~ Famous Scientists ~

[MysteRy]

Enrico Fermi



Enrico Fermi, an Italian physicist, is well-known for his achievements in both theoretical and experimental physics. This is an exceptional achievement in a period where scientific accomplishments have focused on one aspect or the other. He is mainly remembered for his work on the advancement of the first nuclear reactor, and for his contributions to the development of quantum theory, nuclear and particle physics, and statistical mechanics. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1938 for “his discovery of new radioactive elements produced by neutron irradiation, and for the discovery of nuclear reactions brought about by slow neutrons.”

Early Years and Career:

Enrico Fermi was born in Rome, Italy on 29th September, 1901. His father, Alberto Fermi was a Chief Inspector of the Ministry of Communications, and his mother, Ida de Gattis was a school teacher. He received his early education from a local grammar school and at an early age developed a great interest in physics and mathematics. Fermi’s aptitude for physics and mathematics was highly encouraged by Adolfo Amidei, one of his father’s friends, who gave him several books on physics and mathematics, which he read and understood quickly.

In 1918, Fermi joined the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. Here he spent four years and gained a doctor’s degree in physics in 1922, with Professor Puccianti. A year later he was awarded a scholarship from the Italian Government and spent few months with Professor Max Born in Göttingen. With a Rockefeller Fellowship, in 1924, he moved to Leyden to work with P. Ehrenfest. The same year he returned to Italy where he served for two years as a Lecturer in Mathematical Physics and Mechanics at the University of Florence. From 1927 to 1938, Fermi served as the Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Rome. During 1939, he was employed as the Professor of Physics at Columbia University, N.Y until 1942. Later on in 1946, accepted a professorship at the Institute for Nuclear Studies at the University of Chicago, a position which he held till his death.

Contributions and Achievements:

In 1926, Fermi discovered the statistical laws, nowadays known as the Fermi statistics.

It was during his time in Paris, Fermi and his team marked major contributions to many practical and theoretical aspects of physics. In 1934, while at the University of Rome, Fermi carried out his experiments where he bombarded a variety of elements with neutrons and discovered that slow moving neutrons were particularly effective in producing radioactive atoms. Not realizing he had split the atom, Fermi told people about what he thought were elements beyond uranium. In 1938, Fermi won the Nobel Prize for Physics for his work on nuclear processes.

He continued to conduct nuclear fission experiments at Columbia University. In 1940, Fermi and his team proved that absorption of a neutron by a uranium nucleus can cause the nucleus to split into two nearly equal parts, releasing numerous neutrons and huge amounts of energy. This was the first nuclear chain reaction. Later in 1944 this work was carried forward to New Mexico, and on July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb was detonated at Alamogordo Air Base.

Death:

Fermi’s historic accomplishments caused him to be recognized as one of the great scientists of the 20th century. He died of cancer at the University of Chicago on 28 November 1954.

[MysteRy]

Ernest Rutherford



The British physicist and chemist, Ernest Rutherford is known for his remarkable orbital theory of the atom in his discovery of Rutherford dispersion with his famous Gold Foil experiment. He is also known as the “father of nuclear physics”. He was honored with a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908 for his exploration into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances. Today he is ranked high among many other famous scientists like Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.

Early Life and Education:

Ernest Rutherford was born on August 30, 1871, Spring Grove near Nelson, New Zealand. He was the fourth child and the second son of James Rutherford, a farmer, and his wife Martha Thompson, an English schoolteacher. Ernest studied in a Government school and after he completed his schooling he won a scholarship to Nelson Collegiate School, where he was a well-liked boy and an ardent footballer. He was awarded his second scholarship in 1889 to study at Canterbury College, University of New Zealand. Here he completed his graduation with a B.A. in 1892 and an M.A. in 1893 with first-class bi-honors in mathematics and physics. His interest in research made him stay another year at the college where he completed his B.Sc. The same year he won his third scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, as a research student at the Cavendish Laboratory under Professor J.J Thomson. Later he left for Canada when he was given the opportunity to take the chair of physics at McGill University in Montreal.

In 1900 Rutherford married Mary Newton, only daughter of his landlady in Christchurch.

Contribution to the Field of Physics:

In a span of just three years Rutherford successfully marked out a wholly new branch of physics called radioactivity.

At Cavendish Laboratory, he discovered a detector for electromagnetic waves, an essential feature being a creative magnetizing coil containing tiny bundles of magnetized iron wire. He and Professor Thomson worked together and studied the behavior of ions observed in gases, the mobility of ions with respect to the force of the electric field, and on related topics like the photoelectric effect.

While experimenting on radioactivity during 1899, Rutherford discovered two distinctive types of radiation emitted by thorium and uranium which he named alpha and beta. These rays were distinguished on the basis of penetrating power.

At McGill Rutherford was accompanied by a young chemist, Frederick Soddy and together they investigated three groups of radioactive elements–radium, thorium, and actinium. In 1902 they reached to the conclusion that radioactivity was a course of action in which atoms of one element spontaneously disintegrated into atoms of a completely different element, which also remained radioactive. This view was however not accepted by chemists who strongly believed in the concept that matter cannot be destructed.

In 1903 he named the radiation discovered by Paul Villard, a French chemist as gamma. He found out that this radiation had a much greater penetration power than alpha and beta.

Rutherford received a great appreciation for his work by the Royal Society, which elected him a fellow in 1903 and awarded him the Rumford medal in 1904.

At Manchester, Ernest along with the support of H. Geiger developed a method for detecting a single alpha particle and counting the number emitted from radium. In 1909 along with H. Geiger and Ernest Marsden he carried out the Geiger–Marsden experiment which enabled him to understand the nuclear nature of atoms. This experiment led to the foundation of Rutherford model of the atom in 1911 through which he explained that a very small positively-charged nucleus was orbited by electrons. This was his greatest contribution to physics.

In 1919, which was his last year at Manchester became the first person to transform one element into another when he converted nitrogen into oxygen through a nuclear reaction. In 1921, Rutherford and his associate Niels Bohr (who postulated that electrons moved in specific orbits), gave their theory about the existence of neutrons. This theory was proved in 1932 by his colleague James Chadwick, who in 1935 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for this innovation.

Death:

This great physicist died in Cambridge on October 19, 1937, following a short illness, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

[MysteRy]

Ernst Haeckel



Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (February 16, 1834 – 1919) was a philosopher, professor, physician, naturalist, biologist and artist.

Early Life and Contributions:

After receiving a degree in medicine in 1857, Haeckel obtained a doctorate in zoology from the University of Jena and taught zoology there. Haeckel’s contributions to zoological science were a mixture of sound research and assumptions often with insufficient evidence. He was a renowned figure whose popularity with the public was substantially higher than it was with many of his scientific peers.

Legacy:

Although best known for the famous statement “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny”, he also invented many words commonly used by biologists today, such as phylum, phylogeny, and ecology. On the other hand, Haeckel also stated that “politics is applied biology”, a quote used by Nazi propagandists. The Nazi party, rather unfortunately, used not only Haeckel’s quotes, but also Haeckel’s justifications for racism, nationalism and social Darwinism.

Haeckel also proposed the idea that all multicellular animals derived from a theoretical two-layered (ectoderm and endoderm) animal, the Gastraea, a theory that provoked much discussion. He engaged in much valuable research on marine invertebrates, such as the radiolarians, jellyfish, calcareous sponges, and medusae, and wrote a series of monographs on these groups based largely on specimens brought back by the Challenger Expedition.

He was also the first to divide the animal kingdom into unicellular and multicellular animals. An ardent Darwinist, Haeckel made several zoological expeditions and founded the Phyletic Museum at Jena and the Ernst Haeckel Haus, which contains his books, records, and other effects.

An effective popularizer of science, Haeckel produced numerous tree diagrams, showing evolutionary relationships between different species. Modern scientists and science historians have varied on the value of these diagrams but many also praised his work and creativity. Haeckel also produced artwork, much of it quite beautiful, starting with his atlas of radiolarians, published in 1862.

It has been argued that what he saw was influenced by Jugendstil, the Art Nouveau form popular in Germany at the time. Whether or not artistic style influenced Haeckel’s illustrations, his illustrations certainly influenced later art forms, including light fixtures, jewelry, furniture, and even a gateway to the Paris Word Fair in 1900. In 1906 the Monist League was formed at Jena with Haeckel as its president. The League held a strong commitment to social Darwinism in which man was seen as part of nature and in no way qualitatively distinct from any other organic form.

Later in his career, Haeckel produced Art Forms in Nature, a work that he published in a series of 10 installments. Designed to interest the general public in naturalism, Haeckel’s own illustrations of animals, plants and microscopic organisms were introduced. In 1913, he published a set of photographs titled Nature as an Artist, aimed at countering allegations that his illustrations could be misleading. Today, however, many scientists and science historians share the conviction that his images were often highly contrived, beautiful as they may be.

Haeckel was the first person known to use the term “First World War”. Shortly after the start of the war Haeckel wrote:

“There is no doubt that the course and character of the feared “European War” will become the first world war in the full sense of the word.”

The “European War” became known as “The Great War”, and it was not until 1931, with the beginning realization that another global war might be possible, that there is any other recorded use of the term “First World War”.
He was one of the first to consider psychology as a branch of physiology. His chief interests lay in evolution and life development processes in general, including development of nonrandom form, which culminated in the beautifully illustrated art forms of nature.

Although Haeckel’s ideas are important to the history of evolutionary theory, and he was a competent invertebrate anatomist most famous for his work many speculative concepts that he championed are now considered incorrect but still he has been admired greatly for his work.

Death:

Haeckel died on Aug. 9, 1919, Germany, leaving behind his great inventions for others to serve as a source of inspiration.

[MysteRy]

Ernst Mach



Ernst Mach was a physicist. He was involved in the description and photographs of spark shock-waves. Later on he was involved in ballistic shock-waves. He described the passing of sound through a barrier caused by the compression of air in front of bullets and shells. He used “schlierenmethode” along with his son to photograph the shadow of the invisible shock waves. Ernst studies, in the field of experimental physics, concentrated on the interference, diffraction, polarization and refraction of light in different media under external influences

Early Life and Career:

Ernst Mach was born on February 18th, 1838 in Chirlitz, a part of Brno in the Czech Republic. His father was a graduate from Prague University. He was a tutor to the noble Brethon family in Zlin. Ernst was an Austrian physicist and philosopher and he is remembered for his contributions to physics such as the Mach number and the study of shock waves. As a philosopher of science, he influenced logical positivism and through his criticism of Newton, a forerunner of Einstein’s relativity. Mach received his education at home from his parents. He then entered a Gymnasium in Kremsier , where he studied for three years. In 1855, he became a student at the University of Vienna. He received his doctorate in physics in 1860. There he conducted studies on kinesthetic sensation, the feeling associated with movement and acceleration. Between 1873 and 1893 he developed optical and photographic techniques for the measurement of sound waves and wave propagation.

Mach also made many contributions to psychology and physiology including his anticipation of gestalt phenomena, the discovery of Mach bands, an inhibition-influenced type of visual illusion, and his discovery of a non-acoustic function of the inner ear which helped control human balance.

Mach also became well-known for his philosophy, a type of phenomenal recognition sensations as real. This position seemed incompatible with the view of atoms and molecules as external, mind-independent things. Mach was reluctance to acknowledge the reality of atoms was criticized by many as being incompatible with physics.

One of the best-known of Mach’s ideas is the so-called “Mach’s principle,” concerning the physical origin of inertia. This was never written down by Mach. However it was given a graphic verbal form, attributed by Philipp Frank to Mach himself.

Mach contributed to knowledge of perception, especially in his Beiträge zur Analyze der Empfindungen (1897; trans. C. M. Williams, The Analysis of Sensations; and the Relation of the Physical to the Psychical, 1959). He was among the first to use visually ambiguous figures as research tools, for separating what we now call it ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ processing. Mach’s views on mediating structures inspired B. F. Skinner’s strongly inductive position, which paralleled Mach’s in the field of psychology

Mach’s principal works in English

The Science of Mechanics (1893)
The Analysis of Sensations (1897)
Popular Scientific Lectures (1895)
The Principles of Physical Optics (1926)
Knowledge and Error (1976)
Principles of the Theory of Heat (1986)

Death:

In 1898 Mach suffered from cardiac arrest. In 1901 he retired from the University of Vienna and was appointed to the upper chamber of the Austrian parliament. On leaving Vienna in 1913 he moved to his son’s home in Vaterstetten, near Munich, where he continued writing and corresponding until his death on February 19th, 1916.

[MysteRy]

Ernst Mayr



Ernst Walter Mayr, more commonly known as Ernst Mayr, was a German-born American who made decisive and groundbreaking contributions to avian taxonomy, evolution and population genetics. Widely credited as the world’s greatest evolutionary biologist in history, Mayr was fondly called the “Darwin of the 20th century”.

Early Life and Education:

Born in Kempten, Germany on July 5, 1904 to a jurist father, Ernst Mayr showed an early interest in ornithology. His father died when he was just 13. He attended the University of Greifswald in 1923. Mayr acquired his doctorate in ornithology from the University of Berlin in 1926; he was only 21 years old.

Contributions and Achievements:

Mayr stayed at the university to lead expeditions to New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, where he explored the variations among animals and plants on different islands. He joined the American Museum of Natural History, New York as a curator in 1932, where he wrote over 100 journal articles on the subject of bird taxonomy.

He published his famous book “Systematics and the Origin of Species” in 1942, which heavily contributed to population genetics and the evolutionary synthesis. He favored the Darwin’s evolution by natural selection rather than than Gosse’s divine creation.

Ernst Mayr approached the concept of species by saying that a species is not merely a group of morphologically closer individuals, but a group that breeds only among themselves, excluding all others. The theory of peripatric speciation by Mayr is considered a major mode of speciation in ornithology.

Later Life and Death:

In 1953 Mayr became Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology at Harvard University, retiring in 1979 as professor emeritus. He died in Bedford, Massachusetts on February 3, 2005. He was 100 years old.

[MysteRy]

Ernst Werner von Siemens



German inventor and industrialist of the 19th century, Werner von Siemens was the pioneer of the electro industry and brought about a great technological advancement with many of his important discoveries. He earned a prominent position among the multitude of awards for achievements in science and technology.

Early Life, Education and Career:

Ernst Werner von Siemens was born at Lenthe, Hanover, Germany, on 13 December 1816, the oldest of four brothers. Siemens did not complete his schooling and joined the army to undertake training in engineering. For three years he was a pupil in the Military Academy at Berlin. In 1838 he earned his living as lieutenant in the artillery, and six years later he accepted the post of supervisor of the artillery workshops. In 1848 he had the task of defending the port of Kiel against the Danish fleet, and as commandant of Friedrichsort built the fortifications for the defense of Eckernforde harbor. The same year he was entrusted with the laying of the first telegraph line in Germany, which between Berlin and Frankfort-on-Main, and with that work his military career came to an end. His invention of the telegraph that used a needle to point to the right letter, instead of using Morse code led to formation of the electrical and telecommunications company Siemens as we know today.

In 1847, Siemens accompanied by mechanic Johann Georg Halske, established Siemens & Halske, a company that manufactured and repaired telegraphs. The company built offices in Berlin, London, Paris, St. Petersburg, and other major cities, and in due course emerged as one of the major electrical manufacturing companies in Europe.

Besides the telegraph Siemens made outstanding contributions to the expansion of electrical engineering and is therefore known as the founding father of the discipline in Germany. In 1880 he designed the world’s first electric elevator. In 1866 he independently discovered the dynamo-electrical principle and developed interest in the growth of the self-excited dynamo and electric-traction. In 1867 he delivered an important paper on electric generators before the Royal Society. During late 1877 Siemens received German patent No. 2355 for an electromechanical “dynamic” or moving-coil transducer, which was adapted by A. L. Thuras and E. C. Wente for the Bell System in the late 1920s for use as a loudspeaker.

Siemens married twice in his life. His first marriage was to Mathilde Duman in 1852 and had two children, Arnold von Siemens and Georg Wilhelm von Siemens. Almost two years after the death of his first wife, he remarried Antonie Siemens, a distant cousin in 1869. Children from second marriage were Hertha von Siemens and Carl Friedrich von Siemens.

Death:

Werner von Siemens died on December 13, 1892, a week before his seventy-sixth birthday, at Charlottenburg, Germany.

[MysteRy]

Erwin Schrödinger



Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger, more commonly known as Erwin Schrödinger, was an Austrian physicist and theoretical biologist. One of the founders of quantum mechanics, he is known for the Schrödinger equation and his brilliant contributions to the wave theory of matter. He shared the Nobel Prize for Physics with Paul Dirac in 1933.

Early Life and Contributions:

Erwin Schrödinger was born in Vienna, Austria in 1887. He actually had a Bavarian family that had settled in Vienna long ago. Exceptionally talented and highly educated, he learned almost everything, including the history of Italian painting and most of the recent theories related to theoretical physics.

He became an artillery officer in World War I. He took several positions at Stuttgart, Breslau, and Zurich from 1920 onwards. Zurich proved to be the most productive period for Schrödinger. The tremendous discovery of the Schrodinger Wave Equation took place in 1926. It explained how the quantum state of a physical system changes in time.

Schrödinger went to Berlin in 1927 as the successor of Max Planck. Berlin used to be a center of scientific activity, but he was soon made to leave for Oxford, from where he went to Princeton, and then got back to Austria.

Later Life and Death:

When the Anschluss was over, Erwin Schrödinger made an escape to Italy and then made it to the Institute for Advanced Studies in Dublin. He worked there until his retirement in 1955. He continued to write several important papers. Schrödinger died of tuberculosis in 1961.

He was 73 years old. The Erwin Schrödinger International Institute for Mathematical Physics was in Vienna was named after him in 1993.

[MysteRy]

Euclid



The famous Greek scientist and mathematician Euclid (300 BC) is best known as the author of the Elements, the oldest book consisting of geometrical theorems which is considered to be a standard for logical exposition.

Historical Introduction:

Not much is known aobut Euclid personally. There have been speculations whether he was a creative mathematician himself or merely collected the work of others. Much data about Euclid is recounted by Proclus, a 5th-century-AD philosopher. Euclid and Archimedes are often considered contemporaries. Euclid’s mathematical education is thought to be obtained from Plato’s pupils in Athens.

No work about geometrical theorems older than the Elements of Euclid has survived. The Elements superseded all earlier writings. This made it hard for historians to find out the earlier mathematicians whose works were could have been more significant in the development of Greek mathematics than Euclid’s. The Greek mathematician Thales is known to have discovered a number of theorems in 600 B.C. that appear in the Elements.

Eudoxus was given credit for the discovery of the method of exhaustion. Book XII of the Elements uses this method. While earlier mathematics may have been initiated by concrete problems, for instance finding out areas and volumes, by the time of Euclid mathematics had grown into an abstract construction, an intellectual occupation for philosophers as compared to scientists.

The Elements

The Elements is a collection of 13 books. Each book contains a sequence of propositions or theorems, around 10 to 100, introduced with proper definitions. For instance in Book I, 23 definitions are followed by five postulates, after which five common notions or axioms are included.

Other Contributions and Accomplishments:

Majority of the work of Euclid is known only through references by other writers. The Data is on plane geometry. The word “data” implies “things given”. The treatise consists of 94 propositions related to the kind of problem where certain data is presented about a figure and from which other data can be deduced. For instance, if a triangle has one angle given, the rectangle contained by the sides including the angle has to the area of the triangle a given ratio.

The Latin and Arabic manuscript translations of the Elements were also done, but it was not until the first printed edition, published in Venice in 1482. The work was very influential in Western education. The first comprehensive English translation was made in 1570. The most important mathematical period in England, around 1700, Greek mathematics was examined most passionately. Euclid was widely respected by all major mathematicians, including Isaac Newton.

The developing prepotency of the sciences and mathematics in the 18th and 19th centuries earned Euclid a crucial place in the curriculum of schools and universities throughout the Western world. The Elements was considered educational as a primer in logic.

[MysteRy]

Evangelista Torricelli



Early Life:

Evangelista Torricelli, an Italian man, and a physicist by occupation, initially studied at Jesuit schools in Faenza, near Ravenna. He was so good as a Physicist and a Mathematician that he was sent to Rome for further studies under Benedetto Castelli’s direction. Torricelli was introduced to Galileo by Benedetto Castelli and there Torricelli spent his time being Galileo’s assistant and secretary for a last few months of Galileo’s life. After Galileo passed away in January 1942, Torricelli was offered a position as a court mathematician and philosopher, Galileo’s old position, by the Grand Duke of Tuscany. This position was held by Torricelli till his death.

Contributions and Achievements:

Torricelli, also known as the father of hydrodynamics by Ernst Mach, was very famous for his study of the motion of fluids. He also carried out experiments of gases although the term was not invented by then. This led him to invent the Mercury Barometer, most important of his inventions. The invention took place by conducting an experiment on the air pressure and vacuum. Back then, the nature of vacuum was a debatable issue. Aristotle, a Greek philosopher and scientist, believed that vacuum could not exist as he said, “Nature abhors a vacuum.”

On the other hand, Galileo believed that vacuum could exist and he explained the mechanism of the suction in a water pump that it was the vacuum that produced the action, and not the air pressure of the liquid being pumped.

Galileo also felt the air was weightless. The debaters noticed that the suction pumps, regardless of the size and power, in mines could not raise water for more than eighteen bracci which is about 30 feet or 9 m. Why did the water not flow to the maximum if nature really abhorred vacuum? That’s when Torricelli invented the barometer while explaining the phenomenon. Barometer was a great invention in the field of physics of atmosphere and the behavior of gases. He also contributed to meteorology by suggesting wind was caused by differences in the density of air, which is caused by the variations in the air temperature, and not by ‘Exhalations’.

To represent the mechanism of the suction pump in a small tube, he took heavier liquids like honey, sea water and mercury etc. instead of pure water. Torricelli used relatively smaller tubes, which were sealed at one end, for conducting the experiment with mercury. He filled about a meter of such tube with mercury and sealed the open end with his thumb before inverting the tube. He then submerged the tube into the dish of mercury. On inverting, the mercury in the tube dropped half way down and left an empty space at the top and a column of mercury in the tube about one and one-third bracci in height.

The dispute about the nature of vacuum was settled when Torricelli represented the experiment in this way: The weight of air pushing down on the dish of mercury prevented the mercury in the tube from falling out completely and the mercury was not pulled by the mercury. The weight could retain about thirty inches of mercury in the tube. Torricelli observed that such pumps could cause the water to move upwards, by evacuating the air pressure above a column of water, but that the water would move up only as far as the air pressure below pushed it up. The water came to a stop when the weight of the water exceeded the power of the air pressure below no matter how hard the pump worked. This also came to Torricelli’s notice that the height of the mercury varied by the passage of time.

It was due to changes in the air pressure overtime that this happened. A French scientist Marin Mersenne (1588-1648) visited Torricelli in 1644 and took with him the idea of mercury barometer to his friend Blaise Pascal. Pascal also agreed to the fact that the air pressure and the altitude were inversely proportional. It was shown by Pascal practically that the barometric pressure did indeed decrease as one ascended a mountain. This showed that Torricelli’s theory was absolutely correct.

Vincenzo Antinori drew an analogy a few years later that Torricelli’s invention of Barometer was to Physics what the invention of telescope was to Physics. Torricelli had also made improvements to the telescope which was an instrument used by Galileo for astronomy. Torricelli could grind lenses with such accuracy that he produced some of the finest telescopes.

Torricelli contributed a great deal to the field of mathematics which was an important contribution in the scientific history. He worked on the equations of curves, solids, and their rotations to fill in the missing parts between the Greek geometry and Calculus based on the works Francesco Cavalieri’s “of indivisibles. Calculus was given its first complete formulation by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, along with the works of René Descartes, Pierre de Fermat, Gilles Personne de Roberval and others.

Later Life:

Torricelli carried on with the tradition of Italian scientific pioneering, although he was not as good as his older contemporary Galileo. The tradition did not last long after his death and by the mid of seventeenth century or the beginning of the next century, Northern Europe had become the center of scientific progress.

[MysteRy]

Francesco Redi



Francesco Redi was an Italian scientist, physician, academician and poet. He was the first person to prove that spontaneous generation did not cause the growth of maggots in decaying meat, but they appeared from eggs deposited by flies.

Early Life and Education:

Born in Arezzo, Central Italy in 1626, Francesco Redi received a Jesuit education. He acquired a degree in medicine and philosophy from the University of Pisa in 1647.

Contributions and Achievements:

After staying in Naples, Venice, and Rome for a while, Francesco Redi visited Florence in 1654, where he succeeded his father as a court physician to Ferdinando II, the Grand Duke of Tuscany. He became a member of the Accademia della Crusca in 1655. He was appointed the administrator of the famous Accademia del Cimento, a fraternity of the finest Italian scientists who upheld the scientific tradition of Galileo.

Redi soon gained a reputation throughout Europe as one of the most reputed biologists after he published “Esperienze intorno alla generazione degl’insetti” in 1668 (English: Experiments on the Generation of Insects). The work still remains highly influential in history for effectively rejecting the widely popular belief of spontaneous generation.

Later Life and Death:

Francesco Redi died in his sleep on March 1, 1697. He was 71 years old.

[MysteRy]

Francis Bacon



Francis Bacon, a leading proponent of natural philosophy and scientific methodology, was an English lawyer, philosopher and scientist. Having written highly influential works on law, state and religion, politics and science, Bacon was an early pioneer of the scientific method who created “empiricism” and inspired the scientific revolution.

Early Life and Education:

Born on January 22, 1561 in Strand, London, Francis Bacon’s father, Nicholas Bacon, was a famous English politician and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England. Bacon was mostly homeschooled in his early years. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1573 when he was merely 12. He also attended the University of Poitiers.

Contributions and Achievements:

Francis Bacon is often called the father of modern science. He initiated a massive reformation of every process of knowledge for the advancement of learning divine and human. As the creator of empiricism, Francis Bacon formulated a set of empirical and inductive methodologies, for setting off a scientific inquiry, known as the Baconian method. His call for a plotted procedure of inquiring things, with an empiricist naturalistic approach, had a profound impact on the rhetorical and theoretical framework for science.

Bacon also served as the philosophical inspiration behind the progress of the Industrial age. He always suggested that scientific work should be done for charitable reasons, and for relieving mankind’s misery with the invention of useful things.

Bacon also authored several books and essays that advocated reformations of the law, and many of them regarding religious, moral and civil meditations.

Later Life and Death:

Francis Bacon was appointed a Lord Chancellor in 1618. Unfortunately, he was accused of bribery and was forced to resign, after which Bacon retired to his estate continuing with his literary, scientific, and philosophical work. He died of pneumonia in Highgate, London in 1626. Bacon was 65 years old.

[MysteRy]

Francis Crick



Highly regarded for his discovery of the structure of the DNA molecule with his colleague James D. Watson, Francis Crick was a scientific genius. He was a British molecular biologist, physicist, and neuroscientist who jointly won a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Watson and Maurice Wilkins mainly for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids.

Early Life:

Francis Crick was born June 8, 1916 in Northampton, England, the elder child of Harry Crick and Annie Elizabeth Wilkins. He received his early education at Northampton Grammar School and, after the age of 14, Mill Hill School in London (on scholarship), where he studied mathematics, physics, and chemistry with great interest. When he turned eighteen, Crick entered the University College, London, where he graduated with his Bachelor of Science degree in Physics in 1937.

In the same year he started research for a Ph.D. under Prof E. N. da C. Andrade, but this was interrupted by the outbreak of war in 1939. For the period of the war he worked as a scientist for the British Admiralty, mainly in connection with magnetic and acoustic mines. He left the Admiralty in 1947 and began studying biology.

Contributions and Achievements:

At Cambridge he began his Ph.D. work at the Strangeways Laborator with Arthur Hughes and they together examined the physical properties of cytoplasm in the cultured fibroblast cells. After two years he joined the Medical Research Unit at Cavendish Laboratory where he worked with Max Perutz and John Kerdrew on protein structure. He ended up doing his Ph. D work on x-ray diffraction of proteins.

An important influence in Crick’s career was his companionship, beginning in 1951, with James D. Watson at Cambridge. Both of them with their colleague Maurice Wilkins, they tried to expose the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Crick and Watson combined their respective knowledge of x-ray diffraction and phage and bacterial genetics and revealed the structure of DNA in 1953. They also published their discovery in the April 25 edition of the journal Nature.

Crick became best recognized for his work in the discovery of the double helix and since then he has made many other discoveries. After his finding of the double helix, Crick got busy in studying the relationship between DNA and genetic coding with Vernon Ingram. During this study, they discovered the role of the genetic material in determining the specificity of proteins. In 1957, Crick along with Sydney Brenner initiated his work to determine how the sequence of DNA bases would specify the amino acid sequence in proteins.

Crick “established not only the basic genetic code, but predicted the mechanism for protein synthesis” (McMurray, 427). His work led to many RNA/DNA discoveries and also helped in the formation of the DNA/RNA dictionary. During 1960 Crick examined the structure and possible functions of certain proteins related with chromosomes called histones. In 1976 Crick decided to leave Cambridge Laboratories to take the position of Kieckhefer Professor at Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, California. It was there that Crick began his project of the study of the brain.

Besides winning the Nobel Prize in 1953 and Albert Lasker Award in 1960, Crick has won the 1962 Gardener Foundation Award, the 1972 Royal Society’s Royal Medal, and the 1976 Royal Society’s Copley Medal. He was also approved as a Visiting Lecturer at Rockefeller Institute in 1959 and as a Visiting Professor for Harvard University during 1959 and 1960.

Death:

He died of cancer on 28 July, 2004 in San Diego. His death is regarded as the ‘death of a golden era in biology’.

[MysteRy]

Francis Galton



Sir Francis Galton was an English explorer, anthropologist, eugenicist, geographer and meteorologist. He is noted for his pioneering research on human intelligence and his statistical concept of correlation. He is often called the “father of eugenics”. Galton also invented many statistical tools such as surveys and questionnaires.

Early Life and Education:

Born in Sparkbrook, England, the maternal grandfather of Francis Galton was Erasmus Darwin. Charles Darwin was a grandson of Erasmus, so this makes Galton and Darwin cousins. Galton studied at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1810, however he never graduated.

Contributions and Achievements:

Galton made several trips to Africa, and in 1853, he published “Tropical South Africa”. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1856. Galton spent much his life developing eugenics, which aims to modify the physical and mental make-up of the human species by selected parenthood.

Galton published “Hereditary Genius” in 1869. He explained an index of correlation as a measure of the degree to which the two diverse objects were related. However, he was unsuccessful in realizing the complexity of the mathematics involved. He published “Natural Inheritance” in 1889 which heavily influenced Karl Pearson.

Galton wrote more than 340 papers and books. He was the inventor of scientific meteorology and he was the first person to develop the first weather map as well as the Galton Whistle for evaluating differential hearing ability.

Later Life and Death:

Galton was awarded the Royal Medal in 1876 and the Copley Medal in 1910. He was knighted in 1909. He died in January 1911 in Greyshott House, Surrey.

[MysteRy]

Frank Hornby



Despite not having formal training when it comes to engineering, Frank Hornby managed to excel in toy invention based on engineering principles. These toy lines include Hornby Model Railways, Dinky Toys, and Meccano. Apart from being an inventor, he was also a politician and businessman and he is the man behind the British toy company named Meccano Ltd. Apart from his involvement in inventing new things, he also had the monthly publication called Meccano Magazine. It was because of his inventions as well as initiatives made him a millionaire in 1930.

Early Life and Personal Background

Born on the 15th of May in 1863, Frank Hornby hailed from Liverpool, England. He was the son of John Oswald Hornby and Martha Hornby. His father had been a provisions merchant and this may have roused his awareness on many different things as well as how they worked. When he was 16, Frank quit school and began to work as the cashier in his father’s business. He had his own family when he married Clara Walker Godefroy who was a school teacher. Together they had two sons and a daughter. In 1899, his father’s business had to be closed down but after that, he became David Hugh Elliot’s bookkeeper for the meat importing venture he had in Liverpool.

Hornby had his own home workshop and his experiments and inventions began there. He began to make toys for his own sons back in 1899, and he used simple materials—the main one initially being sheet metal. While the pieces of those toys were not interchangeable at first, he was able to realize later on that being able to make several individual pieces which can be put together can result in making a different model which can be built from the very same components. This was made possible by his realization that perforations on the individual pieces can be used not just for bolting things together permanently but can also be used as the bearings for shafts and axles. Because of this, complex mechanisms became much simpler. Initially, Frank made his own nuts and bolts but later found an alternative source.

When the year 1900 was about to end, Frank finally had pieces which he knew was worth marketing. He patented his unique invention a year later in January known as the “Improvements in Toy or Educational Devices for Children and Young People” where he even had to borrow five pounds from his then employer, David Elliot, for the patenting costs. That same year he began to look for companies which would manufacture his products. However, the final products were not satisfactory to him and the poor finish did not gain much attention.

Elliot saw potential in Hornby and believed in his skills. He offered Hornby the empty space near the office where they worked and this started their partnership in business.

Mechanics Made Easy

Hornby called his venture “Mechanics Made Easy” and he even gained positive backup from Henry Selby Hele-Shaw, head of Liverpool University’s Department of Engineering, and he was then able to get the supplies he needed to complete the parts for his inventions. Elliot made the financing aspect of their venture possible, and sets from Mechanics Made Easy were made available in 1902. The sets they sold had 16 different pieces or parts, which were then accompanied by a leaflet explaining how to make 12 different models.

The early years were not all successful, but in 1970 the part suppliers could no longer meet the demands. In 1903, they only sold 1,500 sets and no profit was made yet. They kept introducing new parts and in 1904 they had six sets which were packaged with the standard instruction materials in English and French in their own tin boxes. Two news sets more were introduced in 1905, and a year later they were able to make their first profit.

The success started in 1907, and when their business was growing Hornby decided to leave the job he held as Elliot’s employee so he could begin manufacturing his own parts in a different location. Three years later with the help of a loan granted to the partners, they were able to start manufacturing their own toy parts in 1907 as well.

Initiatives and Final Years

He was able to register his Meccano trademark and use this registered name for all of his products. In 1908, shortly after their boom in production, Meccano Ltd. was established and Hornby’s business partner Elliot decided not to join the company, making Hornby its sole proprietor. The company began to export to many different countries and with the help of his son Hornby was able to establish a new place for his inventions when they put up Meccano Ltd Paris. They also had their office in Berlin and apart from inventing toys based on engineering principles, Hornby also made clockwork motors.

Other than Meccano, Hornby did not stop at just making mechanical toys for that line. He also made the educational “Hornby System of Mechanical Demonstration” in 1907, the Clockwork lithographed tinplate O scale trains in 1927, the Dinky Toys in 1934, and the Hornby Dublo model railway which was introduced in 1938 two years after Hornby died. Even after his death, the monthly publication called Meccano Magazine remained in circulation for 60 years. Meccano became so popular because of his inventions and innovations that he even made the Meccano Guild which is the guild for all the Meccano clubs from all over the globe.

Because of his inventions and simplified mechanisms which he used for toys and educational kits, his inventions were loved all over the world and gave him back a great profit. Come 1930, he had already become a millionaire and owned a mansion in Maghull. On a daily basis, he was chauffeured by a limousine, and a few years later he even tried his hand in politics. He was elected as a Conservative MP in 1931 for the Everton constituency.

Today, his inventions and legacy live through the Meccano models and collectible toys which he came up with based on his knowledge of engineering principles and mechanisms.

[MysteRy]

Franz Boas



Widely considered to be one of the greatest and most influential anthropologists ever, Franz Boas was a German-American scientist, who is also known as the “Father of Modern Anthropology”. He was the first person to implement the scientific method into the study of human cultures and societies.

Early Life and Education:

Born in Minden, Westphalia, Franz Boas showed an early interest in both nature and natural sciences. He studied at the universities of Heidelberg, Bonn, and Kiel, and finally got his Ph.D. in physics with a minor in geography from the University of Kiel in 1881.

Boas worked in Baffinland, Canada, from 1883 to 1884, while from 1885 to 1886; he conducted field research in several museums on the North Pacific Coast of North America. He was also an important part of a project involving the cultures of Native Americans which lasted almost one year.

Contributions and Achievements:

Franz Boas was the most important figure in 20th century North American anthropology. He laid down the four-field structure of the discipline around cultural, physical, linguistic and archaeological disciplines pertaining to the American Indian. He also trained many professional anthropologists. Boas made memorable contributions to the changes in immigrant head form undercut eugenics arguments and lessened the significance of anthropometric measures of race.

The archaeological works of Franz Boas were almost cursory. While studying culture, his theoretical contributions dealt with the critique of evolution. He destroyed the rationalist theories of human nature. His historical particularism, his insistency on stringent ethnographic method, and his stress on “the native point of view” were pivotal to the development of modern anthroplogy.

Later Life and Death:

Franz Boas oversaw the Columbia Anthropology Department for more than four decades. Boas died on 21 December, 1942. He was 84 years old.