~ Famous Scientists ~

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Frederick Sanger



Frederick Sanger is an English biochemist who twice received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry; in 1958 for his discovery of the structure of the insulin molecule, and in 1980 for his collaborative work on base sequences in nucleic acids with Paul Berg and Walter Gilbert. He is widely considered to be the greatest and most influential biochemists in history.

Early Life and Education:

Born in 1918 in Rendcombe, England, Frederick Sanger’s father was a medical practitioner. He understood the significance of science and the scientific method from an early age. He focused on chemistry and physics in the beginning, but was later attracted to the emerging field of biochemistry.

He received an undergraduate degree and PhD in biochemistry from St John’s College, Cambridge, England.

Contributions and Achievements:

After graduation, Frederick Sanger joined the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the university as a researcher. Sanger is the fourth person in history to be awarded two Nobel Prizes. He received the 1958 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his groundbreaking research on protein structure.

Sanger was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry once again in 1980, this time sharing it with Paul Berg and Walter Gilbert for determining the amino acid sequences of DNA information. His later contributions constitute the basic genetic principles utilized by almost every biotechnology application. He has received many other honors for his extraordinary work on genetics and biotechnology.

Later Life:

Sanger retired in 1983 to his house in Swaffham Bulbeck near Cambridge. He rejected the knighthood as he did not wanted to be addressed as “Sir”. However, he accepted the award of O.M. (Order of Merit) in 1986.

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Frederick Soddy



Frederick Soddy(1877 – 1956) a polymath whose pioneering discoveries founded the fledgling science of nuclear chemistry, was also a prescient environmental economist, and contributed to solutions of long unanswered questions in mathematics.  He first proves that the newly observed phenomenon of radioactivity arose from decay, or change, of certain unstable, or heavy, elements into others.  He also demonstrated that some elements possess isotopes, or forms with a different atomic structure.  His work with Ernest Rutherford at McGillwas rewarded with a Nobel Prize in 1921, for elucidatingnuclear decay:showing how alpha, beta, and gamma radiation were generated.

Education:

The biography of Soddy demonstrates that great achievements can come from even those of unremarkable background.  This graduate of a regional institution, Eastbourne College, located on England’s southeastern coast,  and another regional college, the University College of Wales in Aberystwyth, went on to illuminate the invisible subatomic world.  He studied and did research at Oxford, in Merton College, and was offered a job at McGill.  Here hecollaborated with Ernest Rutherford, examining the mysterious action of radioactivity, a manifestation of nature which had only been discovered a half decade previously.

Research:

Scientists recognized by then the production of radiation from some elements under some conditions, without understanding the mechanism.  In pursuit of the secret, Soddy used the rather basic tools available to him.  Hand-blown glass bulbs were among those tools, carefully made and then evacuated to create what is known as a vacuum tube.  Soddy used a radium sample sealed inside a thin glass container, which was sealed inside an evacuated tube.  The evacuated tube should have remained entirely empty if most elements were in the interior container, but radium is not just any element.  The radium’s atomic nuclei, holding only tenuously onto some of their large number of electrons and protons, shed them a bit at a time; for example, in the form of two protons, and two electrons.  This, as it happens, is how helium is constituted.  This is exactly what Soddy and Rutherford found.  They noticed that after the radium had been in this sealed environment for some time, the supposedly empty vacuum tube contained something; something with the spectral signature of helium.  The very existence of the element helium was a relatively recent discovery, having been inferred from spectroscopic observations of a solar eclipse in 1868.

Soddy’s inferred from these factsthat the radium was coming apart from a material with many particles, decomposing into elements of smaller atomic weight.  This is the basis of most of nuclear science today.  In the process of decomposition, heavy atomic weight, unstable, elements releases energy in the form of what are termed alpha, beta, and gamma particles.

Soddy’s bio includes the additional discovery that elements; even elements other than the heavy ones, could exist with other numbers of electrons.  These, at the suggestion of a fellow scientist named Margaret Todd;he named isotopes, from the Greek root for ‘same’.  Isotopes are the basis of much nuclear medicine today.

Other contributions:

Soddy eerily foresaw the potential good and horror arising from radioactive power, and was distressed by Hiroshima.  He rightly noted that this power could be harvested with greater efficiency than from coal. He also foresaw that economies based on non-renewable fuels were ultimately self-destructive.

Soddy additionally solved an unsolved problem of Descartes’ – using a poem to explain his proof.  He died just short of a respectable 80 years old.

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Friedrich August Kekulé



Friedrich August Kekulé was a German scientist who came into this world on the September 7, 1829. He birth place was Darmstadt, Germany. Initially, he use to study at the local gymnasium but later on he got admitted in the University of Giessen to study architecture as per his father’s desires. It was observed at school that he was a great mathematician and was also profusely good at drawing. Chemistry was a complex subject with difficulties of organic molecular structures but it was Kekulé’s mathematical talents, exceptional memory and his intellect for space that he was so outstanding at mysterious structural problem.

Kekulé’s family was well to do and supported him with his studies and sent him to Paris. There he became friends with a renowned chemist named Charles Gerhardt. The theories of Gerhardt became foundation for his valency theory. He also worked with Charles Wurtz and Jean Baptiste Dumas who owned an only organic chemistry school in Europe that gave competition to the schools in Germany. When he was done with his studies in Paris, he moved to London and assisted John Stenhouse with his work. He also worked with Reinhold Hoffmann and William Williamson later. Kekulé worked at Heidelberg from the year 1855 to the year 1858.

Contributions and Achievements

At the end of 1858 he served as a chemistry professor at Ghent his scientific profession ended at the University of Bonn. This was the place where he had worked from 1867 till 1896 which was the year of his death. During this extensive period, Kekulé made great contributions to the field of organic chemistry and also to the German chemical industry. His students from Europe came to take chief professorships and to lead industrial labs.

Kekulé was pedantic but not a great experimentalist. He was really good at solving the problems that were related to the architecture of the new organic molecules that were being isolated by flora and fauna being created in the labs. Kekulé revealed that the clandestine of the organic chemistry was in the carbon atom and its tetravalency. Carbon has an exclusive capability of linking many isomeric combinations into long chains.

Kekulé’s best giving to organic chemistry was his key to the problem of benzene structure (C6H6). In 1865, he explained the solution to this brainteaser in the following words, “There I sat and wrote my Lehrbuch, but it did not proceed well, my mind was elsewhere. I turned the chair to the fireplace and fell half asleep. Again the atoms gamboled before my eyes. Smaller groups this time kept modestly to the background. My mind’s eyes, trained by visions of a similar kind, now distinguished larger formations of various shapes. Long rows, in many ways more densely joined; everything in movement, winding and turning like snakes. And look, what was that? One snake grabbed its own tail, and mockingly the shape whirled before my eyes. As if struck by lightning I awoke. This time again I spent the rest of the night working out the consequences.” The ring structured benzene is the emergence of Kekulé’s dream. Kekulé departed from this world on July 13, 1896.

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Friedrich Wöhler



Early Life and Education:

Friedrich Wöhler was a German Chemist who was born in 1800 in Eschersheim, Prussia. In 1820, he started his studies in the field of medicine at Marburg University but he was very soon transferred to another university that is the University of Heidelberg. In 1923, his M.D. was received by him and then he started studying chemistry. It was for more than a year that he studied in Stockholm with a very well-known chemist, Jöns Berzelius. Inorganic Chemistry caught him by interest at that time.

Contributions and Achievements:

By 1828, Wöhler could heat aluminum chloride and potassium, mixed together in a platinum container, and withdrew aluminum. This was all based on Hans Christian Oersted’s work. A similar technique was used by Wöhler for the production of beryllium and a wide range of aluminum salts. Calcium Carbide was created by him very soon and he was also very close in detecting vanadium.

Berzelius’ theory called ‘Vitalism’ was disapproved by Wöhler. The theory said that there were just two categories in which the compounds fell namely organic and inorganic. It was a supposition that it was only in the tissues of the living creatures where organic compounds could be formed. This was where a main force could change them. It would not be possible for an organic matter to be synthesized, based on the above theory, from inorganic reactants. It was Berzelius’ belief that the rules for inorganic compounds could not be applied to the organic compounds. A teacher of Wöhler named Leopold Gmelin clung to this theory of Berzelius.

In 1828, when he was conducting an experiment with ammonium cyanate, he had to heat lead cynate and ammonia solution to form crystals of urea. It was determined by Wöhler that the elements in urea and the elements in ammonium cyanate are the same and they are also in the same proportion. They are called isomers. Organic compounds were produced by Wöhler from inorganic reactants. Very soon, Wöhler’s discovery became irrelevant as it was found that cynate was an organic matter itself. But this definitely made other chemists optimistic about developing organic substances from inorganic substances. Once again, vitalism was disapproved of when a chemist named Adolf Kolbe created acetic acid by combining the elements oxygen, carbon and hydrogen in 1845. It was finally then that Berzelius’ theory of vitalism was discredited.

Wöhler then started studying the metabolism of the body by experimenting with, both, his knowledge of chemistry and medical training. After the death of his wife in 1832, he went to Germany to work at the Liebig’s laboratory with Justus von Liebig. Together, they carried out a research study on bitter almonds which are the source of the poisonous cynate. They verified that the pure oil from the bitter almonds did contain any poisonous element of hydrocyanic acid. Benzaldehyde oil and the reactions caused by it were also studied by them.

At that time they discovered that the benzoyl group of atoms did not change when various experiments were conducted on it. They called it ‘radicals’. This theory proved to be very important in the field of organic compounds. Wöhler was offered a job at the University of Göttingen in 1836. He carried on to his research of aluminum and cyanides and he was the first one to create silicon nitride and hydride, silicon, titanium and boron.

Later Life:

Wöhler became occupied in the later years of his life. He had a position as a pharmacy and chemistry professor. He had to manage the laboratories and he also served as the inspector general, in Hanover, Germany, for all the pharmacies. He also translated some books and research papers of Berzelius into German. Along with that he started his studies on meteorites in geology. His students worldwide sent him illustrations and samples and he would publish around 50 papers on the subjects. Many textbooks and papers were published by him throughout his life and his students numbered around 8,000. Some of his students were Rudolph Fittig and Jewett. Charles Hall who was Jewett’s student came up with a commercially practical way of producing aluminum that left behind Wöhler’s way. Wöhler passed away in 1882 in Gottingen.

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Fritz Haber



Fritz Haber was a German physical chemist. He was winner of the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his successful work on nitrogen fixation. Fritz Haber is also well known for his supervision of the German poison gas program during World War I. His name has been associated with the process of synthesizing ammonia. He is also known as the “father of chemical warfare”.

Early life and Career:

Fritz Haber was born on the 9th of December 1868 in Prussia. He was the son of a prosperous German chemical merchant. He was educated in Berlin, Heidelberg, and Zurich. After studying he started working for his father. Haber left his father’s business later on and started doing research in organic chemistry at the University of Jena.

Haber, along side Max Born, proposed the Born–Haber cycle as a method for evaluating the lattice energy of an ionic solid. He got recognition for his research in electrochemistry and thermodynamics. He also authored several books from his research.

Haber invented a large-scale catalytic synthesis of ammonia from elemental hydrogen and nitrogen gas, reactants which are abundant and inexpensive. Although ammonia and its exploitation can destroy life, Haber did not have any reason to performing his research. Haber serves the world in many ways. Not only was ammonia used as a raw material in the production of fertilizers, it was also absolutely essential in the production of nitric acid. Nitric acid is a raw material for the production of chemical high explosives and other ammunition necessary for the war.

Another contribution of Haber was the development of chemical warfare. With great energy he became involved in the production of protective chemical devices for troops. Haber devised a glass electrode to measure hydrogen concentration by means of the electric potential across a thin piece of glass. Other electrochemical subjects investigated by Haber include that of fuel cells, the electrolysis of crystalline salts, and the measurement of the free energy of oxidation of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and carbon. His failure at obtaining gold from sea paved the way for the extraction of bromine from the ocean.

He married Clara Immerwahr, a fellow chemist. She opposed his work on poison gas and committed suicide with his service revolver in their garden. He married, a second time, a girl named Charlotte and had two children from her and settled in England. Haber’s son from his first marriage, Hermann, emigrated to the United States during World War II.

In his studies of the effects of poison gas, Haber noted that exposure to a low concentration of a poisonous gas for a long time often had the same effect (death) as exposure to a high concentration for a short time. He formulated a simple mathematical relationship between the gas concentration and the necessary exposure time. This relationship became known as Haber’s rule.

Death:

Haber died on the 29th of January 1934. His work, however, is a great contribution to this developed world.

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Galileo Galilei



Some names in the history of inventions can never be forgotten as they bless us with their numerous creative inventions that have now become a need of every man. Among such great personalities one name that is always remembered is that of Galileo Galilei.

Early Life:

This renowned scientist was born on February 15, 1564 in Pisa. Galileo was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and flautist who played a vital role in the Scientific Revolution. This great man was the first to use a refracting telescope to make imperative astronomical discoveries. His accomplishments also include improvements to the telescope and support for Copernicanism. No doubt for this reason Galileo has been called the “father of modern observational astronomy, “father of modern physics,” and “the Father of Modern Science.” In praise of Galileo Stephen hawking said “Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science.

Contributions and Achievements:

Galileo started his career with the motion of uniformly accelerated objects, taught in nearly all high school and introductory college physics courses, as the subject of kinematics. Further coming to Galileo’s career path and his immense learning, in 1609 Galileo learned about the invention of the telescope in Holland. From the barest description he constructed a vastly superior model with his efficient observation.

As a professor of astronomy at University of Pisa, Galileo was required to teach the conventional theory of his time that the sun and all the planets revolved around the Earth. Later at University of Padua he was exposed to a new theory, proposed by Nicolaus Copernicus, that the Earth and all the other planets revolved around the sun. Galileo’s observations with his new telescope convinced him of the truth of Copernicus’s sun-centered or heliocentric theory. Galileo’s support for the heliocentric theory got him into trouble with the Roman Catholic Church in 1615. In February 1616, although he had been cleared of any offence, the Catholic Church nevertheless condemned heliocentrism as “false and contrary to Scripture”, and Galileo was warned to abandon his support for it which he promised to do. When he later defended his views in his most famous work, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, published in 1632, he was tried by the Inquisition, found “vehemently suspect of heresy,” forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. In 1633 the Inquisition convicted him of heresy and forced him to recant (publicly withdraw) his support of Copernicus.

They sentenced him to life imprisonment, but because of his advanced age allowed him serve his term under house arrest at his villa in Arcetri outside of Florence. Galileo also worked in applied science and technology, inventing an improved military compass and other instruments.

Therefore his originality as a scientist lay in his method of inquiry. First he reduced problems to a simple set of terms on the basis of everyday experience and common-sense logic. Then he analyzed and resolved them according to simple mathematical descriptions. The success with which he applied this technique to the analysis of motion opened the way for modern mathematical and experimental physics. Isaac Newton used one of Galileo’s mathematical descriptions, “The Law of Inertia,” as the foundation for his “First Law of Motion.”

Later Life:

Galileo became blind at the age of 72. His blindness has often been attributed to damage done to his eyes by telescopic observations he made. The truth is he was blinded by a combination of cataracts and glaucoma. Galileo died at Arcetri in 1642, the year Isaac Newton was born leaving behind his resourceful creations.

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Georg Ohm



Georg Simon Ohm, more commonly known as Georg Ohm, was a German physicist, best known for his “Ohm’s Law”, which implies that the current flow through a conductor is directly proportional to the potential difference (voltage) and inversely proportional to the resistance. The physical unit of electrical resistance, the Ohm, also was named after him.

Early Life and Education:

Born in 1789 in the university town of Erlangen, Bavaria, his younger Martin Ohm also became a famous mathematician. Georg Ohm studied mathematics and physics at Erlangen University. For economical reasons, he had to do some teaching jobs while studying, which he found quite bothering.

Contributions and Achievements:

When higher degrees of political instability were observed in the early 1800s were seen in Bavaria as the struggle against Napoleon rose, Ohm chose to leave native Bavaria in 1817 for Cologne, where he attained a Readership at the university. Ohm started passionately working on the conductivity of metals and the behavior of electrical circuits. So much that he quit teaching in Cologne and got settled in his brother’s house in Berlin.

After extensive research, he wrote “Die galvanische Kette, mathematisch bearbeitet”, which formulated the relationship between voltage (potential), current and resistance in an electrical circuit:

I = EIR

After initial criticism, most particularly by Hegel, the noted creator of German Idealism, who rejected the authenticity of the experimental approach of Ohm, the “glory” finally came in 1841 when the Royal Society of London honored him with the Copley Medal for his extraordinary efforts. Several German scholars, including an adviser to the State on the development of telegraphy, also recognized Ohm’s work a few months later.

The pertinence of Ohm’s Law to electrolytes and thermoelectric junctions and metallic conductors, was demonstrated recognized soon enough. The law still remains the most widely used and appreciated of all the rules related to the behavior of electrical circuits.

Later Life and Death:

Georg Ohm was made a foreign member of the Royal Society in 1842, and a full member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 1845.

Ohm died on July 6, 1854. He was 65 years old.

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George Gaylord Simpson



George Gaylord Simpson was one of the greatest and most influential paleontologists of all time. He made crucial contributions to evolutionary theory and played a vital role in developing the understanding of intercontinental migrations of extinct mammals.

Early Life and Education:

George Gaylord Simpson was born in Chicago in 1902. He grew up in Denver and graduated from the University of Colorado. He earned a doctorate from Yale University in 1926. Simpson worked at the American Museum of Natural History for almost three decades.

Contributions and Achievements:

Simpson taught at the universities of Columbia, Arizona and Harvard. He was a prolific author, having published about 500 books and articles about topics as diverse as primitive Mesozoic mammals of the American west, to Tertiary faunas of North and South America, to statistics, taxonomy and evolution. Some of his major works include “Tempo and mode in evolution” (1944), “The meaning of evolution” (1949) and “The major features of evolution” (1953).

He is widely considered to be one of the founders of the Synthetic Theory of Evolution. Simpson was physically a weak and frail person, but he was a indefatigable field geologist.

Later Life and Death:

George Gaylord Simpson worked as a Professor of Geosciences at the University of Arizona until his retirement in 1982. He died on October 6, 1984. He was 82 years old.

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George Washington Carver



George Washington Carver was an American agricultural chemist, agronomist and botanist who developed various products from peanuts, sweet potatoes and soy-beans that radically changed the agricultural economy of the United States. A son of a slave woman, George won several awards for his brilliant contributions, such as the Spingarn Medal of the NAACP. He spent most of his career teaching and conducting research at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University) in Tuskegee, Alabama.

Early Life and Education:

Born into slavery in Diamond, Missouri, George Washington Carver’s master, Moses Carver, was a German American immigrant who had bought both George’s parents, Mary and Giles. His master was a kind-hearted man who, after the abolition of slavery, raised George as his own kid and furthered his intellectual pursuits. George attended various schools before receiving his diploma at Minneapolis High School at Kansas.

George was, however, rejected at Highland College due to racial discrimination. He learned art and piano at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa in 1890, where his art teacher recommended George to study botany at Iowa State Agricultural College. He became the first black student, and later the first black faculty member, at the place.

Contributions and Achievements:

After acquiring his B.S. degree, George completed his master’s degree at the same college, conducting field research at the Iowa Experiment Station. His successful work in plant pathology and mycology gained him countrywide acclaim and fame as a prominent botanist.

Carver was a farmer’s scientist. He taught farmers how to grow better plants, while even utilizing farm waste products. He turned corn stalks into building materials. Carver found dyes in the rich clay soil. He manufactured more than 100 products from sweet potatoes. His favorite plant was the peanut. He invented over 300 ways to use the peanut, as soap, plastic, shampoo and even shoe polish.

Carver never patented any of his inventions, as he believed knowledge should be free. As a result, many industrialists developed commercial products from his laboratory inventions and made millions.

Later Life and Death:

George Washington Carver died by falling down a flight of stairs on January 5, 1943 in Tuskegee, Alabama. He was 79 years old.

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Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon



Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon was a mathematician, naturalist and author whose beliefs and theories greatly influenced the way other naturalists after his time thought. He is said to be the father of natural history for the latter part of that century.

Early Life and Education

Georges-Louis Leclerc was born on September 7, 1707 into a wealthy family in Montbard, France. His father was Benjamin Francois Leclerc, a local official who was in charge of salt tax and his mother was Anne Cristine Marlin who was also part of a family of minor local officials. Marlin, unlike other women at that time, was a very curious woman and was fond of learning about new things. This trait caused Leclerc to often claim that his curious and intelligent disposition came from her.

He was named after Georges Blaisot, his godfather, who was also an uncle of his mother. He was the Duke of Savoy’s tax collector. Upon his death, he left a considerable amount of fortune to the Leclercs as he remained childless at the time of his birth. They then bought an estate that gave his father the title of Lord of Buffon and Montbard. From then on, he was known as Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon. They moved to Dijon into a new mansion as his father became one of the ad visors in the Parliament of Burgundy. He inherited the entire estate when he turned 25.

Because they were well off, Leclerc never lacked the education that was considered a privilege for other kids his age. He attended the Jesuit Institute College des Godrans where he studied mathematics. He immediately showed a high degree of curiosity about almost everything he learns and often found the need to question a lot of things that were taught to him. Despite his obvious passions, his father insisted that he study law, which he started doing in 1723. He then attended Angers University in 1728 where he continued studying mathematics, as well as medicine and botany.

In 1752, he married Francoise de Saint-Belin-Malain, but she died 17 years later in 1769. She bore him one son in 1764, who died by guillotine in 1794.

Most Important Contributions

In 1727, while still attending College des Godrans, Leclerc learned about the theory on binomials and its formula that gives you the power of any binomial without having to multiply a long series of numbers. The same year, he theorized that the sun’s collision with a comet caused the formation of the planets. This has of course been proved to be impossible, but this marked a new era in science as it was the pioneering theory about the creation that did not involve God in the equation. It was stated from a purely scientific point of view and relied solely on the laws of physics that were set during that period of time.

Leclerc did not restrict himself to specific fields of expertise. He continued to explore different aspects that surrounded plant physiology, physics, astronomy and even ship construction. With each field of learning also came a lot of questions from him, as he analyzed and doubted a lot of the dogmas that were believed in and taught during his time. He recorded his discoveries and theories in a series of writings that discussed everything from the body structure and living habits of bats from South America and continued on to discuss the possible causes of being cross-eyed, a condition scientifically known as strabismus. There were 36 volumes all in all, with the entire collection called as Histoire Naturelle, Generale et Particuliere, which meant Natural History, General and Particular in English. The series was written as a form of encyclopedia and was completed over a 37-year period from 1749 to 1786.

Leclerc had a solid belief in organic change, but was not entirely able to discuss how these changes occurred and how they were completed. He religiously claimed that he published another set of writings called Les Epoques de la Nature in 1788 which again became controversial because of the way he openly negated the church’s claims that the world has been in existence for 6,000 years at that time. He theorized that this planet has been around long before that.

In 1777, Leclerc decided to do an experiment by dropping a needle on a lined piece of paper or floor. This was an experiment that showed how the probability of this needle crossing any of the lines on the floor or paper is in direct relation to pi’s value. This experiment on probability is now famously called as Buffon’s Needle.

Leclerc was acknowledged by several experts that came after him as someone who introduced a lot of ideas during his time with the highest scientific spirits. Ernst Mayr was quoted as saying that Leclerc was the first one to point out a lot of loopholes in the way evolution was taught. He was also seen to have brought about the early stages of comparative anatomy because of his beliefs in the unity of type. He made the first correlation between parent and child, saying that there are traits that are passed onto the offspring.

Other Contributions and Achievements

Leclerc was the one who translated Fluxions by Isaac Newton into French. He did the same thing for Vegetable Staticks by Stephen Hale. He showed his affinity with natural science when he became the administrator and director of the finest botanical garden in all of France, the Jardin des Plantes formerly known as Jardin du Roi, in 1739. While still holding this position, he was dubbed as a count in 1773. He held this position until his death. He died on April 16, 1788 in Paris, France.

Leclerc was not exactly the most popular scientist during his time mostly because he went against a lot of people, even those who have been scientists long before him. Because of this, his intelligence was not entirely celebrated by many. He continuously challenged the known authorities in chemistry, biology, mathematics, geology and theology. He did not respond to criticism either as he sees this to be beneath his dignity.

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Gertrude Elion



“Don’t be afraid of hard work. Nothing worthwhile comes easily. Don’t let others discourage you or tell you that you can’t do it. In my day I was told women didn’t go into chemistry. I saw no reason why we couldn’t.” – Gertrude B. Elion

American pharmacologist and biochemist, Gertrude B. Elion is famous for her scientific discovery of drugs to treat leukemia and herpes and to prevent the rejection of kidney transplants. This discovery earned her Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1988 which she shared with George H. Hitchings, her long-time boss and collaborator at Burroughs-Wellcome, and also Sir James W. Black. After receiving the Nobel Prize she once said:

“People ask me often (was) the Nobel Prize the thing you were aiming for all your life? And I say that would be crazy. Nobody would aim for a Nobel Prize because, if you didn’t get it, your whole life would be wasted. What we were aiming at was getting people well, and the satisfaction of that is much greater than any prize you can get.”

She is holder of 45 patents, 23 honorary degrees, and a lengthy list of other honors. She was unmarried.

Early Life, Education and Career:

Gertrude Elion was born in New York City on January 23, 1918 to immigrant parents. She completed her graduation from Hunter College with a B.A. degree in chemistry in 1937. During this time she also planned to become a cancer researcher but for several years worked as a lab assistant, food analyst (tested pickles and berries for quality at the Quaker Maid Company), and high school teacher while studying for her Masters degree at night. She completed her M.S. in chemistry from New York University in 1941.

When World War II broke out, there was an urgent need for women at scientific laboratories so she left to work as an assistant to George H. Hitchings at the Burroughs-Wellcome pharmaceutical company (now GlaxoSmithKline). She never obtained a formal Ph.D., but was later awarded an honorary Ph.D from Polytechnic University of New York in 1989 and honorary SD degree from Harvard University in 1998.

While working with H. Hitchings, Elion helped develop the first drugs to combat leukemia, herpes, and AIDS, and established new research methods to produce drugs that could target specific pathogens. The medicines she developed include acyclovir (for herpes), allopurinol (for gout), azathioprine (which limits rejection in organ transplants), purinethol (for leukemia), pyrimethamine (for malaria), and trimethoprim (for meningitis and bacterial infections).

During 1967 she occupied the position of the head of the company’s Department of Experimental Therapy and officially retired in 1983. Despite her retirement, Elion continued working almost full time at the lab, and oversaw the adaptation of azidothymidine (AZT), which became the first drug used for treatment of AIDS.

Death:

Gertrude Elion died in North Carolina on February 21, 1999. She was always admired by a number of students and colleagues for her brilliancy and dedication to science.

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Gerty Theresa Cori



The name of Gerty Theresa Cori is acknowledged among the greatest women achievers of the 20th century. This American biologist is known for her discoveries in biochemistry, especially carbohydrate metabolism. Her contributions in the field of biology led her to be the first American woman to achieve the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which she shared with her husband Carl Ferdinand Cori and Argentine physiologist Bernardo Houssay.

Life, Education and Career:

Gerty Theresa Cori was born on August 15, 1896 in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Until the age of ten she was educated at her home after which she was enrolled in a Lyceum for girls. As a child Gerty became interested in science and mathematics and entered the Realgymnasium at Tetschen, from which she graduated in 1914, and then joined the Medical School of the German University of Prague. Here she met Carl Ferdinand Cori, a fellow student who shared her hobbies of skiing, gardening and mountain climbing and her interest in laboratory research. Both of them worked together and during 1920 published the results of their first research collaboration, completed their graduation, and got married.

Gerty Cori’s first research position was as an assistant in the Karolinen Children’s Hospital in Vienna. In 1922 Carl Cori immigrated to the United, having accepted a job at the State Institute for the Study of Malignant Diseases in Buffalo, New York. Gerty Cori stayed behind for a few months, meanwhile working as an assistant pathologist at the Institute and later rising to assistant biochemist. After six months, Gerty got a job at the same institute as Carl, and she joined him in Buffalo. In 1928 they became U.S. citizens.

In 1931 Carl Cori took the position of chairman of the Department of Pharmacology of the Washington University School of Medicine. Gerty was employed too, as a research associate, regardless of her equivalent degrees and comparable research experience. In 1943 she was appointed as an associate professor of Research Biological Chemistry and Pharmacology and two months after she received her Nobel Prize in 1947, she got promoted to the rank of professor of Biological Chemistry.

During the 1930s and 1940s both husband and wife began studying carbohydrate metabolism and continued the research in their laboratory at Washington University. Their laboratory gained an international standing as an important center of biochemical advancements. In 1947 the Cori’s won the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for their pivotal studies in elucidating the nature of sugar metabolism.

In 1947 Gerty Cori showed the symptoms of myelofibrosis, a disease she fought for 10 years, refusing to give up her research until the last few months of her life. She died on October 26, 1957.

Besides the Nobel Prize she was also honored with the Garvan Medal for women chemists of the American Chemical Society as well as membership in the National Academy of Sciences. The crater Cori on the Moon is named after her. She also shares a star with her husband on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

[MysteRy]

Gottfried Leibniz



Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (also known as von Leibniz) was a prominent German mathematician, philosopher, physicist and statesman. Noted for his independent invention of the differential and integral calculus, Gottfried Leibniz remains one of the greatest and most influential metaphysicians, thinkers and logicians in history. He also invented the Leibniz wheel and suggested important theories about force, energy and time.

Early Life and Education:

Gottfried Lelbniz was born in Leipzig, endeavor Germany to influential parents. His father, a professor of moral philosophy at the city’s university, died when Leibniz was only six. His mother was the daughter of a rich local lawyer.

Leibniz was a childhood prodigy. He became fluent in Latin and studied works of Greeks scholars such as when he was only twelve. He entered the University of Leipzig when he was fourteen, where he took philosophy, mathematics and law.

After graduation, he applied for a doctorate in law, but was refused due to his young age. Leibniz chose to present his thesis to the University of Altdorf, where professors were so impressed that they immediately awarded him the degree of Doctor of Laws and gave him a job of professorship.

Contributions and Achievements:

Gottfried Leibniz was a great polymath who knew almost everything that could be known at the time about any subject or intellectual enterprise. He made important contributions to philosophy, engineering, physics, law, politics, philology and theology.

Probably his greatest achievement was the discovery of a new mathematical method called calculus. Scientists use to deal with quantities that are constantly varying. Newton had devised a similar method for his work on gravity. Therefore, there was a harsh debate about who had been first.

Newton began working on his version in 1665, but Leibniz published his results in 1684, almost three years before Newton. However, the consensus is that they discovered the method simultaneously.

Leibniz also discovered the binary number system and invented the first calculating machine that could add, subtract, multiply and divide. When it came to metaphysics, he formulated the famous theory of monads which explained the relation between soul and the body. Leibniz is often known as the founder of symbolic logic as he developed the universal characteristic, a symbolic language in which any item of information can be represented in a natural and systematic way.

Later Life and Death:

Gottfried Leibniz died in Hanover on November 14, 1716. He was 70 years old.

[MysteRy]

Gottlieb Daimler



Early Life and Contributions:

Gottlieb Daimler was born in Schorndorf in Germany in 1834. He was an engineer, industrial designer, industrialist, pioneer of the modern internal combustion engine and a workaholic before the term was invented. A persistent perfectionist, he drove himself and his co-workers mercilessly. Daimler was a cosmopolitan man, instrumental in founding auto industries in Germany, France and England. His core ability was engines, and he didn’t care whether they were powering cars, boats, trams, pumps or airships. He is also known for inventing the first high-speed petrol engine and the first four-wheel automobile.

Talking about Daimler’s early life, his father wanted his son to become a municipal employee, but the young, mechanically inclined Daimler instead apprenticed himself to a gunsmith. After four years of his apprenticeship Daimler worked in a steam-engine factory and eventually completed his schooling at the Stuttgart Polytechnic. He spent the next three decades working as an engineer and technical director of engine development for several companies.

It was during this period that he worked with Nikolaus August Otto, the inventor of the four-cycle internal combustion engine, and Wilhelm Maybach, who become Daimler’s lifelong collaborator.

Daimler’s and Maybach’s dream was to create small high speed engines to be mounted in any kind of locomotion device. They designed a precursor of the modern petrol engine which they subsequently fitted to a two-wheeler and considered the first motorcycle and, in the next year, to a stagecoach, and a boat. They are renowned as the designers of this Grandfather Clock engine. This helped push them ahead of other inventors who were emerging as competitors. In 1882 Daimler and Maybach set up a factory in Stuttgart to develop light, high-speed, gasoline-powered internal combustion engines. Their aim from the start appears to have been to apply these engines to vehicles.

In 1890 Daimler and Maybach formed the Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft in Stuttgart, but they left the company only a year later in order to concentrate on various technical and commercial development projects. A Daimler-powered car won the first international car race–the 1894 Paris-to-Rouen race. Of the 102 cars that started the competition, only fifteen completed it, and all finishers were powered by a Daimler engine.

Legacy:

The success of the Paris-to-Rouen race may also have been a factor in Daimler’s and Maybach’s decision to rejoin the Daimler Motor Company in 1895. In the following year, the Daimler Company produced the first road truck, and in 1900 the company produced the first Mercedes automobile (named for the daughter of the financier backing Daimler).

The man who is widely credited with pioneering the modern automobile industry apparently did not like to drive and may never have driven at all. Certainly Gottlieb Daimler was a passenger in 1899 during a rough, bad weather journey that accelerated his declining health and contributed to his death the following spring of heart disease on March 6, 1900, in Stuttgart, Germany, after a lifetime as an inventor in the forefront of automobile development. Daimler’s auto company merged with the Benz Company (also of Germany) in 1926, forming the Mercedes-Benz automobile company later.

[MysteRy]

Gregor Mendel



Early Life:

Johann Gregor Mendel, a Moravian man who was a scientist by occupation and was born in 1822 in Hyncice, Czechoslovakia on July 22nd. His father was a peasant and his grandfather was a gardener. Mendel was initially taught by a local priest but later on he was admitted in an Institute of Philosophy in Olmutz. But he was not financially well to do therefore in 1843, he terminated his studies and went back to the monastery in Brunn.

Mendel thought that monastery was the best place for him to study without worrying about how he’d finance his studies. He was made in charge of the garden at the monastery and named himself Gregor. He became a priest in 1847. After four years he went to University of Vienna where he studied physics, chemistry, botany and physics. When he returned to the monastery after completing his studies, he took a position as a teacher of natural sciences at the Technical School at Brno.

Contributions and Achievements:

Mendel used to conduct his very famous hereditary experiments in his free time. He did something no one had ever done before and no one ever had analyzed statistically the experiments of breeding. It was Mendel’s knowledge of natural sciences and his studies that helped him carry out these experiments. He usually chose to work with pea plants and selected only those ones that were cultivated in controlled atmosphere and were a pure variety. He cross bred many seeds and then found out results of the seven most evident seeds and variations.

It was concluded by Mendel that short plants created only short heighted off springs while tall plants gave both short and long plants. He also discovered that only one third of the long heighted plants gave long heighted off springs so he figured out that long plants were of two types, ones that gave bred true plants and the others that did not bred true plants.

Mendel continued with his experiments. He thought that he’d find more about the off springs by cross breeding the plants of different sizes. He thought that by crossing a long plant and a small plant, a plant of medium size would be produced but later on he found out that was not true. Mendel crossed different plants and calculated the results. He planted some plants with the cross of long and short plants and then planted the seeds of some long plants and pollinated some of them himself.

As a result, the naturally pollinated plants from the cross of short-long plants were long and the ones of long plants that were unnaturally pollinated sprouted short. The tallness of the plant which is said to be the most overpowering feature was said to the dominant trait while the shortness was known as the recessive trait. The results did not vary whether a male plant was used or a female plant. This investigation of Mendel’s took more than eight years to finish and it almost included 30,000 plants or more.

The law of segregation which is the first heredity law was based on his observation about the breeding of plants. The law states that the units of heredity also known as genes are found in pairs and that the paired gene is divided when the cell is divided. Each member is received by the egg and the sperm and paired gene is present in either half the eggs or sperm.