Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena , based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation . Mechanisms such as peer review and reproducibility of findings are used to try to ensure the validity of scientific advances.
164-415: Engineering is the practice of using natural science , mathematics , and the engineering design process to solve technical problems, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve systems. Modern engineering comprises many subfields which include designing and improving infrastructure , machinery , vehicles , electronics , materials , and energy systems. The discipline of engineering encompasses
328-464: A European Power was a probable event. The threat that caused Gordon, diplomat and military officer, to publish the article was resumption of work on a railway from Russia to the Persian Gulf. Gordon, a published author, had not used the term previously, but he was to use it from then on. A second strategic personality from American diplomatic and military circles, Alfred Thayer Mahan , concerned about
492-584: A break from the past by rejecting Aristotle and his medieval followers outright, calling their approach to natural philosophy superficial. Near East The Near East is a transcontinental region around the East Mediterranean encompassing parts of West Asia , the Balkans , and North Africa ; it also includes the historical Fertile Crescent , the Levant , Anatolia , East Thrace and Egypt . The term
656-692: A broad range of more specialized fields of engineering , each with a more specific emphasis on particular areas of applied mathematics , applied science , and types of application. See glossary of engineering . The term engineering is derived from the Latin ingenium , meaning "cleverness". The American Engineers' Council for Professional Development (ECPD, the predecessor of ABET ) has defined "engineering" as: The creative application of scientific principles to design or develop structures, machines, apparatus, or manufacturing processes, or works utilizing them singly or in combination; or to construct or operate
820-542: A career in planetary science undergo graduate-level studies in one of the Earth sciences, astronomy, astrophysics, geophysics, or physics. They then focus their research within the discipline of planetary science. Major conferences are held annually, and numerous peer reviewed journals cater to the diverse research interests in planetary science. Some planetary scientists are employed by private research centers and frequently engage in collaborative research initiatives. Constituting
984-405: A commercial scale, such as the manufacture of commodity chemicals , specialty chemicals , petroleum refining , microfabrication , fermentation , and biomolecule production . Civil engineering is the design and construction of public and private works, such as infrastructure (airports, roads, railways, water supply, and treatment etc.), bridges, tunnels, dams, and buildings. Civil engineering
1148-530: A count of 2,000. There were fewer than 50 engineering graduates in the U.S. before 1865. In 1870 there were a dozen U.S. mechanical engineering graduates, with that number increasing to 43 per year in 1875. In 1890, there were 6,000 engineers in civil, mining , mechanical and electrical. There was no chair of applied mechanism and applied mechanics at Cambridge until 1875, and no chair of engineering at Oxford until 1907. Germany established technical universities earlier. The foundations of electrical engineering in
1312-419: A demand for machinery with metal parts, which led to the development of several machine tools . Boring cast iron cylinders with precision was not possible until John Wilkinson invented his boring machine , which is considered the first machine tool . Other machine tools included the screw cutting lathe , milling machine , turret lathe and the metal planer . Precision machining techniques were developed in
1476-497: A field, village or shire. There was a linguistic predisposition to use such terms. The Romans had used them in near Gaul / far Gaul, near Spain / far Spain and others. Before them the Greeks had the habit, which appears in Linear B , the oldest known script of Europe, referring to the near province and the far province of the kingdom of Pylos . Usually these terms were given with reference to
1640-469: A fourth was about to fall to revolution, and two more, the British and French, were forced to yield in revolutions started under the aegis of their own ideologies. By 1916, when millions of Europeans were becoming casualties of imperial war in the trenches of eastern and western Europe over "the eastern question", Arnold J. Toynbee , Hegelesque historian of civilization at large, was becoming metaphysical about
1804-552: A geographic feature, such as a mountain range or a river. Ptolemy 's Geography divided Asia on a similar basis. In the north is "Scythia this side of the Himalayas" and "Scythia beyond the Himalayas". To the south is "India on this side of the Ganges" and "India beyond the Ganges". Asia began on the coast of Anatolia ("land of the rising Sun"). Beyond the Ganges and Himalayas (including
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#17328409367991968-484: A key part of most scientific discourse. Such integrative fields, for example, include nanoscience , astrobiology , and complex system informatics . Materials science is a relatively new, interdisciplinary field that deals with the study of matter and its properties and the discovery and design of new materials. Originally developed through the field of metallurgy , the study of the properties of materials and solids has now expanded into all materials. The field covers
2132-447: A laboratory, using a series of (often well-tested) techniques for manipulating materials, as well as an understanding of the underlying processes. Chemistry is often called " the central science " because of its role in connecting the other natural sciences. Early experiments in chemistry had their roots in the system of alchemy , a set of beliefs combining mysticism with physical experiments. The science of chemistry began to develop with
2296-423: A level equal with theology and the debate of religious constructs in a scientific context, showed the persistence with which Catholic leaders resisted the development of natural philosophy even from a theological perspective. Aquinas and Albertus Magnus , another Catholic theologian of the era, sought to distance theology from science in their works. "I don't see what one's interpretation of Aristotle has to do with
2460-400: A matter not only for their existence but also for their definition." There was broad agreement among scholars in medieval times that natural science was about bodies in motion. However, there was division about including fields such as medicine, music, and perspective. Philosophers pondered questions including the existence of a vacuum, whether motion could produce heat, the colors of rainbows,
2624-744: 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 the 16th century by describing and classifying plants, animals, minerals, and so on. Today, "natural history" suggests observational descriptions aimed at popular audiences. Philosophers of science have suggested several criteria, including Karl Popper 's controversial falsifiability criterion, to help them differentiate scientific endeavors from non-scientific ones. Validity , accuracy , and quality control , such as peer review and reproducibility of findings, are amongst
2788-484: A phrase containing a noun, East, qualified by an adjective, far, could be at any location in the "far east" of the speaker's home territory. The Ottoman Empire, for example, was the far East as much as the East Indies. The Crimean War brought a change in vocabulary with the introduction of terms more familiar to the late 19th century. The Russian Empire had entered a more aggressive phase, becoming militarily active against
2952-400: A result, many engineers continue to learn new material throughout their careers. If multiple solutions exist, engineers weigh each design choice based on their merit and choose the solution that best matches the requirements. The task of the engineer is to identify, understand, and interpret the constraints on a design in order to yield a successful result. It is generally insufficient to build
3116-480: A separate field in its own right, most modern workers in the field agree that it has matured to a state that it has its own paradigms and practices. Planetary science or planetology, is the scientific study of planets, which include terrestrial planets like the Earth, and other types of planets, such as gas giants and ice giants . Planetary science also concerns other celestial bodies, such as dwarf planets moons , asteroids , and comets . This largely includes
3280-400: A significant role in the other natural sciences, as represented by astrophysics , geophysics , chemical physics and biophysics . Likewise chemistry is represented by such fields as biochemistry , physical chemistry , geochemistry and astrochemistry . A particular example of a scientific discipline that draws upon multiple natural sciences is environmental science . This field studies
3444-476: A significant role in the world economy. Physics embodies the study of the fundamental constituents of the universe , the forces and interactions they exert on one another, and the results produced by these interactions. Physics is generally regarded as foundational because all other natural sciences use and obey the field's principles and laws. Physics relies heavily on mathematics as the logical framework for formulating and quantifying principles. The study of
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#17328409367993608-410: A step closer to direct inquiry about cause and effect in nature between 600 and 400 BC. However, an element of magic and mythology remained. Natural phenomena such as earthquakes and eclipses were explained increasingly in the context of nature itself instead of being attributed to angry gods. Thales of Miletus , an early philosopher who lived from 625 to 546 BC, explained earthquakes by theorizing that
3772-411: A technically successful product, rather, it must also meet further requirements. Constraints may include available resources, physical, imaginative or technical limitations, flexibility for future modifications and additions, and other factors, such as requirements for cost, safety , marketability, productivity, and serviceability . By understanding the constraints, engineers derive specifications for
3936-618: A testament to the ingenuity and skill of ancient civil and military engineers. Other monuments, no longer standing, such as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the Pharos of Alexandria , were important engineering achievements of their time and were considered among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World . The six classic simple machines were known in the ancient Near East . The wedge and
4100-598: A time, Near East often included the Balkans. Robert Hichens' 1913 book The Near East is subtitled "Dalmatia, Greece and Constantinople". The change is evident in the reports of influential British travelers to the Balkans. In 1894, Sir Henry Norman, 1st Baronet , a journalist, traveled to the Far East, afterwards writing a book called The Peoples and Politics of the Far East , which came out in 1895. By "Far East" he meant Siberia , China , Japan , Korea , Siam and Malaya . As
4264-731: A treatise by the earlier Persian scholar Al-Farabi called On the Sciences into Latin, calling the study of the mechanics of nature Scientia naturalis , or natural science. Gundissalinus also proposed his classification of the natural sciences in his 1150 work On the Division of Philosophy . This was the first detailed classification of the sciences based on Greek and Arab philosophy to reach Western Europe. Gundissalinus defined natural science as "the science considering only things unabstracted and with motion," as opposed to mathematics and sciences that rely on mathematics. Following Al-Farabi, he separated
4428-906: A useful purpose. Examples of bioengineering research include bacteria engineered to produce chemicals, new medical imaging technology, portable and rapid disease diagnostic devices, prosthetics, biopharmaceuticals, and tissue-engineered organs. Interdisciplinary engineering draws from more than one of the principle branches of the practice. Historically, naval engineering and mining engineering were major branches. Other engineering fields are manufacturing engineering , acoustical engineering , corrosion engineering , instrumentation and control , aerospace , automotive , computer , electronic , information engineering , petroleum , environmental , systems , audio , software , architectural , agricultural , biosystems , biomedical , geological , textile , industrial , materials , and nuclear engineering . These and other branches of engineering are represented in
4592-581: A variation soon developed among the scholars and the men of the cloth and their associates: the Nearer East , reverting to the classical and then more scholarly distinction of nearer and farther . They undoubtedly saw a need to separate the biblical lands from the terrain of the Ottoman Empire. The Christians saw the country as the land of the Old and New Testaments, where Christianity had developed. The scholars in
4756-622: A way to distinguish between those specializing in the construction of such non-military projects and those involved in the discipline of military engineering . The pyramids in ancient Egypt , ziggurats of Mesopotamia , the Acropolis and Parthenon in Greece, the Roman aqueducts , Via Appia and Colosseum, Teotihuacán , and the Brihadeeswarar Temple of Thanjavur , among many others, stand as
4920-510: Is a broad discipline that is often broken down into several sub-disciplines. Although an engineer will usually be trained in a specific discipline, he or she may become multi-disciplined through experience. Engineering is often characterized as having four main branches: chemical engineering, civil engineering, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering. Chemical engineering is the application of physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering principles in order to carry out chemical processes on
5084-580: Is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, galaxies, and comets. Astronomy is the study of everything in the universe beyond Earth's atmosphere, including objects we can see with our naked eyes. It is one of the oldest sciences. Astronomers of early civilizations performed methodical observations of the night sky, and astronomical artifacts have been found from much earlier periods. There are two types of astronomy: observational astronomy and theoretical astronomy. Observational astronomy
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5248-507: Is a term of current fashion for a region which our grandfathers were content to call simply The East. Its area is generally understood to coincide with those classic lands, historically the most interesting on the surface of the globe, which lie about the eastern basin of the Mediterranean Sea; but few probably could say offhand where should be the limits and why. Hogarth then proceeds to say where and why in some detail, but no more mention
5412-420: Is an all-embracing term for the sciences related to the planet Earth , including geology , geography , geophysics , geochemistry , climatology , glaciology , hydrology , meteorology , and oceanography . Although mining and precious stones have been human interests throughout the history of civilization, the development of the related sciences of economic geology and mineralogy did not occur until
5576-682: Is associated with anything constructed on or within the Earth. This discipline applies geological sciences and engineering principles to direct or support the work of other disciplines such as civil engineering , environmental engineering , and mining engineering . Geological engineers are involved with impact studies for facilities and operations that affect surface and subsurface environments, such as rock excavations (e.g. tunnels ), building foundation consolidation, slope and fill stabilization, landslide risk assessment, groundwater monitoring, groundwater remediation , mining excavations, and natural resource exploration. One who practices engineering
5740-497: Is called an engineer , and those licensed to do so may have more formal designations such as Professional Engineer , Chartered Engineer , Incorporated Engineer , Ingenieur , European Engineer , or Designated Engineering Representative . In the engineering design process, engineers apply mathematics and sciences such as physics to find novel solutions to problems or to improve existing solutions. Engineers need proficient knowledge of relevant sciences for their design projects. As
5904-399: Is concerned with the characteristics, classification and behaviors of organisms , as well as how species were formed and their interactions with each other and the environment . The biological fields of botany , zoology , and medicine date back to early periods of civilization, while microbiology was introduced in the 17th century with the invention of the microscope. However, it
6068-529: Is focused on acquiring and analyzing data, mainly using basic principles of physics. In contrast, Theoretical astronomy is oriented towards developing computer or analytical models to describe astronomical objects and phenomena. This discipline is the science of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere . It is concerned with the evolution, physics , chemistry , meteorology , geology , and motion of celestial objects, as well as
6232-472: Is made of the classics. His analysis is geopolitical . His map delineates the Nearer East with regular lines as though surveyed. They include Iran, the Balkans, but not the Danube lands, Egypt, but not the rest of North Africa. Except for the Balkans, the region matches the later Middle East. It differs from the Ottoman Empire of the times in including Greece and Iran. Hogarth gives no evidence of being familiar with
6396-798: Is often included. In 1997, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations defined the region similarly, but also included Afghanistan . The part of the region that is in Asia (ie., not including Egypt , the Balkans , and Thrace ) is "now commonly referred to as West Asia ." Later on in 2012, the FAO defined the Near East as a subregion of the Middle East. The Near East included Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syrian Arab Republic, and Turkey while
6560-519: Is sub-categorized into more specialized cross-disciplines, such as physical oceanography and marine biology . As the marine ecosystem is vast and diverse, marine biology is further divided into many subfields, including specializations in particular species . There is also a subset of cross-disciplinary fields with strong currents that run counter to specialization by the nature of the problems they address. Put another way: In some fields of integrative application, specialists in more than one field are
6724-428: Is the design and manufacture of physical or mechanical systems, such as power and energy systems, aerospace / aircraft products, weapon systems , transportation products, engines , compressors , powertrains , kinematic chains , vacuum technology, vibration isolation equipment, manufacturing , robotics, turbines, audio equipments, and mechatronics . Bioengineering is the engineering of biological systems for
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6888-663: Is traditionally broken into a number of sub-disciplines, including structural engineering , environmental engineering , and surveying . It is traditionally considered to be separate from military engineering . Electrical engineering is the design, study, and manufacture of various electrical and electronic systems, such as broadcast engineering , electrical circuits , generators , motors , electromagnetic / electromechanical devices, electronic devices , electronic circuits , optical fibers , optoelectronic devices , computer systems, telecommunications , instrumentation , control systems , and electronics . Mechanical engineering
7052-564: The Ayurvedic tradition saw health and illness as a combination of three humors: wind , bile and phlegm . A healthy life resulted from a balance among these humors. In Ayurvedic thought, the body consisted of five elements: earth, water, fire, wind, and space. Ayurvedic surgeons performed complex surgeries and developed a detailed understanding of human anatomy. Pre-Socratic philosophers in Ancient Greek culture brought natural philosophy
7216-643: The Kingdom of Greece , Kingdom of Serbia , the Danubian Principalities , and the Kingdom of Bulgaria . Up until 1912, the Ottomans retained a band of territory including Albania , Macedonia and the Adrianople Vilayet , which were lost in the two Balkan Wars of 1912–13. The Ottoman Empire, believed to be about to collapse, was portrayed in the press as the " sick man of Europe ". The Balkan states, with
7380-680: The Mesopotamian and Ancient Egyptian cultures, which produced the first known written evidence of natural philosophy , the precursor of natural science. While the writings show an interest in astronomy, mathematics, and other aspects of the physical world, the ultimate aim of inquiry about nature's workings was, in all cases, religious or mythological, not scientific. A tradition of scientific inquiry also emerged in Ancient China , where Taoist alchemists and philosophers experimented with elixirs to extend life and cure ailments. They focused on
7544-471: The Near East because Old Persian cuneiform had been found there. This usage did not sit well with the diplomats; India was left in an equivocal state. They needed a regional term. The use of the term Middle East as a region of international affairs apparently began in British and American diplomatic circles quite independently of each other over concern for the security of the same country: Iran, then known to
7708-582: The Near East , the Ottoman Empire, and the Far East , the East Indies. The two terms were now compound nouns often shown hyphenated. In 1855, a reprint of a letter earlier sent to The Times appeared in Littell's Living Age . Its author, an "official Chinese interpreter of 10 years' active service" and a member of the Oriental Club , Thomas Taylor Meadows, was replying to the suggestion by another interpreter that
7872-827: The Neo-Assyrian period (911–609) BC. The Egyptian pyramids were built using three of the six simple machines, the inclined plane, the wedge, and the lever, to create structures like the Great Pyramid of Giza . The earliest civil engineer known by name is Imhotep . As one of the officials of the Pharaoh , Djosèr , he probably designed and supervised the construction of the Pyramid of Djoser (the Step Pyramid ) at Saqqara in Egypt around 2630–2611 BC. The earliest practical water-powered machines,
8036-542: The Newcomen steam engine . Smeaton designed the third Eddystone Lighthouse (1755–59) where he pioneered the use of ' hydraulic lime ' (a form of mortar which will set under water) and developed a technique involving dovetailed blocks of granite in the building of the lighthouse. He is important in the history, rediscovery of, and development of modern cement , because he identified the compositional requirements needed to obtain "hydraulicity" in lime; work which led ultimately to
8200-643: The Ottoman Porte (government of the Ottoman Empire) at Constantinople . Compared to Anatolia, Levant also means "land of the rising sun", but where Anatolia always only meant the projection of land currently occupied by the Republic of Turkey, Levant meant anywhere in the domain ruled by the Ottoman Porte. The East India Company (Originally charted as the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into
8364-701: The Solar System , but recently has started to expand to exoplanets , particularly terrestrial exoplanets . It explores various objects, spanning from micrometeoroids to gas giants, to establish their composition, movements, genesis, interrelation, and past. Planetary science is an interdisciplinary domain, having originated from astronomy and Earth science , and currently encompassing a multitude of areas, such as planetary geology , cosmochemistry , atmospheric science , physics , oceanography , hydrology , theoretical planetology , glaciology , and exoplanetology. Related fields encompass space physics , which delves into
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#17328409367998528-593: The Tien Shan ) were Serica and Serae (sections of China ) and some other identifiable far eastern locations known to the voyagers and geographers but not to the general European public. By the time of John Seller's Atlas Maritima of 1670, "India Beyond the Ganges" had become "the East Indies " including China, Korea, southeast Asia and the islands of the Pacific in a map that was every bit as distorted as Ptolemy's, despite
8692-449: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers . The word "engine" itself is of even older origin, ultimately deriving from the Latin ingenium ( c. 1250 ), meaning "innate quality, especially mental power, hence a clever invention." Later, as the design of civilian structures, such as bridges and buildings, matured as a technical discipline, the term civil engineering entered the lexicon as
8856-522: The cell or organic molecule . Modern biology is divided into subdisciplines by the type of organism and by the scale being studied. Molecular biology is the study of the fundamental chemistry of life, while cellular biology is the examination of the cell; the basic building block of all life. At a higher level, anatomy and physiology look at the internal structures, and their functions, of an organism, while ecology looks at how various organisms interrelate. Earth science (also known as geoscience)
9020-420: The formal sciences , such as mathematics and logic , converting information about nature into measurements that can be explained as clear statements of the " laws of nature ". Modern natural science succeeded more classical approaches to natural philosophy . Galileo , Kepler , Descartes , Bacon , and Newton debated the benefits of using approaches which were more mathematical and more experimental in
9184-624: The formation and development of the universe . Astronomy includes examining, studying, and modeling stars, planets, and comets. Most of the information used by astronomers is gathered by remote observation. However, some laboratory reproduction of celestial phenomena has been performed (such as the molecular chemistry of the interstellar medium ). There is considerable overlap with physics and in some areas of earth science . There are also interdisciplinary fields such as astrophysics , planetary sciences , and cosmology , along with allied disciplines such as space physics and astrochemistry . While
9348-462: The inclined plane (ramp) were known since prehistoric times. The wheel , along with the wheel and axle mechanism, was invented in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) during the 5th millennium BC. The lever mechanism first appeared around 5,000 years ago in the Near East , where it was used in a simple balance scale , and to move large objects in ancient Egyptian technology . The lever was also used in
9512-548: The shadoof water-lifting device, the first crane machine, which appeared in Mesopotamia c. 3000 BC , and then in ancient Egyptian technology c. 2000 BC . The earliest evidence of pulleys date back to Mesopotamia in the early 2nd millennium BC, and ancient Egypt during the Twelfth Dynasty (1991–1802 BC). The screw , the last of the simple machines to be invented, first appeared in Mesopotamia during
9676-620: The water wheel and watermill , first appeared in the Persian Empire , in what are now Iraq and Iran, by the early 4th century BC. Kush developed the Sakia during the 4th century BC, which relied on animal power instead of human energy. Hafirs were developed as a type of reservoir in Kush to store and contain water as well as boost irrigation. Sappers were employed to build causeways during military campaigns. Kushite ancestors built speos during
9840-522: The yin and yang , or contrasting elements in nature; the yin was associated with femininity and coldness, while yang was associated with masculinity and warmth. The five phases – fire, earth, metal, wood, and water – described a cycle of transformations in nature. The water turned into wood, which turned into the fire when it burned. The ashes left by fire were earth. Using these principles, Chinese philosophers and doctors explored human anatomy, characterizing organs as predominantly yin or yang, and understood
10004-632: The "collective wisdom" of Europe, and introducing a concept to arise many times in the decades to follow under chilling circumstances: "... no final solution of the difficulty has yet been found." Miller's final pronouncements on the topic could not be ignored by either the British or the Ottoman governments: It remains then to consider whether the Great Powers can solve the Eastern Question ;... Foreigners find it extremely difficult to understand
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#173284093679910168-411: The 14th century when an engine'er (literally, one who builds or operates a siege engine ) referred to "a constructor of military engines". In this context, now obsolete, an "engine" referred to a military machine, i.e. , a mechanical contraption used in war (for example, a catapult ). Notable examples of the obsolete usage which have survived to the present day are military engineering corps, e.g. ,
10332-454: The 16th century, and he is considered to be the father of biology for his pioneering work in that science . He also presented philosophies about physics, nature, and astronomy using inductive reasoning in his works Physics and Meteorology . While Aristotle considered natural philosophy more seriously than his predecessors, he approached it as a theoretical branch of science. Still, inspired by his work, Ancient Roman philosophers of
10496-426: The 1800s included the experiments of Alessandro Volta , Michael Faraday , Georg Ohm and others and the invention of the electric telegraph in 1816 and the electric motor in 1872. The theoretical work of James Maxwell (see: Maxwell's equations ) and Heinrich Hertz in the late 19th century gave rise to the field of electronics . The later inventions of the vacuum tube and the transistor further accelerated
10660-549: The 18th century. The study of the earth, particularly paleontology , blossomed in the 19th century. The growth of other disciplines, such as geophysics , in the 20th century led to the development of the theory of plate tectonics in the 1960s, which has had a similar effect on the Earth sciences as the theory of evolution had on biology. Earth sciences today are closely linked to petroleum and mineral resources , climate research, and to environmental assessment and remediation . Although sometimes considered in conjunction with
10824-593: The 36 licensed member institutions of the UK Engineering Council . New specialties sometimes combine with the traditional fields and form new branches – for example, Earth systems engineering and management involves a wide range of subject areas including engineering studies , environmental science , engineering ethics and philosophy of engineering . Aerospace engineering covers the design, development, manufacture and operational behaviour of aircraft , satellites and rockets . Marine engineering covers
10988-571: The 9th century. In 1206, Al-Jazari invented programmable automata / robots . He described four automaton musicians, including drummers operated by a programmable drum machine , where they could be made to play different rhythms and different drum patterns. Before the development of modern engineering, mathematics was used by artisans and craftsmen, such as millwrights , clockmakers , instrument makers and surveyors. Aside from these professions, universities were not believed to have had much practical significance to technology. A standard reference for
11152-530: The Antikythera mechanism, required sophisticated knowledge of differential gearing or epicyclic gearing , two key principles in machine theory that helped design the gear trains of the Industrial Revolution, and are widely used in fields such as robotics and automotive engineering . Ancient Chinese, Greek, Roman and Hunnic armies employed military machines and inventions such as artillery which
11316-418: The Balkans. Apart from the fact that he attended Oxford and played Rugby , not many biographical details have been promulgated. He was, in effect (whatever his formal associations if any), a point man of British Near Eastern intelligence. In Miller's view, the Ottoman officials were unfit to rule: The plain fact is that it is as hard for an Ottoman official to be honest as it is for a camel to enter through
11480-460: The British Empire was wasting its resources on a false threat from Russia against China. Toward the end of the letter he said: To support the "sick man" in the Near East is an arduous and costly affair; let England, France and America too, beware how they create a "sick giant" in the Far East, for they may rest assured that, if Turkey is [a] European necessity, China is a world necessity. Much of
11644-471: The Bronze Age between 3700 and 3250 BC. Bloomeries and blast furnaces were also created during the 7th centuries BC in Kush. Ancient Greece developed machines in both civilian and military domains. The Antikythera mechanism , an early known mechanical analog computer , and the mechanical inventions of Archimedes , are examples of Greek mechanical engineering. Some of Archimedes' inventions, as well as
11808-477: The East-Indies") was chartered in 1600 for trade to the East Indies. It has pleased western historians to write of a decline of the Ottoman Empire as though a stable and uncontested polity of that name once existed. The borders did expand and contract but they were always dynamic and always in "question" right from the beginning. The Ottoman Empire was created from the lands of the former eastern Roman Empire on
11972-480: The Mediterranean ;..." The regions in their inventory were Assyria, Chaldea, Mesopotamia, Persia, Armenia, Egypt, Arabia, Syria, Ancient Israel, Ethiopia, Caucasus, Libya, Anatolia and Abyssinia. Explicitly excluded is India. No mention is made of the Balkans. The British archaeologist D. G. Hogarth published The Nearer East in 1902, in which he stated his view of the Near East : The Nearer East
12136-560: The Middle Ages brought with it further advances in natural philosophy. European inventions such as the horseshoe , horse collar and crop rotation allowed for rapid population growth, eventually giving way to urbanization and the foundation of schools connected to monasteries and cathedrals in modern-day France and England . Aided by the schools, an approach to Christian theology developed that sought to answer questions about nature and other subjects using logic. This approach, however,
12300-633: The Middle East included the Arabian Peninsula, the Caucasus, and Iran. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the Ottoman Empire included all of the Balkans , north to the southern edge of the Great Hungarian Plain . But by 1914, the empire had lost all of its territories except Constantinople and Eastern Thrace to the rise of nationalist Balkan states , which saw the independence of
12464-468: The Near East. Geography alone was not a sufficient explanation of the terms, he believed. If the Ottoman Empire had been a sick man, then: There has been something pathological about the history of this Near Eastern World. It has had an undue share of political misfortunes, and had lain for centuries in a kind of spiritual paralysis between East and West—belonging to neither, partaking paradoxically of both, and wholly unable to rally itself decidedly to one or
12628-532: The Near Eastern frontiers up to the desert belt of the Sahara, Nefud and Kevir. From the death of the Near East, new nations were able to rise from the ashes, notably the Republic of Turkey. Paradoxically it now aligned itself with the west rather than with the east. Mustafa Kemal , its founder, a former Ottoman high-ranking officer, was insistent on this social revolution, which, among other changes, liberated women from
12792-554: The Ottoman Empire and also against China, with territorial aggrandizement explicitly in mind. Rethinking its policy the British government decided that the two polities under attack were necessary for the balance of power. It therefore undertook to oppose the Russians in both places, one result being the Crimean War. During that war the administration of the British Empire began promulgating a new vocabulary, giving specific regional meaning to
12956-687: The Ottoman Empire or neighboring Russia. In the 1890s the term tended to focus on the conflicts in the Balkan states and Armenia. The demise of "the sick man of Europe" left considerable confusion as to what was to be meant by Near East . It is now generally used only in historical contexts, to describe the countries of West Asia from the Mediterranean to (or including) Iran . There is, in short, no universally-understood fixed inventory of nations, languages or historical assets defined to be in it. The geographical terms Near East and Far East refer to areas of
13120-667: The Slavic Balkan states began to question the very existence of the Ottoman Empire. The result was the Crimean War , 1853–1856, in which the British Empire and the French Empire supported the Ottoman Empire in its struggle against the incursions of the Russian Empire. Eventually, the Ottoman Empire lost control of the Balkan region. Until about 1855, the terms Near East and Far East did not refer to any particular region. The Far East,
13284-720: The Turks against Russia. If the British Empire was now going to side with the Russian Empire, the Ottoman Empire had no choice but to cultivate a relationship with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was supported by the German Empire. In a few years these alignments became the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance (already formed in 1882), which were in part a cause of World War I . By its end in 1918 three empires were gone,
13448-637: The United States went to Josiah Willard Gibbs at Yale University in 1863; it was also the second PhD awarded in science in the U.S. Only a decade after the successful flights by the Wright brothers , there was extensive development of aeronautical engineering through development of military aircraft that were used in World War I . Meanwhile, research to provide fundamental background science continued by combining theoretical physics with experiments. Engineering
13612-402: The United States. The innovation of the term Near East to mean the holdings of the Ottoman Empire as early as the Crimean War had left a geographical gap. The East Indies, or "Far East", derived ultimately from Ptolemy 's "India Beyond the Ganges." The Ottoman Empire ended at the eastern border of Iraq. "India This Side of the Ganges" and Iran had been omitted. The archaeologists counted Iran as
13776-475: The West. Christopher Columbus 's discovery of a new world changed perceptions about the physical makeup of the world, while observations by Copernicus , Tyco Brahe and Galileo brought a more accurate picture of the solar system as heliocentric and proved many of Aristotle's theories about the heavenly bodies false. Several 17th-century philosophers, including Thomas Hobbes , John Locke and Francis Bacon , made
13940-460: The aforementioned regions were in actuality "politically one region – in spite of the divisions into which it is academically divided." In The Conflict of Colour , Simpson argued that what united these regions was their skin color and the fact that they were all under European colonial rule . The work included a "color chart" of the world, dividing it into a spectrum of ' black ', 'brown', ' yellow ' and ' white ' races. Simpson also modified
14104-408: The aviation pioneers around the start of the 20th century although the work of Sir George Cayley has recently been dated as being from the last decade of the 18th century. Early knowledge of aeronautical engineering was largely empirical with some concepts and skills imported from other branches of engineering. The first PhD in engineering (technically, applied science and engineering ) awarded in
14268-419: The book was a big success, he was off to the Balkan states with his wife in 1896 to develop detail for a sequel, The People and Politics of the Near East , which Scribners planned to publish in 1897. Mrs. Norman, a writer herself, wrote glowing letters of the home and person of Mme. Zakki, "the wife of a Turkish cabinet minister," who, she said, was a cultivated woman living in a country home full of books. As for
14432-542: The chemistry, physics, and engineering applications of materials, including metals, ceramics, artificial polymers, and many others. The field's core deals with relating the structure of materials with their properties. Materials science is at the forefront of research in science and engineering. It is an essential part of forensic engineering (the investigation of materials, products, structures, or components that fail or do not operate or function as intended, causing personal injury or damage to property) and failure analysis ,
14596-640: The colonial administration belonged to this club, which had been formed by the Duke of Wellington . Meadows' terminology must represent usage by that administration. If not the first use of the terms, the letter to the Times was certainly one of the earliest presentations of this vocabulary to the general public. They became immediately popular, supplanting "Levant" and "East Indies", which gradually receded to minor usages and then began to change meaning. Near East remained popular in diplomatic, trade and journalistic circles, but
14760-512: The conclusion that something is impossible. While an impossibility assertion in natural science can never be proved, it could be refuted by the observation of a single counterexample. Such a counterexample would require that the assumptions underlying the theory that implied the impossibility be re-examined. This field encompasses a diverse set of disciplines that examine phenomena related to living organisms. The scale of study can range from sub-component biophysics up to complex ecologies . Biology
14924-459: The contemporaneous initial concept of the Middle East. In the last years of the 19th century, the term Near East acquired considerable disrepute in eyes of the English-speaking public as did the Ottoman Empire itself. The cause of the onus was the religiously motivated Hamidian Massacres of Christian Armenians , but it seemed to spill over into the protracted conflicts of the Balkans. For
15088-518: The countries where "the eastern question" applied; that is, to all of the Balkans . The countries and regions mentioned are Greece , Bulgaria , Serbia , Bosnia-Herzegovina (which was Muslim and needed, in his view, to be suppressed), Macedonia , Montenegro , Albania , Romania . The rest of the Ottoman domain is demoted to just "the East". If Norman was apparently attempting to change British policy, it
15252-571: The design, development, manufacture and operational behaviour of watercraft and stationary structures like oil platforms and ports . Computer engineering (CE) is a branch of engineering that integrates several fields of computer science and electronic engineering required to develop computer hardware and software . Computer engineers usually have training in electronic engineering (or electrical engineering ), software design , and hardware-software integration instead of only software engineering or electronic engineering. Geological engineering
15416-405: The development and large scale manufacturing of chemicals in new industrial plants. The role of the chemical engineer was the design of these chemical plants and processes. Aeronautical engineering deals with aircraft design process design while aerospace engineering is a more modern term that expands the reach of the discipline by including spacecraft design. Its origins can be traced back to
15580-494: The development of thermodynamics , and the quantum mechanical model of atomic and subatomic physics. The field of physics is vast and can include such diverse studies as quantum mechanics and theoretical physics , applied physics and optics . Modern physics is becoming increasingly specialized, where researchers tend to focus on a particular area rather than being "universalists" like Isaac Newton , Albert Einstein , and Lev Landau , who worked in multiple areas. Astronomy
15744-416: The development of electronics to such an extent that electrical and electronics engineers currently outnumber their colleagues of any other engineering specialty. Chemical engineering developed in the late nineteenth century. Industrial scale manufacturing demanded new materials and new processes and by 1880 the need for large scale production of chemicals was such that a new industry was created, dedicated to
15908-562: The early 13th century, although the practice was frowned upon by the Catholic church. A 1210 decree from the Synod of Paris ordered that "no lectures are to be held in Paris either publicly or privately using Aristotle's books on natural philosophy or the commentaries, and we forbid all this under pain of ex-communication." In the late Middle Ages, Spanish philosopher Dominicus Gundissalinus translated
16072-497: The early 1st century AD, including Lucretius , Seneca and Pliny the Elder , wrote treatises that dealt with the rules of the natural world in varying degrees of depth. Many Ancient Roman Neoplatonists of the 3rd to the 6th centuries also adapted Aristotle's teachings on the physical world to a philosophy that emphasized spiritualism. Early medieval philosophers including Macrobius , Calcidius and Martianus Capella also examined
16236-447: The earth sciences, due to the independent development of its concepts, techniques, and practices and also the fact of it having a wide range of sub-disciplines under its wing, atmospheric science is also considered a separate branch of natural science. This field studies the characteristics of different layers of the atmosphere from ground level to the edge of the space. The timescale of the study also varies from day to century. Sometimes,
16400-446: The east of the eastern question. In about the middle of the nineteenth century, Near East came into use to describe that part of the east closest to Europe. The term Far East appeared contemporaneously meaning Japan , China , Korea , Indonesia and Vietnam . Near East applied to what had been mainly known as the Levant , which was in the jurisdiction of the Ottoman Porte , or government. Europeans could not set foot on most of
16564-522: The east, collaborated with English merchants to form the first trading companies to the far-flung regions, using their own jargon. Their goals were to obtain trading concessions by treaty. The queen chartered the Company of Merchants of the Levant, shortened to Levant Company , and soon known also as The Turkey Company, in 1581. In 1582, the ship The Great Susan transported the first ambassador, William Harebone, to
16728-399: The eye of a needle. It is not so much the fault of the men as the fault of the system, which is thoroughly bad from top to bottom... Turkish administration is synonymous with corruption, inefficiency, and sloth. These were fighting words to be coming from a country that once insisted Europe needed Turkey and was willing to spill blood over it. For his authority Miller invokes the people, citing
16892-632: The eyes of Western commentators. Bertram Lenox Simpson , a journalist who served for a period as an officer for the Chinese Maritime Customs Service , combined both terms in his 1910 work The Conflict of Colour: The Threatened Upheaval Throughout the World as "the Near and Middle East." According to Simpson, the combined region consisted of " India , Afghanistan , Persia , Arabistan , Asia Minor , and last, but not least, Egypt ", explaining that
17056-513: The facility to concentrate in force, if occasion arise, about Aden, India, and the Gulf. Apparently the sailor did not connect with the soldier, as Mahan believed he was innovating the term Middle East . It was, however, already there to be seen. Until the interwar period following the First World War , the terms Near East and Middle East co-existed, but they were not always seen as distinct in
17220-400: The field also includes the study of climatic patterns on planets other than Earth. The serious study of oceans began in the early- to mid-20th century. As a field of natural science, it is relatively young, but stand-alone programs offer specializations in the subject. Though some controversies remain as to the categorization of the field under earth sciences, interdisciplinary sciences, or as
17384-412: The field of studies that eventually became biblical archaeology attempted to define it on the basis of archaeology. For example, The London Review of 1861 (Telford and Barber, unsigned) in reviewing several works by Rawlinson , Layard and others, defined themselves as making: "... an imperfect conspectus of the arrow-headed writings of the nearer east; writings which cover nearly the whole period of
17548-419: The first commercial piston steam engine in 1712, was not known to have any scientific training. The application of steam-powered cast iron blowing cylinders for providing pressurized air for blast furnaces lead to a large increase in iron production in the late 18th century. The higher furnace temperatures made possible with steam-powered blast allowed for the use of more lime in blast furnaces , which enabled
17712-408: The first half of the 19th century. These included the use of gigs to guide the machining tool over the work and fixtures to hold the work in the proper position. Machine tools and machining techniques capable of producing interchangeable parts lead to large scale factory production by the late 19th century. The United States Census of 1850 listed the occupation of "engineer" for the first time with
17876-513: The foreign, and especially the Eastern policy of Great Britain, and we cannot wonder at their difficulty, for it seems a mass of contradictions to Englishmen themselves ... At one moment we are bringing about the independence of Greece by sending the Turkish fleet to the bottom of the bay of Navarino. Twenty-seven years later we are spending immense sums and wasting thousands of lives in order to protect
18040-456: The globe in or contiguous to the former British Empire and the neighboring colonies of the Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish and Germans. They fit together as a pair based on the opposites of far and near, suggesting that they were innovated together. They appear together in the journals of the mid-19th century. Both terms were used before then with local British and American meanings: the near or far east of
18204-873: The impact of the Sun on the bodies in the Solar System, and astrobiology . Planetary science comprises interconnected observational and theoretical branches. Observational research entails a combination of space exploration , primarily through robotic spacecraft missions utilizing remote sensing, and comparative experimental work conducted in Earth-based laboratories. The theoretical aspect involves extensive mathematical modelling and computer simulation . Typically, planetary scientists are situated within astronomy and physics or Earth sciences departments in universities or research centers. However, there are also dedicated planetary science institutes worldwide. Generally, individuals pursuing
18368-522: The indignation of the entire Christian world. In the United States, the then aging Julia Ward Howe , author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic , leapt into the war of words and joined the Red Cross . Relations of minorities within the Ottoman Empire and the disposition of former Ottoman lands became known as the " Eastern question ", as the Ottomans were on the east of Europe. It now became relevant to define
18532-436: The interactions of physical, chemical, geological, and biological components of the environment , with particular regard to the effect of human activities and the impact on biodiversity and sustainability . This science also draws upon expertise from other fields, such as economics, law, and social sciences. A comparable discipline is oceanography , as it draws upon a similar breadth of scientific disciplines. Oceanography
18696-514: The invention of Portland cement . Applied science led to the development of the steam engine. The sequence of events began with the invention of the barometer and the measurement of atmospheric pressure by Evangelista Torricelli in 1643, demonstration of the force of atmospheric pressure by Otto von Guericke using the Magdeburg hemispheres in 1656, laboratory experiments by Denis Papin , who built experimental model steam engines and demonstrated
18860-519: The lands of ancient Greece, but could not gain Constantinople. The Ottoman Porte was continuously under attack from some quarter in its empire, primarily the Balkans. Also, on a number of occasions in the early 19th century, American and British warships had to attack the Barbary pirates to stop their piracy and recover thousands of enslaved Europeans and Americans. In 1853 the Russian Empire on behalf of
19024-525: The lapse of approximately 1,500 years. That "east" in turn was only an English translation of Latin Oriens and Orientalis , "the land of the rising Sun", used since Roman times for "east". The world map of Jodocus Hondius of 1590 labels all of Asia from the Caspian to the Pacific as India Orientalis , shortly to appear in translation as the East Indies. Elizabeth I of England , primarily interested in trade with
19188-556: The latter being the key to understanding, for example, the cause of various aviation accidents. Many of the most pressing scientific problems that are faced today are due to the limitations of the materials that are available, and, as a result, breakthroughs in this field are likely to have a significant impact on the future of technology. The basis of materials science involves studying the structure of materials and relating them to their properties . Understanding this structure-property correlation, material scientists can then go on to study
19352-526: The limits within which a viable object or system may be produced and operated. Natural science Natural science can be divided into two main branches: life science and physical science . Life science is alternatively known as biology , and physical science is subdivided into branches: physics , chemistry , earth science , and astronomy . These branches of natural science may be further divided into more specialized branches (also known as fields). As empirical sciences, natural sciences use tools from
19516-454: The most respected criteria in today's global scientific community. In natural science, impossibility assertions come to be widely accepted as overwhelmingly probable rather than considered proven to the point of being unchallengeable. The basis for this strong acceptance is a combination of extensive evidence of something not occurring, combined with an underlying theory, very successful in making predictions, whose assumptions lead logically to
19680-413: The motion of the earth, whether elemental chemicals exist, and where in the atmosphere rain is formed. In the centuries up through the end of the Middle Ages, natural science was often mingled with philosophies about magic and the occult. Natural philosophy appeared in various forms, from treatises to encyclopedias to commentaries on Aristotle. The interaction between natural philosophy and Christianity
19844-484: The name of freedom with the expectation of being rescued by the intervention of Christian Europe , he states "but her hope was vain." England had "turned her back." Norman concluded his exhortation with "In the Balkans, one learns to hate the Turk." Norman made sure that Gladstone read the article. Prince Nicolas of Montenegro wrote a letter thanking him for his article. Throughout this article, Norman uses "Near East" to mean
20008-501: The natives of the Balkans, they were "a semi-civilized people". The planned book was never published, however Norman published the gist of the book, mixed with vituperation against the Ottoman Empire, in an article in June 1896, in Scribner's Magazine. The empire had descended from an enlightened civilization ruling over barbarians for their own good to something considerably less. The difference
20172-586: The naval vulnerability of the trade routes in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean , commented in 1902: The middle East, if I may adopt a term which I have not seen, will some day need its Malta, as well as its Gibraltar; it does not follow that either will be in the Gulf. Naval force has the quality of mobility which carries with it the privilege of temporary absences; but it needs to find on every scene of operation established bases of refit, of supply, and, in case of disaster, of security. The British Navy should have
20336-682: The occasion of the latter's violent demise. The last Roman emperor died fighting hand-to-hand in the streets of his capital, Constantinople, overwhelmed by the Ottoman military, in May 1453. The victors inherited his remaining territory in the Balkans. The Hungarian lands under Turkish rule had become part of the Habsburg monarchy by 1688. in the Great Turkish War . The Serbian Revolution , 1804–1833. created modern Serbia. The Greek War of Independence , 1821–1832, created modern Greece, which recovered most of
20500-409: The origins of natural science as far back as pre-literate human societies, where understanding the natural world was necessary for survival. People observed and built up knowledge about the behavior of animals and the usefulness of plants as food and medicine, which was passed down from generation to generation. These primitive understandings gave way to more formalized inquiry around 3500 to 3000 BC in
20664-502: The other. Having supposed that it was sick, he kills it off: "The Near East has never been more true to itself than in its lurid dissolution; past and present are fused together in the flare." To Toynbee the Near East was a spiritual being of a " Janus -character", connected to both east and west: The limits of the Near East are not easy to define. On the north-west, Vienna is the most conspicuous boundary-mark, but one might almost equally well single out Trieste or Lvov or even Prag. Towards
20828-536: The partial exception of Bosnia and Albania , were primarily Christian, as was the majority of Lebanon . Starting in 1894, the Ottomans struck at the Armenians and Assyrians on the explicit grounds that they were non-Muslim peoples and as such were a potential threat to the Muslim empire within which they lived. The Hamidian Massacres , Adana Massacres and Massacres of Badr Khan targeting Assyrians and Armenians aroused
20992-587: The physical world, largely from a cosmological and cosmographical perspective, putting forth theories on the arrangement of celestial bodies and the heavens, which were posited as being composed of aether . Aristotle's works on natural philosophy continued to be translated and studied amid the rise of the Byzantine Empire and Abbasid Caliphate . In the Byzantine Empire, John Philoponus , an Alexandrian Aristotelian commentator and Christian theologian,
21156-508: The physical world; Plato criticized pre-Socratic thinkers as materialists and anti-religionists. Aristotle , however, a student of Plato who lived from 384 to 322 BC, paid closer attention to the natural world in his philosophy. In his History of Animals , he described the inner workings of 110 species, including the stingray , catfish and bee . He investigated chick embryos by breaking open eggs and observing them at various stages of development. Aristotle's works were influential through
21320-615: The postdiluvian Old Testament history ..." By arrow-headed writings they meant cuneiform texts. In defense of the Bible as history they said: "The primeval nations, that piled their glorious homes on the Euphrates, the Tigris, and the Nile, are among us again with their archives in their hands; ..." They further defined the nations as "... the countries lying between the Caspian, the Persian Gulf, and
21484-473: The power to weight ratio of steam engines made practical steamboats and locomotives possible. New steel making processes, such as the Bessemer process and the open hearth furnace, ushered in an area of heavy engineering in the late 19th century. One of the most famous engineers of the mid-19th century was Isambard Kingdom Brunel , who built railroads, dockyards and steamships. The Industrial Revolution created
21648-630: The principles of the universe has a long history and largely derives from direct observation and experimentation. The formulation of theories about the governing laws of the universe has been central to the study of physics from very early on, with philosophy gradually yielding to systematic, quantitative experimental testing and observation as the source of verification. Key historical developments in physics include Isaac Newton 's theory of universal gravitation and classical mechanics , an understanding of electricity and its relation to magnetism , Einstein 's theories of special and general relativity ,
21812-546: The relationship between the pulse, the heart, and the flow of blood in the body centuries before it became accepted in the West. Little evidence survives of how Ancient Indian cultures around the Indus River understood nature, but some of their perspectives may be reflected in the Vedas , a set of sacred Hindu texts. They reveal a conception of the universe as ever-expanding and constantly being recycled and reformed. Surgeons in
21976-426: The relative performance of a material in a particular application. The major determinants of the structure of a material and, thus, of its properties are its constituent chemical elements and how it has been processed into its final form. These characteristics, taken together and related through the laws of thermodynamics and kinetics , govern a material's microstructure and thus its properties. Some scholars trace
22140-433: The rise of engineering as a profession in the 18th century, the term became more narrowly applied to fields in which mathematics and science were applied to these ends. Similarly, in addition to military and civil engineering, the fields then known as the mechanic arts became incorporated into engineering. Canal building was an important engineering work during the early phases of the Industrial Revolution. John Smeaton
22304-466: The same region. Near East and Middle East are both Eurocentric terms. According to National Geographic , the terms Near East and Middle East denote the same territories and are "generally accepted as comprising the countries of the Arabian Peninsula , Cyprus , Egypt , Iraq , Iran , Israel , Jordan , Lebanon , Palestinian territories , Syria , and Turkey ". Also, Afghanistan
22468-424: The same with full cognizance of their design; or to forecast their behavior under specific operating conditions; all as respects an intended function, economics of operation and safety to life and property. Engineering has existed since ancient times, when humans devised inventions such as the wedge, lever, wheel and pulley, etc. The term engineering is derived from the word engineer , which itself dates back to
22632-504: The science that deals with bodies in motion. Roger Bacon , an English friar and philosopher, wrote that natural science dealt with "a principle of motion and rest, as in the parts of the elements of fire, air, earth, and water, and in all inanimate things made from them." These sciences also covered plants, animals and celestial bodies. Later in the 13th century, a Catholic priest and theologian Thomas Aquinas defined natural science as dealing with "mobile beings" and "things which depend on
22796-452: The sciences into eight parts, including: physics, cosmology, meteorology, minerals science, and plant and animal science. Later, philosophers made their own classifications of the natural sciences. Robert Kilwardby wrote On the Order of the Sciences in the 13th century that classed medicine as a mechanical science, along with agriculture, hunting, and theater, while defining natural science as
22960-475: The scientific study of matter at the atomic and molecular scale, chemistry deals primarily with collections of atoms, such as gases , molecules, crystals , and metals . The composition, statistical properties, transformations, and reactions of these materials are studied. Chemistry also involves understanding the properties and interactions of individual atoms and molecules for use in larger-scale applications. Most chemical processes can be studied directly in
23124-555: The shores of the southern and central Mediterranean from the Gulf of Sidra to Albania without permits from the Ottoman Empire. Some regions beyond the Ottoman Porte were included. One was North Africa west of Egypt. It was occupied by piratical kingdoms of the Barbary Coast , de facto -independent since the eighteenth century, formerly part of the empire at its apogee. Iran was included because it could not easily be reached except through
23288-564: The southeast, the boundaries are even more shadowy. It is perhaps best to equate them with the frontiers of the Arabic language, yet the genius of the Near East overrides linguistic barriers, and encroaches on the Arabicspeaking world on the one side as well as on the German-speaking world on the other. Syria is essentially a Near Eastern country, and a physical geographer would undoubtedly carry
23452-462: The state of mechanical arts during the Renaissance is given in the mining engineering treatise De re metallica (1556), which also contains sections on geology, mining, and chemistry. De re metallica was the standard chemistry reference for the next 180 years. The science of classical mechanics , sometimes called Newtonian mechanics, formed the scientific basis of much of modern engineering. With
23616-418: The strait rules still in effect in most Arabic-speaking countries. The demise of the political Near East now left a gap where it had been, into which stepped the Middle East. The term Middle East as a noun and adjective was common in the 19th century in nearly every context except diplomacy and archaeology. An uncountable number of places appear to have had their middle easts from gardens to regions, including
23780-415: The study of celestial features and phenomena can be traced back to antiquity, the scientific methodology of this field began to develop in the middle of the 17th century. A key factor was Galileo 's introduction of the telescope to examine the night sky in more detail. The mathematical treatment of astronomy began with Newton 's development of celestial mechanics and the laws of gravitation . However, it
23944-481: The teaching of the faith," he wrote in 1271. By the 16th and 17th centuries, natural philosophy evolved beyond commentary on Aristotle as more early Greek philosophy was uncovered and translated. The invention of the printing press in the 15th century, the invention of the microscope and telescope, and the Protestant Reformation fundamentally altered the social context in which scientific inquiry evolved in
24108-512: The time of the Abbasid Caliphate from the 9th century onward, when Muslim scholars expanded upon Greek and Indian natural philosophy. The words alcohol , algebra and zenith all have Arabic roots. Aristotle's works and other Greek natural philosophy did not reach the West until about the middle of the 12th century, when works were translated from Greek and Arabic into Latin . The development of European civilization later in
24272-413: The transition from charcoal to coke . These innovations lowered the cost of iron, making horse railways and iron bridges practical. The puddling process , patented by Henry Cort in 1784 produced large scale quantities of wrought iron. Hot blast , patented by James Beaumont Neilson in 1828, greatly lowered the amount of fuel needed to smelt iron. With the development of the high pressure steam engine,
24436-575: The use of a piston, which he published in 1707. Edward Somerset, 2nd Marquess of Worcester published a book of 100 inventions containing a method for raising waters similar to a coffee percolator . Samuel Morland , a mathematician and inventor who worked on pumps, left notes at the Vauxhall Ordinance Office on a steam pump design that Thomas Savery read. In 1698 Savery built a steam pump called "The Miner's Friend". It employed both vacuum and pressure. Iron merchant Thomas Newcomen , who built
24600-459: The west as Persia. In 1900 Thomas Edward Gordon published an article, The Problem of the Middle East , which began: It may be assumed that the most sensitive part of our external policy in the Middle East is the preservation of the independence and integrity of Persia and Afghanistan. Our active interest in Persia began with the present century, and was due to the belief that the invasion of India by
24764-447: The work of Robert Boyle , the discoverer of gases , and Antoine Lavoisier , who developed the theory of the conservation of mass . The discovery of the chemical elements and atomic theory began to systematize this science, and researchers developed a fundamental understanding of states of matter , ions , chemical bonds and chemical reactions . The success of this science led to a complementary chemical industry that now plays
24928-457: The world floated on water and that water was the fundamental element in nature. In the 5th century BC, Leucippus was an early exponent of atomism , the idea that the world is made up of fundamental indivisible particles. Pythagoras applied Greek innovations in mathematics to astronomy and suggested that the earth was spherical . Later Socratic and Platonic thought focused on ethics, morals, and art and did not attempt an investigation of
25092-619: Was a steam jack driven by a steam turbine , described in 1551 by Taqi al-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf in Ottoman Egypt . The cotton gin was invented in India by the 6th century AD, and the spinning wheel was invented in the Islamic world by the early 11th century, both of which were fundamental to the growth of the cotton industry . The spinning wheel was also a precursor to the spinning jenny , which
25256-463: Was a key development during the early Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. The earliest programmable machines were developed in the Muslim world. A music sequencer , a programmable musical instrument , was the earliest type of programmable machine. The first music sequencer was an automated flute player invented by the Banu Musa brothers, described in their Book of Ingenious Devices , in
25420-440: Was complex during this period; some early theologians, including Tatian and Eusebius , considered natural philosophy an outcropping of pagan Greek science and were suspicious of it. Although some later Christian philosophers, including Aquinas, came to see natural science as a means of interpreting scripture, this suspicion persisted until the 12th and 13th centuries. The Condemnation of 1277 , which forbade setting philosophy on
25584-534: Was developed by the Greeks around the 4th century BC, the trireme , the ballista and the catapult . In the Middle Ages, the trebuchet was developed. The earliest practical wind-powered machines, the windmill and wind pump , first appeared in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age , in what are now Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, by the 9th century AD. The earliest practical steam-powered machine
25748-609: Was invented by modern Western geographers and was originally applied to the Ottoman Empire , but today has varying definitions within different academic circles. The term Near East was used in conjunction with the Middle East and the Far East (China and beyond), together known as the "three Easts"; it was a separate term from the Middle East during earlier times and official British usage. Both terms are used interchangeably to refer to
25912-410: Was not until the 19th century that biology became a unified science. Once scientists discovered commonalities between all living things, it was decided they were best studied as a whole. Some key developments in biology were the discovery of genetics , evolution through natural selection , the germ theory of disease , and the application of the techniques of chemistry and physics at the level of
26076-577: Was perhaps William Miller (1864–1945), journalist and expert on the Near East, who did the most in that direction. In essence, he signed the death warrant, so to speak, of the Age of Empires. The fall of the Ottoman Empire ultimately enmeshed all the others as well. In the Travel and Politics in the Near East , 1898, Miller claimed to have made four trips to the Balkans, 1894, 1896, 1897 and 1898, and to be, in essence, an expert on "the Near East", by which he primarily meant
26240-548: Was seen by some detractors as heresy . By the 12th century, Western European scholars and philosophers came into contact with a body of knowledge of which they had previously been ignorant: a large corpus of works in Greek and Arabic that were preserved by Islamic scholars. Through translation into Latin, Western Europe was introduced to Aristotle and his natural philosophy. These works were taught at new universities in Paris and Oxford by
26404-592: Was the Hamidian Massacres , which were being conducted even as the couple traveled the Balkans. According to Norman now, the empire had been established by "the Moslem horde" from Asia , which was stopped by "intrepid Hungary ." Furthermore, "Greece shook off the turbaned destroyer of her people" and so on. The Russians were suddenly liberators of oppressed Balkan states. Having portrayed the Armenians as revolutionaries in
26568-501: Was the first self-proclaimed civil engineer and is often regarded as the "father" of civil engineering. He was an English civil engineer responsible for the design of bridges, canals, harbors, and lighthouses. He was also a capable mechanical engineer and an eminent physicist . Using a model water wheel, Smeaton conducted experiments for seven years, determining ways to increase efficiency. Smeaton introduced iron axles and gears to water wheels. Smeaton also made mechanical improvements to
26732-469: Was the first to question Aristotle's physics teaching. Unlike Aristotle, who based his physics on verbal argument, Philoponus instead relied on observation and argued for observation rather than resorting to a verbal argument. He introduced the theory of impetus . John Philoponus' criticism of Aristotelian principles of physics served as inspiration for Galileo Galilei during the Scientific Revolution . A revival in mathematics and science took place during
26896-435: Was triggered by earlier work of astronomers such as Kepler . By the 19th century, astronomy had developed into formal science, with the introduction of instruments such as the spectroscope and photography , along with much-improved telescopes and the creation of professional observatories. The distinctions between the natural science disciplines are not always sharp, and they share many cross-discipline fields. Physics plays
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