Science & Technology

Patricia Fara explores the scientific education of Mary Shelley and how a work of early science fiction inspired her best-known novel Frankenstein.

The American Civil War transformed the nature of conflict. Its opening salvos harked back to Waterloo; its end anticipated the industrial warfare of the 20th century, writes David White.

The astrononer made a remarkable discovery on January 7th, 1610.

Medieval scholars were the first to make the connection between maths and science and anticipated the discovery of inertia long before Newton. So why have their discoveries been forgotten, asks James Hannam.

Military concerns drove the development of nuclear weapons. But a by-product of this huge deployment of scientific resources by the US and the UK was an upsurge in biological research leading to a new age of regenerative medicine. Alison Kraft discusses the history of stem cell biology.

The natural philosopher and scientist Robert Boyle was revered in his time for his pioneering enquiry into a wide range of natural phenomena.Yet within half a century of his death he was almost forgotten, overshadowed by his contemporary Isaac Newton. Michael Hunter explains why.

In 1706 a little-known mathematics teacher named William Jones first used a symbol to represent the platonic concept of pi, an ideal that in numerical terms can be approached, but never reached.

In 1969 men set foot on the Moon for the first time. The Apollo space programme that put them there was the product of an age of optimism and daring very different from our own, argues André Balogh.

Patricia Fara recounts the moving story of a gifted contemporary of Isaac Newton who came to symbolise the frustrations of generations of female scientists denied the chance to fulfil their talents.

The founding father of nuclear physics was awarded the highest honour on December 10th, 1908.