~ Famous Scientists ~

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Amedeo Avogadro



The Italian scientist, Amedeo Avogadro is most famous for his contributions to theory of moles and molecular weight, including what is known as Avogadro’s law. In respect of his contributions to the molecular theory, the number of molecules in one mole was renamed Avogadro’s number.

Avogadro’s Life:

Amedeo was born in Turin, Italy, on 9th August, 1776 in a noble family of lawyers. His father, Count Filippo Avogadro was a well-known lawyer and civil servant. Amedeo followed his father’s footsteps and earned a doctorate of law in 1796 and began to practice. Soon after, he developed interest in natural philosophy and mathematics. Despite his successful legal career he left it to teach mathematics and physics at liceo (high school) in Vercelli in 1809.

In 1820 he was appointed as the professor of mathematical physics at the University of Turin. Unluckily, his post was short lived, since political turmoil suppressed the chair and Avogadro lost his job by July, 1822. The post was however reestablished in 1832, and Avogadro took his position back in 1834. Here he remained until his retirement in 1850.

Not much is known about Amedeo’s private life and his political activity; despite his unpleasant aspect (at least as depicted in the rare images found), he was known to be dedicated to a sober life and a religious man. He was happily married and blessed with six sons.

Avogadro’s Contributions to the Scientific Field:

In 1811 Avogadro theorized that equal volumes of gases at the same temperature and pressure contain equal numbers of molecules. He further established that relative molecular weights of any two gases are similar to the ratio of the densities of the two gases under the constant conditions of temperature and pressure. His suggestion is now known as the Avogadro’s principle. He also cleverly reasoned that simple gases were not formed of solitary atoms but were instead compound molecules of two or more atoms. (Avogadro did not actually use the word atom; at the time the words atom and molecule were used almost interchangeably. He talked about three kinds of “molecules,” including an “elementary molecule”—what we would call an atom.) Thus Avogadro was able to resolve the confusion that Dalton and others had encountered regarding atoms and molecules at that time.

Avogadro’s findings were almost completely neglected until it was forcefully presented by Stanislao Cannizarro at the Karlsruhe Conference in 1860. He demonstrated that Avogadro’s Principle was not only helpful to determine molar masses, but also, indirectly, atomic masses. Avogadro’s work was mainly rejected before due to earlier established conviction that chemical combination occurred due to the similarity between unlike elements. After the electrical discoveries of Galvani and Volta, this similarity was in general attributed to the attraction between unlike charges.

The number of molecules in one mole is now called Avogadro’s number taking the value of 6.0221367 x 1023. The number was not actually determined by Avogadro himself. It was given his name due to his outstanding contribution to the development of molecular theory. This Italian scientist died on July 9th, 1856 in Turin.

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Anders Celsius



Anders Celsius was a Swedish astronomer who is known for inventing the Celsius temperature scale. Celsius also built the Uppsala Astronomical Observatory in 1740, the oldest astronomical observatory in Sweden.

Early Life and Career:

Born in Uppsala, Sweden, Anders Celsius was raised a Lutheran. His father, Nils Celsius, was an astronomy professor. Celsius completed his education in his home town; north of Stockholm. He showed an extraordinary talent in mathematics from childhood. He studied at Uppsala University where, like his father, he joined as a professor of astronomy in 1730.

Contributions and Achievements:

In his efforts to build a astronomical observatory in Sweden, Celsius visited several of the famous European astronomy sites from 1732 to 1734. At the time, English and French astronomers debated about the actual shape of the earth. To resolve this dispute, teams were sent to the “ends” of the world to assess the precise local positions. Pierre Louis de Maupertuis headed the expedition to the north and Celsius joined as his assistant.

The expedition to Lapland, the northernmost part of Sweden, continued from 1736 to 1737. Newton’s theory about the flattening of the earth at the poles was finally confirmed in 1744 after all measurements were taken.

Celsius went back to Uppsala after the expedition. He is considered to be the first astronomer to analyze the changes of the earth’s magnetic field at the time of a northern light and assess the brightness of stars with measuring tools.
At Uppsala Observatory, Celsius favored the division of the temperature scale of a mercury thermometer at air pressure of 760mm of mercury into 100°C, where 100 was taken as the freezing point and 0 as the boiling point of water.

Due to the elaborated fixation of the measuring environment and methods, this account was thought to be more precise compared to that of Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit and Rene-Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur.

Celsius was an avid admirer of the the Gregorian calendar, which was adapted in Sweden in 1753, just nine years after his death. “Degree Celsius”, the unit of temperature interval, has been named after this brilliant scientist.

Later Life and Death:

Celsius became the secretary of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala in 1725 where he remained until his death. He died of tuberculosis in 1744.

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Andre Marie Ampère



The French physicist and mathematician, Andre Marie Ampère is mainly credited for laying down the basis of electrodynamics (now known as electromagnetism). He was the first person to demonstrate that a magnetic field is generated when two parallel wires are charged with electricity and is also known for inventing the astatic needle, a significant component of the contemporary astatis galvanometer.

Education and Career:

Andre Marie was born in Lyon, France on 20 January 1775. He grew up at the family property at Poleymieux-au-Mont-d’Or near Lyon. His father, Jean-Jacques Ampère was an affluent businessman and local government official. Young Ampère spent most of his time reading in the library of his family home, and developed a great interest in history, geography, literature, philosophy and the natural sciences. His father gave him Latin lessons and encouraged him to pursue his passion for mathematics.

At a very young age he rapidly began to develop his own mathematical ideas and also started to write a thesis on conic sections. When he was just thirteen, Ampère presented his first paper to the Academie de Lyon. This paper consisted of the solution to the problem of constructing a line of the same length as an arc of a circle. His method involved the use of infinitesimals, but unfortunately his paper was not published because he had no knowledge of calculus then. After some time Ampère came across d’Alembert’s article on the differential calculus in the Encyclopedia and felt the urge to learn more about mathematics.

Ampère took few lessons in the differential and integral calculus from a monk in Lyon, after which he began to study the works of Euler and Bernoulli. He also acquired a copy of the 1788 edition of Lagrange’s Mecanique analytique, which he studied very seriously.

From 1797 to 1802 Ampère earned his living as a mathematics tutor and later he was employed as the professor of physics and chemistry at Bourg Ecole Centrale. In 1809 he got appointed as the professor of mathematics at the Ecole Polytechnique, a post he held until 1828. He was also appointed to a chair at Universite de France in 1826 which he held until his death.

In 1796 Ampère met Julie Carron, and got married in 1799.

Contribution:

During 1820, the Danish physicist, H.C Ørsted accidentally discovered that a magnetic needle is acted on by a voltaic current – a phenomenon establishing a relationship between electricity and magnetism. Ampère on becoming influenced by Ørsted’s discovery performed a series of experiments to clarify the exact nature of the relationship between electric current-flow and magnetism, as well as the relationships governing the behavior of electric currents in various types of conductors. Moreover he demonstrated that two parallel wires carrying electric currents magnetically attract each other if the currents are in the same direction and repel if the currents are in opposite directions.

On the basis of these experiments, Ampère formulated his famous law of electromagnetism known as Ampère’s law. This law is mathematical description of the magnetic force between two electrical currents.

His findings were reported in the Académie des Sciences a week after Ørsted’s discovery. This laid the foundation of electrodynamics.

Death:

Ampère died at Marseille on 10 June, 1836 and was buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre, Paris. The SI unit of measurement of electric current, the ampere, is named after him.

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Andre Marie Ampère



The Flemish physician Andreas Vesahus (also Andreas Vesal, André Vesalio or Andre Vesale) is widely considered to be the founder of the modern science of anatomy. He was a major figure of the Scientific Revolution. Vesahus’s book “De Humani Commis Fabrica” (On the Structure of the Human Body) is one of the most important works about human anatomy.

Early Life and Education:

Born in Brussels, Belgium in a family of physicians and pharmacists, Andreas Vesalius’s father was court apothecary to Charles V of Spain, the Holy Roman Emperor. Vesalius learned medicine from the University of Louvain and the University of Paris. He later obtained his medical degree from the University of Padua in 1537. After his graduation, Vesalius became very interested in anatomy.

Contributions and Achievements:

During that time, scholars thought that the work of the ancient Greek physician Galen was an authority when it came to human anatomy. As Greek and Roman laws had disallowed the dissection of human beings, Galen had evidently reasoned out analogies related to human anatomy after studying pigs and apes. Vesalius knew that it was absolutely essential to analyze real corpses to study the human body.

Vesalius resurrected the use of human dissection, regardless of the strict ban by the Catholic Church. He soon began to realize that Galen’s work was an evalution of the dissection of animals, not human beings. Vesalius once demonstrated that men and women have the same number of ribs, contrary to the biblical story of Adam and Eve which tells that Eve was brought into existence from one of Adam’s ribs, and that men had one less rib as compared to women. Vesalius proved that belief wrong.

Vesalius published his influential book aboout human anatomy “De Humani Commis Fabrica” (The Structure of The Human Body) in 1543. It contained over 200 anatomical illustrations. The work was the earliest known precise presentation of human anatomy. It disgraced several of Galen’s doctrines, for instance the Greek belief that blood has the ability to flow between the ventricles of the heart, and that the mandible, or jaw bone, was made up of more than one bones. Particularly, his visual representation of the muscles was found to be very accurate. The seven volumes of the book laid down a solid understanding of human anatomy as the groundwork for all medical practice and curing.

Later Life and Death:

Andreas Vesalius was appointed as a court physician to Charles V of Spain and his family. Vesalius’s bravery and intelligence, however, made many conservative physicians and Catholic clergy his worst enemies. They charged him of being involved in body snatching.

He was accused of murder in 1564 for the dissection of a Spanish noble who, his disputants said, was still alive. Vesalius was also accused of atheism. King Philip II, however, reduced his sentence to a pilgrimage of penitence to the Holy Land. Regrettably on his way back, his vessel was badly harmed by a storm. Vesalius was rescued from the sea, but he died shortly thereafter.

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Antoine Lavoisier



Widely credited as the “father of modern chemistry”, Antoine Lavoisier was a French chemist and a central figure in the 18th-century chemical revolution. He formulated a theory of the chemical reactivity of oxygen and co-wrote the modern system for the nomenclature of chemical substances.

Early Life and Education:

After having a formal education in law and literature, Lavoisier studied science under some of the most well-known figures of the day. He helped develop the first geological map of France and the main water supply of Paris in 1769 at a young age of 25. This earned him a membership of the Royal Academy of Sciences in 1768. The same year he managed to purchase a part-share in the ‘tax farm’, a private tax collection agency.

Contributions and Achievements:

Lavoisier started working on such processes as combustion, respiration and the calcination or oxidation of metals in 1772. His influential research helped discard the old prevailing theories which dealt with absurd combustion principle called Phlogiston. He gave modern explanations to these processes. His concepts about the nature of acids, bases and salts were more logical and methodical. Lavoisier introduced a chemical element in its modern sense and demonstarted how it should be implemented by composing the first modern list of the chemical elements.

His revolutionary approaches helped many chemists realize the fundamental processes of science and implement the scientific method. This proved to be the turning point in scientific and industrial chemistry. Lavoisier was hired by the Government to continue his research into a number of practical questions with a chemical bias, for instance the production of starch and the distillation of phosphorus.

Louis XVI arranged the Gunpowder Commission in 1775 to ameliorate the supply and quality of gunpowder and cope up with the inadequacies which had affected France’s war efforts. Lavoisier, as a leader of the Commission, presented its reports and monitored its implementation. He dramatically increased the output so that France could even export gun powder, which turned out to be a major factor in France’s war effort in the Revolution and the Napoleonic wars.

Lavoisier also applied his scientific principles to agriculture when he bought some land at Frenchines, near Blois, central France. His efforts bore fruit after short span of time and he described his observations in the 1788 book “Results of some agricultural experiments and reflections on their relation to political economy”, which is considered highly influential in agriculture and economics.

Later Life and Death:

Regardless of his extraordinary services to the nation and to mankind, Antoine Lavoisier’s connections to the fax agency proved to be fatal to him, for he died in May 1794 during the reign of terror. The Revolutionaries guillotined some 28 tax farmers, including Lavoisier and his father-in-law.

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Antonie van Leeuwenhoek



While living organisms have been extensively studied for centuries, the discovery that organisms are made up of cells is comparatively new to the world. One of the reasons behind this could be the absence of modern technology laboratory equipment. The 1595 invention of the microscope made the cells visible for the first time.

The Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, commonly known as “the Father of Microbiology”, was one of the first microscopists in history. He committed himself to the discovery and research related to the thus-far invisible world of biology, notable among them the discovery of protozoa and the first-ever description of red blood cell.

Early Life and Education:

Born on October 24, 1632 in Delft, The Netherlands, van Leeuwenhoek was entirely self-taught and did not receive a formal degree. His primitive approach, dismissing any type of scientific dogma, made him think freely, and directed him only towards his own passion and interests.

Contributions and Achievements:

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek was a salesman by profession who traded household linen. He often took magnifying glasses to judge the quality of cloth. Leeuwenhoek employed his own lenses of diamond shavings, which he got from Delft-diamond cutters. He constructed his own microscopes which were basically simple instruments consisting of a single lens. The product, containing two metal plates set to each other with a fixed lens in between, was however with high precision, and able to perform magnifications of around 300x.

The object intended to be magnified was put on top of a movable metal holder, and focusing took place by way of a screw provided at the back. The whole thing was less than 10 cm in size.

Van Leeuwenhoek’s microscopes were actually very strong magnifying glasses, having considerable similarities with the composite microscopes of the time. It was Leeuwenhoek’s passion, skill and the quality to illuminating the objects properly that made him discover the microscopic objects. He analyzed things like tooth plaque, stagnant water, baker’s yeast, sperm and blood.

Reinier de Graaf, a Delft physician, brought van Leeuwenhoek to the Royal Society, where he published his uniquely detailed findings in Dutch, consisting of only 200 letters.

Later Life and Death:

Leeuwenhoek gained worldwide fame with these observations, however he wrote in 1716 that he “did not strive for fame, but [was] driven by an inner craving for knowledge”. This great scientist died on August 16, 1723 at the age of 90.

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Antonio Meucci



Antonio Santi Giuseppe Meucci (1808-1889) was an Italian inventor and was as well an associate and friend to Giuseppe Garibaldi, an Italian nationalist. Many people would say and question that it was not Alexander Graham Bell who first invented telephone but Antonio Meucci did. He is known best as a voice communication apparatus developer which numerous sources count and consider as the first used telephone.

In his home at State Island, N.Y., Meucci set up a voice communication link that connected its laboratory to his bedroom located in the second floor. He then proposed a patent caveat to the US Patent Office for his telephonic device in 1871, but electromagnetic transmission of vocal sound was not mentioned in his patent caveat. Rather, Alexander Graham Bell was endowed a patent in 1876 for the electromagnetic transmission of vocal sound in his telephonic device by wavelike electric current.

Early Life and Academic Background

On April 13 1808, an inventor was born at Via dei Serragli 44 in the San Frediano region of Florence, Grand Duchy of Tuscany, which is now found in the Italian Republic. Antonio Meucci was the eldest child of the nine children to Domenica Pepi and Amatis Meucci. Antonio’s mother was mainly the housekeeper and his father at times local police member and government clerk. Unfortunately, there were four out of the nine of Meucci’s siblings that did not survive or get through childhood.

In November 1821, Meucci at 15 was admitted to Florence Academy of Fine Arts where he became the youngest student who took up mechanical and chemical engineering. Two years later and due to insufficient funds, he stopped full-time schooling. The financial crisis did not stop him from continuing his studies by working part-time as an assistant gate-keeper and customs official for the government of Florentine. Later on, Antonio Meucci became employed as a stage technician at the Teatro della Pergola and assisted Artemio Canovetti.

In the year 1834, Meucci put up a kind of acoustic telephone to be able to communicate between the control room and the stage at the Teatro della Pergola. This type of telephone was built basing on the pipe telephone principles utilized on ships and still currently functions.

On August 7, 1837 Meucci married Esterre Mochi, a costume designer who happened to work at the same theatre where he worked part time.

From 1833 to 1834, Antonio Meucci was imprisoned for the period of three months with Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi because he was accused to be a part of the conspiracy which involved the Italian unification movement.

Career in Science

Meucci and his wife immigrated to Cuba in 1835 where he accepted a job at which was at that time, the greatest theater in the Americas. In Havana, he created a water purification system and he reconstructed the Gran Teatro.

As Meucci’s contract with the Governor expired in 1848, he was asked by a pal’s doctors to take a job at Franz Anton Mesmer’s therapy systems on rheumatic patients. That made him developed a renowned method of using electric shocks to give remedy to illness and consequently experimentally developed a piece of equipment in which one could use to hear the inarticulate voice of a person. The device was called by him as “telegrafo parlante” or talking telegraph. The fame which reached Samuel F. B. Morse in the U.S. inspired Meucci to make inventing his way of living.

On April 13, 1850, Meucci and his wife moved to United States and lived in the Clifton borough of Staten Island, New York. Meucci then decided that they would settle down there for the rest of their lives. In Staten Island, Meucci helped numerous countrymen obligated to the Italian Unification movement and who had broken out political persecution. He spent his savings in Cuba to build a tallow candle factory which became the first of its kind in the U.S. to intentionally give jobs to the numerous Italian exiles. However, in 1854, his wife Ester became an invalid because of rheumatoid arthritis. Despite it, Antonio Meucci continued with his experiments.

Meucci studied the electromagnetic voice communication principles for a lot of years and in 1856, he was able to finally recognize his dream of broadcasting his voice through wires. He set up a telephone-life piece of equipment in his house to be able to communicate with his, that time, ill wife. Several notes of Meucci supposedly written in 1857 give description to the basic principles of electromagnetic transmission of sound and voice or the telephone.

Meucci constructed allegedly the electromagnetic telephones. He structured a working model, supposedly an electromagnetic, but was not an acoustic version, which he made a way of making a connection with his basement laboratory and second floor bedroom. More importantly, he built this to be in touch with his wife. Between the years 1856 and 1870, Meucci was able to develop more than 30 various types of telephones basing on this prototype.

Meucci intended to pursue on developing his prototypes yet he lacked budget to support it and his candle factory became bankrupt. He looked for some Italian capitalists who are very willing to back up financially the project but because of the military expeditions in Italy, investment was unstable for everyone in the country. What Meucci did was publish his invention in the New York Italian-language newspaper even though no copy of these reports has been found.

Meucci did not give up his invention because on December 12, 1871, he was able to set up an agreement with Sereno G. P. Breguglia Tremeschin, Angelo Antonio Tremeschin, and Angelo Zilio Gandi to represent the Telettrofono Company. He was then funded to apply for full patency. His lawyer then submitted a caveat entitled “Sound Telegraph” on December 28, 1871 in the US Patent Office.

Despite all these, the caveat submitted by Meucci was not granted patent because it did not describe an electric telephone. They went on trial and Meucci’s invention and work, like several other inventors during his time, was structured mostly on the basis of earlier acoustic principles. Even though earlier experiments were presented as evidence, the final case was dropped eventually due to his death on October 18, 1889.

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Archimedes



One of the greatest names from olden days that will always be remembered is that of Archimedes who was a great mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. His outstanding contributions in the field of science brought about significant changes to the scientific world. Some of his notable contributions to the field of math and science include the finding and development of the laws and principles of mechanics, buoyancy, hydrostatics, specific gravity, the lever, and the pulley; in addition, he discovered ways to measure a circle and the volume of a solid.

Early Days:

Archimedes was born in 287 BC in the Greek city-state of Syracuse on the island of Sicily. His father, Phidias was an astronomer. Archimedes is said to be a relative of Hiero II, the then king of Syracuse and presumably lived a royal life. He spent most of his life in Syracuse except for the time he went to Alexandria, Egypt to receive his education. Belonging to a Greek family young Archimedes was always encouraged to get education and be knowledgeable. Besides math and science his other major interests included: poetry, politics, astronomy, music, art and military tactics.

Opportunity came when he got the chance to continue his studies in a famous school of mathematics founded by Euclid. Here he got the pleasure to study astronomy, physics and mathematics with other geniuses and big minds of that era. Under the guidance of two great mathematicians and scholars: Conon of Samos, and Eratosthenes of Cyrene, Archimedes grew up to be a great scientist.

Famous Discoveries and Inventions

The Story of the Golden Crown
Archimedes was given the task to determine the purity of the gold crown made for King Hiero II. In the process he discovered the way to find out the density of gold and successfully proved that silver was mixed with the gold crown. This is how he devised a method for determining the volume of an object with an irregular shape.

The Archimedes Screw
Another great discovery by Archimedes is his famous ‘Archimedes Screw’. This is still a famous tool in Egypt used for irrigation. This screw was mainly invented to remove water from the hold of large ship; however it is also helpful for handling light, loose materials such as ash, grain, sand etc.

The Claw of Archimedes
Also known as ‘the ship shaker’, The Claw of Archimedes is a great weapon designed by Archimedes for the purpose of defending his home city Syracuse.

Contribution to Mathematics

Archimedes is also famous for his contributions to the filed of mathematics. These include: the use infinitesimals in a way that is similar to modern integral calculus, the mathematical prove of the formula for area of a circle, the solution to the problem as an infinite geometric series etc.

Death

Archimedes died during the Siege of Syracuse in 212 BC when he was killed by a Roman soldier. The Roman soldier killed him while he busy working and experimenting on his ideas.

This great scientist and mathematician passed away but his contributions led the world towards scientific development and betterment of the human race.

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Aristotle



When we talk about Philosophy, the first name that comes into our mind is that of Aristotle (384 BC- 322 BC) who followed a comprehensive system of ideas about human nature and the nature of the reality we live in.

Early Life and Contributions:

One of the prominent names of history, this famous personality was a Greek philosopher, was born in Stagira in North Greece, the son of Nichomachus, the court physician to the Macedonian royal family. He was trained first in medicine, and then in 367BC was sent to Athens to study philosophy with Plato. He stayed at Plato’s Academy until about 347. He has also been under the supervision of Alexander the Great.

Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in his time as his writings constitute a first at creating a broad system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality and aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics. Besides this his piece of work also includes other subjects, including physics, poetry, theater, music, rhetoric, government and ethics.

Though a bright pupil, Aristotle opposed some of Plato’s teachings, and when Plato died, Aristotle was not appointed head of the Academy. After leaving Athens, Aristotle spent some time traveling, and possibly studying biology, in Asia Minor and its islands. He returned to Macedonia in 338 to tutor Alexander the Great, after Alexander conquered Athens, Aristotle returned to Athens and set up a school of his own, known as the Lyceum. After Alexander’s death, Athens revolted against Macedonian rule, and Aristotle’s political situation became unstable. Therefore to keep away from being put to death, he fled to the island of Euboea, where he died soon after.

Legacy:

Now talking about Aristotle’s work and achievements, he was very versatile and his views on the physical sciences profoundly shaped medieval scholarship, and their influence extended well into the Renaissance, although they were ultimately replaced by Newtonian physics. In the biological sciences, some of his observations were confirmed to be accurate only for a few times. His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, which was incorporated in the late nineteenth century into modern formal logic. A complete account of Aristotle’s contributions to science and philosophy is beyond the scope of this exhibit, but a brief summary can be made, whereas Aristotle’s teacher Plato had located ultimate reality in Ideas or eternal forms, knowable only through reflection and reason but on the other hand Aristotle saw final authenticity in physical matter, predictable through experience.

Matter has the potential to assume whatever form a sculptor gives it, and a seed or embryo has the potential to grow into a living plant or animal form. In living creatures, the form was known with the soul, plants had the lowest kinds of souls, animals had higher souls which could feel, and humans alone had rational, reasoning souls. In turn, animals could be classified by their way of life, their actions, or, most importantly, by their parts.

Though Aristotle’s work in zoology was not without faults, it was the grandest biological synthesis of the time, and remained the vital authority for many centuries after his death. His observations on the anatomy of octopus, cuttlefish, crustaceans, and many other marine invertebrates are extremely correct, with amazing results. He described the embryological development of a chick, and distinguished whales and dolphins from fish, plus he also noticed that some sharks give birth to live young. Aristotle’s books also discuss his detailed observations that he has been doing throughout his life.

We all have come across the classification of animals into different types and the readers will be amazed to know that Aristotle’s classification of animals grouped together is used in a much broader sense than present-day biologists use. He divided the animals into two types, those with blood, and those without blood (or at least without red blood). These distinctions correspond closely to our distinction between vertebrates and invertebrates. The blooded animals, corresponding to the vertebrates, whereas the bloodless animals were classified as cephalopods (such as the octopus), crustaceans, insects, shelled animals and zoophytes also known as plant-animals.

Aristotle’s thoughts on earth sciences can be found in his thesis Meteorology, the word today means the study of weather, but Aristotle used the word in a much broader sense, covering, as he put it, “all the affections we may call common to air and water, and the kinds and parts of the earth and the affections of its parts.” In it he discussed the nature of the earth and the oceans and explained the entire hydrologic cycle. The sun moving as it does sets up processes of change, and by its agency the finest and sweetest water is every day carried up and is dissolved into vapor and rises to the upper region, where it is condensed again by the cold and so returns to the earth.

He has also discussed winds, earthquakes, thunder, lightning, rainbows, meteors, comets, and the Milky Way. Aristotle was of the view that the whole vital process of the earth takes place so gradually and in periods of time which are so immense compared with the length of our life that these changes are not observed, and before their course can be recorded from beginning to end whole nations die and are ruined.

In metaphysics, Aristotelianism had a deep influence on philosophical and theological thinking in the Islamic and Jewish traditions in the Middle Ages, and it continues to influence Christian theology and the scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church. His followers called him Ille Philosophus (The Philosopher), or “the master of them that know,” and many accepted every word of his writings, or at least every word that did not contradict the Bible as eternal truth. All aspects of Aristotle’s philosophy continue to be the object of active academic study today.

Despite the far-reaching appeal that Aristotle’s works have traditionally enjoyed, today modern scholarship questions a considerable portion of the Aristotelian quantity as genuinely Aristotle’s own. Aristotle is said to have written 150 philosophical treatises. The 30 that survive touch on a huge range of philosophical problems, from biology and physics to morals to aesthetics to politics. Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues, it is thought that the majority of his writings are now lost and only about one-third of the original works have endure but whatever has lasted is still a source of inspiration for the learners and will continue to be.

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Arnold Orville Beckman



American chemist, musician, college professor, industrialist and philanthropist, Arnold Orville Beckman is known for his instruments such as the electronic pH meter (a device for measuring acidity) and a variable resistance device called a Helipot®, which developed the study and understanding of human biology. His invention of the pH meter led to the formation of Beckman Instruments. He also funded the first silicon transistor company, thus giving rise to Silicon Valley.

Early Life, Education and Career:

Born in Cullom, Illinois on April 10, 1900, Beckman was the son of a blacksmith. His interest in science developed at the age of nine, when he found a chemistry textbook in the attic and began doing the experiments. He also became interested in music at a young age. While in his teens and during his college days, Beckman played piano forming his own dance band and also accompanied the silent movies at the local theater to help finance his family and education.

Beckman attended the University of Illinois, where in 1922 he completed his graduation in chemical engineering and the following year his masters in physical chemistry. He started a PhD program at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena in 1924, but decided to return to New York and his fiancée, Mabel Meinzer. They married in 1925 and returned in Beckman’s Model T to California, where Beckman completed his PhD in photochemistry from Caltech in 1928. The same year he became a member of the faculty there and taught chemistry from 1929 to 1940.

Beckman’s interest in electronics and his ability in designing measuring instruments made him very popular within the chemistry department. With the approval of Robert Millikan, Caltech’s president, Beckman began accepting outside consulting work. One of the clients, Sunkist was having problems. He wanted to know what the acidity of the product was at any given time, and the methods then in use, such as litmus paper, were not working well. Beckman built the first commercially successful electronic pH meter (originally called acidimeter) in 1935. Beckman’s rechristened National Technical Laboratories (NTL) began promoting the acidimeter through scientific-supply catalogs.

His direct involvement with his company spanned a period of almost fifty years. He continued with inventing and building scientific instruments, including the Beckman DU ultraviolet spectrophotometer (1940) and the Beckman IR-1 infrared–visible spectrophotometer (1942). His company changed its name in 1950 to Beckman Instruments, Inc. After he retired in 1983, Beckman focused on charity. He established several foundations and contributed huge amounts of dollars to scientific study and education.

He was given esteemed honors and awards for his accomplishments. In 1987 he became the 65th inductee into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, OH, and in 2004 he earned its Lifetime Achievement Award. In1988 he won the National Medal of Technology. The following year the former American President, George H. W. Bush presented Beckman the National Medal of Science Award.

He died on May 18, 2004 at Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla, CA.

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Arthur Eddington



Sir Arthur Eddington was an eminent English astronomer, physicist and mathematician. He is noted for his grounbreaking research work in astrophysics. Being the first person to investigate the motion, internal structure and evolution of stars, Eddington is widely considered to be one of the greatest astronomers of all time.

Early Life and Education:

Born on December 28, 1882 in Kendal, Cumbria, Arthur Eddington’s father was the head of a local school. Eddington was a bright student and he won an entrance scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge. After graduating three years later, he accepted a teaching position, and after a few months, Eddington became the Chief Assistant at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.

Contributions and Achievements:

Eddington visited Malta in 1909 to find out the longitude of the geodetic station of the place. He also visited Brazil as the head of the eclipse expedition. He became the Plumian Professor of Astronomy in Cambridge in 1913, where he taught for about 31 years.

He published his first book, “Stellar Movements and the structure of the Universe”, in 1914. It laid the groundwork for scientific exposition. “The Internal Construction of the Stars”, another work by Eddington was published in 1926, which still remains one of the best-selling books about astronomy. His “Mathematical Theory of Relativity” was the earliest work in English language that explained the mathematical details of Einstein’s theory of gravitation.

Eddington discovered in 1926 that the inward gravitational pressure of a star must maintain the outward radiation and gas pressure to remain in equilibrium. He also demonstrated that there was an upper limit on the mass of a star. Eddington discovered mass-luminosity relationship, which implies that the the size of a star is directly proportional to its luminosity, making the mass of a star to be decided upon its intrinsic brightness.

In “Fundamental Theory”, which was published after his death, Eddington introduced his calculations of many of the constant of nature, particularly the recession velocity constant of the external galaxies, the ratio of the gravitational force to the electrical force between a proton and an electron, and the number of particles in the universe.

Later Life and Death:

Arthur Eddington became a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1906, and eight years later, an elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1914. He was knighted in 1938.

Eddington died in Cambridge, England on November 22, 1944 after an unsuccessful surgical operation. Eddington Memorial Scholarship and Eddington Medal were established after his death, in his honor.

[MysteRy]

Avicenna



Also popularly known as ‘Avicenna’, Ibn Sina was indeed a true polymath with his contributions ranging from medicine, psychology and pharmacology to geology, physics, astronomy, chemistry and philosophy. He was also a poet and an Islamic scholar and theologian. His most important contribution to medical science was his famous book al-Qanun, known as the “Canon” in the West. This book is an immense encyclopedia of medicine including over a million words and like most Arabic books is richly divided and subdivided. It comprises of the entire medical knowledge available from ancient and Muslim sources.

Early Life:

This great scientist was born in around 980 A.D in the village of Afshana, near Bukhara which is also his mother’s hometown. His father, Abdullah an advocate of the Ismaili sect, was from Balkh which is now a part of Afghanistan. Ibn Sina received his early eduction in his home town and by the age of ten he became a Quran Hafiz. He had exceptional intellectual skills which enabled him to overtake his teachers at the age of fourteen. During the next few years he devoted himself to Muslim Jurisprudence, Philosophy and Natural Science and studied Logic, Euclid, and the Almeagest.

Ibn Sina was an extremely religious man. When he was still young, Ibn Sina was highly baffled by the work of Aristotle on Metaphysics so much so that he used to leave all the work and pray to God to guide him. Finally after reading a manual by a famous philosopher al-Farabi, he found the solutions to his difficulties.

Contributions and Achievements:

At the age of sixteen he dedicated all his efforts to learn medicine and by the time he was eighteen gained the status of a reputed physician. During this time he was also lucky in curing Nooh Ibn Mansoor, the King of Bukhhara, of an illness in which all the renowned physicians had given up hope. On this great effort, the King wished to reward him, but the young physician only acquired consent to use his exclusively stocked library of the Samanids.

On his father’s death, when Ibn Sina was twenty-two years old, he left Bukhara and moved to Jurjan near Caspian Sea where he lectured on logic and astronomy. Here he also met his famous contemporary Abu Raihan al-Biruni. Later he travelled to Rai and then to Hamadan, where he wrote his famous book Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb. Here he also cured Shams al-Daulah, the King of Hamadan, for severe colic.

From Hamadan, he moved to Isfahn, where he finished many of his epic writings. Nevertheless, he continued to travel and the too much mental exertion as well as political chaos spoilt his health. The last ten or twelve years of his life, he spent in the service of Abu Ja’far ‘Ala Addaula, whom he accompanied as physician and general literary and scientific consultant. He died during June 1037 A.D and was buried in Hamedan, Iran.

Besides his monumental writings, Ibn Sina also contributed to mathematics, physics, music and other fields. He explained the concept and application of the “casting out of nines”. He made several astronomical observations, and devised a means similar to the venire, to enhance the accuracy of instrumental readings. In physics, his contribution comprised the study of different forms of energy, heat, light and mechanical, and such concepts as force, vacuum and infinity.

[MysteRy]

B. F. Skinner



Burrhus Frederic Skinner, more commonly known as B. F. Skinner, was an American psychologist, philosopher, scientist and poet. An important advocate of behaviourism, Skinner is known for inventing the operant conditioning chamber, and for his own experimental analysis of behavior. He is widely considered as one of the most influential psychologists of all time.

Early Life and Education:

Born in 1904 in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, Skinner’s father was a lawyer. Skinner went to Hamilton College, New York, as he wanted to become a writer. After getting his B.A. in English literature in 1926, Skinner attended Harvard University, where he later received a PhD in 1931. After becoming disenchanted with his literary skills, and inspired by John B. Watson’s Behaviorism, he acquired a degree in psychology, which led to the development of his influential operant behaviorism.

Contributions and Achievements:

B. F. Skinner was a prominent researcher in Harvard University until 1936. He accepted teaching positions at the University of Minnesota and Indiana University. In 1948, he returned to Hardvard as a tenured professor.

Skinner devised the operant conditioning chamber. He introduced his own philosophy of science known as “radical behaviorism”. His brand of experimental research psychology is highly regarded, and deals with the experimental analysis of behavior. Skinner’s analysis of human behavior enhanced his work “Verbal Behavior”, which has lately seen a boost in interest experimentally and in applied settings. Skinner’s science also made other advances in education through the work of his students and colleagues, particulary in special education. He was a prolific author who wrote about 21 books and 180 articles.

Skinner worked out the rate of response as a dependent variable in psychological research. He also figured out the cumulative recorder to assess the rate of responding as part of his highly influential work on schedules of reinforcement. Although Skinner’s work reach back toward the founding of educational psychology, and forward into its modern era, they arguably never attained their true potential.

Later Life and Death:

B. F. Skinner died of leukemia on August 18, 1990. He was 86 years old.

[MysteRy]

Barbara McClintock



Barbara McClintock made a great name as the most distinguished cytogeneticist in the field of science. Her breakthrough in the 1940s and ’50s of mobile genetic elements, or “jumping genes,” won her the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1983. Among her other honors are the National Medal of Science by Richard Nixon (1971), the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, the Wolf Prize in Medicine and the Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal by the Genetics Society of America (all in 1981) and the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University (1982).

Early Life, Education and Career Achievements:

Barbara McClintock was born on June 16, 1902 in Hartford, Connecticut. She was the third child of Sara Handy McClintock and Thomas Henry McClintock, a physician. After completing her high school education in New York City, she enrolled at Cornell University in 1919 and from this institution received the B.Sc degree in 1923, the M.A. in 1925, and the Ph.D. in 1927.

When McClintock began her career, scientists were just becoming aware of the relationship between heredity and events they could actually examine in cells under the microscope. She served as a graduate assistant in the Department of Botany for three years from 1924-27 and in 1927, following completion of her graduate studies, was employed as an Instructor, a post she held until 1931. She was awarded a National Research Council Fellowship in 1931 and spent two years as a Fellow at the California Institute of Technology. After receiving the Guggenheimn Fellowship in 1933, she spent a year abroad at Freiburg. She returned to the States and to the Department of Plant Breeding at Cornell the following year. McClintock left Cornell in 1936 to take the position of an Assistant Professorship in the Department of Botany at the University of Missouri. In 1941 she became a part of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and began a happy and fruitful association which continued for the rest of her life.

In 1950, Dr. McClintock first reported in a scientific journal that genetic information could transpose from one chromosome to another. Many scientists during that time assumed that this unconventional view of genes was unusual to the corn plant and was not universally applicable to all organisms. They were of the view that genes generally were held in place in the chromosome like a necklace of beads.

The importance of her research was not realized until the 1960s, when Francois Jacob and Jacques Monod discovered controlling elements in bacteria similar to those McClintock found in corn and in 1983 McClintok received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her discovery of mobile genetic elements. Her work has been of high value assisting in the understanding of human disease. “Jumping genes” help explain how bacteria are able to build up resistance to an antibiotic and there is some indication that jumping genes are involved in the alteration of normal cells to cancerous cells.

Death:

McClintock died in Huntington, New York, on September 2, 1992.

[MysteRy]

Beatrix Potter



Beatrix Potter may be a familiar name in children’s literature, but what a lot do not know is that she is a notable woman of science as well. Her stories about Peter Rabbit and a lot of other fictional characters she created served as an outlet in her frustration to break into a career in science.

Early Life and Education

She was born Helen Beatrix Potter on July 28, 1866 in London as the older of the two children of Rupert Potter and Helen Leech. Rupert Potter was a lawyer and the Potters lived a comfortable life. Her parents mingled with politicians, writers and artists, and enjoyed drawing and painting immensely. This is why Beatrix has always possessed a keen eye for details which showed in the art she created from her younger years to adulthood.

Beatrix Potter may have come from a well-off family, but she did not grow up to be like the other wealthy ladies of the same age. She spent most of her time at home under the care of a governess while her brother Bertram was sent to some of the finest schools known. When he was home however, they spent a lot of time together playing with creatures that they found around their property and in the woods where they explored. They would often bring these creatures home and draw or paint them. Their collection included a hedgehog, some rabbits, bats and mice, as well as a few insects. She grew up to be a very shy girl and would rarely share her thoughts with anyone. She wrote in a secret diary using a code that only she can understand.

Beatrix’s interest in natural science was spurned when her uncle who was a chemist gave her the permission to use his microscope and other equipment. She would study and inspect plants, insects and other animals, and she would draw each of them in great detail.

Notable Contributions

It was in South Kensington Museum that Beatrix Potter further developed a keen interest in a lot of natural sciences. She was eager to learn more about botany, mycology and entomology, among others.

What fascinated Beatrix the most were fungi. She started a detailed study of them when she turned 21. Her drawings showed in great detail how lichens, a common type of fungi found on rocks and trees, were actually not one but two different organisms that lived together. Her studies showed that this was actually a union between an alga and a fungus. She was the first Briton to recognize this fact and was also among the first few in the world who did. This was how she formulated her conclusion of symbiosis. Through symbiosis, two different organisms are able to live together with each of them benefitting the other in some way. In this case, the fungus provided a haven for the alga. It was responsible for gathering the water and minerals that they needed to complete the process of photosynthesis. In turn, the alga is the one that converted the sunlight into nourishment which is basically the photosynthesis process.

It took her 13 long years to complete her research and finalize her paper on the things she discovered. Of course, her theory was not given the support that it needed and botanists she showed her work to refused to even discuss the drawings she made. The only time she was given the permission to present her work to The Linnaean Society of British Scientists was when her uncle interceded for her. She submitted her study “On the Germination of the Spores of Agaricineae” but was not allowed to read it herself because only men were invited to their meetings. The organization at that time was not yet open to the thought of accepting women in their midst.

Other Achievements

It was very frustrating for Beatrix Potter not to be accepted in the science circles. Because of this she started to concentrate on her drawing and writing instead. She had always been a self-taught artist and used different media in her work. She had the ability to illustrate using pencils, oils, watercolor, pen and ink. She also followed her father’s footsteps in developing her talent in photography.

She became famous for the characters that she told stories about in the children’s books she wrote and illustrated with Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny and Jemima Puddle Duck being among some of the most well-loved. The Tale of Peter Rabbit was published in 1902 when she was 36 years old. All in all, she had 28 books published, all of which are still read by children all over the world. Over 150 million copies of her books have been sold with all of them translated into 35 different languages.

As her books gained popularity, she channeled all the profit towards a large property called Hill Top. Found in England’s Lake District, this was her first farm. She enjoyed the quiet and solitude that the property brought her which allowed her to work more efficiently. Aside from being a farmer and landowner, she also became recognized as a sheep breeder. She never lost her love for nature and became an advocate of traditional farming and the preservation of the wild environment surrounding the area.

This was where she found William Heelis, a handsome solicitor who was 5 years younger. He became Beatrix’s legal adviser and eventually, Beatrix’s husband of 30 years. The marriage did not bear them any children.

She continued buying patch after patch of land as she continued to enjoy living surrounded by nature. The British Natural Trust eventually became recipient to her donation of 4,000 acres of land which includes 15 farms and cottages. By doing so, she hoped to further pursue her dream to provide land for the creatures that she grew to love.

Beatrix Potter died of bronchitis in 1943, leaving behind a legacy across different fields of study. Upon her death, the secret diary she kept as a child was also released, setting forth a story of frustration for not being given the chance to pursue her passion for science early on.