Welcome to The book of science. Come here each week to find poetry and commentary on another milestone of the history of science.

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New this week

In 1040, Bi Sheng of the Song dynasty in China invented movable-type printing.

1040

Movable-type printing Imprints First edition Commentary

Bi Sheng manufacturing

New recently

1025	The Canon of Medicine Experimental medicine Canon Commentary	Avicenna (Ibn-Sīnā) medicine
1025	Optics Camera obscura Optical lessons Commentary	Alhazen (Abū-‘Alī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥaytham) optics
285	Diophantine equation Pell hadn’t solved it Unknowns Commentary	Diophantus mathematics
359	Hebrew calendar Interesting aspects Inaccuracies Commentary	Hillel II, Maimonides astronomy
628	Zero Zeros Something Nothing Commentary	Brahmagupta mathematics
820	Algebra Operations Variable unknown Commentary	Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī mathematics
9th century	Gunpowder Devices Mortality State secrets Commentary	Chinese, Tang Dynasty chemistry

Parts of this book

You may jump to some parts of The book of science directly by selecting menu items:

• About, more about this book
• Contents, a table of milestones in the history of science, arranged chronologically
• Elements, tables for the chemical elements
  • Periodic table of the elements
  • Index of elements by year of discovery
  • Index of elements by atomic number
• Scientists, index of scientists, by last name
• Sciences, index of sciences
• Eponymous, index of milestones named after scientists
• Keywords, index of keywords in poems and titles
• Search, where you can search the book by word or phrase

Related works

You may read subsets of The book of science as separate volumes. These generally contain only the last poem on each milestone from the full book:

• Elements of elements of science
• The booklet of science

This web site also includes other works by Tom Sharp and work by other poets.