Through our actions we come to a comprehension of the world. What we discover through our active senses are all the effects we have on our surroundings. From the earliest cultures the extent of what is possible for humans is pushed on. Knowledge of the material world through steady agriculture, seafaring for trade and metallurgy initiates practical natural science as a pursuit to find out what humans are capable of through skilful involvement with what is around them.
It emerges that early cultures are able to improve their lives by commerce with others. Neolithic societies in Africa enjoy the benefits of cattle herding and tending wild plants developing ceramics, glass and metal crafting and gathering knowledge of natural medicines. In prehistoric Egypt the annual inundation of the Nile makes a fertile black land where the fruits of agriculture are gleaned for cohesive communities. In Mesopotamia city states develop early means of accounting for material exchanges and protect people by governments of wise counsel.
In transitions from the ancient world the growth of large stable populations makes possible the development of trades and crafts into practical sciences aimed at comprehending the world. With improving selection of wool and mineral pigments textiles are fabricated to adorn commercial transactions across the Mediterranean. Discoveries in astronomy and optics enable the African Arabian civilisation to maintain its extensive boundaries with the integrity of scholarship and orderly pursuit of affairs. Regathering of the Atlantic Celtic initiative provides stability for the early endeavours of Charlemagne’s France and Viking Saxon Danish Norman integration in BritainInitial enquiries of natural philosophy by Bacon together with Gilbert’s De Magnete suggest a practical science with commitment to comprehend the material world. The achievements of describing actual motions by Galileo and provision of all masses in dynamic interaction of Newton enable human efforts to be directed with guidance of planetary and stellar events. Knowledge is firmly gathered through electromagnetic and radioactive detections to quanta, electronic and atomic discoveries with physics initiating a fundamental quest for the true nature of reality. A unifying comprehension of elementary particle interactions and large scale gravitational effects may be possible through a physics of the whole universe in which energies interchanges are the fundamental processes.