Cambridge History Of Science: Ancient Science

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF SCIENCE volume 1 Ancient Science This volume in the highly respected Cambridge History of Science series is devoted to the history of science, medicine and mathematics of the Old World in antiquity. Organized by topic and culture, its essays by distinguished scholars offer the most comprehensive and up-to-date history of ancient science currently available. Together, they reveal the diversity of goals, contexts, and accomplishments in the study of nature in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, and India. Intended to provide a balanced and inclusive treatment of the ancient world, contributors consider scientific, medical, and mathematical learning in the cultures associated with the ancient world. alexander jones is Leon Levy Director Professor of the History of the Exact Sciences in Antiquity at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University and author of A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World (2017). liba taub is Director of the Whipple Museum of the History of Science and Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of Ptolemy’s Universe: The Natural Philosophical and Ethical Foundations of Ptolemy’s Astronomy (1993), Ancient Meteorology (2003), Aetna and the Moon: Explaining Nature in Ancient Greece and Rome (2008), and Science Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity (2017). THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF SCIENCE General editors David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers volume 1. Ancient Science Edited by Alexander Jones and Liba Taub volume 2. Medieval Science Edited by David C. Lindberg and Michael H. Shank volume 3. Early Modern Science Edited by Katharine Park and Lorraine Daston volume 4. Eighteenth-Century Science Edited by Roy Porter volume 5. The Modern Physical and Mathematical Sciences Edited by Mary Jo Nye volume 6. The Modern Biological and Earth Sciences Edited by Peter J. Bowler and John V. Pickstone volume 7. The Modern Social Sciences Edited by Theodore M. Porter and Dorothy Ross volume 8. Modern Science in National and International Context Edited by Ronald L. Numbers, Hugh Richard Slotten, and David N. Livingstone David C. Lindberg† is Hilldale Professor Emeritus of the History of Science and past director of the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He has written or edited a dozen books on topics in the history of medieval and early-modern science, including The Beginnings of Western Science (1992). He and Ronald L. Numbers have previously coedited God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science (1986) and When Science and Christianity Meet (2003). A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he has been a recipient of the Sarton Medal of the History of Science Society, of which he is also past president (1994–5). Ronald L. Numbers is Hilldale Professor of the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he has taught since 1974. A specialist in the history of science and medicine in the United States, he h