History of Science
(2018)
Overview
In 46 episodes, Hank Green teaches you the history of science! This course is based on the 2nd and 3rd edition of Science & Technology in World History by McClellan & Dorn. By the end of this course, you will be able to: * Thoughtfully consider the questions, “What is stuff?” and “Where are we?” * Understand science as a social and historical concept that varies between cultures * Describe the development of the process and products of scientific inquiry over time * Explain how scientists i…
Cast
as Self - Host
Episodes
Intro to History of Science 0.0
March 26, 2018
We've been asking big questions for a really long time and we've all wanted to explore how we've sought to answer those…
The Presocratics 0.0
April 9, 2018
So, who was this Presocrates guy? Just kidding! Long ago, some philosophers worked very hard to separate myths from wh…
Plato and Aristotle 0.0
April 16, 2018
Last week, we met the Presocratics: despite having by any reasonable standard invented science in Europe, these thinker…
India 0.0
April 25, 2018
You might have recognized the names of some of the Greek natural philosophers. They were individuals with quirky theori…
The Americas and Time Keeping 0.0
April 30, 2018
In this episode of Crash Course History of Science, we travel to the Americas to ask the question, "When are we?" and g…
Roman Engineering 0.0
May 7, 2018
The Romans developed a lot of infrastructure like roads and aqueducts to both help their cities flourish and to... you …
The Medieval Islamicate World 0.0
May 14, 2018
The religion of Islam significantly influenced knowledge-making in the greater Mediterranean and western Asian world. I…
Medieval China 0.0
May 21, 2018
Like Egypt, Sumer, and Mesoamerica, ancient China represents a hydraulic civilization—one that maintained its populatio…
Ancient & Medieval Medicine 0.0
June 4, 2018
The history of medicine is about two of our big questions: one, what is life? What makes it so special, so fragile, so……
Alchemy 0.0
June 11, 2018
In fantasy stories, charlatans in fancy robes promise to turn lead into gold. But real alchemists weren’t just mystical…
Cathedrals and Universities 0.0
June 25, 2018
Until roughly 1100, there were relatively few places of knowledge-making. Monasteries and abbeys had special rooms call…
The Scientific Revolution 0.0
July 2, 2018
So, what exactly is a scientific revolution? And are they more than just moments in time Historians use to mark the beg…
The New Astronomy 0.0
July 9, 2018
This week on Crash Course: History of the Scientific Revolution—astronomical anomalies accrued. Meanwhile, in Denmark—a…
The Scientific Methods 0.0
July 16, 2018
Historically speaking, there is no one scientific method. There’s more than one way to make knowledge. In this episode …
The New Anatomy 0.0
July 23, 2018
There’s a question to consider that’s pretty daunting: what is life? And to try to answer that question, three tools s…
The Columbian Exchange 0.0
August 6, 2018
Over the last four episodes, we’ve examined some of the stories that make up the idea of a “revolution” in knowledge-ma…
Newton and Leibniz 0.0
August 14, 2018
The standard story of the Scientific Revolution culminates with the long life of one man: Sir Isaac Newton—a humble ser…
The New Chemistry 0.0
August 20, 2018
One of the problems with the whole idea of a single Scientific Revolution is that some disciplines decided not to join …
Biology Before Darwin 0.0
August 27, 2018
You’ve probably heard of Charles Darwin, but before we get to him, you really need to understand how different people, …
Earth Science 0.0
September 10, 2018
It's Earth Science time!!!! In this field, natural philosophers were asking questions like, what’s up with fossils? Are…
The Industrial Revolution 0.0
September 25, 2018
You probably know some of the signs of industrialization in the nineteenth century: Trains connected cities, symbolizin…
Darwin and Natural Selection 0.0
October 1, 2018
"Survival of the Fittest" sounds like a great WWE show but today we're talking about that phrase as it relates to Charl…
Eugenics and Francis Galton 0.0
October 8, 2018
After Darwin blew the doors off the scientific community, a lot of people did some weird and unscientific stuff with hi…
Micro-Biology 0.0
October 15, 2018
It's all about the SUPER TINY in this episode of Crash Course: History of Science. In it, Hank Green talks about germ t…
Genetics - Lost and Found 0.0
October 22, 2018
Sometimes trail blazers of science aren't famous like Darwin or Pasteur. Sometimes they're humble Abbots, just growing …
Thermodynamics 0.0
October 29, 2018
It's time to heat things up! LITERALLY! It's time for Hank to talk about the history of Thermodynamics!!! It's messy an…
Electricity 0.0
November 5, 2018
The study of electricity goes all the way back to antiquity. But, by the time electricity started to become more well k…
Ford, Cars, and a New Revolution 0.0
November 12, 2018
Historians love to debate each other. So some of them pointed out that the first half of this revolution looks a lot di…
Cinema, Radio, and Television 0.0
November 26, 2018
Radio, Cinema, and Television have been staples in news coverage, entertainment, and education for almost 100 years. Bu…
The Mind/Brain 0.0
December 3, 2018
Scientists in the nineteenth century discovered a lot about life and matter. But exactly what kind of stuff is the huma…
Marie Curie and Spooky Rays 0.0
December 17, 2018
It's time to talk about one of the most awesome scientists that has ever been awesome: Marie Curie. She figured out way…
Einstein's Revolution 0.0
January 7, 2019
There was physics before Einstein in the same way that there was biology before Darwin. Einstein didn’t just add some n…
The Atomic Bomb 0.0
January 14, 2019
The story picks up where we left off last time, with Einstein writing the president of his new homeland, the United Sta…
Biomedicine 0.0
January 21, 2019
The history of science up until the Cold War is often overshadowed by the Manhattan Project. But, today we are going to…
Genetics and The Modern Synthesis 0.0
February 4, 2019
Remember how Darwin and Mendel lived around the same time, but everyone forgot about Mendel until 1900, and even then b…
The Computer and Turing 0.0
February 11, 2019
Computers and computing have changed a lot over the History of Science but ESPECIALLY over the last 100 years. In this …
Air Travel and The Space Race 0.0
February 18, 2019
Like the Industrial or the Einsteinian Revolution, the Space Race is a trope, or way of organizing historical events in…
Ecology 0.0
February 25, 2019
We’ve explored the origins of modern biology, the earth sciences, and even the sciences of outer space. Now it’s time t…
Controlling the Environment 0.0
March 4, 2019
Well, it wouldn't be too long after we started developing Ecology that we would try to control the environment. In some…
Biotechnology 0.0
March 18, 2019
The history of discovering what DNA is, what it looks like, and how it works is... complicated. But, in this episode of…
Bodies and Dollars 0.0
March 25, 2019
After World War Two, the applications of basic discoveries in biology took off—and became big business. Today, we’ll lo…
The Century of the Gene 0.0
April 1, 2019
With the question “What is life?” addressed at the molecular level, humanity could finally cure all disease and live fo…
The Internet and Computing 0.0
April 8, 2019
We’ve talked a lot about advances in biotech. But none of those could have happened without advances in computing. It’s…
Life and Longevity 0.0
April 15, 2019
It's time to have a look at the future of human life and how technology could possibly extend longevity. But, within th…
Climate Science 0.0
April 22, 2019
Scientists tend to be careful and resistant to big claims. So evidence for the possible end of the living world took a …
The Limits of History 0.0
April 29, 2019
It's the final episode of our History of Science series and we thought it would be good to talk a little about some of …