ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. This book will be a useful resource to students interested in the history of science. Historians of science do not fit easily into any specialised department of knowledge, but the questions aired here are those with which most of them are concerned. They involve the careers of scientists, their beliefs and those of society about science, as well as the origin and development of scientific theories. Science is a human activity, and it can be understood by those who do not need to practice it; it is a great mistake to see it as a mystery, which will solve all a nation's problems. Physical science is obscure, and to master it requires skills in mathematics and experiment; the lives and minds of scientists are not substantially different from those of the rest of people.
