History (from Greek ἱστορία, historia, meaning "inquiry; knowledge acquired by investigation") is the scientific study of the past. Events occurring before the invention of writing systems are considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term that relates to past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of information about these events. Historians place the past in context using historical sources such as written documents, oral accounts, ecological markers, and material objects including art and artifacts.History also includes the academic discipline which uses narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyze a sequence of past events, and investigate the patterns of cause and effect that are related to them. Historians seek to understand and represent the past through narratives. They often debate which narrative best explains an event, as well as the significance of different causes and effects. Historians also debate the nature of history and its usefulness by discussing the study of the discipline as an end in itself and as a way of providing "perspective" on the problems of the present.Stories common to a particular culture, but not supported by external sources (such as the tales surrounding King Arthur), are usually classified as cultural heritage or legends. History differs from myth in that it is supported by evidence. However, ancient influences have helped spawn variant interpretations of the nature of history which have evolved over the centuries and continue to change today. The modern study of history is wide-ranging, and includes the study of specific regions and the study of certain topical or thematic elements of historical investigation. History is often taught as part of primary and secondary education, and the academic study of history is a major discipline in university studies.
Herodotus, a 5th-century BC Greek historian is often considered (within the Western tradition) to be the "father of history", although he has also been called the "father of lies". Along with his contemporary Thucydides, he helped form the foundations for the modern study of human history. Their works continue to be read today, and the gap between the culture-focused Herodotus and the military-focused Thucydides remains a point of contention or approach in modern historical writing. In East Asia, a state chronicle, the Spring and Autumn Annals, was known to be compiled from as early as 722 BC although only 2nd-century BC texts have survived.
Today, I just completed reading this study of anti-woman cultural norms throughout Western history. It explains the historical origins of these beliefs and how the passing of these cultural memes throughout the generations affected the well-being of females:
Written by Professor John Hartung...
I want to take a look at the history of philosophy. I would say it's a look at the history of "philosophy of mind", but it covers more than that.
I want to look at the points throughout history where a shift was made, to the using of terms and concepts that had never been used before. I want...
How did it came into being?
Did it all strated when someone (Huygens?) discovered that the quantity 1/2mv^2 was (almost) conserved in some collision experiments?
Or was it discovered purely analytically from the laws of motion that when a force acted on a particle on a certain distance...
I just wanted to know about the history of the string theory development.
I mean the klein's (or someone else!) interpretation about the charge that resulted in assumption of higher order dimentions of space.
I just wanted to know the historical story of it.
Any link will be usefull.
Thanks...
I'm making a list of books I want to read, just anything really that is thought provocative or informative. I'm paticularly interested in political theory and history, so far I have;
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Brave new world by Aldous Huxley(reading it right now)
1984 by George Orwell...
I find it a bit interesting that there is a separate theorem for Stokes theorem in a 2D situation. Can someone tell me why this is so? What's the history on these theorems. Did this guy Green come along and generalize Stokes theorem and get credit for it because if this is the case then I will...
As many people here will know, particles have wave-particle duality. A American scientist, Richard Feyman, suggested that when a particle move from a point to another, the particle can move through every possible route, not only one route (or history) as described in classical theory. The route...
German researchers claimed to figured out the "Eye" evolutionary history
Hey guys;
There is an article on slashdot about German researchers that have claimed to have figured out the evolutionary history of the eye. Here is the quote from slashdot...
In lieu of the discovery of our tiny ancestors
Edit: I just noticed this. I meant to say tiny cousins; or something similar.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/10/1027_041027_homo_floresiensis.html
I thought it would be interesting to put together any anecdotal evidence for...
According to my TiVo guide this Wednesday at 10PM the show "Modern Marvels" on the History Channel will have a program about hydrogen as a fuel.
Those interested may want to check it out to see if it indeed covers this topic.
Cliff
While poking around and reviewing some the old CIA files at the FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] reading room, I noticed a rather unusual, forty eight page document dated Aug, 1945, that discusses Japaneses espionage and secret operatives, Chinese complicity, and is titled "SHANGHAI -...
In light of today's report on the alleged Iraqi WMD programs, which we now know never existed after Gulf I, and considering the lack of any significant connection between Iraq and 911, and considering that in spite of Bush's efforts to escape responsibility for his rush to war, and in spite of...
"Today scientists describe the universe in terms of two basic partial theories - the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics... The general theory of relativity describes the force of gravity and the large-scale structure of the universe, that is, the structure on scales from only a...
Baez posted this timeline last week, its up to date
and it has big bang temperatures and cosmology stuff
as well as evolution of life on Earth stuff
and it also has projected history sever billion years into future
so it is a pretty good timeline, hope you check it out and
have some...
Tomorrow was the day I was going to get a jump start on everybody by drinking all throughout the day instead of just at the end (keep class interesting :wink: ). Tonight I mixed some tequila and lemon juice about half and half inside of a 950mL Gatoride bottle so I could just grab it when...
Here are some nice questions :
1) who discovered the boold-circulation and how it works ?
2) Who perfomed the first heart-transplantation ?
3) Who invented the sissors ??
4) Who invented the word assassination ?
5) Who invented the heliocentrism ?
6) Who dedicated a symphony...
Looking at the "boom" (at least in Spain) that is happening with steroids these days, can anybody explain the origin of them and which was the first?
Is there any trace of testoterone on animals?
BTW, I don't consume steroids, just creatine... :biggrin:
Pf?
I'm curious, 'bout the history of PF. when did it start? who started it? who owns it? whose idea was it? who created it?
Perhaps Greg or the mentors would care to answer?? :confused:
Would you please tell me what exactly people mean by Genome Project ?
It is a project but I read some materials which were published different years and they also talked about Genome Project (honestly I don't understand what they are talking about either), are there lots of Genome Projects ?or...
...not so sure if this is the right place to post this topic, and yet history is a branch of social science...
i can;t seem to find answers to the following question: can anyone please tell me:D these are extra credit questions...lol! all related to the mongolian empire/ yuan dynasty in...
If you could question any scientist in history
Darn. Didn't get back in time to fix the title.
I recently heard a story about a tech at Femi Lab who found himself alone for a few minutes with Stephen Hawking. What would you say!?
Also, when I saw Hawking at the U of O some years ago, we...
Is there any practice, belief, value, etc ... in human history (recorded that is) that has remained constant throughout the ages? Is there nothing we can agree on?
If no, then does it mean that no matter what we agree in the future - there can never be a claim of total universality (of the...
Hey,
I am in the process of redoing a History Day board for the state competition. Of coarse, I did mine on physics. I have a problem though. I'm stuck on 2 things.
1) A real life implication of something to do with Relativity (special of general).
2) Another picture I could put for...
its odd how many years have passed, but no one has accomplished it truly.
a perpetual motion machine is suppose to run forever.(Untill the Galaxy Collapses.)
i mean even if it wouldent be perpetual, it would last a good while like 7 to 10 decades of you family's tree like 300-500 years...
Where can I find some info on the origin of the "spanish race"? (for a friend's 8 years old son's homework).
(I already googled for it, but I may not know the right way to ask this to Mr. Web).
Euclid's Window, by Leonard Mlodinow, is the best layman text, that touches on the deepest issues of modern mathematics and theoretical physics, that I've ever read.
Through use of excellent analogies and some humor, Mlodinow takes the reader through the history of geometry (from the ancient...
---------------------------------------------------------------------
References:
1) Green M., Schwarz J., Witten E., Superstring Theory Vol. 1,2, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1987
2) S.Klimenko, V.Talanov, I.Nikitin ``Singularities on the world sheets of open relativistic strings'', Preprint...
I am to write a report on PCR, some information on the following topics would be greatly appreciated.
-A detailed account on how the inventor (forgot his name) came to discover the method.
-his nobel prize experience
-maybe a short biography about his earlier years before the PCR...
"March is Women's History Month. At Glendale College in Glendale, CA the celebration has steadily grown larger and more elaborate over the last 10 years. On a whim, Associate Professor of Mass Communications Mike Eberts had some of his students search the net for women's history links. The...
"The History and Development of Schrodinger's Wave Equation"
i am taking a class in "the history of chemistry" and i chose to write a paper on "the history and development of schrodinger's wave equation"...
does anybody have any suggestions on what kind of topics i should include?
Im taking a class on "The History of Chemistry" and I have to write one big 'ol paper.
I want to do a topic that is interesting, somewhat obscure, under rated, yet very important.
Anybody have any ideas?
You might have notice that human history has and is repeating itself and we have not really seriously learn from the mistakes of our past since we have been doing the same mistakes. These same mistakes in our rich history occur differently as time goes by and that is why our world leaders...
Hey all. I'm doing a National History Day project on physics. Actually, to be more specific, the road of theory unification in physics. Here's my question:
What (in your mind) is the most important moment in physics history?
What is your favorite moment in physics history?
Or... If you...
I was reviewing the history of String Theory, and I was wondering if anyone can tell me the history of our interpretation of dimensions. When did we first realize that more than four dimensions may exist, and when did we first land on the head count of 10 or 11 as the correct number? I couldn't...
How and from what was string theory first formulated? I have heard that it was somehow connected with the attempt to unify General relativity and electromagnetism by introducing a fifth dimension, but I know little about the logical process which gave rise to string theory.
umm, it's just that in the past it wasn't like that... A person was not even considered the same way that we consider persons today. People were not individuals, but part of a big mass, of a town, a country, and the only people that mattered were the kings and leaders, etc.
Across the...
Hello all,
I was wondering what advance in physics had the most impact in history and why.
Personally, it's tempting to say E=MC^2, which said it was possible to give us the bomb, but it seems that that is too recent to really calculate the effects.
Perhaps Newton's laws of motion? Or...
The scale factor function (they write it R(t) or a(t)) gives the history of the expansion of the universe, as calculated from observational data. The slope at any moment is the expansion rate at that moment. Which of these best describes how you picture this curve?
1. straightline ramp...
Does anyone know who created the first flushable toliet and what they call it sometimes by name today? I thought it was funny since its been so long since I've heard it called this name.
Dx :wink:
Let's say "hypothetically" you could travel back in time to any specific point, and change it to what you wanted. But you could only go back for a single day, so you could only change one event, or series of events over the course of a day. And to make it more interesting, it couldn't be...