A Short Presentation of the History of Science

About the Book

This first edition presents a quick look at the history of science and will be followed by a second edition with greatly increased coverage of science, covering Galileo, Newton, and the later development in science, with attention to mathematical formulas, largely avoided in many science periodicals and even in the World Book Encyclopedia.

About the Author

Llewellyn Pearce was brought up in a science, music and art world. Since the start of the 1930 time period, our family survived the Great Depression with minimal problems. Family reading was an important part of his early life. His father had a good job with the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, Pricing and Policy Department, and his mother was an artist trained in the New York School of Fine Art, and was very active with the Society of Women Voters. While serving as President of a local association of artists in Akron, Ohio his mother was instrumental in inviting architect Frank Lloyd Wright to visit Akron, and make a proposal for designing a new museum of art in Akron, Ohio. The Pearce family had built the first modern home in Akron, on a lovely, 3.5-acre, wooded lot at 555 Royal Avenue. The Pearce family later built a home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright on a 2-acre wooded lot at 5 Bradbury Hills Road, in Bradbury, California. He was educated as a scientist (of no importance), following guidance from Geology Professors Robert P. Sharp, and Biologist George W. Beadle, of CALTECH, and the first mayor of Bradbury, Rollin Eckis, the future president of the Atlantic Richfield Oil Company, later the president of ARCO. Eckis was helpful in guiding the author into studying plate tectonics and global warming. He majored in physics, starting at Pasadena City College, and ending up at UCLA and USC. When his father and mother became seriously ill, he quit school and took a great job with North American Aviation. At North American Aviation he was allowed to continue his interest in nuclear particle research and space radiation sciences. Although North American Aviation after merging with other companies was not altogether pleased with his research activities opposing nuclear warfare, he was permitted to participate in science programs leading to the Apollo Program, and later with the NAVSTAR GPS Satellite Programs. He carried on studies of the use of nuclear radiation detectors, solar cells, and infrared detectors. In space research, work that had begun following World War II, between the Apollo and GPS programs, he helped prepare for NASA programs on Mars missions. He was assigned to develop experimental programs, applicable to manned and un-manned Mars missions, in the post Apollo period starting about 1979. He was mainly interested in planetary and nuclear radiation environments of the Sun, Earth, Moon, and Mars. As long as his company was interested in space science, hw was in good hands. But that all seemed to come to an end about 1987 and he retired to take care of his mother who had Alzheimer’s decease, his father who had cancer, and his wife who later died from Parkinson’s disease. He now work at the Los Angeles County Arboretum, studying plants, teaching, and computerizing plant records.