المقدمات التاريخية للعلم الحديث : من الإغريق القدماء إلى عصر النهضة

by Thomas Goldstein, أحمد حسان

Dawn of Modern Science explores the beginnings of science from the cosmology of ancient Greece to the cataclysmic conflict between the Medieval understanding of nature through spiritual contemplation and the Renaissance's revolutionary efforts to forge an awareness by observing and exploring the physical world. The author brings to life such figures as the Ionian exile Pythagoras, who developed the mathematical language by which we apprehend the intrinsic order of nature; al-Khwarizmi, court mathematician in the ninth century who developed the Arabic numerals; Roger Bacon, the Franciscan teacher and thinker who foresaw the machine age with stunning, prophetic vision; Dominican Albertus Magnus, whose studies of plant and animal life Leonardo da Vinci, the lonely genius of science and art, who personified the Renaissance, and its fascination with life itself. Across the centuries, Goldstein guides the reader through a shining intellectual pageant in a way that is both illuminating and unforgettable.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Science

First published March 28, 1980

Reviews

[الشناوي محمد جبر · Rating 5 out of 5]

قرأته مرتين علي فترتين متباعدتين لكنه صعب جدا

[الشناوي محمد جبر · Rating 1 out of 5]

يتحدث في فصول متفرقة عن بدايات علوم كالفلك من عصور اعتقد فيها الانسان بان الارض مركز الكون الي عصر تم فيه تصحيح مكانة الارض..
فصول اخري عديدة بالكتاب علي نفس المنوال.

[Steven Haywood Yaskell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thomas Goldstein's fine effort at describing the cultural-evolutionary aspects of western science runs for 277 readable pages. It is also well illustrated with historical woodcuts, drawings, and a good blend of modern photographs of the subjects he touches upon. Where you cannot read George Sarton for the same purposes, Goldstein fleshes out the discussion and of course, is much more confined.

The progression of western science from its Babylonian / Greek roots through the Islamic period, and into the modern Christian-Judaic is discussed in readable detail. He chooses one root of the great tree of western science as springing up in the southwestern corner of Europe, in southern France and Spain, where in the latter location, the Islamic period before 1350 or so had its greatest flowering. He indeed devotes a whole chapter to the Islamic contribution. Especially fascinating is the discussion on cathedral building as a communal and thus unifying activity in the early Christian-Judaic period, shortly after the Patristic fathers began abandoning a faith-based totality in obeying only Aristotle and Plato , at the gates of Padua and thus, Copernicus and Galileo.

Of some value are his footnotes, fleshing out where he obtained the information for his contextual approach in this volume of the American Heritage Library. There's a fine introduction by the late science popularizer Isaac Asimov, a now sadly-forgotten type as this respectful, research-experienced functionalist science-type guy has given way to the Bill Nye (the) Science Guy(s).

[Musaadalhamidi]

عرض شائق وعميق ونابض بالحيوية لحوالي 800 سنة من تطور العلم منذ العصور الوسطى المبكرة مرورا بالفورة الضخمة لعصر النهضة وحتى تطور العمل الحديث الذي اصبح يمثل قوة هائلة تسيطر على عصرنا وتثير مزيجا من الرهبة والابداع
وبكل فخر من الصفحة 11 كمسلمين يشرح المؤلف بكل تفصيل التطورات التاريخية التي قدمها المسلمين للبشرية
الكتاب يتكون من 6 فصول
وانتبه الى قراءة الفصل الرباع المسمى : هبة الإسلام وكان الإسلام هي الهبة التي قدمت للعالم الكثير من العلوم والفكر والبحوث والعمار والقوة

[Steven Yaskell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goldstein was an historian with progressive ideas, none of which affect this work, except perhaps for the openness with which it is written. His take on progressivism was perhaps dedicated mostly to intellectual freedom - at least in this tome. So his appreciation for science is not as a professional scientist or one trained specifically in science history: not that this is a hindrance, per se. In fact, he brings out much incidental history that enhances the narrative, helping to focus science activity and its development against a readable background of events. It is amply illustrated.

The scope is Euro-centric and Greco-Roman, with ideas of science as they developed culturally and quite organically within that continent. Intriguingly enough, though, we see much of Islamic culture and the influence of that religion and statist regional power on western science development in the book in ancillary form (we note that the rise of science in Islam was crushed in central Asia by Mongol invaders of Europe). None of the Euro-centrism is so revealing as how he describes e.g. cathedral building within the Roman Church and the still-strong Roman medieval state (Holy Roman Empire and so on) in the various nations it existed in. The efforts brought out not only collective works for the many building guilds, but also challenged Europeans to be more creative in their aims, improving techne and physical science skills, and even perhaps aiding in the acceptance by the Church of secular legal and business enterprises beyond their control, so vital to the much-later modern industrial research science bases now found worldwide.

My copy of the book is of the American Heritage Library, with a foreword by sci-fi author and scientist Isaac Asimov. It was published by Houghton-Mifflin in 1988.

[آدم · Rating 3 out of 5]

هذا الكتاب رحلة فكرية تمتد عبر ثمانية قرون من تطور العلم، منذ العصور الوسطى وحتى بزوغ ملامح العلم الحديث. يقدّم جولدشتاين رؤية عميقة للعلم باعتباره ظاهرة تاريخية، لا مجرد تراكم معارف، بل مسار طويل من الصراع الإنساني لفهم قوانين الطبيعة ومواجهة تحدياتها للعقل والحواس.

من ألبيرتوس ماغنوس وروجر بيكون، مرورًا بليوناردو دافنشي وكوبرنيكوس، يرسم المؤلف لوحة واسعة تكشف كيف تبلورت المفاهيم العلمية الحديثة عبر تفاعل الفلسفة، والفن، والاكتشافات الجغرافية، والثورات الفكرية. يذكّرنا جولدشتاين – ومعه المقدم إيزاك أسيموف – بأن العلم لم يولد فجأة على يد شخص أو اثنين، بل هو حصيلة قرون من الجهد البشري المتواصل.

الكتاب لا يكتفي بسرد الإنجازات، بل يطرح أسئلة نقدية حول أثر العلم على حاضرنا: قوته التدميرية المحتملة، تهديده للبيئة، وموقعه الأخلاقي كأداة محايدة تعتمد قيمتها على كيفية استخدامها. هذه المقاربة تمنح العمل بعدًا فلسفيًا يجعل القارئ يعيد التفكير في العلاقة بين التقدم العلمي ومصير الإنسانية.

أسلوب الترجمة سلس وواضح، يحافظ على روح النص الأصلي ويجعل الأفكار المعقدة في متناول القارئ العربي. إذا كنت مهتمًا بتاريخ الأفكار، أو تبحث عن فهم أعمق لجذور العلم الحديث، فهذا الكتاب سيمنحك منظورًا ثريًا ومختلفًا.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

First, I admit this is not really a "science" book but rather a history of science with little scientific data but lots about where modern (that is, Renaissance era) scientific study came from and where it went. Written in 1980, it may be a bit out of date but still valid, or at least arguably sound and certainly engrossing.

[Leah Webber · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got this book in the hopes of a history of scientific theorums. Instead, I got this history of science from a cultural perspective, with very little actual science involved. A bit diappointed.