MEPX
Chapter 9 of 10All chapters
  1. 1How invention happens
  2. 2Ancient technologies
  3. 3Printing and paper
  4. 4Power and machines
  5. 5Medical breakthroughs
  6. 6Communication
  7. 7Computing
  8. 8Feeding more people
  9. 9Scientific discoveries
  10. 10Credit and consequences

Chapter 9 of 10

Scientific discoveries

Understanding, not devices.

Ideas that reframed everything

Heliocentrism, evolution, germ theory, relativity, quantum mechanics and plate tectonics each replaced an intuitive picture with a stranger and more accurate one.

  • Each faced sustained resistance before becoming standard.
  • DNA structure connected chemistry to inheritance.

Instruments

Telescope, microscope, spectroscope and particle accelerator each opened a scale nobody could previously observe. New instruments usually precede new theory.