Science and Technology - AP World History: Modern

James Watson and Francis Crick used X-ray images created by Rosalind Franklin to discover that the structure of DNA was a double helix. This discovery showed how DNA replicated itself and furthered our understanding for how genetic traits were passed from one generation to the other.

World War One was a period of great innovation in weaponry and warfare. Tanks, poison gas, trench warfare, and submarine warfare were all used for the first time during World War One. However, replaceable parts were invented more than a century earlier and were used for the first time in the Napoleonic Wars of the early nineteenth century.

It is estimated that the global population of internet users is approximately three billion. Approximately forty percent of the global population has regular access to the internet.

Penicillin was invented by Alexander Fleming in 1928. It is an antibiotic that fights against bacterial infections. The invention of penicillin, and other antibiotics, dramatically improved mankind’s ability to resist and fight back against deadly diseases.

The invention of penicillin, by Alexander Fleming in 1928, allowed humans to fight back against bacterial infections with potency for the first time in human history. Penicillin, and other antibiotics, fight diseases that have historically devastated human populations, especially during times of war. The use of penicillin in World War Two dramatically reduced the number of casualties from diseases like influenza.

Alexander Fleming is widely credited with the discovery, and his work earned him the Nobel Prize. Marie Curie was also a scientist, however she is most famous for her experiments with radiation. Mendeleev was a chemist himself, however he is most famous for developing the periodic law, which led to the periodic table. Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher and naturalist, however he lived far before the discovery of penicillin. Lastly DaVinci, while also a famous inventor and thinker, was similarly dead long before the discovery in question.

Caravels are sailing ships that were invented by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century. Caravels had the advantage of being able to sail both with and against the wind, were small and extremely maneuverable, and could make accurate voyages over vast distances. The invention of the caravel paved the way for the age of European exploration.

The Meiji Restoration refers to the moment in 1868 when the authority of the Emperor of Japan was renewed over the authority of the Shogunate, which had effectively ruled Japan since 1603. Due to authoritarian disputes with lesser nobles, the Shogun was pushed out of a position of power. In the process of taking back power, the Meiji Emperor also sought to rapidly industrialize and modernize the nation, creating a western style industry, military, and government.

Contrary to popular belief Opium was brought to China by European and Middle Eastern merchants during the Tang. It did not become popular as a recreational drug until the Ming era. Gunpowder, paper-making, block printing, and the compass were all introduced to European society following interaction with Chinese merchants.

The evolution of firearms depends on many factors, including the quality of powder and different trigger mechanisms, but "pike and shot" was a stalwart concept for military planners throughout the 17th century.

Muskets, and the earlier arquebuses, were not lethal for only one shot to influence many battles; to justify the cost, musketeers had to fire multiple shots.

Because muskets are muzzle loading, they are difficult to reload with blades attached.

Disguising firearms as pikes may have occurred in individual battles, but it was never a major component of warfare.

Some of the earliest firearms used in Europe included anti-cavalry mortars, but this was hundreds of years earlier than the 17th century, and was too unreliable to sufficiently protect musketeers from cavalry.

Heliocentrism-the idea that the Earth and the other planets in the solar system revolve around the Sun-was popularized by the publication of Nicolaus Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres in 1543. Prior to this the theory of geocentrism-the idea that the Sun and the other planets revolved around the Earth-was popular, but several ancient Greeks and Medieval Arab scholars proposed ideas similar to Copernicus' heliocentism.

Native groups domesticated many different animal species, such as llama in the Andean region, centuries before the contact with Columbus and his crew in 1492. Technologies like domesticated horses and steel armor gave Europeans advantage in battle with Native groups, even when the Europeans were outnumbered. It should be noted, however, that historians believe that the most important cause for the massive number of fatalities among Native peoples after contact with Europeans was due to exposure to European diseases like small pox. Native peoples had never been exposed to these diseases and, consequently, had no natural resistance to them.

Galileo was not the first astronomer to argue that the Earth and the other planets revolved around the Sun, but he defended the idea in several of his writings. Galileo's advocacy for heliocentrism put him at odds with Church officials who feared that acceptance of the idea would lead to doubts about the truth of Christianity, since passages in the Bible claimed that the Earth was unmovable. Galileo was forced by the Inquisition to recant his previous advocacy of heliocentrism, and he was sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life.

Gutenberg's printing press made it much easier to create a large number of copies of written works. Use of the printing press allowed the ideas of Martin Luther and his supporters to spread rapidly. The printing press also allowed a much larger number of literate people to own their own copies of the Bible, which they could interpret without intervention from Catholic clergy.

The French philosopher Rene Descartes argued that beliefs should not be based solely on faith, but instead on observations of what is going on in the natural world. These ideas influenced the development of the Scientific Method for experimentation. Scientists base their conclusions on what actually happens in the experiment, and not on what they expected to happen prior to the experiment.

Isaac Newton was one of the most important scientists in human history. Among other discoveries, his formulation of the Theory of Gravity helped to explain why the planets orbit the sun and why objects fall to the Earth. Discoveries in genetics, or how living organisms inherit traits from their parents, would not be mad until a few centuries after Newton's death.

The Heliocentric Model of the Universe states that the sun, and not the earth as was previously thought, lies at the centre of the solar system. The Heliocentric Model of the Universe is generally credited to the astronomer Copernicus. Indeed, the adoption of the Heliocentric Model is often called the Copernican Revolution.

The main reason that Himalayan art uses more embossing than casting is because embossing is cheaper.

Economic considerations, not spiritual ones, were the main reasons why Himalayan art was more often embossed, rather than casted.

Casting technology has existed in the Himalayans for thousands of years, long before the modern era and the rule of the Chinese Communist Party.

The Himalayas' altitude does not make metal casting impossible.

The Scientific Revolution was a slow, gradual accumulation of new discoveries, different schools of thought, and changed approaches to the universe. Despite its name, it did not actually take place at a fast rate; instead, it transformed Western Europe slowly but steadily over the course of two centuries, from the sixteenth century through the seventeenth century. The individuals who took part in this Revolution were not actually called scientists; at the time, the word “scientist” hadn’t yet been invented. Instead, they were known as “natural philosophers,” or men who studied and thought about the universe, Nature, and everything in between. Contrary to popular belief, the Scientific Revolution didn’t reject the teachings of antiquity and the Middle Ages at all. In fact, the Revolution’s natural philosophers were inspired by the concepts created by those (such as Aristotle and Ptolemy) who had come before them. These new natural philosophers embraced the work done by their predecessors and worked to update, reform, or fix any errors in these ideas. They married old information with new knowledge and discoveries, combining and investigating them both to expand their understanding of the universe. The many new discoveries and changes made in the field of astronomy generated the most excitement and drama among the Revolution’s contemporary researchers and academics. But many other fields, including medicine, biology, chemistry, and natural history, produced fascinating achievements as well.