A Century of Science in America

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Excerpt from A Century of Science in America: With Special Reference to the American Journal of Science, 1818-1918Of the importance to science of the Greek school at Alexandria in the second and third centuries B. C., there can be no question. The geometry of Euclid (about 300 B. C.) was marvelous in its completeness as in clearness of logical method. Hipparchus (about 160-125 B. C.) gave the world the elements of trigonometry and devel oped astronomy so that Ptolemy 260 years later was able to construct a system that was well-developed, though in error in the fundamental idea as to the relative position of the earth. It is interesting to note that the Almagest of Ptolemy was thought worthy of republication by the Carnegie Institution only a year or two since. This great astronomical work, by the way, had no successor till that of the Arab Ulugh Bey in the fifteenth century which within a few months has also been made available by the same Institution.To the Alexandrian school also belongs Archimedes (287 212 B. C. Who, as every school boy knows, was the founder of mechanics and In fact almost a modern physi cal experimenter. He invented the water screw for rais ing water, he discovered the principle of the lever, which appealed so keenly to his imagination that he called for a wot ans, or fulcrum, on which to place it so as to move the earth itself. He was still nearer to modern physics in his reputed plan of burning up a hostile ¿eet by converging the sun's rays by a system of great mirrors.To the Romans, science owes little beyond what is implied in their vast architectural monuments, buildings and aqueducts which were erected at home and in the countries of their conquests. The elder Pliny 23 - 7 9 A. D.) most nearly deserved to be called a man of science.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.