Use current or updated references and cite your work.

1. When did the classical traditions in the sciences end, and why?

2. What were the social contexts of mathematics and the sciences before 1600?

3. What are the characteristics of either a scientific or a mathematical text pre1600?

4. What was the role of divination in ancient Assyria?

5. How was the patronage of science affected by the rise of Islam?

6. Some historians have claimed that there was a shift from mythological to rational explanation amongst the ancient Greeks. To what extent do Greco-Roman authors show evidence of such a shift?

7. Aristotle claimed that "Homer and Empedocles have nothing in common but meter; so while it is right to call the one a poet, the other should be called a physicist, rather than a poet." What did he mean by that? Was he right?

8. How far, if at all, can the differences between investigations into the natural phenomena in ancient Greece and China be related to the differences in the institutional framework within which the investigators worked?

9. Either (a) What were the major themes of Arabic traditions in mathematics between the 9th and

11th centuries? Or (b) How did Kamal al-Din reconcile mathematics and natural philosophy in his study of the rainbow?

10. How were instruments used to model the heavens in medieval Europe?

11. Are pre-modern maps best characterised by an increasing level of "accuracy and observation"?

12. Why, if at all, did Christians study nature before 1600?