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127-438: Discovery is the act of detecting something new, or something previously unrecognized as meaningful. In sciences and academic disciplines , discovery is the observation of new phenomena , new actions, or new events and involves providing new reasoning to explain the knowledge gathered through such observations, using knowledge previously acquired through abstract thought and from everyday experiences. Some discoveries represent

254-533: A Chicago suburb on the prairie as the location of the lab. A small herd of American bison was started at the lab's founding to symbolize Fermilab's presence on the frontier of physics and its connection to the American prairie. This herd, known as the Fermilab bison herd , still lives on the grounds of Fermilab. Architecturally, The lab's designers rejected the militaristic design of Los Alamos and Brookhaven as well as

381-538: A century before, were first observed . In 2019, the international collaboration Event Horizon Telescope presented the first direct image of a black hole 's accretion disc . Modern science is commonly divided into three major branches : natural science , social science , and formal science . Each of these branches comprises various specialised yet overlapping scientific disciplines that often possess their own nomenclature and expertise. Both natural and social sciences are empirical sciences , as their knowledge

508-474: A discipline. Ideas on human nature, society, and economics evolved during the Enlightenment. Hume and other Scottish Enlightenment thinkers developed A Treatise of Human Nature , which was expressed historically in works by authors including James Burnett , Adam Ferguson , John Millar and William Robertson , all of whom merged a scientific study of how humans behaved in ancient and primitive cultures with

635-411: A few of their scientific predecessors – Galileo , Kepler , Boyle , and Newton principally – as the guides to every physical and social field of the day. The 18th century saw significant advancements in the practice of medicine and physics; the development of biological taxonomy by Carl Linnaeus ; a new understanding of magnetism and electricity; and the maturation of chemistry as

762-423: A greater role in knowledge creation and it was not until the 19th century that many of the institutional and professional features of science began to take shape, along with the changing of "natural philosophy" to "natural science". New knowledge in science is advanced by research from scientists who are motivated by curiosity about the world and a desire to solve problems. Contemporary scientific research

889-725: A guideline for developmentally appropriate instruction. Teachers are also observed by administrators to ensure that classroom environments are positive. One of the tools used by teachers is the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) tool. Informed by findings emerging from the use of this tool, "over 150 research studies prove that students in classrooms with high-CLASS scores have better academic and social outcomes." This tool focuses on encouraging positive classroom environments, regard for students' perspectives, behavior management skills, quality of feedback, and language modeling. Administrators rate each of ten categories on

1016-466: A highly stable universe where there could be little loss of resources. However, with the advent of the steam engine and the Industrial Revolution there was an increased understanding that not all forms of energy have the same energy qualities , the ease of conversion to useful work or to another form of energy. This realisation led to the development of the laws of thermodynamics , in which

1143-455: A hypothesis proves unsatisfactory it is modified or discarded. If the hypothesis survives testing, it may become adopted into the framework of a scientific theory , a validly reasoned , self-consistent model or framework for describing the behaviour of certain natural events. A theory typically describes the behaviour of much broader sets of observations than a hypothesis; commonly, a large number of hypotheses can be logically bound together by

1270-456: A leading geologist, Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin ), using the time dimension of American history, and the geographical space of the land that became the United States. The first settlers who arrived on the east coast in the 17th century acted and thought like Europeans. They adapted to the new physical, economic and political environment in certain ways—the cumulative effect of these adaptations

1397-532: A motto of progress ('getting America moving') throughout his term of office." He promoted his political platform as the "New Frontier," with a particular emphasis on space exploration and technology. Limerick points out that Kennedy assumed that "the campaigns of the Old Frontier had been successful, and morally justified." The frontier metaphor thus maintained its rhetorical ties to American social progress. Adrienne Kolb and Lillian Hoddeson argue that during

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1524-407: A new non- teleological way. This implied a shift in the view of objects: objects were now considered as having no innate goals. Leibniz assumed that different types of things all work according to the same general laws of nature, with no special formal or final causes. During this time the declared purpose and value of science became producing wealth and inventions that would improve human lives, in

1651-458: A preference for one outcome over another. Eliminating the bias can be achieved through transparency, careful experimental design , and a thorough peer review process of the experimental results and conclusions. After the results of an experiment are announced or published, it is normal practice for independent researchers to double-check how the research was performed, and to follow up by performing similar experiments to determine how dependable

1778-456: A priori disciplines and because of this, there is disagreement on whether they constitute a science. Nevertheless, the formal sciences play an important role in the empirical sciences. Calculus , for example, was initially invented to understand motion in physics. Natural and social sciences that rely heavily on mathematical applications include mathematical physics , chemistry , biology , finance , and economics . Applied science

1905-472: A radical breakthrough in knowledge or technology. Others are based on earlier discoveries, collaborations or ideas. In such cases, the process of discovery requires at least the awareness that an existing concept or method could be modified or transformed. New discoveries are made using various senses , and are usually added to pre-existing knowledge . Questioning plays a key role in discovery; discoveries are often made due to questions. Some discoveries lead to

2032-400: A revolution in information technology and the rise of the global internet and mobile computing , including smartphones . The need for mass systematisation of long, intertwined causal chains and large amounts of data led to the rise of the fields of systems theory and computer-assisted scientific modelling . The Human Genome Project was completed in 2003 by identifying and mapping all of

2159-502: A scale of one to seven, one being the lowest score and seven being the highest score that a teacher may receive. Western culture has used the term "discovery" in their histories to lay claims over lands and people as "discovery" through discovery doctrines and subtly emphasize the importance of " exploration " in the history of the world, such as in the " Age of Discovery ", the New World and any frontierist endeavour even into space as

2286-457: A separate discipline from philosophy when Wilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory for psychological research in 1879. During the mid-19th century Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace independently proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection in 1858, which explained how different plants and animals originated and evolved. Their theory was set out in detail in Darwin's book On

2413-592: A separate field because they rely on deductive reasoning instead of the scientific method or empirical evidence as their main methodology. Applied sciences are disciplines that use scientific knowledge for practical purposes, such as engineering and medicine . The history of science spans the majority of the historical record, with the earliest written records of identifiable predecessors to modern science dating to Bronze Age Egypt and Mesopotamia from around 3000 to 1200 BCE . Their contributions to mathematics, astronomy , and medicine entered and shaped

2540-475: A set of basic assumptions that are needed to justify the scientific method: there is an objective reality shared by all rational observers; this objective reality is governed by natural laws ; these laws were discovered by means of systematic observation and experimentation. Mathematics is essential in the formation of hypotheses , theories , and laws, because it is used extensively in quantitative modelling, observing, and collecting measurements . Statistics

2667-463: A set of rules. It includes mathematics, systems theory , and theoretical computer science . The formal sciences share similarities with the other two branches by relying on objective, careful, and systematic study of an area of knowledge. They are, however, different from the empirical sciences as they rely exclusively on deductive reasoning, without the need for empirical evidence, to verify their abstract concepts. The formal sciences are therefore

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2794-478: A single theory. Thus, a theory is a hypothesis explaining various other hypotheses. In that vein, theories are formulated according to most of the same scientific principles as hypotheses. Scientists may generate a model , an attempt to describe or depict an observation in terms of a logical, physical or mathematical representation, and to generate new hypotheses that can be tested by experimentation. While performing experiments to test hypotheses, scientists may have

2921-429: A strong awareness of the determining forces of modernity . Modern sociology largely originated from this movement. In 1776, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations , which is often considered the first work on modern economics. During the nineteenth century many distinguishing characteristics of contemporary modern science began to take shape. These included the transformation of the life and physical sciences;

3048-438: A unified theory in the early 20th-century when the modern synthesis reconciled Darwinian evolution with classical genetics . Albert Einstein 's theory of relativity and the development of quantum mechanics complement classical mechanics to describe physics in extreme length , time and gravity . Widespread use of integrated circuits in the last quarter of the 20th century combined with communications satellites led to

3175-460: A very difficult political and economic environment that made democracy and individualism much less likely to appear and it was much more difficult to throw off a powerful royalty, standing armies, established churches and an aristocracy that owned most of the land. The question is whether their frontiers were powerful enough to overcome conservative central forces based in the metropolis. Each nation had quite different frontier experiences. For example,

3302-509: Is an accepted requirement for defining a discovery: a five-sigma level of certainty. This level defines how statistically unlikely it is that an experimental result is due to chance . The combination of a five-sigma level of certainty, and independent confirmation by other experiments, turn findings into accepted discoveries. Within the field of education, discovery occurs through observations. These observations are common and come in various forms. They can be observations of students done by

3429-487: Is based on empirical observations and is capable of being tested for its validity by other researchers working under the same conditions. Natural science is the study of the physical world. It can be divided into two main branches: life science and physical science . These two branches may be further divided into more specialised disciplines. For example, physical science can be subdivided into physics, chemistry , astronomy , and earth science . Modern natural science

3556-439: Is becoming a central feature of computational contributions to science, for example in agent-based computational economics , random forests , topic modeling and various forms of prediction. However, machines alone rarely advance knowledge as they require human guidance and capacity to reason; and they can introduce bias against certain social groups or sometimes underperform against humans. Interdisciplinary science involves

3683-698: Is considered to be one of the most important publications in medicine and was used until the 18th century. By the eleventh century most of Europe had become Christian, and in 1088, the University of Bologna emerged as the first university in Europe. As such, demand for Latin translation of ancient and scientific texts grew, a major contributor to the Renaissance of the 12th century . Renaissance scholasticism in western Europe flourished, with experiments done by observing, describing, and classifying subjects in nature. In

3810-535: Is highly collaborative and is usually done by teams in academic and research institutions , government agencies, and companies. The practical impact of their work has led to the emergence of science policies that seek to influence the scientific enterprise by prioritising the ethical and moral development of commercial products, armaments, health care, public infrastructure, and environmental protection . The word science has been used in Middle English since

3937-447: Is the search for solutions to practical problems using this knowledge. Most understanding comes from basic research, though sometimes applied research targets specific practical problems. This leads to technological advances that were not previously imaginable. Scientific research involves using the scientific method , which seeks to objectively explain the events of nature in a reproducible way. Scientists usually take for granted

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4064-526: Is the successor to the natural philosophy that began in Ancient Greece . Galileo , Descartes , Bacon , and Newton debated the benefits of using approaches that were more mathematical and more experimental in a methodical way. Still, philosophical perspectives, conjectures , and presuppositions , often overlooked, remain necessary in natural science. Systematic data collection, including discovery science , succeeded natural history , which emerged in

4191-427: Is the use of the scientific method and knowledge to attain practical goals and includes a broad range of disciplines such as engineering and medicine. Engineering is the use of scientific principles to invent, design and build machines, structures and technologies. Science may contribute to the development of new technologies. Medicine is the practice of caring for patients by maintaining and restoring health through

4318-523: Is typically divided into two or three major branches: the natural sciences (e.g., physics , chemistry , and biology ), which study the physical world ; and the behavioural sciences (e.g., economics , psychology , and sociology ), which study individuals and societies. The formal sciences (e.g., logic , mathematics, and theoretical computer science ), which study formal systems governed by axioms and rules, are sometimes described as being sciences as well; however, they are often regarded as

4445-403: Is used to make falsifiable predictions, which are typically posted before being tested by experimentation. Disproof of a prediction is evidence of progress. Experimentation is especially important in science to help establish causal relationships to avoid the correlation fallacy , though in some sciences such as astronomy or geology, a predicted observation might be more appropriate. When

4572-410: Is used to summarise and analyse data, which allows scientists to assess the reliability of experimental results. In the scientific method an explanatory thought experiment or hypothesis is put forward as an explanation using parsimony principles and is expected to seek consilience  – fitting with other accepted facts related to an observation or scientific question. This tentative explanation

4699-710: The Blood and soil ideology, stoking racial and destructive enthusiasm, rose to power in Germany . An example of this concern is in George Wilson Pierson ’s influential essay on the frontier. He asked why the Turnerian American character was limited to the Thirteen Colonies that went on to form the United States, why the frontier did not produce that same character among pre-Columbian Native Americans and Spaniards in

4826-610: The Byzantine empire and Arabic translations were done by groups such as the Nestorians and the Monophysites . Under the Caliphate , these Arabic translations were later improved and developed by Arabic scientists. By the 6th and 7th centuries, the neighbouring Sassanid Empire established the medical Academy of Gondeshapur , which is considered by Greek, Syriac, and Persian physicians as

4953-706: The Early Middle Ages (400 to 1000 CE), but in the Medieval renaissances ( Carolingian Renaissance , Ottonian Renaissance and the Renaissance of the 12th century ) scholarship flourished again. Some Greek manuscripts lost in Western Europe were preserved and expanded upon in the Middle East during the Islamic Golden Age , along with the later efforts of Byzantine Greek scholars who brought Greek manuscripts from

5080-599: The Proto-Italic language as * skije- or * skijo- meaning "to know", which may originate from Proto-Indo-European language as *skh 1 -ie , *skh 1 -io , meaning "to incise". The Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben proposed sciō is a back-formation of nescīre , meaning "to not know, be unfamiliar with", which may derive from Proto-Indo-European *sekH- in Latin secāre , or *skh 2 - , from *sḱʰeh2(i)- meaning "to cut". In

5207-555: The camera obscura and the telescope . At the start of the Renaissance, Roger Bacon , Vitello , and John Peckham each built up a scholastic ontology upon a causal chain beginning with sensation, perception, and finally apperception of the individual and universal forms of Aristotle. A model of vision later known as perspectivism was exploited and studied by the artists of the Renaissance. This theory uses only three of Aristotle's four causes: formal, material, and final. In

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5334-424: The historical method , case studies , and cross-cultural studies . Moreover, if quantitative information is available, social scientists may rely on statistical approaches to better understand social relationships and processes. Formal science is an area of study that generates knowledge using formal systems . A formal system is an abstract structure used for inferring theorems from axioms according to

5461-426: The invention of objects, processes, or techniques. Within scientific disciplines, discovery is the observation of new phenomena , actions, or events that helps explain the knowledge gathered through previously acquired scientific evidence . Discovery is made by providing observational evidence and attempts to develop an initial, rough understanding of some phenomenon. Within the field of particle physics , there

5588-431: The materialistic sense of having more food, clothing, and other things. In Bacon's words , "the real and legitimate goal of sciences is the endowment of human life with new inventions and riches ", and he discouraged scientists from pursuing intangible philosophical or spiritual ideas, which he believed contributed little to human happiness beyond "the fume of subtle, sublime or pleasing [speculation]". Science during

5715-499: The prevention , diagnosis , and treatment of injury or disease. The applied sciences are often contrasted with the basic sciences , which are focused on advancing scientific theories and laws that explain and predict events in the natural world. Computational science applies computing power to simulate real-world situations, enabling a better understanding of scientific problems than formal mathematics alone can achieve. The use of machine learning and artificial intelligence

5842-481: The theory of impetus . His criticism served as an inspiration to medieval scholars and Galileo Galilei, who extensively cited his works ten centuries later. During late antiquity and the early Middle Ages , natural phenomena were mainly examined via the Aristotelian approach. The approach includes Aristotle's four causes : material, formal, moving, and final cause. Many Greek classical texts were preserved by

5969-409: The " New Frontier ". In the course of this discovery, it has been used to describe the first incursions of peoples from one culture into the geographical and cultural environment of others. However, calling it "discovery" has been rejected by many indigenous peoples , from whose perspective it was not a discovery but a first contact , and consider the term "discovery" to perpetuate colonialism , as for

6096-578: The "tide of intelligence" had always moved from east to west. According to Bancroft, the Germanic germs had spread across of all Western Europe by the Middle Ages and had reached their height. This Germanic intelligence was only halted by "civil and ecclesiastical restraints" and a lack of "free land." This was Bancroft's explanation for the Dark Ages. Turner's theory of early American development, which relied on

6223-406: The 13th century, medical teachers and students at Bologna began opening human bodies, leading to the first anatomy textbook based on human dissection by Mondino de Luzzi . New developments in optics played a role in the inception of the Renaissance , both by challenging long-held metaphysical ideas on perception, as well as by contributing to the improvement and development of technology such as

6350-707: The 14th century in the sense of "the state of knowing". The word was borrowed from the Anglo-Norman language as the suffix -cience , which was borrowed from the Latin word scientia , meaning "knowledge, awareness, understanding". It is a noun derivative of the Latin sciens meaning "knowing", and undisputedly derived from the Latin sciō , the present participle scīre , meaning "to know". There are many hypotheses for science ' s ultimate word origin. According to Michiel de Vaan , Dutch linguist and Indo-Europeanist , sciō may have its origin in

6477-444: The 16th century by describing and classifying plants, animals, minerals, and other biotic beings. Today, "natural history" suggests observational descriptions aimed at popular audiences. Social science is the study of human behaviour and the functioning of societies. It has many disciplines that include, but are not limited to anthropology , economics, history, human geography , political science , psychology, and sociology. In

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6604-498: The 1910s to 1940s black filmmaker and novelist Oscar Micheaux incorporated Turner's frontier thesis into his work. Micheaux promoted the West as a place where blacks could experience less institutionalized forms of racism and earn economic success through hard work and perseverance. Slatta (2001) argues that the widespread popularization of Turner's frontier thesis influenced popular histories, motion pictures, and novels, which characterize

6731-564: The 1970s to criticize the frontier thesis because it did not attempt to explain the evolution of those groups. Indeed, their approach was to reject the frontier as an important process and to study the West as a region, ignoring the frontier experience east of the Mississippi River. Turner never published a major book on the frontier for which he did 40 years of research. However his ideas presented in his graduate seminars at Wisconsin and Harvard influenced many areas of historiography . In

6858-495: The 20th century. Williams viewed the frontier concept as a tool to promote democracy through both world wars, to endorse spending on foreign aid, and motivate action against totalitarianism. However, Turner's work, in contrast to Roosevelt's work The Winning of the West , places greater emphasis on the development of American republicanism than on territorial conquest. Other historians, who wanted to focus scholarship on minorities, especially Native Americans and Hispanics, started in

6985-633: The 3rd millennium BCE, the ancient Egyptians developed a decimal numbering system , solved practical problems using geometry , and developed a calendar . Their healing therapies involved drug treatments and the supernatural, such as prayers, incantations , and rituals. The ancient Mesopotamians used knowledge about the properties of various natural chemicals for manufacturing pottery , faience , glass, soap, metals, lime plaster , and waterproofing. They studied animal physiology , anatomy , behaviour , and astrology for divinatory purposes. The Mesopotamians had an intense interest in medicine and

7112-620: The Dutch Boers in South Africa were defeated in war by Britain. In Australia, "mateship" and working together was valued more than individualism. Alexander Petrov noted that Russia had its own frontier and Russians moved over centuries across Siberia all the way from the Urals to the Pacific, struggling with nature in many physical ways similar to the American move across North America - without developing

7239-404: The Enlightenment was dominated by scientific societies and academies , which had largely replaced universities as centres of scientific research and development. Societies and academies were the backbones of the maturation of the scientific profession. Another important development was the popularisation of science among an increasingly literate population. Enlightenment philosophers turned to

7366-535: The Frontier Thesis, or only accept its most basic conclusions. Turner begins the essay by calling to attention the fact that the western frontier line, which had defined the entirety of American history up to the 1880s, had ended. He elaborates by stating that, Behind institutions, behind constitutional forms and modifications, lie the vital forces that call these organs into life and shape them to meet changing conditions. The peculiarity of American institutions is,

7493-557: The Germanic germ theory's version of Western history, the theory persisted for decades after Turner's thesis enraptured the American Historical Association. In 1946, medieval historian Carl Stephenson published an extended article refuting the Germanic germ theory. Evidently, the belief that free political institutions of the United States spawned in ancient Germanic forests endured well into the 1940s. A similarly race-based interpretation of Western history also occupied

7620-634: The Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity , whereby formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes, while further advancements, including the introduction of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system , were made during the Golden Age of India . Scientific research deteriorated in these regions after the fall of the Western Roman Empire during

7747-410: The Greek philosopher Leucippus and his student Democritus . Later, Epicurus would develop a full natural cosmology based on atomism, and would adopt a "canon" (ruler, standard) which established physical criteria or standards of scientific truth. The Greek doctor Hippocrates established the tradition of systematic medical science and is known as " The Father of Medicine ". A turning point in

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7874-453: The Milesian school, which was founded by Thales of Miletus and later continued by his successors Anaximander and Anaximenes , were the first to attempt to explain natural phenomena without relying on the supernatural . The Pythagoreans developed a complex number philosophy and contributed significantly to the development of mathematical science. The theory of atoms was developed by

8001-489: The New World . Despite Pierson and other scholars’ work, Turner's influence did not end during World War II or even after the war. Indeed, his influence was felt in American classrooms until the 1970s and 80s. Subsequent critics, historians, and politicians have suggested that other 'frontiers,' such as scientific innovation, could serve similar functions in American development. Historians have noted that John F. Kennedy in

8128-586: The New World where they were allowed to germinate in the North American forests. In so doing, the Anglo-Saxons and the Germanic people's descendants, being exposed to a forest like their Teutonic ancestors, birthed the free political institutions that formed the foundation of American government. Historian and ethnologist Hubert Howe Bancroft articulated the latest iteration of the Germanic germ theory just three years before Turner's paper in 1893. He argued that

8255-551: The Origin of Species , published in 1859. Separately, Gregor Mendel presented his paper, " Experiments on Plant Hybridization " in 1865, which outlined the principles of biological inheritance, serving as the basis for modern genetics. Early in the 19th century John Dalton suggested the modern atomic theory , based on Democritus's original idea of indivisible particles called atoms . The laws of conservation of energy , conservation of momentum and conservation of mass suggested

8382-431: The U.S. were teaching courses in frontier history along Turnerian lines. It was not confined to academia, but rather was a popular and accepted view. For example, President John F. Kennedy described his programs in the 1960 election as a " New Frontier " to conquer, except meaning space and domestic issues. While this view remains reasonably common at a popular level, since the 1980s academic historians no longer hold to

8509-400: The West in terms of individualism, frontier violence, and rough justice. Disneyland 's Frontierland of the mid to late 20th century reflected the myth of rugged individualism that celebrated what was perceived to be the American heritage. The public has ignored academic historians' anti-Turnerian models, largely because they conflict with and often destroy the icons of Western heritage. However,

8636-505: The Westerners and the native savages, struggled for mastery of the land through violence. Whereas Turner saw the development of American character occur just behind the frontier line, as the colonists tamed and tilled the land, Roosevelt saw it form in battles just beyond the frontier line. In the end, Turner's view would win out among historians, which Roosevelt would accept. Turner set up an evolutionary model (he had studied evolution with

8763-627: The academic architecture of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center . Instead Fermilab's planners sought to return to Turnerian themes. They emphasized the values of individualism, empiricism, simplicity, equality, courage, discovery, independence, and naturalism in the service of democratic access, human rights, ecological balance, and the resolution of social, economic, and political issues. Milton Stanley Livingston,

8890-472: The advent of writing systems in early civilisations like Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia , creating the earliest written records in the history of science in around 3000 to 1200 BCE . Although the words and concepts of "science" and "nature" were not part of the conceptual landscape at the time, the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians made contributions that would later find a place in Greek and medieval science: mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. From

9017-464: The artistic but powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism, working for good and for evil, and withal that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom." Turner concludes the essay by saying that with the end of the frontier, the first period of American history has ended. The Frontier Thesis came about at a time when the Germanic germ theory of history

9144-398: The combination of two or more disciplines into one, such as bioinformatics , a combination of biology and computer science or cognitive sciences . The concept has existed since the ancient Greek period and it became popular again in the 20th century. Scientific research can be labelled as either basic or applied research. Basic research is the search for knowledge and applied research

9271-656: The continent; it takes the European from across the Atlantic and shapes him into something new. American emigration west is not spurred by government incentives, but rather some "expansive power" inherent within them that seeks to dominate nature. Furthermore, there is a need to escape the confines of the State. The most important aspect of the frontier to Turner is its effect on democracy. The frontier transformed Jeffersonian democracy into Jacksonian democracy . The individualism fostered by

9398-686: The country could not maintain its self-concept of being a nation based on ideals without some kind of savage 'other' to contend with. To this end, he claimed that the rising American influence in the Asia-Pacific constituted a new frontier. Historians, geographers, and social scientists have studied frontier-like conditions in other countries, with an eye on the Turnerian model. South Africa, Canada, Russia, Brazil, Argentina and Australia—and even ancient Rome—had long frontiers that were also settled by pioneers. However these other frontier societies operated in

9525-441: The country had a frontier of settlement, but at present the unsettled area has been so broken into by isolated bodies of settlement that there can hardly be said to be a frontier line. In the discussion of its extent, its westward movement, etc., it can not, therefore, any longer have a place in the census reports." However, Turner argued that as the North American frontier was ending, a new frontier would have to be pursued, because

9652-610: The course of tens of thousands of years, taking different forms around the world, and few details are known about the very earliest developments. Women likely played a central role in prehistoric science, as did religious rituals . Some scholars use the term " protoscience " to label activities in the past that resemble modern science in some but not all features; however, this label has also been criticised as denigrating, or too suggestive of presentism , thinking about those activities only in relation to modern categories. Direct evidence for scientific processes becomes clearer with

9779-422: The day in the classroom. These observations can be informal or formal, and often involve the use of checklists, anecdotal notes, videos, interviews, written work, assessments, etc. By completing these observations, teachers can evaluate at what 'level' a student is understanding the lessons. Observations allow teachers to make necessary adaptations for the students in the classroom. These observations can also provide

9906-428: The discovery doctrine and frontierist concepts like terra nullius . Discovery and the age of discovery have been alternatively, particularly regionally, referred to through the terms contact, Age of Contact or Contact Period . Sciences Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science

10033-505: The discovery of radioactivity by Henri Becquerel and Marie Curie in 1896, Marie Curie then became the first person to win two Nobel Prizes . In the next year came the discovery of the first subatomic particle, the electron . In the first half of the century the development of antibiotics and artificial fertilisers improved human living standards globally. Harmful environmental issues such as ozone depletion , ocean acidification , eutrophication , and climate change came to

10160-461: The distinctively American style of liberty contrasted to deferential European mindsets still affected by the expectations of feudalism. It eroded old, dysfunctional customs. Turner's ideal of frontier had no need for standing armies, established churches, aristocrats, or nobles; there was no landed gentry who controlled the land or charged heavy rents and fees. Rather, pioneers went and claimed territory for themselves using only loose organizations, and

10287-517: The dying Byzantine Empire to Western Europe at the start of the Renaissance . The recovery and assimilation of Greek works and Islamic inquiries into Western Europe from the 10th to 13th century revived " natural philosophy ", which was later transformed by the Scientific Revolution that began in the 16th century as new ideas and discoveries departed from previous Greek conceptions and traditions. The scientific method soon played

10414-584: The earliest medical prescriptions appeared in Sumerian during the Third Dynasty of Ur . They seem to have studied scientific subjects which had practical or religious applications and had little interest in satisfying curiosity. In classical antiquity , there is no real ancient analogue of a modern scientist. Instead, well-educated, usually upper-class, and almost universally male individuals performed various investigations into nature whenever they could afford

10541-523: The early 1960s explicitly called upon the ideas of the frontier. At his acceptance speech upon securing the Democratic Party nomination for U.S. president on July 15, 1960, Kennedy called out to the American people, "I am asking each of you to be new pioneers on that New Frontier. My call is to the young in heart, regardless of age—to the stout in spirit, regardless of party." Mathiopoulos notes that he "cultivated this resurrection of frontier ideology as

10668-589: The eastern coast of the United States sought to control the West. Religious institutions from the eastern seaboard, in particular, battled for possession of the West. The tensions between small churches as a result of this fight, Turner states, exist today because of the religious attempt to master the West. American intellect owes its form to the frontier as well. The traits of the frontier are "coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in

10795-533: The end of the frontier represented the beginning of a new stage in American life and that the United States must expand overseas . However, others viewed this interpretation as the impetus for a new wave in the history of United States imperialism . William Appleman Williams led the "Wisconsin School" of diplomatic historians by arguing that the frontier thesis encouraged American overseas expansion, especially in Asia, during

10922-410: The fact that they have been compelled to adapt themselves to the changes of an expanding people to the changes involved in crossing a continent, in winning a wilderness, and in developing at each area of this progress out of the primitive economic and political conditions of the frontier into the complexity of city life. According to Turner, American progress has repeatedly undergone a cyclical process on

11049-431: The formation of the American character occurred not with early settlers struggling to survive while learning a foreign land, but “on the cutting edge of expansion” in the early battles with Native Americans in the New World. To Roosevelt, the journey westward was one of nonstop encounters with the “hostile races and cultures” of the New World, forcing the early colonists to defend themselves as they pressed forward. Each side,

11176-553: The foundation for strong relationships between teachers and students. When students have such relationships with teachers, they feel safer and more comfortable in the classroom and are more willing and eager to learn. Through observations, teachers identify the most developmentally appropriate practices to implement in their classrooms. These encourage and promote healthier learning styles and positive classroom atmospheres. With an educational system, government officials set different academic standards that teachers are expected to follow as

11303-462: The free energy of the universe is seen as constantly declining: the entropy of a closed universe increases over time. The electromagnetic theory was established in the 19th century by the works of Hans Christian Ørsted , André-Marie Ampère , Michael Faraday , James Clerk Maxwell , Oliver Heaviside , and Heinrich Hertz . The new theory raised questions that could not easily be answered using Newton's framework. The discovery of X-rays inspired

11430-425: The frequent use of precision instruments; the emergence of terms such as "biologist", "physicist", and "scientist"; an increased professionalisation of those studying nature; scientists gaining cultural authority over many dimensions of society; the industrialisation of numerous countries; the thriving of popular science writings; and the emergence of science journals. During the late 19th century, psychology emerged as

11557-467: The frontier as a transformative force, opposed Bancroftian racial determinism. Turner referred to the Germanic germ theory by name in his essay, claiming that “too exclusive attention has been paid by institutional students to the Germanic origins.” Turner believed that historians should focus on the settlers’ struggle with the frontier as the catalyst for the creation of American character, not racial or hereditary traits. Though Turner's view would win over

11684-399: The frontier had shaped what would become distinctly American institutions and the mysterious entity they each called “national character.” They also agreed that studying the history of the West was necessary to face the challenges to democracy in the late 1890s . Turner and Roosevelt diverged on the exact aspect of frontier life that shaped the contemporary American. Roosevelt contended that

11811-417: The frontier line as society has needed to redevelop with its movement westward. Everything in American history up to the 1880s somehow relates the western frontier, including slavery. In spite of this, Turner laments, the frontier has received little serious study from historians and economists. The frontier line, which separates civilization from wilderness, is “the most rapid and effective Americanization” on

11938-487: The frontier thesis, showing that frontier experience had a causal impact on individualism. Though Turner's work was massively popular in its time and for decades after, it received significant intellectual pushback in the midst of World War II. This quote from Turner's The Frontier in American History is arguably the most famous statement of his work and, to later historians, the most controversial: American democracy

12065-510: The frontier's wilderness created a national spirit complementary to democracy, as the wilderness defies control. Therefore, Andrew Jackson's brand of popular democracy was a triumph of the frontier. Turner sets up the East and the West as opposing forces; as the West strives for freedom, the East seeks to control it. He cites British attempts to stifle western emigration during the colonial era and as an example of eastern control. Even after independence,

12192-551: The further west, the more American the community. Turner saw the land frontier was ending, since the U.S. Census of 1890 had officially stated that the American frontier had broken up. By 1890, settlement in the American West had reached sufficient population density that the frontier line had disappeared; in 1890 the Census Bureau released a bulletin declaring the closing of the frontier, stating: "Up to and including 1880

12319-519: The genes of the human genome . The first induced pluripotent human stem cells were made in 2006, allowing adult cells to be transformed into stem cells and turn into any cell type found in the body. With the affirmation of the Higgs boson discovery in 2013, the last particle predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics was found. In 2015, gravitational waves , predicted by general relativity

12446-524: The great difference between British society from which settlers went across the Atlantic and the Russian society which sent its own pioneers across the Urals. Turner's thesis quickly became popular among intellectuals. It explained why the American people and American government were so different from their European counterparts. It was popular among New Dealers—Franklin D. Roosevelt and his top aides thought in terms of finding new frontiers. FDR, in celebrating

12573-431: The heliocentric model. The printing press was widely used to publish scholarly arguments, including some that disagreed widely with contemporary ideas of nature. Francis Bacon and René Descartes published philosophical arguments in favour of a new type of non-Aristotelian science. Bacon emphasised the importance of experiment over contemplation, questioned the Aristotelian concepts of formal and final cause, promoted

12700-400: The heyday of Kennedy's "New Frontier," the physicists who built Fermilab explicitly sought to recapture the excitement of the old frontier. They argue that, "Frontier imagery motivates Fermilab physicists, and a rhetoric remarkably similar to that of Turner helped them secure support for their research." Rejecting the East and West coast life styles that most scientists preferred, they selected

12827-562: The history of early philosophical science was Socrates ' example of applying philosophy to the study of human matters, including human nature, the nature of political communities, and human knowledge itself. The Socratic method as documented by Plato 's dialogues is a dialectic method of hypothesis elimination: better hypotheses are found by steadily identifying and eliminating those that lead to contradictions. The Socratic method searches for general commonly-held truths that shape beliefs and scrutinises them for consistency. Socrates criticised

12954-790: The history of religion, for example, Boles (1993) notes that William Warren Sweet at the University of Chicago Divinity School as well as Peter G. Mode (in 1930), argued that churches adapted to the characteristics of the frontier, creating new denominations such as the Mormons , the Church of Christ , the Disciples of Christ , and the Cumberland Presbyterians . The frontier, they argued, shaped uniquely American institutions such as revivals, camp meetings, and itinerant preaching. This view dominated religious historiography for decades. Moos (2002) shows that

13081-554: The idea that science should study the laws of nature and the improvement of all human life. Descartes emphasised individual thought and argued that mathematics rather than geometry should be used to study nature. At the start of the Age of Enlightenment , Isaac Newton formed the foundation of classical mechanics by his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica , greatly influencing future physicists. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz incorporated terms from Aristotelian physics , now used in

13208-540: The intellectual sphere in the United States before Turner. The racial warfare theory was an emerging belief in the late nineteenth century advocated by Theodore Roosevelt in The Winning of the West . Though Roosevelt would later accept Turner's historiography on the West, calling Turner's work a correction or supplementation of his own, the two certainly contradict. Roosevelt was not entirely unfounded in saying that he and Turner agreed; both Turner and Roosevelt agreed that

13335-409: The lab's associate director, said in 1968, "The frontier of high energy and the infinitesimally small is a challenge to the mind of man. If we can reach and cross this frontier, our generations will have furnished a significant milestone in human history." John Perry Barlow , along with Mitch Kapor , promoted the idea of cyberspace (the realm of telecommunication) as an "electronic frontier" beyond

13462-509: The late 20th century active recruitment of women and elimination of sex discrimination greatly increased the number of women scientists, but large gender disparities remained in some fields. The discovery of the cosmic microwave background in 1964 led to a rejection of the steady-state model of the universe in favour of the Big Bang theory of Georges Lemaître . The century saw fundamental changes within science disciplines. Evolution became

13589-608: The most important medical center of the ancient world. The House of Wisdom was established in Abbasid -era Baghdad , Iraq , where the Islamic study of Aristotelianism flourished until the Mongol invasions in the 13th century. Ibn al-Haytham , better known as Alhazen, used controlled experiments in his optical study. Avicenna 's compilation of the Canon of Medicine , a medical encyclopaedia,

13716-662: The notion that the only function of the eye is perception, and shifted the main focus in optics from the eye to the propagation of light. Kepler is best known, however, for improving Copernicus' heliocentric model through the discovery of Kepler's laws of planetary motion . Kepler did not reject Aristotelian metaphysics and described his work as a search for the Harmony of the Spheres . Galileo had made significant contributions to astronomy, physics and engineering. However, he became persecuted after Pope Urban VIII sentenced him for writing about

13843-447: The older type of study of physics as too purely speculative and lacking in self-criticism . Aristotle in the 4th century BCE created a systematic program of teleological philosophy. In the 3rd century BCE, Greek astronomer Aristarchus of Samos was the first to propose a heliocentric model of the universe, with the Sun at the centre and all the planets orbiting it. Aristarchus's model

13970-598: The past, science was a synonym for "knowledge" or "study", in keeping with its Latin origin. A person who conducted scientific research was called a "natural philosopher" or "man of science". In 1834, William Whewell introduced the term scientist in a review of Mary Somerville 's book On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences , crediting it to "some ingenious gentleman" (possibly himself). Science has no single origin. Rather, systematic methods emerged gradually over

14097-562: The public's attention and caused the onset of environmental studies . During this period scientific experimentation became increasingly larger in scale and funding . The extensive technological innovation stimulated by World War I , World War II , and the Cold War led to competitions between global powers , such as the Space Race and nuclear arms race . Substantial international collaborations were also made, despite armed conflicts. In

14224-406: The results might be. Taken in its entirety, the scientific method allows for highly creative problem solving while minimising the effects of subjective and confirmation bias . Intersubjective verifiability , the ability to reach a consensus and reproduce results, is fundamental to the creation of all scientific knowledge. Frontier thesis In this view, the frontier experience established

14351-453: The seminal encyclopaedia Natural History . Positional notation for representing numbers likely emerged between the 3rd and 5th centuries CE along Indian trade routes. This numeral system made efficient arithmetic operations more accessible and would eventually become standard for mathematics worldwide. Due to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire , the 5th century saw an intellectual decline and knowledge of Greek conceptions of

14478-567: The sixteenth century Nicolaus Copernicus formulated a heliocentric model of the Solar System, stating that the planets revolve around the Sun, instead of the geocentric model where the planets and the Sun revolve around the Earth. This was based on a theorem that the orbital periods of the planets are longer as their orbs are farther from the centre of motion, which he found not to agree with Ptolemy's model. Johannes Kepler and others challenged

14605-488: The social and political characteristics noted by Turner. To the contrary, Siberia - the Russian Frontier Land - became emblematic of the oppression of Czarist Absolute Monarchy. This comparison, Petrov suggests, shows that it is far from inevitable that an expanding settlement of wild land would produce the American type of cultural and political institutions. Other factors need to be taken into consideration, such as

14732-405: The social sciences, there are many competing theoretical perspectives, many of which are extended through competing research programs such as the functionalists , conflict theorists , and interactionists in sociology. Due to the limitations of conducting controlled experiments involving large groups of individuals or complex situations, social scientists may adopt other research methods such as

14859-413: The teacher or observations of teachers done by other professionals. Student observations help teachers identify where the students are developmentally and cognitively in the course of their studies. Teacher observations are used by administrators to hold teachers accountable for staying on target with their goals, in terms of how they teach and how they treat students. Teachers observe students throughout

14986-414: The theme in his advanced history lectures and in a series of essays published over the next 25 years, published along with his initial paper as The Frontier in American History. Turner's emphasis on the importance of the frontier in shaping American character influenced the interpretation found in thousands of scholarly histories. By the time Turner died in 1932, 60% of the leading history departments in

15113-541: The third anniversary of Social Security in 1938, advised, "There is still today a frontier that remains unconquered—an America unreclaimed. This is the great, the nation-wide frontier of insecurity, of human want and fear. This is the frontier—the America—we have set ourselves to reclaim." Historians adopted it, especially in studies of the west, but also in other areas, such as the influential work of Alfred D. Chandler Jr. (1918–2007) in business history. Many believed that

15240-476: The time. Before the invention or discovery of the concept of phusis or nature by the pre-Socratic philosophers , the same words tend to be used to describe the natural "way" in which a plant grows, and the "way" in which, for example, one tribe worships a particular god. For this reason, it is claimed that these men were the first philosophers in the strict sense and the first to clearly distinguish "nature" and "convention". The early Greek philosophers of

15367-618: The toughness of the experience gave them discipline and self-sufficiency that would be handed down over generations, even after the frontier advanced beyond the old boundaries. The Frontier Thesis was first published in a paper entitled " The Significance of the Frontier in American History ", delivered to the American Historical Association in 1893 in Chicago. He won wide acclaim among historians and intellectuals. Turner elaborated on

15494-535: The work of historians during the 1980s–1990s, some of whom sought to bury Turner's conception of the frontier, and others who sought to spare the concept but with nuance, have done much to place Western myths in context. A modern interpretation describes it as appropriating Indigenous land by means of "American ingenuity", in the process creating a unique cultural identity different from their European ancestors. A 2020 study in Econometrica found empirical support for

15621-476: The world deteriorated in Western Europe. During the period, Latin encyclopaedists such as Isidore of Seville preserved the majority of general ancient knowledge. In contrast, because the Byzantine Empire resisted attacks from invaders, they were able to preserve and improve prior learning. John Philoponus , a Byzantine scholar in the 500s, started to question Aristotle's teaching of physics, introducing

15748-728: Was Americanization. Successive generations moved further inland, shifting the lines of settlement and wilderness, but preserving the essential tension between the two. European characteristics fell by the wayside and the old country's institutions (e.g., established churches, established aristocracies, standing armies, intrusive government, and highly unequal land distribution) were increasingly out of place. Every generation moved further west and became more American, more democratic, and more intolerant of hierarchy. They also became more violent, more individualistic, more distrustful of authority, less artistic, less scientific, and more dependent on ad-hoc organizations they formed themselves. In broad terms,

15875-650: Was born of no theorist's dream; it was not carried in the Susan Constant to Virginia, nor in the Mayflower to Plymouth. It came out of the American forest, and it gained new strength each time it touched a new frontier. Not the constitution but free land and an abundance of natural resources open to a fit people, made the democratic type of society in America for three centuries while it occupied its empire. This assertion's racial overtones concerned historians as Adolf Hitler and

16002-438: Was popular. Proponents of the germ theory believed that political habits are determined by innate racial attributes. Americans inherited such traits as adaptability and self-reliance from the Germanic peoples of Europe. According to the theory, the Germanic race appeared and evolved in the ancient Teutonic forests, endowed with a great capacity for politics and government. Their germs were, directly and by way of England, carried to

16129-501: Was widely rejected because it was believed to violate the laws of physics, while Ptolemy's Almagest , which contains a geocentric description of the Solar System , was accepted through the early Renaissance instead. The inventor and mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse made major contributions to the beginnings of calculus . Pliny the Elder was a Roman writer and polymath, who wrote

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