The Rise of Modern Science
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this survey of the history of Western science from antiquity to the twentieth century. The course traces how philosophy, art, magic, social structure, and folk knowledge shaped what became physics, biology, chemistry, medicine, astronomy, and the mind sciences. Students read primary texts by Aristotle, Vesalius, Newton, Lavoisier, Darwin, Freud, and Einstein, tracking how ideas about matter, nature, motion, the body, the heavens, and the mind changed over centuries. Materials include the full syllabus, lecture notes, readings, and assignments as published by MIT, free to access under an open license with no certificate offered. The approach favors close reading of original sources over textbook summary, letting students see scientific reasoning in the words of the people who built it.