, who was born much later in NZ). The picture (right, taken by me) shows the row of houses in which they lived and which still exists (though which house in the row I am no longer sure) Each house was a two-storey unit. The picture (below, on next page) shows what the rear of such row houses looked like (not their row of houses). Sally was adamant that no son of hers would work in the mines (she knew what conditions were like).

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Because of the tough living conditions, many people from the English industrial areas emigrated to English-speaking colonies in search of a better life. In 1911, Sally and her two sons sailed on the Steamship Mamari (pictured, right) to join Stanley who had gone before them. Website: Some of the images above are taken from “Life in 9th Century England”. For more, go to: http://www.oldpolicecellsmuseum.org.uk/page/life_in_the_19th_century_england Additional websites about the Industrial revolution: [for those who want to find out more] http://history-world.org/Industrial%20Intro.htm http://history-world.org/industrialrevolution.htm http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/britain-1700-to-1900/industrial-revolution/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution http://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution

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Can the Ascent of Man Continue? The answer is “It depends!” Can our civilisation survive? This is an alternative question to that asking whether or not the ascent of man can continue. A Baluchi nomad family in Iran For most of history, children have been asked to conform to the image of the adult. This was (and is) especially true amongst nomads. In these societies, girls are little mothers in the making, boys are little herdsmen. They even carry themselves like their parents. A nomad son in Kyrgyzstan learns to ride a horse as his father did. In nomadic societies, the talented and imaginative children, often had/have little opportunity to advance. And remember that at one time, many societies were nomadic. According to Bronowski, this is a major failing of these societies. There have been great civilisations, for example, Egypt, China, India, Europe (in the middle ages). By one test they all fail: they limited the freedom and imagination of the young. They were static and minority cultures: · Static because the son does what the father did and the father what the grandfather did. · Minority, because only a tiny fraction of all the talent people have is actually used, e.g. to learn to read and write. In the Middle Ages, the only way for a poor but clever boy to advance (forget about the girls!!) was to become a monk in the Church (picture, right). And even then, there was a limit as they were not allowed to question what the Church did not allow (cf. again Galileo and others). The people at the top of the intellectual/knowledge ladder Bronowski refers to as the aristocracy of the intellect. Aristocracy = the highest class in a society, especially those holding hereditary titles (e.g. King), land, money or offices (e.g. Pope). These often overlap. [From Greek aristokratía or aristos “excellent” and kratos “power or rule” = rule of the excellent/best (however you define “excellent/best”!) or by a small privileged class. Aristocracy of the intellect Or what I might call it: Aristocracy of Knowledge. or Aristocracy of Learning. - 66 -

In the past, only a minority were able (or allowed!) to get an education and gain knowledge and fully develop their intellect, such as the monks and philosophers in the Middle Ages. These were part of the aristocracy of the intellect/knowledge/learning. The rest were expected to know our (lowly!) place in society and act accordingly (i.e. do what our aristocratic masters demanded), and since I seem to have descended more from the poor and dispossessed than from any aristocratic line, I guess I am one of them. Today, with the almost absolute power of the Church gone and the rise of Science, scientists would be considered to be part of the aristocracy of the intellect, as the monks and philosophers used to be. But then came trouble! Around 1440 came the printing press and a new attitude to learning. Within 500 years, over 60 000 books had been printed, including Greek and Roman classics and the Bible in languages that many of the masses could read (assuming they were able to read!). But when people read, they think and ask questions, which an established order (be it civil or religious) dreads as their power depends on the ignorance and mistrust of the masses. This gave birth to the Enlightenment and the consequences for the Church and rulers who lost authority or were toppled, such as in the American and French revolutions discussed earlier. Democracy of the intellect Bronowski believes that only if there is a democracy of the intellect and not an aristocracy of the intellect can civilisations survive. When us ordinary folks got hold of books, this, according to Bronowski led to what he terms the “democracy of the intellect”. Or what I might call it Democracy of knowledge or learning [Greek demos = people]. Meaning: Everybody, and not just a select few, is able to get an education/learning and gain knowledge. Consequences When people have knowledge, they ask questions, including questions about their rulers, governments, authorities (and in modern tines we can add big business. This often leads to conflict with those who hold civil, religious and economic power as most of the time, those with power do not like to be challenged. Often, this results in a crack down on protesters or those with conflicting views (cf. Galileo again!) The photograph is of a crackdown on protesters in Hong Kong in 2014 who were challenging the Hong Kong and Chinese governments to give them “real” democracy. Two examples of people who tried to establish a democracy of the intellect 1. Confucius: (孔丘 or 孔夫子) (551 – 479 BC) In a way, Confucius in about 500 BC sought to establish a democracy of the intellect. He himself was born poor, but was bright and ambitious, and by the time he was 15 years old he had given himself to learning. His life’s goal, which was never fulfilled, was to become an ideal ruler of his people – a

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benevolent leader whose wisdom would be employed to enrich his people and educate them. No Chinese ruler was ever brave enough to give Confucius an important public office. How could a ruler who followed his teachings hope to maintain power over the populace? But Confucius’ popularity as a teacher also saved his life, because neither did any ruler dare to silence him. Confucius believed in the democracy of the intellect. His ideal was that any boy (not girls in those days!) with the intellect and moral strength to do so, could rise from the lowest place in society to become a ruler of his people. And as ruler, he would listen to what the people said. This, I think, is a good example of the idea behind the democracy of the intellect and how it should work. 2. Michael Faraday (1791 – 1867) Faraday was an English scientist, famous for his work with electricity and the invention of the electric motor, and the electric generator/dynamo by which most of the world’s electricity is now produced. Through these inventions, he contributed greatly to the Industrial Revolution and to the ascent of man. Born poor with only the most basic of education, he was of a lower social position and beneath the upper class of people who traditionally became scientists (and rulers!). Yet he did become a scientist and produced some of the most important scientific concepts in history (and, when lecturing or writing, did so using English that was clear and easily understood even by foreigners who listened to his lectures – according to a German listening to Faraday lecturing). At the age of 14, Faraday went to work with a bookbinder and would spend a lot of his spare time (with the permission of his boss) reading the books that were to be bound, especially science books. Faraday, like Confucius, shared his love of learning and wanted children to become part of the democracy of the intellect/knowledge, that is, to become educated, and if they chose, to become scientists. One way he did this was through his “Christmas lectures for Children” which continue today, so that all children can learn about science. The picture (right) shows Faraday giving a Christmas lecture in 1832. Unlike many scientists of today, Faraday refused to patent any of his discoveries, believing that knowledge should be available to all and not something a few can make a lot of money from. He also (graciously) rejected (twice) a knighthood as well as to be buried in Westminster Abbey (alongside Isaac Newton). The temptation to become an aristocrat of the intellect Today, intellectual leadership largely rests with scientists. And scientists need to be responsible for who use their knowledge and how it is used. There also needs to be some balance – from us, the rest of the

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population – to check that this knowledge is used appropriately. Scientific knowledge often means power and this can pose a problem as there is always the temptation for scientists to work too closely with governments, especially if the scientists have the kind of knowledge that governments want. Use of the atomic bomb: In 1945, Leo Szilard, a prominent physicist working on the atomic bomb project (and a friend of Bronowski) sent a petition, signed by many other scientists, asking the US president to consider an observed demonstration of the power of the atomic bomb first, before using it against people. The petition failed and the bomb was used twice, against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (pictured) and Nagasaki. Szilard, being a man of integrity, gave up physics and turned to biology. A tale of two scientists This is a tale of two scientists, one of whom was willing to share his knowledge with his government, while the other refused to do so in an identical situation. 1. Fritz Haber (1868 – 1934): Haber, a German chemist (pictured, right), had by 1913, developed a process for converting nitrogen from the air into ammonia, which can then be converted in fertilisers. This was important because natural fertilisers, necessary for the growth of food, were by then running out fast. As a result of his work, Haber was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1919. During World War I, the German government asked Haber to use his knowledge to produce produce poisonous gases for use on the battlefield. He agreed. First he found a way to use chlorine gas effectively. It was first used by the German army in 1915, with horrifying results. On one day alone, over 5000 soldiers were killed and another 10 000 serious injured. The picture (left) shows chlorine gas being used on a battlefield on the Western front. Haber also developed other poisons, including mustard gas. 2. Michael Faraday: During the Crimean War (1853 – 1856) between Russia, Britain and its allies, Faraday was asked by the British government to advise on the production of chemical weapons for use in the war. Faraday refused to participate citing ethical reasons. Bronowski claims, that with scientists like Haber, acting with no (self) checks or balances or a set of ethics to guide behaviour, civilisations may not survive. Can our modern, scientific civilisations survive? Every civilisation over the last 5 000 years including Assyria, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Han (China) were advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative. Not one survived. We today have not been given any guarantee of survival that these civilisations were not given. If we are not careful, our civilisations may be heading for collapse, as these ancient civilisations collapsed. Why?

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Website 10 civilisations that disappeared under mysterious circumstances. http://io9.com/5928085/10-civilizations-that-disappeared-under-mysterious-circumstances Some views on why civilisations disappear 1. Environmental destruction and unsustainable resource exploitation ending in starvation, rebellion and warfare. This could occur today due to food and water shortages because of climate change? (See website later for water shortage in California and how some companies, for example, Nestle, which is draining the land of water in order to increase profits, as they also doing in developing countries.) 2. Unequal wealth and resource distribution controlled by an economic wealthy “aristocracy” (including Nestle) who can control governments for their own benefit, leaving those at the bottom with little say (and in the case of Nestle in Pakistan, where people are forced to buy bottled water, which many cannot afford, as the company has drained most of the underground water for its own use!). The collapse of a civilisation can/might be avoided if the depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably fair fashion. But this is unlikely without a well-educated population, that is, there must be a democracy of the intellect. Power must be with us (the people) and not up in the isolated seats of government, business, the wealthy, etc. Websites Articles for more of the issue of reasons why our civilisations may collapse. 1 NASA: Nasa-funded study: Industrial civilisation headed for “irreversible collapse”? http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/14/nasa-civilisation-irreversiblecollapse-study-scientists http://mic.com/articles/85541/nasa-study-concludes-when-civilization-will-end-and-it-s-not-lookinggood-for-us 2. Noam Chomsky (cognitive scientist, logician, political commentator, social justice activist): Can civilization survive the business “aristocracy”? http://isreview.org/issue/88/can-civilization-survive-really-existing-capitalism 3. Conclusion on Industrial Revolution http://webs.bcp.org/sites/vcleary/ModernWorldHistoryTextbook/IndustrialRevolution/Conclusion.html http://www.countercurrents.org/us-sale230205.htm - 70 -

Can education achieve a democracy of the intellect? Before you proceed, read the article at the following website. Website “The democracy of the Intellect” by Katherine Paterson http://readingrecovery.org/images/pdfs/Journals/JRR/Vol8_No2_Spring-2009/JRR_8.2_Paterson.pdf This is a very interesting article on the democracy of the intellect and how education – and especially books – can be used to achieve it. Many of my comments come from this article, which you should read. Interesting footnote: The author was born in China and her first language is Chinese. When her family returned to the United States, she struggled for years to master the English language, but eventually became a writer of children's books. Like Bronowski, Katherine Paterson maintains that a democracy of the intellect can only be attained through: 1. books, 2. critical thinking, and 3. use of imagination. And these must be available to everybody if our civilisations are to survive. As Bronwski said, civilisations failed because they limit “the freedom of the imagination of the young.” Instead of reading books, which involves active thinking and use of the imagination, too many children today are watching TV which is passive and does not aid in this crucial development. Related to this, too many people today have trouble putting together coherent sentences. They are incapable of reasoned argument. In short, they can’t think very well. I might also add, many can no longer spell! (Just looking at the comments people write on the Internet is proof of this!) And, as Paterson says, this training in the use of books must begin early in life. As mentioned earlier, trouble is on the way wherever people can read freely and widely. They begin to think and to question, and there is nothing that governments and businesses, companies, financiers, etc. dread more than a thinking, questioning populace, one that will challenge and not just accept what the selfish interests of the privileged few tell us is good for us. A well-educated electorate, prepared to be part of a democracy, would not allow leaders to communicate this way. Perhaps I can quote the director of the United States FBI who says: “I believe that Americans should be deeply sceptical of government power. You cannot trust people in power.” [Refer to the video below for more on this] Once people have found how people in power can abuse their power, they can vote governments out of office (if in a democratic country) or use the streets, the newspapers and the Internet to protest until action is taken. Look at the second 60-Minutes video below on how doctors reacted to the greed of pharmaceutical companies that resulted in the lives of patients being placed in danger.

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All this is possible if people are part of the democracy of the intellect. Videos: 60-Minutes 1. For the interview with the FBI director: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-director-james-comey-on-privacy-andsurveillance/ [after the compulsory ad on Viagra!!!] Or, try the TVB link (if you don;t want the ad: http://mytv.tvb.com/tc/cat_news/60minutes/213072 2. This one deals with how pharmaceutical companies were charging high prices for cancer drugs and a doctors' revolt against it: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-cost-of-cancer-drugs/ [Or the same TVB link above without the ad.] Websites 1. Look at the Chomsky article again. How, despite clear evidence that climate change is caused by human activities and the prospects of severe calamity are real, some wealthy US companies, in order to protect their profits and wealth, are trying to enforce “balanced teaching” of climate science in US classrooms, that is, to promote the idea that climate change is not real. http://isreview.org/issue/88/can-civilization-survive-really-existing-capitalism 2. The Nestle bottled water controversy http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2QiRXq/:6I.uNYkj:At59EAFz/gizmodo.com/s top-drinking-bottled-water-1704609514 http://www.bottledlifefilm.com/index.php/the-story.html What sort of school curriculum is needed? This is not an easy question to answer. But Katherine Paterson refers to one (small) school in the United States that is trying to do this. Their curriculum is built on four cornerstones: 1. Thinking that is more than simple test taking (and especially multiple-question tests). 2. Problem solving is creative; do not just following standard methods. 3. Communication is more than just simple English (i.e. learning to read and write). 4. Perhaps most radically, the teaching of simple kindness. This means that we must help children learn to care for and respect one another. I agree with this and have tried to include these ideas in the science books I have written. For example: Basing lessons on thinking and questioning rather than lectures (very common in Asian societies) and get students to justify their answers. (My “secret weapon” to get students to do this is always to ask the follow-up question “Why?”) And try to get them to come up with original ideas (see also the video “Schools are failures” by Neil deGrasse Tyson below). - 72 -

Getting students to do real scientific thinking, that is, when given a problem/question, to design an experiment to investigate the problem/question and come up with an answer. And then to communicate their results and conclusions by writing up a report and/or giving oral presentations to the class. Including examples from history on how famous scientists thought and acted, such as the examples above comparing Haber and Faraday, together with questions to get students to discuss such issues. In the theory workbooks, include more unusual questions that students need to think about and which do not require multiple-choice answers but require thoughtful written answers. Class discussions on ethical and environmental issues, particularly those affecting students or their society and what the government might be proposing, for example, on climate change, destruction of important ecosystems, abortion. “In this way, children not only get an eduction in science, they get an education through science” Note: This is what would happen in classrooms, if teachers followed my books and teacher's guides. What actually happens, I don't know, but I suspect, for many teachers, their teaching is still excessively examorientated. This may result in students getting high grades (which society tends to reward) but leads to unoriginal students and the possible collapse of a society! Strong stuff but it could be true. Such teaching and learning, I believe, would help facilitate the development of a democracy of learning/knowledge that might help our modern scientific capitalist civilisation to survive and the ascent of man to continue. Closing thoughts on education 1. A comment on the power of education in an article on the Enlightenment and democracy: “Education is the most powerful weapon mankind has ever devised. In the hands of radicals this weapon is used for social justice, in the hands of conservatives it is used a way to prop up the status quo.” Website Above quote on education http://philosophersforchange.org/2013/11/19/end-of-enlightenment-not-if-we-fight-for-it/ [Quote located just above the cartoon of the class of children looking at laptops.] 2. “Schools are failures” by Neil deGrasse Tyson and why the collapse of our civilisation may just be delayed because of the few students who do have original thoughts, do not do well on school tests and who even drop out of school/college. I agree 100% with what he is saying. You MUST watch this video. (Note: I only came across this video after I had written my comments above, so I am in good company about what I think.) Video “Schools are failures” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZzckOX06N0&feature=youtu.be

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---------Another interesting article on the cultural evolution of man You may like to read the article at the website below. Entitled “The Human Journey: Turning Points in the Development of Contemporary Society”. It is very interesting and can complement and extend ideas presented by Bronowski and those is my essay. Website Turning Points in the Development of Contemporary Society http://www.humanjourney.us/axemaker.html

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