When did the study of physical science begin? The Sumerians, who created the first civilization in Mesopotamia around 3200 B.C., were ruled by a relatively complex government, yet considered the natural world to be ruled by a variety of gods. By 2000 B.C., however, Mesopotamia had become Babylonia, and mathematics and astronomy became legitimate fields of study. Egypt, influenced by Babylonian thought, had similar levels of scientific sophistication at the same point in history. Records from India indicate complex astronomical thought before 1500 B.C. In China, long overlooked by historians of science, artifacts from between 1600 and 1400 B.C. indicate observations of comets, nova, and star positions, as well as an elaborate system of mathematics.

Astronomy had its crude beginnings as astrology, when pagan religions sought to interpret the movement of the stars and planets...