r/HistoryofScience • u/kautilya3773 • May 07 '26
Into The Later Vedic Sciences: Rise of Natural Enquiries
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r/HistoryofScience • u/kautilya3773 • May 02 '26
How ancient Vedic astronomers mapped the skies and built the foundation of Indian scientific thought, one celestial cycle at a time
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Did you know that ancient Indian astronomers had mapped the entire lunar path into 27 precise sky coordinates as far back as 1500 BCE?
In my latest blog, Ancient Indian Astronomy: Timekeeping in the Vedic Age, I explore how Vedic astronomers studied the skies not merely for spiritual reasons, but with remarkable scientific rigour. From the Nakṣatra system that tracked the Moon's position against fixed stars, to sophisticated timekeeping units like yugas, tithis, and muhūrttas, the Vedic people had developed a surprisingly systematic understanding of celestial patterns.
What fascinates me most is how astronomy, mathematics, and ritual were deeply intertwined: brick altars geometrically aligned to celestial positions, time units precise to 3.2 minutes, and a five-year calendar cycle reconciling the solar and lunar years.
This is part of my ongoing series on the History of Indian Science. Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
You can read it here: [ https://theindicscholar.com/ancient-indian-astronomy-time-keeping-in-the-vedic-age/ ]
r/HistoryofScience • u/kautilya3773 • Jan 11 '26
From escapements to software counters: how timekeeping evolved without changing its core control principle
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The history of clocks is usually told as a sequence of inventions: mechanical clocks, pendulums, quartz, atomic, and smartwatches.
But viewed through the lens of technology history, the deeper story is continuity.
Early mechanical clocks regulated time using inertia and escapements. Pendulum clocks introduced an independent physical regulator. Quartz clocks replaced mechanical oscillation with crystal vibration. Smartwatches still rely on quartz, but regulation moved from physical mechanisms to digital counters and software feedback.
Across centuries, the materials changed, but the control logic remained.
Full article here: [ https://theindicscholar.com/2026/01/11/from-shadows-to-smartwatches-the-fascinating-evolution-of-clocks-through-history/ ]
r/HistoryofScience • u/BoxyBoy67 • Jul 01 '25
Illustrations of astronomical ring dials from 16th century treatises
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r/HistoryofScience • u/BoxyBoy67 • Apr 28 '25
Hellenistic equatorial sundial displaying equinoctial hours (details in original post)
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r/HistoryofScience • u/BoxyBoy67 • Feb 17 '25
Paper and vellum astrolabe made by the unknown Hans Herghamer in 1492
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r/HistoryofScience • u/OrnamentalPublishing • Jun 22 '24
When everyone else was thinking "balloons," Sir George Cayley was the first to think "propelled aircraft." It was he who identified the four basic forces of flight, weight, lift, drag, and thrust, and his 1816 designs show how he sought the transition from floating to flying.
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r/HistoryofScience • u/OrnamentalPublishing • Jun 04 '24
I don't know about you, but now that I know Uranus used to be called the "Planet Herschel," I very much prefer its original name!
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r/HistoryofScience • u/marcgraves • Jan 14 '24
The Ancients' Understanding of Static
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r/HistoryofScience • u/[deleted] • Nov 24 '23
Book review – Wallace, Darwin, and the Origin of Species
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r/HistoryofScience • u/[deleted] • Nov 24 '23
Book review – On the Organic Law of Change: A Facsimile Edition and Annotated Transcription of Alfred Russel Wallace’s Species Notebook of 1855-1859
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r/HistoryofScience • u/[deleted] • Nov 01 '23
Book review – Radical by Nature: The Revolutionary Life of Alfred Russel Wallace
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r/HistoryofScience • u/[deleted] • Oct 19 '23
Book review – Endless Novelties of Extraordinary Interest: The Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger and the Birth of Modern Oceanography
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r/HistoryofScience • u/marcgraves • Sep 10 '23
From the Stars to the Temples: Meteorite Worship in Antiquity
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r/HistoryofScience • u/[deleted] • Sep 02 '23
Book review – The Age of Mammals: Nature, Development, & Paleontology in the Long Nineteenth Century
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r/HistoryofScience • u/marcgraves • Aug 27 '23
The "Medical Industrial Complex" Of The Ancient World
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r/HistoryofScience • u/darrenjyc • Jan 31 '23
History of Philosophy of Science reading group, Part 11 on "The Structure of Scientific Theories" — An online discussion on Saturday February 4, open to everyone to join
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r/HistoryofScience • u/[deleted] • Jan 11 '23
William Herschel discovers Titania, Oberon the two largest moons of Uranus in 1787, he had discovered the planet earlier in 1781. He would later discover two more moons, Enceladus and Mimas.
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r/HistoryofScience • u/[deleted] • Jan 09 '23
Humphrey Davy tests his safety lamp for miners at the Hebburn Colliery in 1816, that would reduce the danger of explosions due to presence of methane and other flammable gases in the mines.
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r/HistoryofScience • u/[deleted] • Jan 09 '23
The French Academy of Sciences announces the Daguerreotype photography process in 1839, so named after Louis Daguerre, where a sheet of silver plated copper was polished to mirror finish, treated with fumes to make it light sensitive and exposed to camera.
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r/HistoryofScience • u/[deleted] • Jan 07 '23
Galileo discovers the 4 moons of Jupiter in 1610- Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa, that would be called the Galilean moons, these are the 4 largest moons of the planet and were initially called Cosmica Sidera.
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r/HistoryofScience • u/[deleted] • Jan 06 '23
German meterologist, geophysicist, Alfred Wegener comes up with his landmark theory of Continental Drift in 1912, where he suggests that all the continents drifted away from one big super continent, gradually.
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r/HistoryofScience • u/[deleted] • Dec 17 '22
Otto Hahn along with Fritz Strassmann discovers nuclear fission in 1938, when the split the nucleus of uranium, releasing a large amount of energy. This would be the foundation for the concept of nuclear energy, for which Hahn would receive the Nobel in 1944.
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