Founder of systematic science.

Although some people may come here to make claims about this or that individual, i would say that it was the product of the culture of what was known as "Classical" Greece. The Greeks in the 6th century BCE were masters of their somewhat limited world, and successful commerce not only made them wealthy, it gave many of them the time and leisure to contemplate their cosmos, and the implications of what they were able to observe about it. It became a foundational principle of what they wrote about their cosmos that one need be able to demonstrate to others that what they had learned from their observations would be manifest to anyone else who made the same observations. This culture reached its height after Alexander's conquests, when the "Hellenistic" world was created in south central Europe, the middle east and north Africa.

For example, the word planet derives from a Greek word which means "wanderer." This is because an observer would see the planets as advancing across an arc of sky, and then, seemingly, moving in a retrograde manner, moving "backwards" along what we now know of as the plane of the ecliptic. The ancient Greeks eventually came to the conclusion that the planets were celestial bodies which followed a circular or elliptical path around a fixed point, but moved at different speeds, or were arrayed at different distances from that fixed point. The latter explanation became the accepted explanation, because it explained this motion in terms which could be mathematically verified through the application of geometry. From there, it was a short step to deduce that the earth and the planets were spheres moving, all of them, in relation to that fixed point. Heracleides is usually credited with theorizing that Venus and Mars are spherical planets which orbit the same fixed point, and that the Earth is a sphere which rotates on an axis, completing a full rotation in 24 hours. (That is a problematic statement, though, since the Greeks did not divide the day into 24 "hours." Rather, Heracleides simply noted that the planet completed a full rotation each day, and that was evidence that the sun was [relatively] stationary in relation to the earth.)

Aristarchus, however, who lived after Heracleides had died, first publicly proposed that the sun were the center of the cosmos, around which the earth and all the other planets revolved. He also estimated the distance from the earth to the sun by applying a geometric formula based on the angle between the sun and the moon when the moon is "half-full" (i.e., facing the sun as we observe it at a right angle to a line from the sun to the moon). His estimation of relative sizes was way off the mark, but he nonetheless correctly concluded that the earth is larger than the moon, and that the moon revolves around the earth, and that the sun is much larger than the earth--which probably accounts for his conclusion that the sun is the center of the cosmos. It is not, of course, but in the context of observations from the earth, the sun does appear to be the center of our cosmos. Because he grossly underestimated the distances involved, he concluded that the sun was far smaller and much closer than it actually is. But his geometry was good enough that solely on the basis of naked eye observation, he estimated that the internal base angles of the sun, earth an moon at the first or last quarter of the moon is 87 degrees. It is, in fact, just less than 90 degrees (he underestimated, once again, the distance from the earth to the moon)--but that's pretty damned good for an observation without the aid of instruments.

Furthermore, because the Greeks had, after the Alexandrine conquest, access to Egypt, they were able to verify that there was a well in which the sun was reflected in the center of the water on the day of the summer solstice. So, having theorized that the planets, including the earth, showed precessional movement ("wobbled" on their axes), and understanding that the well at Syrene was therefore on the northern "tropic," Eratosthenes understood how to calculate the circumfernece of the earth. He placed a stake in the ground at Alexandria, and knowing the length of the stake above the ground, and comparing that to the length of the shadow the stake cast at noon on the day of the summer solstice, as well as determining the angles of a triangle formed by the stake, its shadow and a line drawn from the top of the stake to the end of the shadow, he created a formula for determining the circumference of the earth, which was that the distance from Alexandria to Syrene represented, roughly, 1/50th of the circumference of the earth. However, he got bad information about the distance from Alexandria to Syrene--he was told it was 5000 stadia. A stadion, like a cubit, meant different things to different people, but the Attic stadion (the one used in Athens) was just under 200 meters. If he used that measure, the distance he was given for Alexandria to Syrene was off by about 800 stadia--he estimated the circumference of the earth an more than a quarter of a million stadia, when in fact, it is more like 210,000 stadia. However, although the data he applied was flawed, his mathematics and geometry were flawless.

However, Hipparchus held out for an earth-centered cosmos. Using careful observation and mathematics, however, he correctly identified the distance to the moon as a function of so many earth radii, and he came surprisingly close to a correct answer in geometrical terms, and one which did not require him to know the actual diameter of the earth. (See a description of "parallax," an understanding of which was crucial to his calculations). Because of the influence of Hipparchus, and in particular his successor, Ptolemy of Alexandria, the view of the earth as the center of the cosmos prevailed, much aided by the conceits of Christians. Although later Hellenist Greek scholars held out for the helio-centric cosmos, they were ignored, and it would not be until Copernicus that the earth-centered cosmos was again vigorously challenged.

Of course, the sun is not the center of the cosmos. However, without very refined and well-calibrated instruments, any observations possible of celestial bodies can be (and by the Greeks, were) rationally explained in mathematical and geometric terms by a theory that the sun is the center of the universe. Most importantly, it helps to explain the motion of the planets, and crucially lead to the recognition that these are spheres which orbit a fixed point, and that the earth is also a sphere. For the helio-centric astronomers, of course, the math was easier, because they saw the earth as orbiting the same fixed point.

Others created some very interesting intruments. Hipparchus used mirrors to create a diopter, a device which focuses several rays of reflected light at a specified distance, and allows for extremely accurate measurement of angles of incidence of the light sources without one needing to know the distances involved. The concept is still used today to determine a unit of measurement for optical power of lenses or mirrors. Andronikos created a very accurate clock by combining an array of solar clocks ("sundials") with a water clock, and a small geometric device which reconciled their evidence. Perhaps the most amazing ancient Greek instrument unearthed to date is the Antikythera mechanism (named for the island near which the ship on which it was found was wrecked more than 2000 years ago). It appears to be an analog computer which calculates the positions of celestial bodies. It was first found by a sponge diver in 1901, and the site was last dived on by Cousteau in 1978--but it is only recently that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed that it is a geared device. Archimedes was believed to have created such a device, which was taken back to Rome after the conquest of Syracuse during the Second Punic War. However, the device was lost, although descriptions of it by Cicero survive, and several other Roman authors commented on it. Cicero also claimed that a friend of his built a similar device which served the same function of accurately predicting the relative positions of celestial bodies. The evidence is good that the Greeks built many such devices, because the Arabs had similar, but much simpler devices which they said themselves they had gotten from Greek monasteries, and they also reported that they had found a list of more than one hundred such devices in a monastery.

I highly recommend a study of the ancient Greek scientists, and of the great discoveries, mathematical and geometric advances and theories of the Greeks in the Classical and Hellenistic periods.

Thank you for the thorough response, setanta. It is greatly appreciated. And yes, history someting that intersts me, so I will take you up on your advice. It could use some freshing up.

Answers.com provides this:

http://www.answers.com/topic/history-of-scientific-method

Amazing answer by Set. As ever. I think he is right on the money as well.
I just want to add that there was also a deciding influence of course by Mr. Newton and several other prominent scientists at the end of the seventeenth century (Mainly because they were in a large part responsible for re-instating the scientific methods laid down by the Greeks, and for loosening the chokehold the church held on all science that did not in the end confirm to their own dogma's)
If not for them, we would not be using science the way we are today, despite of the great work by the Greeks.

Naj

Naj has a very good point. People like Newton were educated as members of the clergy (this includes Charles Darwin). Beginning late in the 17th century, many members of the clergy, as well as laymen (it's simply that clergymen were more likely to have had a university education) began to study "natural science," or "natural philosophy," which we would call the earth sciences and the life sciences. Their motivation was to reveal all the wonderful intricacies of God's creation. It lead inevitably to such scientific speculation as that which Darwin indulged in when formulating his theory of descent from common ancestors with modification by natural selection.

John Locke, David Hume and George Berkeley were all important in this period because they promoted empiricism. Locke came before all the others, and had the classic university education at Oxford, but unlike so many of his contemporaries, he did not even pay lip service to a clerical career. He studied medicine and "experimental philosophy." Hume and Berkeley neither one pursued a clerical career, nor attended the "Oxbridge" university college system. With Locke and Newton as guides (both men showed more interest in those who were then "modern" philosophers such as Descartes, rather than pursue the "classical" education offered at "Oxbridge"), and Hume and Berkeley promoting empiricism, even those who did get a clerical education (such as Darwin), were taught to apply method and reason to investigating the natural world, rather than to attempt to shoehorn what they learned into a theological world view.

Who invented Calculus?
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Zero.html
http://www.cerc.utexas.edu/~jay/anc.html#zero
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedic_mathematics
www.vedicmathematics.co.uk/

Who invented Nuclear Physics?
Who were the first to calculate the velocity of light?
Who invented the guns?
Who invented the ships?
http://nasrani.wordpress.com/2007/02/20/ancient-maritime-route-between-india-and-egypt/

Who invented steel?
Who invented the aircraft?
Who invented powder metallurgy?
http://doctorprasad.blog.com/

Who invented nuclear weapons? You may have heard about the great
Astras mentioned in our Puranas. But you may not have read about them
in detail:

"The Mahabharata - an ancient Indian epic compiled 3000 years ago -
contains a reference to a terrible weapon. Regrettably, in our age of the
atomic bomb, the description of this weapon exploding will not appear to
be an exaggeration: '.... a blazing shaft possessed of the effulgence of
a smokeless fire (was) let off...'. That was how this weapon was perceived.
The consequences of its use also evoke involuntary associations.
'... This makes the bodies of the dead unidentifiable. ... The survivors
lose their nails and hair, and their food becomes unfit for eating.
For several subsequent years the Sun, the stars and the sky remain
shrouded with clouds and bad weather'. This weapon was known as the
Weapon of Brahma or the Flame of Indra......"
[Alexander Gorbovsky, Riddles of Ancient History, The Sputnik Magazine,
Moscow, Sept. 1986, p. 137].
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bramhastra

Who invented plastic surgery? The Indians. It is fully described by
Maharshi Susruta, the ancient Ayurvedic surgeon, in his Samhita. Who
invented acupuncture? The Indians. Who invented the martial arts? The
Indians. Who invented the remote sensing and imaging techniques? The
Indians. Who discovered Advanced Astrology? The Indians. Who discovered Advanced Astronomy? The Indians. Who discovered Groundwater Hydrology?

The Indians. We can read Brihat Samhita of Varaha Mihira; the Indian
method is better than the modern techniques of using space satellites.
Who were the first to construct planned cities with high technology
infrastructures for water supply and sewerage? The Indians. Who invented
the hanging bridges? The Indians. Chinese who visited India a few
thousands of years ago wrote about our hanging bridges which used steel
beams and steel ropes. Who discovered higher philosophy? The Indians.
Were there Doora Sravana and Doora Darsana machines in ancient India?
Yes. Did our ancients knew about radars and laser weapons? Yes, the
techology was given in the Sanskrit manuscript Samarangana Sutra Dhara.

Who discovered Irrigation Engineering? Another name for India was Yilaa
Varta. The hidden meaning of this name is Jala Maaruta, the country of
water laden winds. No other country in the world has monsoons. The
rainfall in India is more than the total rainfall in the rest of the
world. India is the land of mighty rivers. In the olden days, the water
flow rate in the Ganga exceeded that of any other river in the world.
The people of South India built and maintained an extensive system of
irrigation tanks and associated canals with extraordinary managerial and
social skills. They shared the waters following the ways of nature from
time immemorial. Construction of small dams at every possible location
was carried out with such completeness that a British engineer of the
19th century felt that it would be impossible to add another tank to
that irrigation system. It was a marvel of Indian engineering and human
cooperation. Nothing like it existed else where in the world at any time
in the past. While peasants of other countries broke their backs to reap
one harvest, the Indians produced two or three bumper crops a year. The
harvest in the Krishna and Kauvery river basins was large enough to meet
the needs of rest of our country during periods of crisis. Visitors from
Europe and China in pre-Christian times wrote that India was a land of
plenty. Our Buddhist and Jain religious records also say the same thing.
Who were the first to postulate the infinity of the universe and the
plurality of inhabited worlds like the earth? The Indians.
The Vishnu Purana says that the earth is merely one of thousands of
millions of inhabited worlds like itself to be found in the universe.

http://hinduwisdom.info/Seafaring_in_Ancient_India.htm
http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521804554
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_ancient_India
http://www.answers.com/topic/achievements-of-ancient-indian-civilization
http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/t_rs/t_rs_ship_bibliog.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vimana
http://www.hiddenmysteries.org/freebooks/history/vym2.html
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/vimanas/vimanas14.htm
http://www.hinduwisdom.info/Hindu_Cosmology.htm
http://www.hinduwisdom.info/Advanced_Concepts.htm
http://www.hinduwisdom.info/Yantras.htm

Among all countries in the world, India has inherited
the largest number of ancient manuscripts from time
immemorial. They were written on the widest range of
subjects known to humans.

Indians have travelled around the world in ships to
spread their knowledge since millenia. The oldest
universities of the world like Patali Putra and Taksha
Sila are located in India. Scholars from far east and
Europe came here for higher knowledge.

"The oldest University of the world was founded at
Taxila, where taught the great grammarian Panini."
http://ccc.1asphost.com/hamidsaeed/darood/HIST-PAKISTAN.htm
http://www.hinduism.co.za/
http://hinduism.about.com/
http://www.vedamu.org/
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,64575,00.html
http://www.gosai.com/science/
http://www.jainmathemagics.com/
http://www.answers.com/topic/achievements-of-ancient-indian-civilization
http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/t_rs/t_rs_ship_bibliog.htm
http://www.crystalinks.com/indiascience.html
http://mathemajik.tripod.com/article/mathematics.html
http://www.crystalinks.com/indiascience.html
http://www.hindubooks.org/sudheer_birodkar/india_contribution/maths.html
http://www.mindsay.com/tags/ancient
http://www.termpapergenie.com/AncientIndianScience.html
http://www.astronomy.pomona.edu/archeo/india/as-india.html
http://www.cloudbait.com/archaeo/india.html
http://www.crystalinks.com/indiastronomy.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_astronomy

Wow Setanta, you always astound me with your knowledge. I think Muslim scientist, during the dark ages, also contributed a lot. I think wikipedia has a good article on it, if you're really interested (be warned, it is long...):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method#History.2C_philosophy.2C_sociology

Particularly on the history:




Google: Scientific Method or History+Scientific Method

Re: Founder of systematic science.

It developed over time, and Set's answer seems thorough, but I would put in a vote for Karl Popper as one of the most recent contributors to the present scientific methodology. I believe that empirical falsifiability is one of the key components to the present methodology, and I don't believe that was firmly established until Popper.

Wiki: "Popper is perhaps best known for repudiating the classical observationalist-inductivist account of scientific method by advancing empirical falsifiability as the criterion for distinguishing scientific theory from non-science"

In Stephen Hawking's "A brief history of time" - he writes:

Arthue Koestler's The Sleepwalkers provides a few angles.