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Contents |
GLPS2 Information
- About GLPS2
- Bibliographies used in this course (the main library is listed as "Bibliography")
- Presentation schedule
- Student resources
- Teachers at GLPS2
- Timetable
- List of natural philosophers by region from antiquity to 1600
- List of scientific and technical chronologies up to 1600
Recent News
9 January 2012 in Focus: Classes 19, 20, pairs ready for 17th Presentation Contest
Classes 19, 20 students make last-minute adjustments to their presentations ahead of Saturday's seventeenth installment of the history presentation contest.
Frost-studded windows, taken with a silent, overcast horizon. Outside a hazy window, trees assume their mid-season brilliant white from the falling chaff. Days of frigid temperatures and chilly hallways huddle students into the cornered Chungmu Hall classroom, C202, reducing once requisite snowball fights to just sporadic few-minute sessions between classes. Rows of chairs fill with silent onlookers yet the room frenzies in activity. Teaching-assistant Yoo Seung-in, touting a peach-hue card over his head, indicates the thirty-second grace period. The student continues the speech, her voice suddenly rasps in the conclusion. After minutes of questioning, discussion, and some quick laughs, the last of the twelve Class-20 students sits, mulls over notes, wondering whether she should have talked about forces, buoyancy, and a cylinder. Does she know enough about its history? The process repeats a few hours later in Class-19, which has eleven students, all in history of science topics. Afterwards, two teachers and the teaching-assistant stare at a computer screen, pondering at the numerical spreadsheet.
This week's scoring is different. For, after two weeks of reading, coaching, analyzing, questioning, and citing sources, the two selected winners will advance to a grandeur venue, not another breezy classroom, and to a Saturday not Wednesday booking. The campwide History Presentation Contest, held just once each GLPS, showcases some of the most talented (among very talented) students across 24 classes. Only the top 16 percent in each level (level 1, total of 12 among a pool of 72 students in classes 19-24) are selected through a combination of 'soft' and 'hard' skills to advance to the camp-wide gala.
There is no demand placed on the students to acquire content knowledge. Instead, emphases are placed on the learning of context, use of primary sources in English, asking of good questions, analyzing, demonstration of independence and originality, and organization of a paper and presentation. Readers are not tasked with becoming experts in the history of science. As students are still in secondary school, being a kid plays a sizable role, too. Racing to slide across the floor with the teacher and "ang-dancing" are camp classics.
Across the room, staring self-possessed at his notebook, sits Song Jae-heon (Steve; C19). A generous, polite, hardworking young man, in the first week Steve reads excerpts of ray-tracing and various hypotheses of light from antiquity to better grasp how the Greeks like Euclid and later Muslim Persians like Alhazen understood the nature of vision. Piecing together an effective presentation about extramission (ancient hypothesis that our eyes were like light-houses) and intromission (the contemporaneous theory that light reflects from objects and into the eye and optic nerves), Steve comments about the 300 BC works of Euclid, the 1000 AD works of Alhazen, and quotes about the latter's disatisfaction with Euclid's "forms"; the Muslim scholar's work later leads to our modern view of the psychology of perception. Fast forward a week and Steve substantially improves in organization and abstract thought, delivering a convincing presentation about the world's first earthquake detector, or seismometer, developed by Zhang Heng in AD 132, 1,700 years before the Europeans. Focusing between the years 100 to 1200 in six minutes of oral discussion, Steve surveys the Eastern Han Dynasty, China's seismic activity, Zhang Heng's persona, and explains the physics behind the device.
In it he relates an interesting story. In one famous anecdote: "one day a ball dropped from a dragon but was unaccompanied with tremble. Thinking the device was broken, court officials began to doubt its authenticity. Several days letter a messenger arrived bringing news of an earthquake that devastated Lung Hsi, 640 kilometers away. They never doubted it again."
Using terms like inertia, force, levers, pins and accompanying the talk with illustrations, Steve dazzles both teachers and the TA with drawings and modern interpretations of the triggering mechanism. Explaining the physics of pendulum motion and resistance to change, with time to mention its impact, he, too uncovers some original interpretations (previously unknown to him, of course) -- by the 1200s, a thousand years into the device, not only do the Chinese nearly lose track of its existence, but also the technology never assumes a sphere of influence outside of China. Steve offers why at the competition.
Da-eun then moves on to natural sciences and mathematics; mind you she is in her teens.
Half-way into the presentation she discusses buoyancy, the lever, and area under a downward parabola. All but a few can digest with her points. Da-eun then rounds her report concluding with a final take-home message while nodding to Archimedes' principles that impact modern conveniences. The presentation takes tremendous effort for a young person: lots of reading in Polybius, in primary sources such as Polybius and Livy, which is advanced in level; she manages concepts, and reads two other books to put the ideas into their proper historical context. Da-eun celebrates her top finish with a cup of hot-chocolate and a few text deliveries to close friends. She glances again at handouts the next afternoon.
A project can be as small or big as the thinker envisions it. With independence, initiative, and curiosity, Yeonwu set himself in the first week to ancient Arabic internal medicine and the works of ninth century physician Al-Razi. Al-Razi was a prominent figure in the Islamic Golden Age, contributing to over 200 books and generally acknowledged as the "father of pediatrics" for systematically studying diseases in children. At first Yeonwu recoils about working on anything to do with the region, maintaining that he lacks such knowledge, Arabic names are challenging to read, Islamic achievement is categorically obscure, and the Middle East is to a degree veiled in disapproval. However, by the end of the first week his mood changes and subscribes to Islamic antiquity. Despite the material’s technical difficulty that manifest into some presentation errors, Yeonwu's essential understanding is strong, finishing at the top; with negligible teacher direction he immediately moves his effort East to the stunning Chinese invention of the magnetic compass. Laboring through a number of sources including the popular science book Riddle of the Compass by Amir Aczel, Yeonwu reads in raptures at the brilliant invention developed over a period beginning in the second century BC in the Han Dynasty to before the end of the Song Dynasty in the thirteenth century.
Used to indicate direction, navigators especially put the compass to good use at sea as extant land was lost sight. Scholars believe the Chinese began to understand the magnetic properties of the mineral lodestone and used it to arrange buildings for talismanic luck, known as feng shui or to us as geomantics. The first practical application of lodestone is believed to have been done at the palace of Chin Shi Hwang in 221 BC. The entire gate was made of it and anyone who tried to enter with weapons would be found out. It was perhaps the world's first iron detector. After grappling with putting the handouts of the various Chinese compasses in their proper chronological order and understanding the science in their construction, Yeonwu fronts the class and delivers ardent views about the Song, compass designs, and its impact on the world. It turns out in the 1200s the Venetians were keen to import the technology, though its impression elsewhere was neither immediate nor revolutionary. Nevertheless, Yeonwu concludes, glancing at a friend's keychain-compass, that its gradual impact on exploration was comprehensive, enduring, commencing a new era for human civilization.
Recent News
21 January 2012: Classes 19, 20 receive accolades at GLPS 17
Despite a thorny start at GLPS 17 (lackluster performance at the 'pop-song' contest; gesticulations from the writing program) and losing two students by the end of week three, class 19 pridefully reflect about four camp-wide accomplishments: jump-rope competition (1st place), 17th Presentation Contest (3rd place, Song Jae-heon), mock trial (decisive victory, team 19A), and Best PA (3rd place, Kim Yun-young). Class 20, too, can appreciate recognized efforts: 17th Speech Contest (2nd place, Yun San, thanks to her coach), mock trial (two decisive victories, teams 20A and 20B, thanks to Messrs. Humphrey and Blaney). Other recognition includes in-class accomplishments: model student (Kim Ji-yoon), mathematics (Shin Hyesu), most-improved (Yun Aram), and best blogger (Kim Ji-yoon). Congratulations to teachers and students!
Class 19 Song Jae-heon's (송재헌) reading of the Chinese seismometer,
3rd.
Class 19 mock trial members Yoon Aram (윤아람), Shin Hye-su (신혜수), Yun Hae-rin (윤해린), and Lee Soyeon (이소연) pose after their win.
Class 20's Yun San (윤산) at the speech contest,
2nd.
Class 20 members pose with Messrs. Blaney and Humphrey following Saturday's decisive victory in the auditorium.
Kim Yunyoung (김윤영) of class 19, one of the best PAs at GLPS 17,
3rd.
21 January 2012: Class Portraits
Class 19; not pictured: Ha Yejin (하예진)
Class 20
Recent News
11 August 2012: History of science students continue to stimulate interest at contests
Class 20, 21 work imprints upon 18th presentation venue.
On an unusually cool, dry summer's night in Dasan Hall, a group of students present work about Eratosthenes' measurement of earth's circumference two-thousand years ago, the effect of Feng Shui on China's border countries, the inauspicious psychology of comet sightings, and the transfer of astronomical knowledge during 'Chinese Wave I'. In a program that did not exist a year ago, students blend both content and context learning to better grasp the comingled effects of science and society in the East, Middle East, and West.
Tapping on her notes and using several highlighters to underscore key points as she fronts the audience, Cha Shi-eun (class 20) bemoans the tendency of readers to trust contemporary authors who write on much older science topics, reporting the near confusion of several secondary sources in how Eratosthenes of Kyrene (c. 276 BC–c. 195 BC) determined earth's circumference. Cha relates to judges that when she first took on the topic about the famed Greek mathematician, she did so because it seemed that topic was well-vetted in the literature—that is—safe. Little did she realize that her self-possessed curiosity would not only lead her to uncover that secondary sources are at times nebulous in reliability, but also that the sources themselves would become the centerpiece of her project.
Eratosthenes is credited in calculating the circumference of the earth by the use of sticks, shadows, feet, and brains. His reckoning more than two thousand years ago of 240,000 stadia (~39,000 kilometers) is within four percent of the modern value (40,075 kilometers). His work advanced the study of geodesy.
In her seven minute presentation, Cha retraces, compiles, and categorizes incoherence among five books in the crucial specifics of his calculation. Not only does she come to small discrepancies about the object used to observe the shadows (a stick in some books, an obelisk in others, a water well in yet another), but she also recounts that there is no general unanimity in how the distance was measured (pacer in one book, camels in others, a soldier mentioned in passing in another). She
Meanwhile, three other students showcase their work at the presentation contest among the audience and judges on Saturday night. Park Jiyeon (class 20), after reporting on famed polymath Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179) in week two, relocates her attention on East Asian science by asking, "Did Feng-shui affect cultures that bordered Chinese dynasties such as the Han?" Park conducts a short literature review based on Srapp (2008), Fung (1948), and Twicken (2000) to clarify Feng Shui interpretation on various societies. As her speaking slot ends, a judge puts a question to her about her central thesis. "Feng Shui design directs this kind of city layout, but, not all cities then used that layout. Does that not destroy her thesis?" Park, scanning the room as she composes her response, absorbs, and declares that there most certainly were exceptions to the rule, but those exceptions involve plans that changed merely the orientation of the design, and not the composition of mountains, rivers, and other layout items.
Both spatial and temporal diversity increased at GLPS 18. There was a substantial increase in the number of topics that covered the ancient Near East and Mesopotamia. Requests by students also included more selections in health care, botany, and women scientists. For example, Kwon Shi-eun grappled with ancient texts to study the manufacturing of perfume in the 12th century, Park Sung-hyun mulled over Faiella (2005), Sarton (1959), and Taton (1963) to understand the development of land transportation in Mesopotamia, and Hwang Si-yeon studied Nasr (2007) and other texts on an exploration of hospitals in Baghdad and Damascus in the middle ages as leading centers in health care. Assumed topics on ancient women included Hypatia (d. 415) and Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179).
Other factors may have contributed to the burgeoning of new research topics at GLPS 18. The school's generous expansion of history of science books on its library shelves, an additional 65 gigabytes of BBC and other programming documentaries launched this summer, and greater contact time with TAs, have been noted in daily classroom interactions this camp.
Recent News
18 August 2012: Classes 20, 21 proudly finish at GLPS 18
Despite being a bit smaller, younger, and delivering one fewer presentation unlike other level-one classes, the history of the sciences team is proud to announce exceptional results at GLPS 18 among a total of eighty participants (in typical cases). Though the class philosophy is 1. Have fun; 2. Learn something new, with little mention of winning, we pay credit thus.
Class 21 at the pop-song with High School Musical 2: What time is it?,
1st.
Cha Shi-eun (20) and "Book analysis of Eratosthenes' calculation of earth's circumference, as reported in secondary sources,"
1st.
Jo Yejin (21) Delivers a humorous talk at the speech contest,
2nd.
Shim Woo-weon's (20) following the speech contest,
3rd.
Led by Mr. John Tierney, class 20 team-B wins at mock trial.
18 August 2012: Class portrait
History of the sciences at GLPS 18
Recent News
20 October 2012: AP History students represent KMLA in research at the First IHPST in Asia
Park Joo-won, Ko Hae-uk, represent KMLA in history themes at the International History, Philosophy, and Science Teaching Group (IHPST) international conference in Seoul, 18-20 October.
Hosted by Seoul National University and populated by over 150 attendees from more than 20 countries, two KMLA high school students vying to showcase their research participated in IHPST's first ever meeting in Asia. The KMLA entrustment was supervised by Alexander Ganse—teacher of advanced placement (AP) history, architect behind the WHKMLA: World History at KMLA website, and manager at GLPS.
For Park Joo won (senior) and Ko Hae-uk (sophomore), it was a chance encounter to experience an international conference whose central theme overlaps with their summer's AP world history course. Ganse’s innovative teaching led three students (one student withdrew due to examinations) to successfully gain entry to display poster presentations during the conference’s junior session, a segment designed for younger researchers such as postdoctoral associates and postgraduates a spot to casually discuss research results in an informal yet at times intense setting. Park and Ko are two of only four other high school presenters, and are seven years younger than the other poster presenters, most of whom are postgraduates at research universities in Korea, Asia, and even Europe.
| “ | It was a great experience to conduct science research in a history class, for I learned how important it is to comprehend the intertwined nature of science and history. | ” |
Park Joo-won, a graduating senior, put her term paper into the presentation, "Management of Nuclear Power in History," and Ko Hae-uk, a sophomore presently on leave, prepared, "Transfer of Knowledge and Skills from the World of Islam to Christian Europe." Though a majority of work came from the students, much was honed by Ganse’s expertise in constructive criticism, historical context, and content refinement.
For their part, the student restlessly prepared. Park completed her paper during spring semester, revised it, and prepared with great care for the conference. Park and Ganse attended fifteen oral presentations of other researchers, and in ten of those she queried the presenter or offered a comment. In one exposition slot, the researcher listed eight types of student misinterpretation of scientific topic taught in class. After Park's comment, the researcher's list expanded to nine types. Impressive for an eighteen year old.
The three day conference featured dozens of oral presentations by some of the most active academicians and teachers around, plenary sessions by distinguished scholars, and invited symposia set in an interactive format. Park Joo-won energetically participated in post-presentation discussion and entered into personal communication with attendees.
| “ | It was the first time when grown professionals stopped to listen to what I had to say on academic themes. Not only that, it influenced my preference of study; IHPST might have just gained one more future presenter this year. | ” |
Ultimately, the junior session had to end, but not without senior faculty echoing in the halls among each other, "but they’re only high school students." The time in the junior session was transformed into a new focus, a quality built on initial efforts by the organizers to insert a younger section only on condition it would be of quality. Ganse, Park, and Ko do not fail to impress. The experience on the KMLA delegation was positive.
The students made most of the opportunities provided in the venue, established some contacts, impressed IHPST's first ever installment in Asia, and fit seamlessly into the conference. It appears that the experiment on high school students at a major conference was a viewed as a success by education promoters. Even more, Alexander Ganse's innovative teaching style is living proof that a form of education that shifts its pivot away from the teacher and onto the student works.
"History of science class at GLPS, and the attendance of IHPST, served to deepen my understanding of the area, as well as to widen my horizon," Ganse maintains.
Recent News
19 January 2013: Class 22 students prepare for 19th presentation contest
Jang Jin-ho analyzes the major works of Al-Razi, pointing to the divergence between alchemy and chemistry for modern science.
Lee Jung-oh retraces the scientific development of Mesopotamian beer and puts it into its historical context. Congratulations Lee Jung-oh for your place in the 19th presentation contest,
3rd!
24 January 2013: GLPS 19 class portrait
History of the sciences at GLPS 19
15 February 2013: GLPS program admits to top universities
We are proud to recognize the hard work of KMLA students involved in the GLPS history section. Congratulations to to Cho Anan, who will read history at the University of Oxford; Kim Do-young, physics and philosophy, University of Oxford; Myeong Do-hyeong, history, Princeton University; and Oh Kwonsok (GLPS 19 history of science), applied mathematics, Brown University! We at the history of the sciences program are personally grateful for their contributions, proud of their achievements, and wish them the best in their endeavors!
Recent News
10 August 2013: History of science students present at perhaps the most contestable presentation gala to date
Class 20 students prepare for the 20th presentation contest. Kim Ji-hee retraces Ibn Al-Haytham's mathematical explanation of the al-bayt al-Muslim (camera obscura), explains how it works, and the impact it had on the rest of physics. Her sources are Islamic Science: An Illustrated Study, by S. H. Nasr, Ibn al-Haytham, by B. Steffans, and Science and Civilization in Islam, by S. H. Nasr. Kwon Oh-jun defines the difference between the geocentric and heliocentric systems before addressing the world's largest astronomical observatory in the middle ages, Maragha, and the development and refinement of astronomical work lead by Nasr al-Din al-Tusi. His sources are Science in Medieval Islam, by H. R. Turner, Islamic Science and Engineering, by D. Hill, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance, by G. Saliba, and the House of Wisdom, by J. al-Khalili.
Kim Ji-hee researches the origins of ibn Al-Haytham's (965-1040) al-bayt al-Muslim (camera obscura). Congratulations to Ji-hee for her placement in the 20th presentation contest,
2nd!
Kwon Oh-jun considers the knowledge transfer of Maragha Observatory, then the world's most prominent observatory, al-Tusi (1201-1274), and his work's possible influence on Nicolaus Copernicus.
17 August 2013: Class 20 history of the sciences group photo
History of the sciences at GLPS 20 (class 17 not shown)
15 September 2013: Photo with history of science TA at Princeton
Recent News
13 August 2014: Two class 21 students finish with high marks at the 23rd presentation contest
Research on the chemistry and social consequences of lead poisoning about the decline of the Roman Empire claimed second prize, while work on steam technology covering Heron of Alexandria (c. 10 – c. 70) earned high marks at the 23rd Presentation Contest. Yu Mina researched the body of evidence that the Roman Empire could have collapsed by lead poisoning through the empire's vast pipe network, offering her own skeptical judgment of the monocause. Yoon Sejong reviewed the earliest accounts of steam technology by Heron and investigated why the Industrial Revolution did not occur 1700 years ago in Alexandria. A total of ten students—who won their in-class competitions from a pool of seventy five—advanced to the final round of presentations and discussion Wednesday night. The history of science program is pleased that Yu Mina finished in second and Yoon Sejong finished in fifth, narrowly behind fourth.
Yu Mina questions work that claims that the Roman Empire collapsed due to rampant lead poisoning. Congratulations to Mina for her placement in the 22nd presentation contest,
2nd!
Yoon Sejong looks at the aeolipile, Heron's other works, and asks, "Was Heron the father of steam technology?" Congratulations to Sejong for his strong fourth place mark at the contest!
Recent News
9 October 2014: Notice of curriculum change at GLPS 23
School has informed that at this winter's GLPS 23 I will be involved in the new Activity & Experiment modules, "science of snow" and "astronomy & the stars". History of science resumes next summer at GLPS 24.
Recent News
20 April 2015
This summer two courses are on offer: history of the natural sciences and the Activity & Experiment modules: "egg drop challenge" and "physics of flight."
Recent News
12 August 2015: History of science students rally to place first, second, at 24th contest
This summer term our students worked very hard on their projects, taking the unique approach of looking through their work through the lens of revolution. I am proud to announce that our students took first, second, at the 24th history contest.
Park Ji-seung conducts an extensive literature review of the agricultural revolution in al-Andalus (Islamic Spain), c. 720-c.1200. Congratulations, Ji-seung, for finishing at the contest
1st!
In her project, Kim Su-hyeon splices Hippocrates and revolution, substantiating her bold claim through an analysis of primary sources. Congratulations, Su-hyeon, for coming in an incredible
2nd!
14 August 2015: Class 21 history of the sciences group photo
History of the sciences at GLPS 24 (class 21)
15 August 2015: Best job around
Teacher Arthur E. Michalak feels like John Keating (Dead Poets Society) thanks to these great students and to the learning approach Alexander Ganse developed at KMLA.
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