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GIGO

Millennium Discoveries

Here we stand at the dawn of a new millennium -- give or take a year or two. So I guess it behooves us to take a look at where we've come from. Let's take a look at two arbitrary dates: a thousand years ago and a hundred years ago, courtesy of The Timetables of Science*.

A thousand years ago, the Saxons ruled England and the birds ruled New Zealand. While the lights in Europe were dim, Arabic science burned brightly, particularly in the areas of astronomy, mathematics and medicine.

A report by an Arabian physician, Avicenna (ibn Sina), highlighted a discovery that was to remain important for the next ten centuries -- that of coffee. He also wrote a five-volume medical treatise that was used in European medicine for the next six centuries. A Persian, better known for his poetry than his science, reformed the Muslim calendar to keep time more accurately, noting that the "Bird of Time has but a little way to fly -- and Lo! The Bird is on the Wing". Omar Khayym also solved a tricky mathematical problem generally credited to a sixteenth-century Italian.

For the next thousand years, science and technology gradually built up more information, tested theories, tried out -- and discarded -- ideas. It gradually became more codified as we figured out what sort of approaches worked and how to sort through fact from fiction and produce an interconnecting body of knowledge. It took a while.

By 100 years ago, we were well on the way. Possibly the most significant discovery of 1800 was Alessandro Volta's announcement of the Voltaic pile, the forerunner of the electric battery and all the things that have grown from there. It's interesting to note that Volta was Professor of Natural Philosophy at Pavia in Italy, a title which reflects the place of science in the overall scheme of things.

Where will be be 100 years from now? Who can say, particularly when we can't even seem to predict 10 years in advance with any degree of accuracy.

*(ed Hellemans and Bunch; Simon and Schuster 1988)

Vicki Hyde is the editor of New Zealand Science Monthly.