Perhaps the most popular Magnet elective, Origins of Science is offered second semester, and all four sections of it are always full. There are no prerequisites, aside from a curious mind: any junior or senior at Blair can take this course. Origins is as much a course on Western philosophy and history as a science course, where the development of science is examined in its historical and cultural context.

After discussions on the Neolithic Age, Egyptian astronomy, medicine, and mathematics, and Mesopotamian writing, astronomy, medicine, and mathematics, the course dives into the works and historical impact and relevance of almost all the major Western scientists that lived up to the late 19th century. A not so short list includes: Thales, Anaximandros, Anaximenes, Herakleitos, Parmendies, Pythagoras, Zeno, Empedokles, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Eudoxus, Aristarchos, Eratosthenes, Apollonius, Hipparchos, Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Galen, Archimedes, al Khwarismi, al Hazen, Averroes, St. Anselm, St. Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, Jean Buridan, Nicolas of Cusa, Nicolas Oresme, Fibonacci, Cardno, Tartaglia, Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Blasie Pascal, Evangelista Torricelli, Andreas Vesalius, William Harvey, Rene Descartes, Pierre Fermat, Isaac Newton, Joseph Black, Georg Stahl, Joseph Priestly, Henry Cavendish, Antoine Lavoisier, John Dalton, Amadeo Avogadro, James Hutton, Jean Lamarck, Charles Lyell, Charles Darwin, and Alfred Wallace. Whew!