Science Since Babylon
Science Since Babylon was written by Derek J. de Solla Price based on a series of five lectures he delivered at Yale University's Sterling Memorial Library in October and November 1959 on the history of science. In 1961 it was published in London and New Haven by Yale University Press, and sold as a Yale Paperbound (paperback) in 1962. It is notable due to Price's observation of the exponential trajectory of scientific growth, and his subsequent prediction of that growth leveling off due to saturation. The book is often cited by Eric Weinstein for its observations about growth. Weinstein also notes that it is odd how few people know about this book.
Preface to Enlarged Edition
Preface to Original Edition
1. The Peculiarity of a Scientific Civilization
Summary
References
- Srinivasa Ramanujan
- Professor G. H. Hardy of Cambridge
- 1729
- Herbert Butterfield and The Origins of Modern Science
- Almagest by Ptolemy
- Niels Bohr's Principle of Complementarity
- Babylonian mathematics
- Greek mathematics
2. Celestial Clockwork in Greece and China
Summary
References
- Whipple Museum of the History of Science
- Astrolabe
- A Treatise on the Astrolabe by Chaucer
- Escapement
- Astrarium, a clock built by Giovanni de' Dondi in 1364
- Science and Civilisation in China, initiated and edited by Joseph Needham
- Song dynasty
- Antikythera mechanism