~ Famous Scientists ~

[MysteRy]

Linus Pauling



Linus Pauling was an American theoretical physical chemist and activist. He remains one of the greatest chemists ever, and the only person in history to be awarded two unshared Nobel Prizes; in 1954 for studying the nature of the chemical bond, and in 1962 for his efforts regarding the prohibition of nuclear testing. His contributions to quantum chemistry and molecular biology are considered revolutionary and created a universal impact.

Early Life and Education:

Born in Portland, Oregon in 1901 to a pharmacist father, Linus Pauling acquired his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Oregon Agricultural College in Corvallis (now Oregon State University), where he also worked as a lecturer for about one year. Pauling received his Ph.D. from California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California; he took chemistry with minors in mathematics and physics.

Contributions and Achievements:

Linus Pauling traveled across Europe studying the physics of atomic structure at several universities. He also met many pioneers of atomic theory. Pauling soon developed an interest in examining the atomic structure of complex biological molecules by using X-ray crystallography.

Pauling accepted a teaching position at the California Institute of Technology, where he remained for the rest of his career. He analyzed chemical bond structure at the place. Pauling worked on the development of explosives, gas detectors and missiles for US Navy during World War II.

He later worked on examining the chemical bonds that compose proteins. The results he produced are still considered as the fundamental rules of biochemistry and have influenced several useful biotechnology applications. He was awarded the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the determination of chemical bonds and its application related to the structure of biological molecules.

Pauling also received the 1962 Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian efforts. He frequently brought out controversial scientific theories. He maintained moral positions regarding a few scientific issues.

Later Life and Death:

Linus Pauling actively campaigned for social progress and humanitarian concerns such as public health and health promotion. In the last few years of his life, he furthered the health benefits of vitamin C in combating disease. Pauling died in 1994 of prostate cancer in Big Sur, California.

[MysteRy]

Lise Meitner



Lise Meitner was an Austrian-born, later Swedish, physicist who shared the Enrico Fermi Award in 1966, with fellow chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, for their collaborative work on the discovery of uranium fission. She remains one of the most important figures in the fields of radioactivity and nuclear physics. The name of the chemical element, meitnerium (Mt), was suggested in Meitner’s honor, who is also widely credited as the discoverer of protactinium.

Early Life and Education:

Born into a prosperous Jewish family in Vienna, Lise Meitner’s father was a prominent Jewish lawyer in Austria. She chose to convert to Christianity, being baptized in 1908.

Heavily motivated and influenced by her mentor, Ludwig Boltzmann, Meitner studied physics, becoming the second woman to earn a doctoral degree in physics from the University of Vienna in 1905.

Contributions and Achievements:

After coming to Berlin for further education and research work, Lise Meitner started working on the new field of radioactivity with Otto Hahn. Her partnership and friendship with Hahn lasted a lifetime. Meitner and Hahn discovered a new radioactive element, protactinium, in 1918. Meitner is probably best known for explaining, with another fellow physicist Otto Robert Frisch, some strange experimental results. They had concluded that the nucleus had actually split in two halves, that later became known as the process of fission.

She did not share the Nobel Prize for this discovery which was simply absurd, because it was her discovery of fission that led to creation of the atomic bomb and to more peaceful uses of atomic energy.

Later Life and Death:

Lise Meitner died on October 27, 1968 in Cambridge, England. She was 89 years old.

[MysteRy]

Louis de Broglie



Louis de Broglie (In full:Louis-Victor-Pierre-Raymond, 7e duc de Broglie) was an eminent French physicist. He gained worldwide acclaim for his groundbreaking work on quantum theory. In his 1924 thesis, he discovered the wave nature of electrons and suggested that all matter have wave properties. He won the 1929 Nobel Prize for Physics.

Early Life and Education:

Born in Dieppe, France in 1892, Louis de Broglie grew up in a rich, aristocratic family. He chose to study history after passing out of school in 1909. Broglie soon gained an interest in science and acquired a degree in physics in 1913. During the World War I, he was enlisted in the French Army. He was posted in Eiffel Tower, where he had plenty of time to carry out experiments in radio communications and engineering. After the war, Broglie started working with his brother, Maurice, in his lab.

Contributions and Achievements:

Most of the work in Maurice’s lab involved X-rays, which made him think about the dual nature of light; more particularly the wave–particle duality. Broglie soon suggested in his thesis for a doctorate degree that matter, also, might behave in a similar manner. When the French Academy became aware of his theory of electron waves, it caught Albert Einstein’s attention, who had high praise for Broglie’s bold ideas. That inspired the birth of wave mechanics.

Broglie’s theory resolved and offered an explanation to a question that was brought up by calculations of the motion of electrons within the atom. It was later independently proved in 1927 by G.P. Thomson and Clinton Davisson and Lester Germer that matter actually could show wave-like characteristics. Louis de Broglie won the 1929 Nobel Prize in Physics for his amazing work.

Broglie stayed at the Sorbonne after earning his doctorate, being appointed a professor of theoretical physics at the newly-established Henri Poincaré Institute in 1928, where he remained until his retirement in 1962.

Later Life and Death:

Louis de Broglie acted as an adviser to the French Atomic Energy Commissariat after 1945. He won the Kalinga Prize by UNESCO in 1952, and became a foreign member of the British Royal Society, as well as the French Academy of Sciences.

Broglie died on March 19, 1987 in Louveciennes, France. He was 94 years old.

[MysteRy]

Louis Pasteur



Early Life:

If one were to choose among the greatest supporter of humanity, Louis Pasteur would certainly rank at the top. Louis Pasteur was a world renowned French chemist and biologist born on December 27, 1822 in the town of Dole in Eastern France into the family of a poor tanner. Pasteur’s work gave birth to many branches of science, and he was single handedly responsible for some of the most important theoretical concepts and practical applications of modern science. Pasteur’s achievements seem varied at first glance, but a more in-depth look at the evolution of his career specifies that there is a logical order to his discoveries.

He is respected for possessing the most important qualities of a scientist, the ability to survey all the known data and link the data for all possible hypotheses, the patience and drive to conduct experiments under strictly controlled conditions, and the brilliance to uncover the road to the solution from the results.

The young Pasteur worked hard during his student days he was not considered to be exceptional in any way at chemistry. He spent several years teaching and carrying out research at Dijon and Strasbourg and in 1854 moved to the University of Lille where he became professor of chemistry.

Contributions and Achievements:

When Pasteur started working as a chemist, he resolved a problem concerning the nature of tartaric acid (1849). Pasteur observed that the organic compound tartrate, when synthesized in a laboratory, was optically inactive (unable to rotate the plane of polarized light), unlike the tartrate from grapes, because the synthetic tartrate is composed of two optically asymmetric crystals. With cautious experimentation, he succeeded in separating the asymmetric crystals from each other and showed that each recovered optical activity. He then hypothesized that this molecular asymmetry is one of the mechanisms of life.

The mystery was that tartaric acid derived by chemical synthesis had no such effect, even though its chemical reactions were identical and its elemental composition was the same. In other words, living organisms only produce molecules that are of one specific orientation, and these molecules are always optically active. This was the first time anyone had demonstrated such a thing.

Pasteur founded the science of microbiology and proved that most infectious diseases are caused by micro-organisms. This became known as the “germ theory” of disease. The germ theory was the foundation of numerous applications, such as the large scale brewing of beer, wine-making and other antiseptic operations. Another significant discovery facilitated by the germ theory was the nature of contagious diseases. Pasteur’s intuited that if germs were the cause of fermentation, they could just as well be the cause of contagious diseases. This proved to be true for many diseases such as potato blight, silkworm diseases, and anthrax.

After studying the characteristics of germs and viruses that caused diseases, he and others found that laboratory manipulations of the infectious agents can be used to immunize people and animals. This treatment proved to work and saved countless lives and because of his study in germs, Pasteur encouraged many doctors to sanitize their hands and equipment before surgery.

Pasteur had a good theoretical understanding of microbes. He sought to apply his findings to the practical problem of stopping wine from spoiling. As many families depended on the wine industry for their livelihoods, and the French economy was heavily dependent on wine exports, this was a big problem. Pasteur achieved success by slightly modifying the process used with the broth. Boiling the wine would alter its flavour. Therefore, Pasteur heated the wine enough to kill most of the microbes present without changing the flavour. Chilling prevented any microbes left from multiplying.

To his great delight, Pasteur found that this process could also prevent milks from turning sour and preserve many other foodstuffs as well. Thus he became the inventor of a new process known as pasteurization which brought him more fame and recognition. Besides this Pasteur also developed vaccines for several diseases including rabies. The discovery of the vaccine for rabies led to the founding of the Pasteur Institute in Paris in 1888.

On the discipline of rigid and strict experimental tests he commented, “Imagination should give wings to our thoughts but we always need important experimental proof, and when the moment comes to draw conclusions and to understand the gathered observations, imagination must be checked and documented by the factual results of the experiment. All of these achievements point to singular brilliance and perseverance in Pasteur’s nature. Pasteur’s name lives on in the microbiological research institute in Paris that bears his name, the Institute Pasteur and continues to be today as a center of microbiology and immunology.

[MysteRy]

Lucretius



Lucretius was a Roman poet and philosopher who wrote “De rerum natura” (On the Nature of Things), an epic poem widely regarded as one of the most influential works in history of literature, philosophy and science. In addition to his doctrinal and scientific impact, Lucretius exterted a profounded influence on countless later philosophers and scientists.

Life:

Very little is known about the life of Lucretius. He was born in 99 BC, according to most accounts. Jerome, a prominent Roman clergyman, wrote that a love potion had driven him insane. After writing some highly influential books in lucid intervals, Lucretius eventually committed suicide.

Contributions and Achievements:

Probably one of the most influential works by Lucretius was his didactic poem, “De rerum natura” (On the Nature of Things), that consisted of six volumes. He wrote about diverse things such as atoms and the void, our modes of perception, and our will. He discussed the origin of the world and life, the causes of earthquakes, while reflecting on art, language, science and religion. The poem also talked about a variety of diverse scientific topics such as cosmology, mental illness, nutrition, clouds, the seasons, eclipses, magnet and poisoning.

Lucretius was one of the first persons to discover that everything in this universe, ranging from planets and stars to mountains, decay. Centuries before the second law of thermodynamics, he predicted that one day “the walls of the sky will be stormed on every side, and will collapse into a crumbling ruin … Nothing exists but acorns and the void.” He rejected the idea of after-life, and stated that the body was made up of atoms and governed by the laws of nature.

Death:

Lucretius died in 55 BC. He was around 44 years old.

[MysteRy]

Ludwig Boltzmann



Ludwig Boltzmann was an Austrian physicist whose efforts radically changed several branches of physics. He is mostly noted for his role in the development of statistical mechanics and the statistical explanation of the second law of thermodynamics.

Early Life and Education:

Born in Vienna on February 20, 1844, Ludwig Boltzmann’s fater was a tax official. He earned his PhD degree in 1866 at the University of Vienna.

Contributions and Achievements:

Ludwig Boltzmann taught mathematics, experimental physics and theoretical physics at several universities, but theoretical physics was his main passion. He wrote his famous travelogue “Reise eines deutschen Professors ins Eldorado” during this time.

Boltzmann’s scientific approach was to attack the problem. He explained the second law of thermodynamics in the early 1870s on the basis of the atomic theory of matter. He demonstrated that the second law could be interpreted by blending the laws of mechanics, applied to the motions of the atoms, with the theory of probability. He clarified that the second law is an essentially statistical law. He formulated most of the structure of statistical mechanics, which was later researched by the mathematical physicist Josiah Willard Gibbs.

In addition to his contributions to statistical mechanics, Boltzmann made detailed calculations in the kinetic theory of gases. He was probably the first person to understand the significance of James Clerk Maxwell‘s theory of electromagnetism, on which he wrote a two-volume treatise. Boltzmann also worked on a derivation for black-body radiation based on the Stefan’s law, which was later termed by Hendrik Antoon Lorentz as “a true pearl of theoretical physics”. His work in statistical mechanics was vocally criticized by Wilhelm Ostwald and the energeticists who disregarded atoms and based physical science exclusively on energy conditions. They were unable to understand the statistical nature of Boltzmann’s logic.

His ideas were supported by the later discoveries in atomic physics in the early 1900, for instance Brownian motion, which can only be explained by statistical mechanics.

Later Life and Death:

Ludwig Boltzmann was greatly demoralized due to the harsh criticism of his work. He committed suicide on September 5, 1906 at Duino, Italy by hanging himself. He was 62 years old.

[MysteRy]

Luigi Galvani



Luigi Galvani was an Italian physician and physicist. One of the early pioneers of bioelectricity, he is known for his extraordinary work on the nature and effects of electricity in an animal tissue, which later led to the invention of the voltaic pile.

Early Life and Education:

Born at Bologna, Italy, on September 9, 1737, Luigi Galvani, like his father, acquired a degree in medicine from Bologna’s medical school.

Contributions and Achievements:

Galvani took a job of comparative anatomist and gained fame for his research on the genitourinary tract of birds. In 1762, he became a lecturer of anatomy at the University of Bologna. During a random experiment on November 6, 1787, Galvani discovered that a frog muscle could be made to contract by placing an iron wire to the muscle and a copper wire to the nerve. He built an instrument in which a frog’s nerve was attached to an electrode of one metal, and an electrode of a different metal was attached with the frog muscle. He was well aware of the fact that an animal body grew convulsive movements when electricity was applied to it.

The discovery played a historical role in bioelectricity as it proved that electricity was not direct in its action. He established that it did not flow directly from the conductor into the frog muscle but was discharged from the conductor to another element in what he termed as a “metallic arc”. A few years later, Alessandro Volta’s findings disputed his discovery and maintained that animal electricity did not exist.

While Galvani remained silent on the controversy, scholarly opinion was divided on the subject. Finally, in 1843, Emil du Bois-Reymond successfully measured the injury potential from frog muscle; therefore, putting an end to it.

Later Life and Death:

Galvani died on December 4, 1798 in his childhood house in Bologna. He was 61 years old.

[MysteRy]

Luther Burbank



The field of botany has many great names and one of them is that of Luther Burbank. He is an America Botanist and horticulturist and just so happens to be one of the pioneers of agricultural science. Burbank was so brilliant that he managed to come up with an excess of 800 plant varieties and strains in all of his 55 years in the field. He came up with different fruit, grains, flowers, vegetables, and grass variations and also came up with a variety of cactus that didn’t have spines that is mostly used to feed cattle. He also came up with the “plumcot” which is what he got when he naturally crossed apricots and plums.

Some of his most well-known creations include the fire poppy, the Shasta daisy, and the “July Elberta Peach. He also came up with the “Flaming Gold” variety of nectarine and the freestone peach. When it came to potatoes, he was quite he king and he created a potato with russet colored skin that was actually a variation of the Burbank and was a natural genetic variation. This russet colored Burbank potato was later called the “Russet Burbank potato” and is the most common potato that is used in food preparation in a more commercial scale.

His life

Luther Burbank was born on a farm in Lancaster, MA, on Mach 7, 1849. He didn’t really progress in school and in fact only managed to gain an elementary education. His parents had 15 children of which he was the 13th. While he didn’t get much education, he did enjoy the plants his mother had in their garden and this may just be where he formed an interest in plants.

His lost his father when he was just 21 but he did gain access to his inheritance. He used this to gain ownership of a 17-acre farm located near the Lunenburg center. This was where he came up with the vaunted Burbank potato of which he held the rights to. Later on, the rights to his potato creation were sold for $150 which was considered a considerable sum during those times. He made use of this cash to take a trip to Santa Rosa in California in the year 1875. It was a few years after he moved to Santa Rosa that he came up with the Russet Burbank potato and it became so famous that it is the potato most commonly used in fast food and commercial use. In fact, this is the kind of potato used by McDonalds for their fries.

When he arrived in Santa Rosa, he again bought a 4-acre farm and this was where he built his nursery and greenhouse. He also established fields where he conducted most of his crossbreeding projects. He was inspired to do so by Darwin’s work which was entitled The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication.” Luther Burbank didn’t stop there though because he decided to upgrade and moved on to buy another vastly larger plot of land that was about 18-acres large. This was in Sebastopol which was quite near Santa Rosa. He named it Gold Ridge Farm.

From the years 1904 to 1909, he was the recipient of several grants given by the Carnegie Institution and it was so he could go on with his hybridization projects with the support of Andrew Carnegie himself. Some of Andrew Carnegie’s advisors were against Burbank since they believed his methods weren’t very scientific but Andre Carnegie believed in Burbank and supported him all the way.

It was by way of his plant catalogues that Burbank became most well-known. The most famous of these catalogues was the New Creations in Fruits and Flowers which was published in 1893. Satisfied customers were also responsible for his fame because they couldn’t stop from talking about him and the many wonderful things he could do with plants. In fact, he was so famous that people simply could not stop talking about him during the first decade of the new century

Despite the fact that he didn’t have much of an education, he was quite prolific and came up with an impressive number of plant varieties and hybrids. However, it wasn’t all smooth-sailing for Luther Burbank because more than a few members of the scientific community were quick to criticize him for not being more careful with his record-keeping. The scientific community is known for their meticulous record-keeping ways but as it happened, Burbank was more interested in the results rather than the methods and this explained why he was so lax with his records. In fact, according to one Purdue professor, this lack of record-keeping is what keeps them from considering Luther Burbank a scientist, academically-speaking of course.

His methods

For all his lack of record-keeping, he was a very accomplished individual and made use of a variety of techniques in his work. In his experiments he made use of a lot of different techniques like hybridization and grafting. He also dabbled in cross-breeding different kinds of plants and came up with the most fascinating products like the plumcot. When it came to flowers, he used the cross-pollination technique and selected the very best products to breed further.

His personal life

By all accounts, Luther Burbank was a kind-natured man that was interested in helping people. He was also all for education (perhaps because he didn’t have much education himself) and gave money to many different schools. Though he was married twice, he didn’t have any offspring with either of his wives. He died on 11 April 1926 but before that, he suffered a heart attack and went through gastronomic complications.

Indeed, he was one man who contributed a lot to the world and deserves all the accolades he was given. Every time you order French fries in some fast-food joint, you really need to give a little thanks to this man for coming up with the potato used for your food. He was a man well ahead of his time and all his works are considered important up until today.

[MysteRy]

Lynn Margulis



Lynn Margulis was an eminent American biologist. Her serial endosymbiotic theory of eukaryotic cell development overturned the modern concept of how life originated on earth. She also made vital contributions to Gaia theory, which deals with the relation of living organisms to their inorganic surroundings.

Early Life and Education:

Born in Chicago, Illinois in 1938, Lynn Margulis earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago in 1957. After a few months, she married the famous astronomer Carl Sagan. They divorced in 1964. Margulis acquired a master’s degree in zoology and genetics from the University of Wisconsin in 1960. She later earned a Ph.D. in genetics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1965.

Contributions and Achievements:

Lynn Margolis is widely regarded as one of the most creative scientific theorists of the modern era. She formulated the symbiotic theory of evolution, which deals with the interconnection of prokaryotic and cukaryotic cells, explaining the emergence of new species by a mechanism known as “symbiogenesis”. In 1983, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. She was awarded the the Darwin-Wallace Medal of the Linnean Society of London in 2008.

Her contemporaries either describe her as revolutionary or as an eccentric person. Famous sociobiologist E. 0. Wilson has honored her as the “most successful synthetic thinker of modern biology”. Science, the prestigious academic journal, has identified her as “Science’s unruly Earth mother.”

Later Life and Death:

Lynn Margulis died of a hemorrhagic stroke on November 22, 2011. She was 73 years old.

[MysteRy]

Mae Carol Jemison



The first ever black woman to ever travel to space, Mae Carol Jemison is one of NASA’s astronauts and also happens to be an American physician. She orbited while onboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour on the 12th of September, 1992. After completing her medical course and having a some general practice, she then served the Peace Corps for two years from 1985-1987. Around that same time, she was picked by NASA to be one of their astronauts.

Early Life, Education, and Personal Background

On October 17, 1956, Mae Carol Jemison became the youngest child of Dorothy Green and Charlie Jemison. She was born in Decatur, Alabama and her mother had spent most of her professional career as math and English teacher while her father worked as a maintenance supervisor for one charity organization.

When she was young, she had a learning experience which sparked a fascination she had for pus. She had her thumb splintered and Dorothy Green, her mother, made her see a learning experience from it. Because of it, she even had a project which revolved all around pus. While she was in kindergarten, she was asked what she wanted to be and she said she wanted to be a scientist. When the teacher asked if she meant she wanted to be a nurse, she knew nothing was wrong with that profession, but that was just not what she wanted to be.

In 1973, she graduated from Morgan Park High School in Chicago and went to Stanford University when she was 16. Four years later, she received her bachelor of science’s degree in chemical engineering while at the same time fulfilling the requirements needed for a Bachelor of Arts degree in African and Afro-American Studies. Being a black woman, it was hard for her especially during her years in the university. She said that her youthful arrogance may have helped because when she set her mind to it, she would finish what she started without caring about what others thought of her.

In 1981, she completed her degree to be a Doctor of Medicine in Cornell Medical College which is now known as Weill Medical College of Cornell University. While she was in the Cornell Medical College, she even took classes for modern dance in Alvin Ailey School. During her years in medical school, she had travelled to Kenya, Thailand, and Cuba to help provide the people in those countries medical care. As an intern, she worked at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center where she also later on worked as one of the general practitioners. Apart from her career in medicine, she also even put up a dance studio at home where she choreographed as well as produced shows about modern jazz as well as African dance.

Career

When she had completed her medical training, she joined the Peace Corps as a Medical Officer for three years from 1983. She took care of the health of other Peace Corps volunteers who were assigned to serve in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Once in her years in the Peace Corps, a patient was diagnosed with malaria but Mae Carol Jemison was certain it was meningitis and that it could not successfully treated while they were in Sierra Leone. She then called for a Germany-based Air Force plane to have medical evacuation which cost $80,000. The embassy even questioned her if she had the needed authority to call for such an action but in reply she told them that she didn’t need anyone else’s permission for this medical decision. When they reached Germany, the 56-hour wait for the patient was worth it because the patient made it alive.

Jemison applied for the astronaut program after the initial flight of Sally Ride back in 1983. Interestingly, her inspiration to become an astronaut had been Nichelle Nichols, an African-American actress who played Uhura in the famous series Star Trek. Although she was rejected on her first try, she got a call in 1987 asking if she was still interested, and she took it.

She went on her only space mission in September 1992, from the 12th to the 20th and her total orbit in space lasted for 190 hours, 30 minutes, and 23 seconds. Before her launch into space in 1992, she worked for NASA and helped with activities which were being facilitated in Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. She also helped with the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory or SAIL with their computer software verification.

After her resignation from NASA in 1993, she established her very own company called the Jemison group which researches, develops, and markets science and technological improvements which can be used for daily life. Part of the reason why Jemison resigned from NASA was her interest in the interaction between social sciences and technology, and she carried out this interested by the foundation of her company.

In 1993 as well, she was contacted by LeVar Burton, and asked if she would like to be part of Star Trek. He heard she was a fan and it was a dream come true when Jemison appeared in one of the episodes of Star Trek. To make her appearance extra special, she was the first ever real astronaut to have made an appearance on the show.

Other Achievements

Because she believed that her parents were the best scientists she ever knew, she founded the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence, and one of their most notable projects was TEWS or The Earth We Share which is an international space camp for the youth to work on solving global problems. In 1999, she founded the BioSentient Corp which aims to develop mobile monitoring for the INS or involuntary nervous system.

Other endeavors included participating in African American Lives for PBS, appearing in charity events and being a guest speaker and guest personality for TV shows. From 1995-2002, she was Professor-at-Large at Cornell University and also was Dartmouth College’s professor for Environmental Studies. Her more recent appearances include appearing with the First Lady Michelle Obama in a forum in Washington, D.C., and an appearance at NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me as the “Not My Job” guest in February 2013 while she answered questions related to airport shuttles.

[MysteRy]

Marcello Malpighi



Marcello Malpighi was an eminent Italian physician and biologist. Widely regarded as one of the founders of microscopic anatomy, he made crucial contributions in the fields of physiology, practical medicine and embryology.

Early Life and Education:

Born on March 10, 1628 in a rich family of Crevalcore, Italy, Marcello Malpighi started attending University of Bologna when he was only 17. He received doctorates in both medicine and philosophy in 1653.

Contributions and Achievements:

Marcello Malpighi was one of the first scientists to use the newly invented microscope for studying tiny biological entities. He analyzed several parts of the organs of bats, frogs and other animals under the microscope. Malpighi, while studying the structure of lungs, noticed its membranous alveoli and the hair-like connections between veins and arteries, which he named them as capillaries. The discovery established how the oxygen we breathe enters the blood stream and serves the body. He was also the first person to study red blood corpuscles and the mucous layer under the epidermis.

Malpighi gained worldwide acclaim when Royal Society published his findings. Malpighi’s study of the life cycle of plants and animals were quite influential to the subject of reproduction. He extensively studied the transformation of caterpillars into insects, chick embryo development and seed development in plants.

Malpighi is also considered to be the founder of modern anatomy. His contributions were very important and groundbreaking.

Later Life and Death:

Marcello Malpighi was appointed a Papal physician in Rome, Italy by Pope Innocent XII in 1691. Only three years later, he died of apoplexy on November 30, 1694. Malpighi was 66 years old.

[MysteRy]

Maria Gaetana Agnesi



There was a time when women weren’t really known for their prowess in the sciences but during the Renaissance, this lady Maria Gaetana Agnesi from Italy really showed her homeland what she was made of. She made wonderful contributions in the field of math and philosophy and deserves to be lauded for her achievements. For folks who have ever enjoyed integral and differential calculus, this is the woman who wrote the first book ever about the subject. She was not only a math genius but she also proved to be a very kind and religious woman who did her part in helping people and keeping her faith. Maria Teresa Agnesi Pinottini, the composer and clavicembalist, is her sister. Although what she contributed to the field of math was very important, she wasn’t like all other famous scientists and mathematicians; she did lead a loud and wild life but just the opposite.

Early Life of Maria Gaetana Agnesi

Maria Gaetana Agnesi was born in May 16, 1918 in Milan, Italy. Hers was a very wealthy family and like all wealthy families of that time they were literate. It also helped that her father, Pietro Agnesi, worked as a math professor at the University of Bologna. Now Pietro Agnesi was ambitious and wanted to raise his family to the ranks of the Milanese nobility. To achieve this, he married a noble woman named Anna Fortunata Brivio. Brivio’s mother died and this gave her reason to retire from public life and stay home to manage the house.

Maria showed signs of extraordinary intelligence early on in life and she had been recognized as a child prodigy. One sign that she was a smart kid beyond her years was that she knew how to speak Italian and French before she even turned 6 years old. By the time young Maria Gaetana Agnesi turned 11, she was fluent not just in Italian and French but she could also speak Latin, German, Greek, Hebrew, and Spanish. She was so good that she was even called the “Seven Tongued Orator.” She was a brilliant child who did her part to help educate her younger brothers.

When she was 9, she wowed some of the most distinguished minds of their day by composing a speech in Latin which lasted an hour long. She talked about the right of women to get an education.

By the time she reached 12, Maria Gaetana Agnesi was struck by an illness no one could identify. However, doctors pointed to her excessive studying and reading as the cause and so she was told to go on horseback rides and to dance. Dancing and horseback riding didn’t work and she still suffered from convulsions so she was told to practice everything in moderation.

After Maria Gaetana Agnesi’s mother died, her father remarried twice and she ended up as the eldest of 23 children, including half brothers and sisters. Aside from taking her own lessons and her performances, she was obliged in essence with the task of educating her siblings. This very task kept her from doing what she so longed to do which was to enter a convent. At that time, she was already very devout. In fact, she asked her father to send her to the convent and he refused but he did allow her to live in semi-retirement in an almost conventual setting.

Her Early Work in Math

Most kids 14 years of age would be too busy doing other things except studying and homework. But remember, Maria Gaetana Agnesi was a prodigy so it comes as no surprise that by the age of 14 she was already studying geometry and ballistics. Her mind and findings were so great that by the time she was 15 years of age, Pietro Agnesi began to gather a group of the most learned men in Bologna so they could hear what she had to say. These meetings were recorded and they can be found in Lettres sur l’Italie by Charles de Brosse. They were also recorded in the Propositiones Philosophicae written by no other than her father. This work by Pietro Agnesi was published in 1738—it was an account of the final performance given by Maria Gaetana Agnesi. In this final performance, she defended 190 theses. It is worth noting that while she was brilliant, Maria Gaetana Agnesi was very shy and did not really like being put in display or asked to talk in front of a group.

Though Maria Gaetana Agnesi was considered rather beautiful by philosophers during that time and her family being seen as the wealthiest, she did not really seem interested in marriage. At a time when most women would be getting married, she worked at the University of Bologna as a professor.

Her Works

It was said by Dirk Jan Struik that Agnesi was the first important lady mathematician since Hypatia who lived way back in the 5th century A.D. According to experts, the most valuable work of Agnesi was her work Instituzioni ad uso della gioventu italiana which she published in Milan back in 1748. This work was one of the best intros to the works of Euler. Maria Gaetana Agnesi also wrote a commentary which was focused on Traite analytique des sections coniques du marquis de l’Hopital. It was one of her most highly praised works but all they ever really got was the manuscript since she never bothered to publish her work or she just did not want to.

Her Later Life

1750 was quite the year for Maria Gaetana Agnesi. Her father fell ill and Pope Benedict XIV appointed her to the chair of natural philosophy and mathematics and physics at the University of Bologna. But she never served. When Pietro Agnesi died in 1752, she carried out her long-cherished goal of devoting herself to the study of philosophy. At the same time she also devoted her time to helping the sick. She would welcome them to her home where she had a make-shift hospital ready.

[MysteRy]

Maria Goeppert-Mayer



The German physicist and mathematician, Maria Goeppert-Mayer is prominent for her numerous contributions to the field of physics which earned her a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963. She was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for theoretical physics and second woman in history to win a Nobel Prize— the first being Marie Curie. She is most famous for proposing the nuclear shell model of the atomic nucleus.

Early Life and Career:

Maria Goeppert Mayer was born on June 28, 1906, Kattowitz, Germany (now Katowice, Poland). She was the only child of Friedrich Goeppert, a progressive professor of pediatrics at the University at Göttingen and Maria nee Wolff, a former music teacher. When she was very young her family moved to Göttingen in 1910, where Maria was educated at a girls’ grammar school operated by suffragettes. The school went bankrupt after her junior year, but she passed a collegiate examination without a high school diploma and earned her PhD under Max Born at the University of Göttingen in 1930. The same year she married Dr. Joseph Edward Mayer, an assistant of James Franck. After marriage they both moved to United States.

Women during that time were generally regarded unsuitable in the upper realms of academia, and despite her doctorate for years she was largely limited to unpaid and unofficial work in university laboratories, her presence only accepted because her husband. In the following few years, Goeppert-Mayer worked at unofficial or volunteer positions, initially at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, from 1931–39, then Columbia University in 1940-46, and after that the University of Chicago. Later she also took different positions that came her way: a teaching position at the Sarah Lawrence College, a research position with Columbia University’s Substitute Alloy Materials Project and with the Opacity Project. She also spent some time at the Los Alamos Laboratory.

During her husband’s time at the University of Chicago, Goeppert-Mayer volunteered to become an Associate Professor of Physics at the school. Within a few months of her arrival, when the nearby Argonne National Laboratory was founded on July 1, 1946, Goeppert-Mayer was offered a part-time job there as a Senior Physicist in the Theoretical Physics Division. This was the first time in her career that she was working and paid at a level commensurate with her training and expertise. Two years later she made the breakthrough that earned her tremendous fame and respect in her field.

During 1960, Goeppert-Mayer was appointed to a position as a (full) Professor of Physics at the University of California at San Diego.

Development of the Structure of Nuclear Shells:

It was during her time at Chicago and Argonne that she developed a mathematical model for the structure of nuclear shells. With Edward Teller (one of her colleagues at Argonne National Laboratory) she conducted inquiries about the source of the elements, and noticed the repetition of seven “magic numbers”, as she named them — 2, 8, 20, 28, 50, 82, and 126. Elements with a “magic number” of protons or neutrons were consistently more stable than elements with other numbers of protons or neutrons. On the basis of this, she proposed in that inside the nucleus, protons and neutrons are arranged in a series of nucleon layers, like the layers of an onion, with neutrons and protons rotating around each other at each level. During the same time but working independently, German physicist J. Hans D. Jensen reached the same conclusion.

Goeppert-Mayer was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963, shared with J. Hans D. Jensen and Eugene Paul Wigner for their proposal of the shell nuclear model.

Death:

Goeppert-Mayer died due to a heart failure in San Diego, California, on February 20, 1972.

[MysteRy]

Maria Mitchell



An American lady astronomer, Maria Mitchell is most prominently known for discovering a comet which was then called “Miss Mitchell’s Comet.” In the history of astronomy, Maria Mitchell was the first ever American woman who worked as a professional astronomer. For her discovery of the comet which was named after her, she received a gold medal as a recognition from the king of Denmark, King Frederick VII. On the medal, the phrase “Not in vain do we watch the setting and rising of the stars” was inscribed, referring to how Maria Mitchell made her discovery with the use of her telescope.

Early Years and Life of Maria Mitchell

Maria Mitchell hailed from Nantucket, Massachusetts and was born on the first of August 1818 and died at the age of 70 on June 28, 1889. She is a distant relative of Benjamin Franklin. Because both her parents who were William Mitchell as well as Lydia Coleman Mitchell were under the Quaker faith, she had received education and equal rights as what was given to men during that time. This was considered as an unusual setup during those days, but because of one of the tenets in the religion of the Quakers, she received equal intellectual treatment which was one of the reasons for her fostered love of science.

Her earliest years in school were spent at Elizabeth Gardener’s small school. Then she attended North Grammar school and this was where her father was the school principal. Her awareness for astronomy came to life when her father began to teach her about the stars with the use of his own telescope. At a tender age of twelve, she had already been assisting her father calculate when the exact time of the annular eclipse would be.

When the school founded by her father closed, she then attended Cyrus Peirce’s school for young ladies. Before opening her very own school in 1853, she worked as a teaching assistant for Cyrus Peirce himself. A year after her own school was opened, she was then offered the job of being Nantucket Atheneum’s first librarian, and she worked there for 18 years.

Career in Astronomy and the Discover of the Comet

It was on the first of October, 1847 when she discovered the comet named after her. During those years, then king of Denmark, King Frederick VII gave gold medals for anyone who had telescopic comet discoveries. The medal was awarded to the first discoverer of the comet only, and not to anyone else who subsequently discovers the same celestial phenomenon. In astronomy’s history, Maria Mitchell is the second woman to discover a comet next only to Caroline Herschel. After her discovery of “Miss Mitchell’s Comet,” she gained popularity worldwide and was recognized for her contribution to astronomy. Today, the designation of this comet is C/1847 T1.

It was in 1848 that she became the first lady member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Two years later, she also became one of the members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. After being part of those important associations and institutions for astronomy, she worked for the U.S. Nautical Almanac Office where she calculated tables for the positions of the planet Venus and even went on a travel to Europe together with the family of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was an American short story writer and novelist.

In the year 1842, she left the family’s Quaker faith and began to follow Unitarian principles. She protested against slavery and to show her efforts, she stopped wearing clothing made of cotton. She had been friends with other fellow suffragists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and along with other notable women of their time, founded the American Association for the Advancement of Women.

Apart from using the observatory dome of Vassar College for astronomy and scientific purposes, she also used it as a meeting place for discussing politics along with women’s rights and issues. From 1874-1876 she helped found what was known as the American Association for the Advancement of Women and served as their president for those years. A year prior to her founding of that association for women, she had been elected as a part of the American Philosophical Society. It was in 1873 when she attended the first meeting held by the Women’s Congress.

Maria Mitchell then became the very first professor hired for the Vassar College in 1865, and was also named as the Vassar College Observatory’s director. An interesting part of her career was that despite the experience she had along with her reputation and expertise, her salary was still less compared to other younger male professors. Because of this, she asked for a raise and as she deserved, she got it.

Two of Maria Mitchell’s favorite planets were Jupiter and Saturn and during her years in Vassar College, she went on with her research about the surface of these planets and also photographed the stars. The apparatus she used to photograph both the sun and the stars was her own, and she preserved plates of these photographs in one of the observatory’s closets. Her works, along with those of her students were published in the Silliman’s Journal which was one of the top scientific journals those times established by Benjamin Silliman in 1818 at Yale, and also had their works published at Poughkeepsie or Nantucket papers.

Maria Mitchell’s Latter Years and Legacy

Being born at a time when women’s rights weren’t equal with those of men, it can be said that Maria Mitchell’s contributions to science as well as the welfare of women are to be considered as valuable contributions to both science and history.

It was June 28, 1889 when she died at 70 years old in Lynn, Massachusetts. In Nantucket, the Maria Mitchell Observatory is named after the honor of one of the most noted female astronomers who truly made a mark in history. After her death, she was made a part of the U.S. National Women’s Hall of Fame. Even on the moon, a crater was named “Mitchell” after her to commemorate her importance in the field of astronomy.

[MysteRy]

Marie Curie



The famous chemist and physicist, Marie Curie was the first person in the history to be awarded with the two Nobel Prizes in diverse fields of science (chemistry and physics). She is notable for her theory of radioactivity, techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes, and the discovery of two new elements, polonium and radium. Her work has received great appreciation from many scientists all over the world.

Early Life

Marie Curie was born in Warsaw on November 7, 1867. She was the fifth and the youngest daughter of a secondary-school teacher. Her early years were very difficult with her mother and her sister passing away. She received her early education from some local school and her father taught her mathematics and physics, subjects that Marie was to pursue. She lived in Warsaw until she was twenty-four years old and later moved to Paris to receive higher education at the Sorbonne. There she obtained Licenciateships in Physics and the Mathematical Sciences.

In 1894, she met Pierre Curie, instructor in the School of Physics and Chemistry. Marie had begun her scientific career in Paris with an examination of the magnetic properties of various steels; it was their common interest in magnetism that brought Marie and Pierre together. The following year they got married.

Achievements

In 1896 when Henry Becquerel made his discovery of radio activity, the Curie’s became inspired to look into uranium rays as a possible field of research for a thesis. In 1898 their brilliant researches led to the discovey of polonium, named after the country of Marie’s birth, and radium. In 1903, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honoured both Pierre Curie and Marie Curie with the Nobel Prize in Physics, for their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Becquerel.

Following the unfortunate death of her husband in 1906, she took his place as Professor of General Physics in the Faculty of Sciences. She was the first woman who had held this position. She was also employed as Director at the Curie Laboratory in the Radium Institute of the University of Paris, founded in 1914.

After her husband’s death she continued with her efforts of developing methods for obtaining pure radium from radioactive residues in sufficient quantities. By 1910, she successfully isolated the pure radium metal.

In 1911, Curie was awarded with yet another Nobel Prize, this time in Chemistry in recognition of her work in radioactivity.

All her life Marie promoted the use of radium and also set a great example of its use during World War I for healing the injuries of those who suffered. Her passion for science is reflected in all her efforts towards its advancement. She was also a member of the Conseil du Physique Solvay from 1911 until her death. Moreover since 1922 she had been a member of the Committee of Intellectual Co-operation of the League of Nations. In 1932 she also laid the foundation of Radium Institute (now the Maria Sk?odowska–Curie Institute of Oncology) in Warsaw. Her work is recorded in various papers in scientific journals.

Death

The great scientist Marie Curie died on July 4, 1934 at the Sancellemoz Sanatorium in Passy, in Haute-Savoie from aplastic anemia.

Her name will always be written in golden letters for her tremendous contribution to the field of science.