VI. Reading Comprehension 5%
Science as we know it today can be said to have started with the ancient Greeks, with the
likes of Herodotus, Aristotle and Theophrastus, all of whom lived from 300 to 500 years before
Christ.
Their findings were still valid two millenniums later, when science was reborn with the
Renaissance following the Dark Ages when after the fall of Rome, roughly 1000 years after the
Greeks created their scientific theories, science and learning were forgotten during the ravages
of war and disease which enveloped the whole of the then civilized world.
Geology, even mineralogy, can be traced back to the Greeks. They recognized that the
position of the land and sea had changed and that a great length of time had been necessary for
these changes. They believed the world was round, that the orbits of planets were also circular
and they noticed that heavy objects fell faster than light ones. So, more sciences than one can be
said to have begun with the Greeks.
Of course, all their learning might have disappeared for good during the six or seven
centuries of the Dark Ages. But the Arabs were also interested in science, and they were at the
edge of the Dark Ages, so they were able to preserve the findings of the Greeks, translating
some of their work and even building on it. When science finally took root again in the Middle
Ages it was based very much on the ideas and work of the Greeks.
【題組】50. What might the next part of the lecture be about?
(A) Arab scientists and science.
(B) Science as we know it today.
(C) Other scientific findings in the Dark Ages.
(D) The development of science in the Middle Ages.
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