How it all began

Derived from the Latin word "Scientia" meaning knowledge, it is a vast collection of multiple disciplines which are governed by testable explanations and predictions about the Universe. 

The origins of Science as we know were in ancient Greece. However, the earliest roots can be traced back to around 3000 BCE in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Their contributions in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, and medicine are what shaped the Greek philosophy that we now call Science.

Modern Science is divided primarily into three major branches: The Natural Sciences, which consist of Physics, Chemistry, and Biology, these study all the natural processes in the broadest sense; The Social Sciences, that consist of Economics, Psychology, and Sociology, these study individuals and societies; finally we have the Formal Sciences, which contains Mathematics. This is the study of quantities, variables, and symbols governed by certain rules. 

Now, let's journey through the history of Science

The Classical Antiquity

8th century BC to 6th Century AD ancient Greece, this is where the ancient science began. during this era well-educated men from usually, the upper-class performed multiple unique investigations revolving around the natural processes around them. these men were known as the first philosophers. 

These early Greek philosophers were the first to explain natural phenomena independent of the supernatural. Philosophers like Pythagoras developed complex mathematical marvels like the Pythagoras theorem and the theory of Proportions. Leucippus and Democritus developed the theory of the atom. The Greek doctor Hippocrates is also known as the Father of Medicine established the tradition of systematic medical science. 

This is also the period when Socrates developed the study of human matters, human nature, nature of political communities, and human knowledge and came up with the Socratic method which in the simplest of terms is a form of an argumentative dialogue between individuals which involves asking and answering questions enabling critical thinking and new ideas. 

During this period, the famous Aristotle put forth his ideas in the field of what is called today Physics. His ideas about the general principles of change and motions inspired the physicists of the future to come up with new theories and advances. There was also the Father of Geometry, Euclid who truly revolutionized the field of mathematics with his ideas with respect to geometry. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus of Samos was the first to propose the idea that all the planets revolve around the Sun. Archimedes of Syracuse was best known for his contributions like the law of levers, the discovery of the Archimedes principle, and finding the approximation of pi.

This truly was a period where the foundations of science that drove the discoveries of modern science were made.

The Renaissance and Early Modern Science

Now, we enter the Renaissance, a period of new frontiers in arts, sciences, and theatre. this is where new ideas were created, new ways of living invented, new perspectives gained. This is when Nicolaus Copernicus, an astronomer, and a mathematician came up with the improved heliocentric model of the solar system where the Sun is at the center and all the planets go around it. He formulated that the orbital periods of planets increase with their distance from the Sun. the German astronomer Johannes Kepler further developed Copernicus' heliocentric model through his discovery of Kepler's laws of planetary motion.

This was the time when one of the most famous people in history, Galileo di Vicenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei, commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei lived. He invented the thermometer, improved the telescope, invented the sector, improved upon the pendulum, and discovered the moons of Jupiter and Saturn Rings, the phases of Venus, and so much more. He also came up with the first iterations of the theory of Relativity. this theory was then worked upon by the Great Albert Einstein. Galileo is known as the Father of Modern Science.

The Age of Enlightenment

This time period was one of the most crucial in the history of science, especially for Physics and Economics. During the age of enlightenment, Sir Issac Newton came up with the famous Laws of Motion and the Law of Universal Gravitation which was confirmed experimentally and explained using mathematics in his book Principia Mathematics. This was the Birth of Classical Mechanics. Issac Newton also went on to further invent calculus. Coincidentally, at the same time, German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz also came up with calculus independent of Newton.

Anglo-Irish physicist, chemist, and inventor Robert Boyle came up with his relationship between the absolute pressure and the volume of a gas, commonly known as Boyle's Law. Evangelista Torricelli who came up with Torricelli's law and the barometer also lived during this era.

1776 was the year where modern sociology and modern economics were born. This was the year when Adam Smith a Scottish economist published The Wealth of Nations, the holy grail for modern economists as it contains multiple practices and ideas about economics like laissez-faire which says that markets tend to work the best when governments just leave them alone. This idea was the birth of Capitalism. Adam Smith is one of the most key figures who pioneered modern economics.

The 19th Century 

The nineteenth century is where terms like "physicist", "biologist", "scientist", etc, started emerging, as in the previous era these "scientists" were called "natural philosophers". This era also saw an exponential growth of people getting involved in science. It leads to scientists gaining more cultural authority over dimensions of society, economic expansion, and industrialization in many nations. 

During the mid-19th century, Charles Darwin came up with the theory of evolution by natural selection and "the survival of the fittest" mentioned in great detail in his 1859 book, "The Origin of Species". Biologist Gregor Johann Mendel published his paper "Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden" speaking about experimentation in Plant Hybridization in 1865. this served as the foundation for modern genetics.

Michael Faraday discovered his laws of induction and electromagnetism along with the concept of electric and magnetic fields. This paved the way for the modern Quantum Field Theory (QFT). James Clerk Maxwell went on to unify the magnetic and electric fields with his Maxwell's equation and came up with a unified electromagnetic field. Other great physicists like Heinrich Hertz, Hans Christian Ørsted, André-Marie Ampère, and Oliver Heaviside contributed greatly to the Electromagnetic Theory. All of this eventually lead to the discovery of the first fundamental sub-atomic particle by J.J. Thompson. The particle is known as the Electron. 

This was also the time when one of the most influential female scientists lived, Marie Curie, who along with her husband Pierre Curie conducted pioneering research in the field of radioactive and discovered Radium and Polonium. She was also the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first person and only woman to win the Nobel Prize twice.

This era also witnessed the birth of psychology as a separate discipline from philosophy when Wilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory for psychological research in the year 1879.

The 20th Century

The 20th Century was where we saw modern Science emerge. It all started with Albert Einstein and his theory of Relativity which changed the global perspective on gravity as a whole. Then came an Austrian physicist and chemist called Erwin Schrödinger who challenged our thinking on everything by introducing the Schrödinger equations and his famous mind experiment, the Schrödinger's Cat. This then lead to the creation of a brand new field in physics called Quantum Mechanics which replaced classical mechanics. 

In the first half of the century, the development of antibiotics and artificial fertilizers made global human population growth possible. At the same time, the structure of the atom and its nucleus was discovered, leading to the splitting of the atom and the release of atomic energy. In addition, the extensive use of technological innovation stimulated by the wars of this century led to revolutions in transportation, the development of ICBMs, a space race, and a nuclear arms race.

The molecular structure for deoxyribonucleic acid commonly abbreviated as DNA was discovered by James Watson and Francis Crick in the year 1953. Along with this the theory of evolution became a unified theory when Darwinian evolution was combined with Gregor Mendel's Genetics.

It was also during this time that the discovery of Cosmic microwave radiation took place leading to the confirmation of the Big Bang theory. Additionally, the Standard Model, a theory in modern physics that withstood thousands of challenges and is considered to be the theory of nearly everything was developed during this era. 

Developments in the field of information technology lead to the creation of the Personal Computer which provides access to multiple functions to the common population. Widespread use of integrated circuits in the 20th century combined with communications satellites led to the rise of the global internet and mobile computing, including smartphones. The need for mass systematization of long, intertwined causal chains and large amounts of data led to the rise of the fields of systems theory and computer-assisted scientific modeling.

These fields are ever-changing. anytime, anywhere, anything can happen that can truly revolutionize our understanding of the entire universe.