Take the familiar mathematics as an example. The newly developed mathematical knowledge in the 20th century may even exceed the sum of all previous centuries. Since the establishment of calculus in17th century, with the efforts of Porzano, Cauchy, Weisstras and others, mathematics has officially turned from classical to modern, and with the establishment of set theory at the end of 19, it has officially entered modern mathematics.
Modern mathematics has an amazing development in the 20th century, showing a multi-point flowering situation.
The World Mathematical Center in the Early 20th Century —— University of G? ttingen, Germany
Analysis field: Le Berg, a French mathematician, newly defined the measure theory and the integral theory, which became the originator of real variable function, and his theory is the basic theory of contemporary mathematics. Banach, a Polish mathematician, founded Pan-culvert analysis, which dominated almost all branches of contemporary mathematics.
Algebra field: emmy noether, the greatest female mathematician in history, founded modern abstract algebra, which made algebra, the oldest mathematical subject, undergo earth-shaking changes.
Geometry field: French mathematician Catan and China mathematician Chen Shengshen founded modern differential geometry, and French all-around mathematician Poincare founded algebraic topology to study geometry from the perspective of analysis and algebra, which completely freed geometry from the limitation of graphics.
In the field of probability theory: Andrei Andrey Kolmogorov, the mathematical leader of the Soviet Union, put forward the axiom system of modern probability theory based on measure theory, and the work of American mathematician Weiner and Russian mathematician Markov led to the emergence of stochastic processes.
In addition, a large number of new branches of mathematics, such as cybernetics, operational research, fuzzy mathematics, fractal geometry and stochastic analysis, are developing vigorously.
More importantly, the theory about the essence of mathematics has also become an important subject. For the first time, mathematicians studied what is mathematics, what is proof and what is definition from a theoretical height, thus establishing the subject of mathematical logic. Austrian mathematician Godel has proved the incompleteness of mathematics itself, claiming to be a great achievement that no one can surpass in modern logic for 300 years.
The theory mentioned above is only nine Niu Yi hairs, especially in the field of physics. At the end of 19, two unsolved problems in theoretical physics directly led to the birth of two pillar theories of basic physics in the 20th century-relativity and quantum mechanics. The number of scientists born in these two fields far exceeded that in all previous centuries.
The 20th century produced so many scientists. There are several reasons:
We know that in the early days of science, there was no so-called division of disciplines. For example, in ancient Greece, the source of science, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, etc. In fact, it is a subject called natural philosophy. So you don't need so many different people to do different research, and one scientist can study all the problems. The most outstanding representative is Aristotle, who is regarded as the most learned man in ancient times. After the Middle Ages, science was divided into different disciplines, so when different people studied different disciplines, the number of scientists increased. In the 20th century, the division of disciplines reached an uncontrollable level of triviality. According to statistics, mathematics alone contains more than 200 branches, and each branch needs someone to study, so the number of mathematicians will increase greatly.
Plato is on the left and Aristotle is on the right.
Take unscientific philosophy as an example. Professor Zhang Zhiwei from the School of Philosophy of the National People's Congress said in a lecture that the differentiation of philosophical knowledge has reached an alarming level in the 20th century. In the past, a professor could study the thoughts of many philosophers, then a professor could only study the thoughts of one philosopher, then a professor could only study one philosopher's book, and then a professor could only study a few pages of a philosopher's book. This phenomenon is also true in the fields of mathematics and physics, so it is not surprising that the number of scientists has increased greatly.
For a long time, scientific research is not a profession, and scientists are not an identity. Some doctors, lawyers, craftsmen, etc. I usually work to support my family and only use my spare time to do scientific research. Until around13rd century, a number of universities, such as Bologna University, Paris University and Oxford University, came into being one after another, and gradually some people took scientific research as their profession, but also got the title of scientist. /kloc-in Germany and the United States in the second half of the 0/9th century, universities formally had the function of scientific research, so there were professional scientists. In the 20th century, university professors became the most important force in scientific research, resulting in a large number of scientists.
The oldest university in the world-University of Bologna, Italy
The 20th century can be said to have the greatest influence on human history. The two world wars have brought mankind to the abyss, and at the same time, they have given mankind a new life from another angle. The need of weapons manufacturing and post-war social reconstruction during the war, coupled with the overall confrontation between the two superpowers in the field of military science and technology during the Cold War, greatly promoted the emergence and application of a series of new sciences, technologies and theories. For example, the appearance and use of missiles have accelerated the development of a series of new technologies, such as cybernetics, computer and operational research, not to mention the appearance of nuclear weapons, which have raised the understanding of human science to an unprecedented height from both theoretical and application perspectives. Among them, a large number of scientific masters with decisive power were born.
On the whole, the development of human science is accelerating, which is also mentioned in Liu's Three-body. Therefore, the more knowledge accumulated, the faster development, so there will be more and more scientists, which goes without saying.
Of course, some people will wonder, since there were so many scientists in the 20th century, why don't we think there are so many? Galileo, Newton, Ferrari, Darwin and others we are familiar with are obviously people before the 20th century.
In fact, this truth is not difficult to understand. Most of the names we heard above are from middle school, and all the knowledge we learned in middle school was invented before19th century. After human science entered the 20th century, scientific theory became more and more abstract and difficult, so it was farther and farther away from ordinary people. Many people have made research results that you not only can't understand, but even have never heard of, so you haven't heard of this scientist. Another reason is that before the 20th century, people had less scientific knowledge, and a scientist could master several fields at the same time, so some so-called all-round scientists were born, such as Leonardo da Vinci and Leibniz. However, after the 20th century, the total amount of human knowledge has become too complicated, and there may be people who master many fields, so there will be no so-called all-round scientists, and we will not pay attention to them. So the conclusion is not that there were fewer scientists in the 20th century, but that we didn't know.
Science is a summary of the development of science and technology by modern people, and the word science is unique to modern people. Asking which era has produced the most scientists is like asking which era has the most advanced technology. What we call science and technology is a summary of the development of human wisdom in past dynasties. People today are actually enjoying all the fruits of human wisdom in the past. This question is actually unanswerable, and there is no meaning or necessity to answer it.
Obviously now.
1. Population growth brought about by grain output and medical and health progress.
With the popularization of education brought by the times, the Internet makes knowledge acquisition more convenient.
On the day of academic explosion, there were many scientists. At the same time, scientific research is not equal to popular science. Scientific research is standing on the spire and forgetting it. Popular science is to let everyone look down. There are thresholds and barriers.
Next, there will be more and more scientists!
/kloc-at the end of 0/9, there were the most scientists at the beginning of the 20th century. The basic theory seems to have been discovered by those people. Since the theory of relativity was first put forward, the basic theory has not made much progress.
At present, most of them still follow the classical theory. For example, Newton's mechanics, human beings in space, can not but abide by.
Between the Renaissance and the first industrial revolution, there appeared scientists who pursued truth, and later scientists emerged one after another. The foundation laid and the source of development are the source of scientists' alternation. Since ancient times, in the process of understanding the world, transforming the world and looking forward to the new theory of the future world, the mainstream consciousness must be recognized, otherwise it will be a fiasco, and the price paid by all scientific pioneers should be worth learning today. Scientists are innovative workers! ! ! Today's innovative social system needs the participation and recognition of scientists.
In the late last century, many great inventions promoted the development of society and the progress of civilization, whether it was Edison, Einstein, Madame Curie, Tesla, Wright brothers and so on. , have made great contributions to the development of civilization today.
Of course, it is the primary stage from the barren land to the beginning of understanding the world. At this stage, everything has yet to be discovered by human beings, and it is also the most likely time for scientists to appear. At present, the knowledge of physics in the macro world has almost reached the limit, and there are not many things waiting for human beings to discover, so it seems that modern scientists have broken the file. Of course, what we are talking about here is the great scientist who leads the rapid development of science and technology.
See article: the world at a glance-natural scientists
The twentieth century and the twenty-first century have only passed one fifth.
Although this century has just begun, there are already many scientists, but the results are very, very few or very small.