Paper 2
Sciences in Transition: Renaissance to Enlightenment
You should answer four questions in total. Answer one question from
Section A and three questions from Section B. All questions carry equal
weighting.
Begin each answer on a separate sheet.
Write legibly and on only one side of the paper.
Answers must be tied up in separate bundles, marked 1, 2, 3, etc.
according to the number of the question.
Attach a completed coversheet to each bundle and complete a master
coversheet listing all questions attempted. It is essential that you write
your examination number and not your name on the coversheet and on
each bundle.
You may not start to read the questions printed on the subsequent
pages of this question paper until instructed to do so by the
invigilator.
Page 2 of 2
SECTION A
1. What was the role of experiment in early modern sciences?
2. How did audiences matter for early modern natural knowledge?
3. Is magic significant for the history of science?
SECTION B
4. What was the difference between astrology and astronomy in early
modern Europe?
5. How did the authority of nature change in early modern Europe?
6. What was the role of religious institutions in shaping early modern
natural knowledge?
7. Why did natural philosophers study alchemy?
8. What was the early modern European view of natural history’s
contribution to the wealth of nations?
9. How did printed books affect the development of early modern scientific
culture?
10. What kinds of social change did practical application of natural
philosophical knowledge in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
achieve?
11. Who contributed and how to global exchanges of knowledge in the early
modern period?
12. What was the importance of classification in Enlightenment natural
history?
13. Why was comparative anatomy so central to the way natural history was
transformed in the late eighteenth century?
14. Was Isaac Newton an Enlightenment scientist?
15. How did European astronomy change during the eighteenth century?