Clockwise from top left is a collage of Kepler, Copernicus, Newton, Galileo, Descartes, and Ptolemy. (Images courtesy of the Library of Congress and NASA.)
Instructor(s)
Prof. David Kaiser
MIT Course Number
STS.002
As Taught In
Fall 2003
Level
Undergraduate
Course Description
Course Description
This subject traces the evolution of ideas about nature, and how best to study and explain natural phenomena, beginning in ancient times and continuing through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. A central theme of the subject is the intertwining of conceptual and institutional relations within diverse areas of inquiry: cosmology, natural history, physics, mathematics, and medicine.