The modern study of physics began during the Scientific Revolution of the 16th century, building on centuries of study from ancient cultures. Before Newton, Galileo, and Copernicus got their minds dirty with equations, early physicists came from the Middle East, developing the concepts of momentum, mass, weight, and force. The study of matter, space, time, and just about everything Star Trek ignores has revolutionized humankind’s view of the world and universe, as physicists say. Researchers are still searching for what the Theory of Relativity can do for the average person aside from make school harder.

Charles Darwin published his On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1858 to controversy that hasn’t ended 150 years later. Darwin’s theory of natural selection challenged (and still challenges) the religious views of many who believe God or a higher being intelligently designed humans and animals. Darwin thinks it was all one big crap shoot, and we got damn lucky. Still, natural selection and evolution have become staples of scientific study, shaping the same controversial 150 years of genetic and biological research.

Dinosaurs are awesome. That’s impossible to dispute. They’re the closet thing to real monsters we know of so it’s no wonder why they inspire everything from science fiction to fantasy creatures. William Buckland discovered the first dinosaur fossil in 1822, though it took 20 years before Sir Richard Owen named the prehistoric creatures dinosaurs. Megalosaurus was the first named dinosaur.

Geeks might not appreciate the toil for farmers in the fields, but it’s because of them that we get to do what we do. Science in all its trivial glory was possible thanks to food production. Instead of everyone in the society hunting and gathering, a few people farmed while the rest become soldiers, artists, politicians, and scientists. Plus, without food production, we’d have never made pizza. Without pizza, geeks just couldn’t survive. For a much longer explanation of the awesomeness of agriculture, check out Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel.

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce took the first photograph in 1826 or 1827, proving to the future that life used to be in black and white. Niépce used the camera box invented by Charles and Vincent Chevalier, introducing this exciting new technology to peeping toms and private eyes around the world. Early cameras presented challenges, especially at sporting events, since the camera required sometimes several minutes of exposure to make a picture. If anyone moved, the picture would come out blurry. Early horse races were thus run very slowly for the benefit of sport photographers. Cameras have obviously sped up in the modern day, allowing high school boys to take a plethora of pictures of the girls locker room and email them to his friend before getting caught.

Corrective eye wear has existed since the 1st century, but the first eyeglasses are credited to Salvino D’Armate in 1284, the original four-eyes. Paintings and writings revealed various forms of early eye wear, often making tape on the rim look dignified. The invention of eyeglasses has benefited centuries of geeks who spend hours reading, writing, and more recently, coding and gaming causing eye strain and the need for obvious differences to make fun of. Even with contact lens and laser surgery (inspired obviously by Goldfinger), glasses remain a vital part of our fashion either because people think looking geeky is cool or just because we can’t stand rubbing our eyes all day.

Math has made all the science and development of society possible, but let’s recognize math for its everyday benefits. Math helps us bake cookies, figure out how many pages left to read for class, and calculate the benefits of our +2 broadsword. Math concepts were developed as far back as 1900 BCE in Babylon including one of the first known numerical systems. Greek mathematician Pythagoras introduced his infamous Pythagorean theorem during the 5th century. As people aged more, schools needed to fill more time, encouraging the invention of more math, from Algebra to Algebra II to the really advanced Algebra III.

Math has made all the science and development of society possible, but let’s recognize math for its everyday benefits. Math helps us bake cookies, figure out how many pages left to read for class, and calculate the benefits of our +2 broadsword. Math concepts were developed as far back as 1900 BCE in Babylon including one of the first known numerical systems. Greek mathematician Pythagoras introduced his infamous Pythagorean theorem during the 5th century. As people aged more, schools needed to fill more time, encouraging the invention of more math, from Algebra to Algebra II to the really advanced Algebra III.

Epic poems are so challenging, only true geeks can read them these days. Not me, I pretend to have a life. Homer (the Greek one) wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey back in the 9th or 8th century B.C. telling of the Trojan War and the hero Odysseus’ ten year journey home. Both legendary stories have helped define much of Greek mythology and influenced modern storytelling with its epic scale (a defining characteristic of epic poems). From the ancient Aeneid by Rome’s Virgil to the terrible Troy movie (oh Brad Pitt, how far you’ve fallen), Homer’s poems still resonate because people still like war and monsters. It’s truly timeless storytelling.

Leonardo da Vinci has many great accomplishments, though few argue his contributions to the Da Vinci Code outweigh all else. The painter, inventor, and just plain geek-extraordinaire created some of the most famous paintings in history, the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, and contributed to the studies of aviation, engineering, and even plate tectonics. Sure, a casual glance might make these revolutionary and ahead-of-their time predictions seem important, but when you think about how many copies the Da Vinci Code has sold compared to Da Vinci’s own works, the lazy guy only has 15 paintings in existence, then you really see who’s going to stand the test of time.