~ Famous Scientists ~

[MysteRy]

Hermann von Helmholtz



Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand Helmholtz, more commonly known as Hermann von Helmholtz, was a German physicist, physician and philosopher who made many groundbreaking contributions to physiology, electrodynamics, optics, meteorology and mathematics. He is highly regarded for his statement of the law of the conservation of energy, as well as his theories of vision.

Early Life and Education:

Born at Potsdam, Prussia, Hermann von Helmholtz’s father was a gymnasium headmaster who had also studied philosophy and philology. Helmholtz acquired his degree in medicine from Berlin in 1842, as per his father’s wishes. He served as a surgeon in the military until 1847.

Contributions and Achievements:

Hermann von Helmholtz published his famous physics treatise on the “Conservation of Energy”, in which he traces incidentally the history of the idea as formulated by Mayer, Joule and himself. In 1850, he was appointed as the Professor of Physiology and General Pathology at Koenigsberg. He invented the ophthalmoscope one year later in 1851.

He accepted another teaching position at Bonn in 1885, while he took the chair of Physiology at Heidelberg in 1859. Helmholtz’s finding regarding human sight earned his fame and he also investigated the mechanical causes of vocal sounds.

His contributions to electricity and magnetism brought out his belief that classical mechanics was perhaps the ideal mode of scientific reasoning. He became the first German scientist to value the great work of Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell in electrodynamics. Helmholtz took the mathematics of electrodynamics to new heights of excellence.

He was made the Professor of Physics at Berlin in 1871. He was also awarded the title of nobility, “von Helmholtz”, in 1883. The theory of the conservation of energy which he formulated is considered as one of the broadest and most important generalizations ever known in the history of science.

Later Life and Death:

Hermann von Helmholtz spent his later life trying to cut down all of electrodynamics to a minimum set of mathematical principles, however without success.

Helmholtz died on September 8, 1894. He was 73 years old.

[MysteRy]

Homi Jehangir Bhabha



An Indian born scientist who played an important part in contribution to The Quantum Theory was born on October 30, 1909 in Bombay. His name is Homi Jehangir Bhabha. He was the first one to become the Chairman of Atomic Energy Commission of India.

Early Life:

Bhabha belonged to a wealthy Parsi family that was very influential in the west of India. He got a doctorate degree from the University of Cambridge in 1934 after he had completed his studies from the Elphinstone College and graduated from the Royal Institute of Science that resided in Bombay. All this time he worked along with Neil Bohr that led them to discover the quantum theory. Bhabha also did some work with Walter Heitler and they made a breakthrough in the cosmic radiation’s understanding by working on cascade theory of electron showers. In 1941, Bhabha got elected for his work in the Royal Society.

Contributions and Achievements:

Bhabha went back to India in 1940 and started his research in Banglore at an institute in India named The Indian Institute of Science about the cosmic rays. He was given a position as a director at an institute in Bombay known as Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. He was a skillful manager and it was due to his prominence, devotion, wealth and comradeship with Jawaharlal Nehru, PM of India that he was able to gain a leading position for allocating the scientific resources of India.

Bhabha was the first one to become the chairperson of India’s Atomic Energy Commission in the year 1948. It was under his direction that the scientists of India made their way into making an atomic bomb ant the first atomic reactant was operated in Bombay in the year 1956. Bhabha also led the first UN Conference held for the purpose of Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in Geneva, 1955. It was then predicted by him that a limitless power of industries would be found through nuclear fusion’s control. He promoted nuclear energy control and also prohibition of atomic bombs worldwide. He was absolutely against India manufacturing atomic bombs even if the country had enough resources to do so. Instead he suggested that the production of an atomic reactor should be used to lessen India’s misery and poverty. A post in Indian Cabinet was rejected by him but he served as a scientific advisor to PM Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri.

Bhabha got many rewards and award from Indian as well as foreign universities and he was an associate of various societies of science including a famous one in the US known as National Academy of Sciences. Bhabha was killed in an air crash accident on January 24, 1966 in Switzerland.

[MysteRy]

Humphry Davy



Sir Humphry Davy, widely considered to be one of the greatest chemists and inventors that Great Britain has ever produced, is highly regarded for his work on various alkali and alkaline earth metals, and for his valuable contributions regarding the findings of the elemental nature of chlorine and iodine.

Early Life and Education:

Humphry was born on December 17, 1778 at Penzance, Cornwall to a wood carver. He was naturally a gifted and sharp boy who could write impressive fiction and poetry. At sixteen, he lost his father. After the tragic event, Gregory Watt, son of the famous Scottish inventor James Watt, came to visit him and subsequently became a lodger in the house of Mrs. Davy, his mother. They became great friends and their strong relationship have had an important influence on the later career of Davy. Mr. Davies Gilbert was a huge source of inspiration and encouragement for Davy, who later went on to introduce him to the notice of the Royal Institution in London.

Contributions and Achievements:

Dr. Thomas Beddoes, an emiment English physician and scientific writer, founded the “Pneumatic Institution” in Bristol, and Davy became associated with it in 1756. Within one year, Davy wrote his legendary publications “Essays on MAI and Light, with a New Theory of Respiration” and “Researches, Chemical and Philosophical, chiefly concerning Nitrous Oxide and its Respiration”. Both of these works instantly gained worldwide recognition. Davy was not only the first scientist to reveal the peculiar exhilarating or intoxicating properties of nitrous oxide gas, but his “Researches” also featured the results of various interesting experiments on the respiration of carburetted hydrogen, nitrogen, hydrogen, carbonic acid and nitrous gases.

Davy delivered his first lecture at the Royal Institution in 1801 and instantly became a popular figure there. His tenure as a lecturer was immensely successful. During his second Bakerian lecture at the Royal Society in 1807, he made public his tremendous achievement – the decomposition by galvanism of the fixed alkalies. He performed a demonstration that these alkalies are simply metallic oxides. These discoveries are said to be the most important contribution made to the “Philosophical Transactions” (of the Royal Society) since Sir Isaac Newton.

Other important books of Davy include “Elements of Chemical Philosophy” (1812), “Elements of Agricultural Chemistry” (1813) and “Consolations in Travel” (1830).

Later Life and Death:

Davy was knighted in 1812, after which he married a rich widow named Mrs. Apreece. He was also made a baronet in 1818 for outstanding contributions to his country and mankind; most importantly, his invention of the safety-lamp. He was promoted to the president of the Royal Society in 1820 and he performed his duties for consecutive seven years.

His health began to decline in 1827 which became the cause of his resignation. Davy died at Geneva on May 29, 1829.

[MysteRy]

Ibn Battuta



Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Battuta, was a Moroccan Muslim scholar and traveler. He is known for his traveling and going on excursions called the Rihla. His journeys lasted for a period of almost thirty years. This covered nearly the whole of the known Islamic world and beyond, extending from North Africa, West Africa, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe in the West, to the Middle East, Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and China in the East, a distance readily surpassing that of his predecessors. After his travel he returned to Morocco and gave his account of the experience to Ibn Juzay.

Early life and Career:

Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Battuta, was born in Tangier, Morocco, on the 24th of February 1304 C.E. (703 Hijra) during the time of the Marinid dynasty. He was commonly known as Shams ad-Din. His family was of Berber origin and had a tradition of service as judges. After receiving an education in Islamic law, he chose to travel. He left is house in June 1325, when he was twenty one years of age and set off from his hometown on a hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca, a journey that took him 16 months. He did not come back to Morocco for at least 24 years after that. His journey was mostly by land. To reduce the risk of being attacked, he usually chose to join a caravan. In the town of Sfax, he got married. He survived wars, shipwrecks, and rebellions.

He first began his voyage by exploring the lands of the Middle East. Thereafter he sailed down the Red Sea to Mecca. He crossed the huge Arabian Desert and traveled to Iraq and Iran. In 1330, he set of again, down the Red Sea to Aden and then to Tanzania. Then in 1332, Ibn Battuta decided to go to India. He was greeted open heartedly by the Sultan of Delhi. There he was given the job of a judge. He stayed in India for a period of 8 years and then left for China. Ibn Battuta left for another adventure in 1352. He then went south, crossed the Sahara desert, and visited the African kingdom of Mali.

Finally, he returned home at Tangier in 1355. Those who were lodging Ibn Battuta’s grave Western Orient lists could not believe that Ibn Battuta visited all the places that he described. They argued that in order to provide a comprehensive description of places in the Muslim world in such a short time, Ibn Battuta had to rely on hearsay evidence and make use of accounts by earlier travelers.

Ibn Battuta often experienced culture shock in regions he visited. The local customs of recently converted people did not fit his orthodox Muslim background. Among Turks and Mongols, he was astonished at the way women behaved. They were given freedom of speech. He also felt that the dress customs in the Maldives and some sub-Saharan regions in Africa were too revealing.

Death:

After the completion of the Rihla in 1355, little is known about Ibn Battuta’s life. He was appointed a judge in Morocco and died in 1368. Nevertheless, the Rihla provides an important account of many areas of the world in the 14th century.

[MysteRy]

Ibn Rushd



Early Life:

Abu Walid Mohammad Ibn Rushd born in 1128 C.E. in Cordova has been held as one of the greatest thinkers and scientists of the history. A product of twelfth-century Islamic Spain, he set out to integrate Aristotelian philosophy with Islamic thought. A common theme throughout his writings is that there is no inappropriateness between religion and philosophy when both are properly understood.

His contributions to philosophy took many forms, ranging from his detailed commentaries on Aristotle, his defence of philosophy against the attacks of those who condemned it as different to Islam and his construction of a form of Aristotelianism which cleansed it, as far as was possible at the time, of, Neoplatonic influences.

Contributions and Achievements:

Ibn Rushd’s education followed a traditional path, beginning with studies in Hadith, linguistics, jurisprudence and scholastic theology. Throughout his life he wrote extensively on Philosophy and Religion, attributes of God, origin of the universe, Metaphysics and Psychology but he excelled in philosophy and jurisprudence and was nicknamed “the jurisprudent philosopher.” The role of the philosopher in the state was a topic of continual interest for Ibn Rushd.

His thought is genuinely creative and highly controversial, producing powerful arguments that were to puzzle his philosophical successors in the Jewish and Christian worlds. He seems to argue that there are two forms of truth, a religious form and a philosophical form, and that it does not matter if they point in different directions. He also appears to be doubtful about the possibility of personal immortality or of God’s being able to know that particular events have taken place. There is much in his work also which suggests that religion is inferior to philosophy as a means of attaining knowledge, and that the understanding of religion which ordinary believers can have is very different and impoverished when compared with that available to the philosopher.

In philosophy, his most important work Tuhafut al-Tuhafut was written in response to Al-Ghazali’s work. Ibn Rushd was criticized by many Muslim scholars for this book, which, nevertheless, had a deep influence on European thought, at least until the beginning of modern philosophy and experimental science. His views on fate were that man is neither in full control of his destiny nor is it fully predetermined for him. Al Rushd’s longest commentary was, in fact, an original contribution as it was largely based on his analysis including interpretation of Quranic concepts. Ibn Rushd’s summary the opinions (fatwa) of previous Islamic jurists on a variety of issues has continued to influence Islamic scholars to the present day, notably Javed Ahmad Ghamidi.

At the age of 25, Ibn Rushd conducted astronomical observations in Morocco, during which he discovered a previously unobserved star. He was also of the view that the Moon is opaque and obscure, and has some parts which are thicker than others, with the thicker parts receiving more light from the Sun than the thinner parts of the Moon. He also gave one of the first descriptions on sunspots.

Ibn Rushd also made remarkable contributions in medicine. In medicine his well-known book Kitab al-Kulyat fi al-Tibb was written before 1162 A.D Its Latin translation was known as ‘Colliget’. In it Ibn Rushd has thrown light on various aspects of medicine, including the diagnoses, cure and prevention of diseases and several original observations of him.

He wrote at least 67 original works, which included 28 works on philosophy, 20 on medicine, 8 on law, 5 on theology, and 4 on grammar, in addition to his commentaries on most of Aristotle’s works and his commentary on Plato’s The Republic. A careful examination of his works reveals that Ibn Rushd (Averroes) was a deeply Islamic man. As an example, we find in his writing, “Anyone who studies anatomy will increase his faith in the omnipotence and oneness of God the Almighty”. He believed that true happiness for man can surely be achieved through mental and psychological health, and people cannot enjoy psychological health unless they follow ways that lead to happiness in the hereafter, and unless they believe in God and His oneness.

Death:

Ibn Rushd died in Marakesh in 1198 where he was buried. Three months later, his body was moved to Qurtuba, the tribune of his thought. It leaves no room for any doubt about the important influence that th

[MysteRy]

Irene Joliot-Curie



Irene Joliot-Curie is one name that is always mentioned when we discuss the discovery of radioactivity and neutron. She was a French physicist who along with her husband Joliot-Curie, a well-known French physicist, received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935 for their synthesis of new radioactive elements.

Early life, Education and Career:

Irène Joliot-Curie was born on 12 September 1897, in Paris. She was the daughter of the French physicists, Marie Sk?odowska-Curie and Pierre Curie. For a few years of her childhood Irene was educated by her mother, but later completed her studies at the University of Paris. Beginning in 1918 she assisted her mother at the Institute of Radium of the University of Paris while studying for her own doctoral degree. In 1925 she graduated with a thesis on the alpha rays of polonium. The same year she met Frédéric Joliot, assisting also at the Institute of Radium. The following year they both got married and took the name of Joliot-Curie. They had two children; one daughter, Helene and one son, Pierre.

Subsequent to their marriage the Joliot-Curies formed a great scientific team. Irene’s scientific research focused on natural and artificial radioactivity, transmutation of elements, and nuclear physics. During 1926 – 1928 she helped her husband in improving his laboratory techniques. Starting in 1928 Irène and Frédéric carried out their research on the study of atomic nuclei and published together.

Together they specialized in the field of nuclear physics. In 1934 their combined work led to the discovery of artificial radioactivity. By bombarding boron, aluminum, and magnesium with alpha particles, the Joliot-Curies produced isotopes of the generally stable elements nitrogen, phosphorus, silicon and aluminum that decompose spontaneously, with a more or less long period, by release of positive or negative electrons. For this work they were awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1935. Irene would not stop there, however, and went on to accomplish many other honors.

During 1936 she served in the French Cabinet as Undersecretary of State for Scientific Research. In 1937 she was appointed as a Professor in the Faculty of Science in Paris, and in the following year her research on the heavy elements played a vital role in the discovery of uranium fission. In 1939 Irene was employed as an Officer of the Legion of Honor. From 1946 – 1951 she was a member of the French Atomic Energy Commission. After 1947 she served as the Director of the Institute of Radium, and in 1948 she contributed to the creation of the first French atomic pile.

Irene Joliot-Curie had a great interest in the intellectual development of women, and therefore served as the members of the Comite National de l’Union des Femmes Francais, and the World Peace Council. Moreover she was also very concerned with the installation of a large center for nuclear physics at Orsay, and she personally worked out the plans for its construction. Her work on this facility would be carried on by her husband after her death.

Death:

Irene Joliot-Curie died on 17 March 1956, in Paris, from leukemia contracted in the course of her work.

[MysteRy]

Isaac Newton



Isaac Newton, universally considered to be one of the greatest and most influential scientists of all time, was an English mathematical and physicist, widely known for his outstanding contributions to physics, mathematics and optics. He also invented the calculus, and formulated the three laws of motion and the universal theory of gravitation. Newton proved that sunlight is the combination of several colors. He performed as the master of the Royal Mint in London and as the president of the Royal Society of London.

Early Life and Education:

Born on January 4, 1643, Newton was so frail at the time of his birth that the housemaids were unsure that the baby would live any longer. Isaac Sr. had died a few months before his birth, while his mother, Hannah Ayscough, married again to another man, Reverend Barnabas Smith, with whom she had three more children.

His mother left little Newton to live with her new husband while he was raised by his maternal grandmother. Newton had mostly a solitary childhood, though at 12, he joined the grammar school at Grantham. At school, once he had a fight with another boy, and whilst he was weaker, he still managed to win the fight and banged the opponent’s nose on the church wall. This kind of vindictive behavior endured throughout his lifetime.

Creating sundials, wooden objects and drawings were some of his favorite hobbies at school. He made a model windmill with a mouse on a treadmill for supplying power. A four-wheeled cart was also one of his creations which was powered by rotating a crank he had set up.

His mother called Newton back to manage the family farm when he was 17. He was never good at the job, though. A young Newton showed more interest in creating models and reading books. Luckily enough, his schoolmaster at Grantham, and his uncle William Ayscough, utterly impressed with Newton’s skill and determination, suggested his mother to let him stay at the school.

After finishing school in June 1661, Newton went on to join Cambridge University. There, he was annoyed with the traditional Aristotelian curriculum and shunned many of the assigned books, instead concentrating on his studies about science, mathematics and philosophy. He carefully and devotedly read books by Galileo, René Descartes, Euclid and Johannes Kepler. Within a year, he was able to record original insights in his notebooks.

Contributions and Achievements:

Not long after his graduation in 1665, the Cambridge closed down due to the plague epidemic for almost two years. Newton, therefore, returned to home where he came up with the calculus, which he termed as the “fluxional method.” Isaac Barrow, the Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge, was immensely impressed with his work. Newton got his master’s degree in 1668, and assumed Barrow’s position after his resignation. His lectures were said to be too difficult for the students.

His contributions during 1669 and the early 1770s were mostly related to optics. He put forward a theory of colors. He also constructed a reflecting telescope which magnified objects 40 times. For this invention, he was honored by The Royal Society, where he was made a member in January 1672. An article was published during this time about his theory of colors in February 1672. When Robert Hooke challenged him in an inappropriate manner, Newton was furios. He had experimented with colors extensively for several years and was confident about his peculiar ability and research.

Newton published his legendary publication “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica” in 1687, a masterpiece that introduced the world to the three laws of motion and the universal principle of gravitation.

His another notable rival was Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz who claimed to have invented the calculus first. As Newton’s Principia came after Leibniz’s calculus, some started to think that Newton borrowed his method from Leibniz. The truth was that Newton had invented the calculus between 1665 and 1666, but he was reluctant to publish his work for years, while Leibniz introduced his work in 1684. Leibniz actually received letters from Newton in 1671 and 1676 regarding mathematics, and he was either directly or indirectly influenced by Newton. The feud settled down in 1716 after Leibniz’s death.

Newton is also credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent.

Later Years and Death:

Newton soon got bored with academia, so he became the warden of the Royal Mint in 1696. He revolutionized its operations and was made a master of the Mint in 1700. He was also selected as the president of the Royal Society from 1703 until his death. Queen Anne knighted Newton in 1705. In his final years, Newton suffered from several physical illnesses. He died on March 20, 1727 in London, England.

[MysteRy]

Ivan Pavlov



Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was an eminent Russian physiologist and psychologist who devised the concept of the conditioned reflex. He conducted a legendary experiment in which he provided training to a hungry dog to drool at the sound of a bell, something which was related to the sight of food.

Pavlov also formulated a similar conceptual theory, highlighting the significance of conditioning and associating human behavior with the nervous system. He won the 1904 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his groundbreaking research on digestive secretions.

Early Life and Education:

Ivan Pavlov was born in Ryazan, Russia. As a young child, he suffered a serious injury, due to which Pavlov spent much of his childhood with his parents in the family home and garden, acquiring various practical skills and a deep interest in natural history. He developed a strong interest in science and the possibility of using science to ameliorate and modify society.

He studied medicine at university under a famed physiologist of the time, S. P. Botkin, who taught him a great deal about the nervous system.

Contributions and Achievements:

Ivan Pavlov conducted neurophysiological experiments with animals for years after receiving his doctorate at the Academy of Medical Surgery. He became fully convinced that human behavior could be understood and explained best in physiological terms rather than in mentalist terms. The legendary experiment for which Pavlov is remembered was when he used the feeding of dogs to establish a number of his key ideas.

Moments before feeding, a bell was rung to measure the dogs’ saliva production when they heard the bell. Pavolv found out that once the dogs had been trained to associate the sound of the bell with food, they would produce saliva, whether or not food followed. The experiment proved that the dogs’ physical response, salivation, was directly related to the stimulus of the bell, hence the saliva production was a stimulus response. The continued increased salivation, even when the dogs had experienced hearing the bell without being later fed, was a conditioned reflex.

The entire process is a prime example of classical conditioning, and it is primarily related to a physical and spontaneous response to some particular conditions that the organism has acquired through association. Behaviorist theory has massively applied these landmark ideas for the explanation of human behaviour.

Later Life and Death:

Ivan Pavlov died on February 27, 1936 in Leningrad, Soviet Union, from natural causes. He was 86 years old.

[MysteRy]

J. J. Thomson



Sir Joseph John Thomson, more commonly known as J. J. Thomson, was an English physicist who stormed the world of nuclear physics with his 1897 discovery of the electron, as well as isotopes. He is also credited with the invention of the mass spectrometer. He received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1906 and was knighted two years later in 1908.

Early Life and Education:

Born in 1856 in Cheetham Hill near Manchester, England, J. J. Thomson was the son of a Scottish bookseller. He won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1876. He received his BA in 1880 in mathematics, and MA in 1883.

Contributions and Achievements:

J. J. Thomson was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society 1865. He was a successor to Lord Rayleigh as Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics. His favorite student Ernst Rutherford later succeeded him in 1919. The early theoretical work of Thomson broadened the electromagnetic theories of James Clerk Maxwell’s, which revolutionized the study of gaseous conductors of electricity, as well as the nature of cathode rays.

Inspired by Wilhelm Röntgen’s 1895 discovery of X-rays, Thomson demonstrated that cathode rays were actually some speedily moving particles. After measuring their speed and specific charge, he concluded that these “corpuscles” (electrons) were about 2000 times smaller in mass as compared to the hydrogen ion, the lightest-known atomic particle. The discovery, made public during Thomson’s 1897 lecture to the Royal Institution, was labeled as the most influential breakthrough in the history of physics since Sir Isaac Newton.

Thomson also researched on the nature of positive rays in 1911, which significantly helped in the discovery of Isotopes. He proved that isotopes could be broke by deflecting positive rays in electric and magnetic fields, which was later named mass spectrometry.

J. J. Thomson was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1906. He was knighted in 1908. He published his autobiography “Recollections and Reflections” in 1936. Thomson is widely considered to be one of the greatest scientists ever, and the most influential pioneer of nuclear physics.

Later Life and Death:

J. J. Thomson was made the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge in 1918, where he remained until his death. He died on August 30, 1940. He was 83 years old. Thomson was buried close to Isaac Newton in Westminster Abbey.

[MysteRy]

J. Robert Oppenheimer



J. Robert Oppenheimer, also known as “the father of the atomic bomb”, was an American nuclear physicist and director of the Los Alamos Laboratory (Manhattan Project). With a project so big that involved the hard work of hundreds of gifted scientists, it may appear quite undue to give so much credit on the shoulders of Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer is, however, still the sole creator and inventor of the nuclear bomb to most people in the world.

Early Life and Education:

Born in 1904 in New York City to a rich Jewish father, Oppenheimer became one of the brightest students at Harvard University at a youthful age of seventeen. He also went to Cambridge University in England for higher studies, where Ernest Rutherford, the famous British chemist and physicist, was his teacher. Oppenheimer acquired his Ph.D. from University of Göttingen in Germany.

Although he spent most of his time carrying out research and publishing books about quantum theory and theoretical physics, he was probably more interested in the classics and Eastern philosophy. In 1929, Oppenheimer topped in all the units at the University of California and the California Institute of Technology. Most of the times, Oppenheimer had almost no time for his personal life. The growing popularity of Nazism in Germany during the 1930s, however, became a major event in his life, as it led him towards politics and resistance against the European fascist movement.

Oppenheimer subsequently joined left-wing politics, and became associated with several left-leaning organizations, which were somehow linked to the Communist Party.

Contributions and Achievements:

Niels Bohr and other European scientists informed their American contemporaries about the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute’s successful attempt of splitting the atom in 1939. President Roosevelt was much concerned that the Nazis may utilize this extraordinary technology to create an atomic weapon. This fear led him to institute the Manhattan Project in 1941.

Oppenheimer was appointed the scientific director of the project. He advised that the project be housed at Los Alamos in New Mexico. After extensive hard work and rigorous struggle, the first nuclear bomb was exploded on July 16, 1945, with the power of approximately 18,000 tons of TNT, at Alamogordo Air Force Base in southern New Mexico.

Within one month, two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. The event almost instantly ended the war, after which Oppenheimer was made the chairperson of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.

Later Life and Death:

Oppenheimer, due to his conscience and regrets over making such horrible weapons of mass destruction, opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb in 1949. The bomb is often thought to be the Truman administration’s answer to the Soviet acquisition of the atomic bomb. Due to this unexpected move, Edward Teller, his colleague at Los Alamos, was made the director of the new project. Oppenheimer’s patriotism was also questioned and he was even accused of “communist sympathies” due to his past political affiliations.

For the rest of his life, he shunned politics and performed his duties as the director of the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton. Oppenheimer died of cancer in Princeton in 1967.

[MysteRy]

Jagadish Chandra Bose



Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose is one of the most prominent first Indian scientists who proved by experimentation that both animals and plants share much in common. He demonstrated that plants are also sensitive to heat, cold, light, noise and various other external stimuli. Bose contrived a very sophisticated instrument called Crescograph which could record and observe the minute responses because of external stimulants. It was capable of magnifying the motion of plant tissues to about 10,000 times of their actual size, which found many similarities between plants and other living organisms.

Contributions and Early Life:

The central hall of the Royal Society in London was jam-packed with famous scientists on May 10, 1901. Everyone seemed to be curious to know how Bose’s experiment will demonstrate that plants have feelings like other living beings and humans. Bose chose a plant whose mots were cautiously dipped up to its stem in a vessel holding the bromide solution. The salts of hydrobromic acid are considered a poison. He plugged in the instrument with the plant and viewed the lighted spot on a screen showing the movements of the plant, as its pulse beat, and the spot began to and fro movement similar to a pendulum. Within minutes, the spot vibrated in a violent manner and finally came to an abrupt stop. The whole thing was almost like a poisoned rat fighting against death. The plant had died due to the exposure to the poisonous bromide solution.

The event was greeted with much appreciation, however some physiologists were not content, and considered Bose as an intruder. They harshly knocked the experiment but Bose did not give up and was quite confident about his findings.

Using the Crescograph, he further researched the response of the plants to fertilizers, light rays and wireless waves. The instrument received widespread acclaim, particularly from the Path Congress of Science in 1900. Many physiologists also supported his findings later on, using more advanced instruments.

Jagadish Chandra Bose was born on 30 November, 1858 at Mymensingh, now in Bangladesh. He was raised in a home committed to pure Indian traditions and culture. He got his elementary education from a vernacular school, because his father thought that Bose should learn his own mother tongue, Bengali, before studying a foreign language like English. Bose attended Cambridge after studying physics at Calcutta University. He returned to India in 1884 after completing a B.Sc. degree from Cambridge University.

Later Life and Death:

Bose authored two illustrious books; ‘Response in the Living and Non-living’ (1902) and ‘The Nervous Mechanism of Plants’ (1926). He also extensively researched the behaviour of radiowaves. Mostly known as a plant physiologist, he was actually a physicist. Bose devised another instrument called ‘Coherer’, for detecting the radiowaves.

Prior to his death in 1937, Bose set up the Bose Institute at Calcutta. He was elected the Fellow of the Royal Society in 1920 for his amazing contributions and achievements.

[MysteRy]

James Chadwick



Early Life:

James Chadwick was English and he was a Physicist by profession. He was born on October 20, 1891 in Manchester. His parents Anne Mary Knowles Chadwick and John Joseph had him as their eldest son. Chadwick got admitted in Victoria University, Manchester. He was more interested in studying mathematics but instead he was admitted in the field of physics mistakenly. Chadwick was pretty bashful as a person so he did not make any attempt to amend the error. In 1911, he passed out of the Honors School of Physics as a Graduate. He further continued his studies at the same school in the laboratory of Ernest Rutherford.

Rutherford gave his atom’s planetary theory at the same place. Chadwick was acquainted to Niels Bohr and Hans Geiger at the department off Physics. In 1913, a degree of Master’s was received by Chadwick after which he was honored with the Exhibition Scholarship of 1851. He used that scholarship to finance his education at Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt which was the first institution of research in Germany in Charlottenburg near to Berlin. The institute worked under Geiger. One of his early works included the development of beta particles’ energy range. This gave helped Wolfgang Pauli to suggest the existence of neutrino.

Discovery of Neutron and Other Contributions:

Chadwick served many years in a civilian camp in World War I in Ruhleben. His fellowship was used by him at Caius College and Gonville after he returned to England to work at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge with Rutherford. He was the pioneer at using the direct method to determine nucleus’s electric charge. He gained a position as research director in 1922 as Rutherford’s subordinate. They spent a lot of time together experimenting of element alteration and also attempted to split up nucleus of a certain element to form other elements.

There was a certain irregularity faced by both of them and they found out that every element had an atomic mass and an atomic number. And in all cases the atomic masses were more than the atomic numbers. Rutherford said this might be due to the existence of proton mass particles but with impartial charge. But they were unable to find any such particle. Later, Chadwick found out in Joliot-Curies’ work that after beryllium is kept open to alpha particles it becomes radioactive. Chadwick showed in an experiment that when a nitrogen particle is exposed to radiations then it makes then recoil with a large amount of energy and that such thing could happen only by the collision of particles that are uncharged and have the approximate protons’ mass. In 1935, he received a Nobel Prize by proving that the neutron existed.

Chadwick held Lyon Jones’s position at the Liverpool University from the year 1935 to 1948. Then from 1943 to 1946, he provided services to the British Mission as the Head of Project of Manhattan. He was also present at the first atomic test in the desert of New Mexico.

Later Life:

In 1945 he got knighted and also got elected as the Caius and Gonville College Master in 1948. He retired from this position somewhere in 1959. It was after three years that he retired from his post at the Atomic Energy Authority of United Kingdom where he had worked since 1957. He passed away on July 24, 1974 in Cambridge.

[MysteRy]

James Clerk Maxwell



Early Life:

James Clerk Maxwell was born on June 13, 1831 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was a physicist by profession and he gave out very important theories on electromagnetism. He has been very intelligent as a child. From the very beginning he solved many complex problems of geometry. It was due to both Maxwell’s heredity and surrounding that he was a genius and observed things and both these factors influenced his life very strongly.

Maxwell’s family was also well known for their extraordinary accomplishments. He spent his childhood living with his family and other relatives in a country house where the weather was warm and healthy. His mother passed away when he was young and as a result he grew more closer to his father. Maxwell was never one of the achievers. It was said that he had strange ways and it was majorly due to his bashfulness and his country ways. But along with his shyness came many other traits like he had an amazing imagination and he almost made any experiment possible that everyone thought was impossible. He also had the art of public speaking and explained extremely complex things to people in a very simple way.

James Clerk Maxwell belonged to the families of Maxwell and Clerk. A house in Edinburgh and country side land was inherited by his father. Maxwell was born before their house was built and soon after they were born his parents moved. Maxwell’s father was a lawyer by profession. Maxwell was interested in science and also in making mechanical tools and devices. Maxwell, at a very young age, was involved in everything his father did. He had a different way of learning things and no one could teach him the way he learnt. This problem was faced by him after his mother died.

After much problems, he was admitted in Edinburgh Academy by his aunt and father. His first year at school was very difficult. His fellows at school gave him a hard time and mocked him for the way he dressed up or spoke. They even gave him a nickname, “Drafty”. But later on he proved to be a very intelligent boy and his fellows cooled down a bit.

Maxwell was highly interested in geometry and at a very young age of fifteen he wrote his findings about ovals and double foci ellipses. His father presented the findings to a Professor named Forbes who taught at Edinburgh Royal Society. Although many things presented by Maxwell were already there but still the Professor was amazed that all these findings came from such a young boy who had very less experience of studies.

At the age of 16, he joined a university at Edinburgh in 1847. He wrote two more papers and gave them out Edinburgh Royal Society. After graduating from Edinburgh, his father got him admitted at Peterhouse but soon after that he got himself transferred to because he thought he could get a fellowship there. He went to Trinity from 1851 to 1854. After graduation, he was offered a fellowship. Then he went to Marischal College so that he could be close to his father who was unwell. But his father passed away soon and then he took a position in 1855 at Marischal.

He married Katherine Dewar in 1858.

Contributions and Achievements:

After leaving Marischal due to a merger, he started working in London at the King’s College. He did some remarkable work there and later he resigned in 1865. After that he spent most of his time working on his book at his country house.

To stay in touch in academics, he did some consulting and checking work for the University of Cambridge. It was his efforts that laid the foundation for the development of Cavendish Laboratory as he encouraged them to teach heat and electromagnetism courses. He was the first professor at the Cavendish Laboratory. He spent eight years over there and worked on the experiment papers of Henry Cavendish. In 1879, Maxwell started becoming ill and he could barely walk after he returned to Cambridge. Maxwell finally passed away in Cambridge on November 5, 1879 due to abdominal cancer.
Maxwell further worked on the work of James Prescott Joule and introduced his kinetic theory and electromagnetic fields’ theory. It was recognized by both the researchers that heat wasn’t a fluid like it was once thought to be and gas molecules’ velocity was measured by both of them.

Maxwell gave a new light of understanding to the theories. Joules demonstrated only the communities of science that could be measured or proven while Maxwell went ahead with models of mathematics that left no queries behind and no questions unanswered. He also took help of the statistics to explain the high possibility of how the projected laws would express the matter’s behavior. Due to this law determinism was taken away looking at the possibility of this law. This is what showed a new light to modern physics. It was only due to this law that relativity theory of Einstein was developed.

Maxwell experimented to calculate the exact velocity of molecule of gas and found out the faster the molecule move, more the heat was generated which meant that the movement and heat created were directly proportional to each other. The experiment showed heat as unquestionably as a movement of particle property and not as a liquid moving from one thing to another. It was also proved that heat could control the particles’ movement.

Maxwell explained a query of Faraday’s magnetic and electric field’s theory with some extremely complicated mathematical calculations that even Faraday’s could not explain himself. It was explained by him that there was a force field that surrounded particles that were charged. A mathematical mode 1 was created by him through he showed that the magnetic fields and electric fields worked together. This is why he introduced the term “Electromagnetic”.

This was a very essential discovery in the field of chemistry as later on it helped in the invention of an electron. The electron was discovered by Joseph John Thomson when he was carrying out an experiment on an electromagnetic field to find out its effects on gases by using the principle of Maxwell. Also, investigations on light’s effects on elements were based on the work of Maxwell. It was Maxwell’s work on the velocity of vacillation of fields of electromagnetism which said that light was to be considered as a radiation of electromagnetic form. This had quite a different impact on the theories of light.

Maxwell was a man of capabilities out of this world. His inventions in the field of heat and light can prove his capabilities. He was not a distant person and he highly appreciated others who had extraordinary capabilities and could not ignore them. Josiah Willard Gibbs was a man who was not getting attention that he deserved so Maxwell created a model based on Gibbs’ work that was three dimensional and named it after Gibbs. This work was done by him in his dying days.

[MysteRy]

James Dwight Dana



The field of geology is studded by a lot of notable names that anyone would recognize in a heartbeat. One great name though that isn’t heard of very often is that of James Dwight Dana’s. During his time, he made massive contributions to the field of geology, mineralogy, volcanology, and zoology. He was one of the people who pioneered the study of mountain-building, the origin and structures of all the continents and oceans, and volcanic activity. Indeed, he was a man that proved to be relentless in his desire to understand the earth and he was one of the reasons why the modern world knows so much about the earth and how it came to be. Indeed, he was a man that did wonderful work and one name that deserves to be remembered and lauded.

Early life

James Dwight Dana was born in Utica, NY, way back on February 12, 1813. His parents were Harriet Dwight and James Dana who worked as a merchant. Through his mother’s side of the family, he was related to the Dwight Family of New England who were missionaries and educators. Some of his relatives included Henry Otis Dwight and Harrison Gray Otis Dwight. James Dwight showed an interest in science at a very young age and this interest was fostered by one of his teachers in Utica high school. The teacher was fay Edgerton and she had a big role towards making sure that young James developed his interest in science. In the year 1830, he graduated high school and enrolled in in Yale College where he got the chance to study under the elder Benjamin Silliman. He graduated from Yale College three years after in the 1833 and spent the next two years of his life working as a teacher to midshipmen in the navy to whom to taught math to. He got the chance to sail to the Mediterranean while he was teaching.

His career

In the years 1836 and 1837, James Dwight Dana took on a job as assistant to Benjamin Silliman who was a professor at Yale and headed the chemical department. Four years after his assistant post, he moved on to become a mineralogist and a geologist for the US Exploring Expedition which was headed by Capt. Charles Wilkins. The expedition took him all the way to the Pacific Ocean where he found enough material to keep him occupied for the next 13 years of his life. The expedition ended in 1942 and he had notebooks filled with sketches, maps, diagrams, and views of Castle Craggs and well as Mount Shasta. In the year 1849, his sketch of Mounts Shasta was engraved and published in the American Journal of Science an Arts- a publication spearheaded by Silliman in the early 1800s. The publication also published a rather lengthy article based on Dana’s geological notes from 1841. The article talked about rocks, minerals, and the geology of the Shasta region using scientific terms. The year 1844 was an exciting year for James Dwight Dana because not only did he become a resident of New Haven but it was also the year he got married to Henrietta Frances Silliman- she was the daughter of Benjamin Silliman.

In the year 1850, he was given a big honor and was appointed as the successor to his father-in-law and became a Silliman Professor of Natural History and Geology in Yale. Dana held on to this teaching spot until 1892. But teaching wasn’t all he did during those years because in 1846, he joined the American Journal of Science and Arts and took on the role as joint editor. During the later years of his life though, he moved on to become chief editor but he was also a contributor and published works on the subject of geology and mineralogy.

Notable works

It has to be said that he managed to accomplish a lot but he had a couple of contributions that really stood out. For instance, his 1849 publication of Mount Shasta was in response to the gold rush in California. After all, he was the pre-eminent geologist in the US during his life and he really was just one of the very few observers who had knowledge of the terrain in northern CA. Dana was the guy who wrote that given the geography and geology of the area, it was very likely that gold could be found in northern CA.

James Dwight Dana was also responsible for giving the world information about the volcanic landscape and activity in Hawaii. It was in the years 1880 and 1881 that he went on the first geological study of volcanoes in Hawaii and he was the same guy who theorized that the chain of volcanoes in the area consisted of two strands known as the “loa” and the “kea” strands. That wasn’t his first and last visit though because in 1890, he went with C.E. Dutton, a fellow geologist, and again published a manuscript about the island that was the most detailed study anyone had ever seen at that time. For decades, his manuscript was the definitive source for Hawaii’s volcanoes.

Publications

Dana was a prolific writer but some of his best works are his System of Mineralogy (1837), Manual of Geology (1863), and his manual of Mineralogy (1848). He also had a very interesting manuscripts published which were entitled Science and the Bible which he wrote in an effort to reconcile science with some biblical texts. Not only did his works get a lot of attention and used in schools but he also received a lot of awards like the Copley Medal in 1877 from the Royal Society, the Wollaston medal in 1874 from the Geological Society of London, and the Clarke medal in 1882 from the Royal Society of New South Wales.

The final journey

James Dwight Dana died on April 14, 1895. He had a son named Edward Salisbury Dana who was also a well-known and brilliant mineralogist during the years 1849-1935.

[MysteRy]

James Prescott Joule



James Prescott Joule was an English physicist who studied the nature of heat and established its relationship to mechanical work. He therefore laid the foundation for the theory of conservation of energy, which later influenced the First Law of Thermodynamics. He also formulated the Joule’s laws which deal with the transfer of energy.

Early Life and Education:

Born in Salford, Lancashire on December 24, 1818, James Prescott Joule’s father was a rich brewer. Joule was mostly homeschooled. He studied arithmetic and geometry under John Dalton at the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society. He was later taught by famous scientist and lecturer, John Davies.

Contributions and Achievements:

James Prescott Joule analyzed the nature of heat, and established its relationship to mechanical energy. His efforts had a profound influence on the theory of conversation of energy (the First Law of Thermodynamics). He collaborated with Lord Kelvin on the formulation of the absolute scale of temperature, and carried out extensive research on magnetostriction; a property of ferromagnetic materials that makes them modify their shapes when exposed to a magnetic field.

Joule was the first scientist to identify this property in 1842 during an experiment with a sample of nickel. He established the relationship between the flow of current through a resistance and the heat dissipated, which was later termed as Joule’s law. He is also credited with the first-ever calculation the velocity of a gas molecule. The derived unit of energy or work, the Joule, is named after him.

Joule was elected to the Royal Society of London and was given a Copley award. He also served as the president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

Later Life and Death:

James Prescott Joule died on October 11, 1889 in Sale, Greater Manchester, England. He was 70 years old.