~ Famous Scientists ~

[MysteRy]

Guglielmo Marconi



The Italian inventor and physicist, Guglielmo Marconi was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand Braun for their development of practical wireless telegraphy. He once said:

“Thanks to the high standing which science has for so long attain and to the impartiality of the Nobel Prize Committee, the Nobel Prize for Physics is rightly considered everywhere as the highest reward within the reach of workers in Natural Philosophy.”

His development of a radio telegraph system led to the esbalishment of many associated companies all over the world.

Early Life:

Guglielmo Marconi was born in Bologna, Italy, on April 25, 1874. He was the second son of Giuseppe Marconi, a wealthy Italian landowner, and his Irish wife, Annie Jameson. He received his education privately at Bologna, Florence and Leghorn. As a young boy he was fascinated with physical and electrical science and studied the earlier mathematical work of James Clerk Maxwell, the experiments of Heinrich Hertz and research on lightning and electricity conducted by Sir Oliver Lodge.

Contributions and Achievements:

Marconi was convinced that communication among people was possible via wireless radio signaling. He started conducting experiment in 1895 at his father’s home in Pontecchio, where he was soon able to send signals over one and a half miles. During this period, he also carried out simple experiments with reflectors around the aerial to concentrate the radiated electrical energy into a beam instead of spreading it in all directions.

In 1896 Marconi traveled to England in order to get a patent for his apparatus. Later that year he was granted the world’s first patent for a system of wireless telegraphy. After successfully demonstrating the system’s ability to transmit radio signals in London, on Salisbury Plain and across the Bristol Channel, he established the Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company Limited in July 1897. This company was re-named as Marconi’s Wireless Telegraph Company Limited in 1990.

In 1899 he established a wireless link between Britain and France across the English Channel. Further he established permanent wireless stations at The Needles, Isle of Wight, Bournemouth, and later at the Haven Hotel in Poole, Dorset. The following year he received his patent for “tuned or systonic telegraphy.”

During December 1901 Marconi proved that wireless signals were unaffected by the curvature of the earth. He transmitted the first wireless signals across the Atlantic between Poldhu, Cornwall and St, Johns, New Foundland, a distance of 2100 miles.

The next year he demonstrated “daylight effect” relative to wireless communication and also he patented his magnetic detector, which was the standard wireless receiver for many years. In December he successfully transmitted the first complete message to Poldhu from stations at Glace Bay, Nova Scotia and Cape Cod Massachusetts.

In 1905 and 1912 Marconi patented his horizontal directional aerial and patented a “timed spark” system for generating continuous waves respectively.

Later Life:

In 1914, he took the position of a Lieutenant in the Italian Army. Later he was promoted to Captain and in 1916 was appointed as a Commander in the Navy, receiving his Italian Military Medal in 1919 for his war service. He also used his systems for the workings of the military. During this time he continued with his experiments, establishing the world’s first microwave radiotelephone link in 1932, and later introducing the microwave beacon for ship navigation.

Marconi died in Rome on 20 July 1937 following a series of heart attacks.

[MysteRy]

Hans Bethe



Hans Bethe was a German-born American theoretical physicist who is credited as one of the founders of quantum physics. His scientific research helped understand the atomic processes responsible for the properties of matter and of the forces regulating the structures of atomic nuclei. He played a substantial role in the development of the first atomic bomb during World War II, and later, in the early 1950s, the larger hydrogen bomb.

Early Life and Education:

Born in Strasbourg, Germany in 1906, Hans Bethe was a child prodigy in mathematics. He acquired a degree in physics from JWG University, Frankfurt, and earned his doctorate from the University of Munich. Later, he also worked in Cambridge, England and Enrico Fermi’s laboratory in Rome, Italy.

In 1939, Hans Bethe married Rose Ewald, the daughter of his university professor Paul Peter Ewald.

Contributions and Achievements:

Hans Bethe accepted J. Robert Oppenheimer’s invitation to become a part of the Manhattan Project, performing as director of the theoretical physics division. His wife had, however, strict reservations about Bethe’s job. His role was to define how the atomic bomb would function and what effects it would produce. Utilizing his vast knowledge of nuclear physics, electromagnetic theory and shock waves, Bethe collaborated with Richard Feynman to work out a formula to calculate the efficiency of a nuclear weapon. He also made decivise contributions to the feasibility and design of the uranium and the plutonium atomic bombs.

Later, Bethe worked extensively on the investigation of the feasibility of producing fusion bombs and helped design the hydrogen bomb in the early 1950s. After the war, he preached and actively campaigned for disarmament. He won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1967 for his research regarding the production of energy in stars.

Later Life and Death:

Hans Bethe became a prominent political activist in his later life, while he was still actively involved in his scientific researches.

Bethe died of congestive heart failure on March 6, 2005. He was 98 years old.

[MysteRy]

Hans Christian Oersted



Hans Christian Oersted was a Danish physicist and chemist who revolutionized the arena of electromagnetism by discovering that the electric currents can produce magnetic fields. His 1820 discovery of piperine, the pungent component that causes the hotness of pepper, and his 1825 formulation of metallic aluminum, are considered significant contributions in the history of chemistry.

Early Life and Education:

Born in Rudkøbing to a chemist father, Hans Oersted, surrounded by scientific apparatus, showed an early interest in science. After attending the University of Copenhagen, he traveled throught Europe to meet some of the leading scientists of the world. Oersted received his doctorate in 1799.

Contributions and Achievements:

Oersted learnt a lot during the tours and, in 1806, he took a job at his old university. He also gave lectures which were quite popular among the public. During one such lecture in April 1820, Oersted carried out an experiment that was never performed before. He placed a compass underneath a wire and then turned on electric current. The needle of the magnetized compass showed movement.

Oersted recognized the significance of what he had just done. Earlier, it was believed that electricity and magnetism were two different forces. Oersted had demonstrated that they were interconnected. Some scientists, influenced by this experiment, continued with the modern field of “electromagnetism”. Their research resulted in several new scientific theories and various vital inventions like the dynamo and the electric motor.

Oersted was made a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1822.

Later Life and Death:

In 1829, Hans Christian Oersted established “Den Polytekniske Læreanstalt” (English: College of Advanced Technology), which is now known as the Technical University of Denmark (DTU).

Oersted died at Copenhagen, Denmark in 1851. He was 73 years old. He was buried in the Assistens Cemetery.

[MysteRy]

Hans Selye



Hans Hugo Bruno Selye, more commonly known as Hans Selye, was one of the most influential endocrinologists who is known for his research he effects of stress on the human body.

Early Life and Education:

Born in Vienna in 1907, Hans Selye attended the German University of Prague as well as the universities of Paris and Rome.

Contributions and Achievements:

In his second year of medical school, Selye started to work on his theory of the influence of stress on a person’s capacity to handle the pressures of injury and disease. He found out that patients with an assortment of ailments demonstrated lots of similar symptoms, which he associated with their effort to cope up with the stress of being ill.

Selye termed this collection of symptoms as the “general adaptation syndrome”. He earned worldwide acclaim for his extraordinary contributions and he was named “the Einstein of medicine”.

Selye defined “stress” in 1936 in his first scientific paper. He wrote over 1700 scholarly papers and 39 books about stress. His work has been mentioned in millions of publications in nearly all major languages of the world. Selye’s two major books The Stress of Life (1956) and Stress Without Distress (1974) were best-sellers and sold in millions of copies worldwide.

As a physician and endocrinologist, he had three earned doctorates and 43 honorary doctorates.

Later Life and Death:

Hans Selye also worked as a professor and director of the Institute of Experimental Medicine and Surgery at the Université de Montréal. During his stay, he showcased the role of emotional responses in creating or fighting much of the wear and tear felt by human beings in their lifespan.

Selye died in 1982 in Montreal, where he had spent much of life researching the subjects related to stress.

[MysteRy]

Harriet Quimby



Harriet Quimby is classified among the most famous American female aviators. Her career as a pilot did not last long but was undeniably heroic. She was the first American lady to become a licensed pilot and the first woman to fly across the English Channel. She was also a movie screenwriter. Even though she died very young, Harriet played a key influence upon the role of women in aviation.

Life and Career:

Harriet was born in Arcadia, Michigan on May 1, 1875. It is said that her parents, William and Ursula were wealthy and educated her in America. Her only sibling was her older sister Kittie, while there were others before them who died due to various diseases. During the early 1900s, Harriet and her family moved to San Francisco, California and there in 1902, she took a job as a writer for the Dramatic Review. The following year she moved to New York City where she began writing for Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly and more than 250 of her articles were published over a span of nine years. Her articles ranged in scope from household tips (“Home and the Household”) to advice for women on ways to find employment, budget their income, live prudently on a modest income in a safe apartment and ways to repair their automobiles themselves.

Harriet had always dreamed of becoming a journalist, but her plans changed after she attended the Belmont Park International Aviation Tournament on Long Island, New York in 1910. There she met Matilde Moisant and her brother John (a well-known American aviator and operator of a flight school at Mineola), who was mainly responsible for developing her interest in aviation.

Along with her friend Matilde, Harriet learned to fly at a school in Hempstead, New York, becoming the first U.S. woman to earn a pilot’s certificate. Matilde soon followed and became the nation’s second certified female pilot. Soon after Harriet received her pilot license, she joined the Moisant International Aviators, an exhibition team. With the Moisant group she traveled to Mexico and became the first woman to fly over Mexico City.

In 1912 Harriet borrowed a 50-horsepower Bleriot monoplane from Louis Bleriot and began preparations for an English Channel flight. Her consultant, Gustav Hamel, unsure of a woman’s ability to make such a flight, offered to dress in her purple flying suit and make the flight for her. She refused and on April 16, 1912 flew from Dover, England, to Hardelot, France (about 25 miles south of Calais). She made quite a name and returned successfully to U.S.

Death:

After three months, on July 1, 1912 Harriet made her last flight at the Harvard-Boston Aviation Meet where she met with a tragic accident. She was flying in the Bleriot with William Willard when suddenly the plane went into a nose dive. Willard was thrown from his seat after which the aircraft flipped over, throwing Harriet out too. Both Quimby and Willard fell and died at Dorchester Harbor. Ironically the aircraft landed with little damage.

[MysteRy]

Hedy Lamarr



A lot of inventors are primarily known for their breakthroughs and contributions to the field of science. However, there is a beautiful Hedy Lamarr who is known mostly for being an elegant actress. She was one of the MGM stars during the “Golden Age” and she was a well-known face in those years. Apart from being a crowd darling, she helped invent spread-spectrum communication techniques as well as frequency hopping which is a necessary part of wireless communication back then before mainstream computers were famous. This technology is still used today, and it was the Austrian actress inventor who contributed to its pilot development.

Early Life

Hedy Lamarr was the screen name for which the actress was known by. She was born on the 9th of November in 1914 to parents Emil Kiesler and Gertrud or “Trude” Kesler in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. Her birth name was Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler. She was of Jewish descent since her mother was a Budapest native who originally came from the “Jewish haute bourgeoisie,” while her father who was born in Lemberg was a secular Jew.

Career—in Entertainment and Science

She was 17 when she first appeared in a film which was called Geld Auf Der Strase—a German project. Her career in entertainment made a strong presence in the Czechoslavakian and German productions during those days. The film called Extase from 1932 Germany brought Hedy to the attention of Hollywood producers. A few years later, she became an MGM contract star.

When she entered Hollywood, this was when she changed her name to Hedy Lamarr and her first film came out in 1938. It was called the Algiers. Lamarr had a successful career in entertainment and was known as “the most beautiful woman in films” back in those days. She even had an autobiography called “Ecstacy and Me” which discussed her private life as well as details about the film Extase which became notorious for sensual scenes.

Her first husband was Friedrich Mandl, the man who was reputed as the third richest in Austria at the time. He had objected to the distribution of Extase and said it was exploitation of the expression on Hedy’s face. In Lamarr’s autobiography, she had described her husband as an extremely controlling man who prevented her growth in her acting career. She also felt imprisoned in their castle-like home where parties were held and which notable people like Hitler and Mussolini attended. Also in her autobiography, she had stated that she devised a plan to escape the controlling marriage and said she disguised herself as her maid and then left for Paris where she subsequently blossomed as an actress.

George Anthiel, an avant-garde composer who happened to be Lamarr’s neighbor when she lived in California was the son of German immigrants. He had been experimenting with the automated controls of musical instruments especially for the music he made for the Ballet Mecanique. It was during the Second World War when Lamarr and Antheil discussed how radio-controlled torpedoes being used in the naval wars could be intercepted by broadcasting a particular interference at the signal’s frequency control which would ultimately get the torpedo off course.

Together with Anthiel, Lamarr developed the “Secret Communications System” which was designed to help counter the Nazis. They achieved this feat by manipulating the radio frequencies at irregular intervals during reception or transmission. Their invention formed a kind of unbreakable code which prevented classified information and message transmissions from being intercepted by those who aren’t their allies.

Lamarr earned her knowledge about torpedoes from Mandl and she used her knowledge from him to help develop this invention. With Anthiel who incorporated the use of a piano roll, they were successfully able to pull off frequency hopping. They used the 88 piano keys to randomly change the signals within the range of 88 frequencies.

It was in 1942 when the patent for the invention of Antheil and Hedy Kiesler Markey (her married name then) was granted. However, the early version of the frequency hopping technique they created was met with opposition by the United States navy and therefore was not adopted. Their idea was not used by the navy until 1962 when the military used it for a Cuban blockade after the patent had already expired.

In 1997, the invention was honored because the Electronic Frontier Foundation gave Lamarr credits—although belated, for her contributing work for the technology. Today, the work done by Lamarr and Anthiel is the basis for the modern spread-spectrum communication technology. It is the idea behind Bluetooth, Wi-Fi connections, and CDMA. Later in her life, Lamarr expressed her wanting to join the National Inventors Council. However, it was said by the NIC member Charles Kettering that she could help with the war efforts better if she would use her celebrity status for selling war bonds.

Later Years and Death

In April of 1953 Lamarr became a naturalized American citizen at the age of 38. Her “Ecstasy in Me” autobiography had earned negative reviews especially after her account of having had sexual intercourse with a man inside a brothel she was hiding in when Mandl was searching for her after her escape. According to her, these accounts had been falsely made by the ghost writer Leo Guild.

Even in her older age come the 1970s, she had been offered scripts, commercials for television, and even stage projects. None of these offers, however, appealed to her and these years became her years of seclusion. In 1981 and with her failing eyesight, she chose to retreat to Miami Beach in Florida.

In January 2000, Lamarr died in Florida due heart problems, namely arteriosclerotic heart disease, chronic valvular heart disease, and heart failure. Because of her contributions especially to the world of entertainment, she was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Despite not being highly recognized for her contributions in the field of science since women were not treated as equally back then, her invention together with Anthiel had paved its way to modern times and continues to persevere to this day.

[MysteRy]

Heinrich Hertz



The great German physicist, Heinrich Hertz made possible the development of radio, television, and radar by proving that electricity can be transmitted in electromagnetic waves. He explained and expanded the electromagnetic theory of light that had been put forth by Maxwell. He was the first person who successfully demonstrated the presence of electromagnetic waves, by building an apparatus that produced and detected the VHF/UHF radio waves. His undertakings earned him the honor of having his surname assigned to the international unit of frequency (one cycle per second).

Early Life and Career:

Born on February 22, 1857 in Hamburg, Germany, Hertz came from a wealthy, educated and incredibly successful family. His father, Gustav Ferdinand Hertz, was a lawyer and later a senator. He developed interest for science and mathematics as a child while studying at the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums of Hamburg. He studied sciences and engineering in the German cities of Dresden, Munich and Berlin under two eminent physicists, Gustav R. Kirchhoff and Hermann von Helmholtz.

Hertz earned his PhD from the University of Berlin in 1880 and worked as an assistant to Helmhotz. Though he devoted his thesis to the nature of electromagnetic induction in rotating conductors, his research as Helmholtz’s assistant focused on mechanical hardness and stress, a field in which he wrote a number of influential papers. In 1883, Hertz took up the chance to move up a step on the academic ladder. He moved to the University of Kiel as a Lecturer, where he continued his research on electromagnetism. From 1885 to 1889 he served as a professor of physics at the technical school in Karlsruhe and after 1889 held the same post at the University in Bonn.

During 1886, he married Elizabeth Doll, daughter of his colleague Dr. Max Doll. They had two daughters, Joanna and Mathilde.

Contribution:

When Hertz began conducting experiments at the University of Bonn, he was aware of the revolutionary work that was left behind by British scientist James Clerk Maxwell, who had produced a series of mathematical equations that predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves. This challenged experimentalists to produce and detect electromagnetic radiation using some form of electrical apparatus.

Hertz took up that challenge and in 1887 confirmed Maxwell’s theories about the existence of electromagnetic radiation. He proved that electricity can be transmitted in electromagnetic waves, which travel at the speed of light and possess many other properties of light.

While carrying out his experiment on electromagnetic waves, Hertz also accidentally discovered the photoelectric effect in which light falling on special surfaces can generate electricity.

Apart from the electromagnetic or electric waves (“Hertzian waves”), Hertz also showed that their velocity and length could be measured and that light and heat are electromagnetic waves.

Early Death:

During 1892, Hertz was diagnosed with first a head cold and then an allergy. Since then his health remained poor. He died of blood poisoning at the age of 36 in Bonn, Germany on January 1, 1894, and was buried in Ohlsdorf, Hamburg.

[MysteRy]

Henri Becquerel



Whenever we study or talk about radio activity, the name Henri Becquerel at once clicks to our minds. He was the discoverer of radioactivity, for which he also won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Early Life:

Antoine Henri Becquerel was born in Paris on December 15, 1852, a member of a distinguished family of scholars and scientists. His father, Alexander Edmond Becquerel, was a Professor of Applied Physics and had done research on solar radiation and on phosphorescence. He entered the Polytechnic in 1872 and ultimately became a professor in the same institute of the Applied Physics.

Contributions and Achievements:

The early research of Becquerel was almost entirely in optics. His first extensive investigations dealt with the rotation of plane-polarized light by magnetic fields. He next turned to infra-red spectra, making visual observations by means of the light released from certain phosphorescent crystals under infra-red illumination. He then studied the absorption of light in crystals. With these researches, Becquerel obtained his doctorate from the Faculty of Sciences of Paris in 1888 and election to the Academy of Sciences in 1889. Thus at the age of forty three, Becquerel was established in the rank and liability, his years of active research behind him and all that for which he is still now remembered.

Talking about the invention of radioactivity Becquerel decided to investigate whether there was any connection between X-rays and naturally occurring phosphorescence. The glow of X-ray emission put Becquerel in mind of the light in his study although he had not done much active research in the last few years. He had inherited from his father a supply of uranium salts, which phosphoresce when exposed to light. When the salts were placed near to a photographic plate covered with opaque paper, the plate was discovered to be fogged.

The phenomenon was found to be common to all the uranium salts studied and was concluded to be a property of the uranium atom. Finally Becquerel showed that the rays emitted by uranium caused gases to ionize and that they differed from X-rays in that they could be deflected by electric or magnetic fields. In this way his spontaneous discovery of radioactivity took place as like most physicists, he had a better understanding of the nature of matter that brought him closer to reaching this final philosophical goal.

Nowadays it is generally considered that Becquerel discovered radioactivity by chance, but it is truer to say that he was looking for an effect so similar to radioactivity that he must have discovered it sooner or later, and he was so great a scientist that he quickly realized the importance of his evidence. It is also known that Becquerel discovered one type of radioactivity beta particles which is due to high-speed electrons leaving the nucleus of the atom.

Becquerel also authored detailed studies of the physical properties of cobalt, nickel, and ozone, studied how crystals absorb light, and researched the polarization of light. He is the namesake of the Becquerel, the basic unit of radioactivity used in the international system of radiation units, referred to as “SI” units. From handling radioactive stones he developed serious and recurring burns on his skin, which may have been a contributing factor in history.

Besides being a Nobel Laureate, Becquerel was elected a member of the Academe des Sciences de France and succeeded Berthelot as Life Secretary of that body. He was a member also of the Accademia dei Lincei and of the Royal Academy of Berlin, amongst others. He was also made an Officer of the Legion of Honour. Becquerel published his findings in many papers, principally in the Annales de Physique et de Chimie and the Comptes Rendus de l’Academie des Sciences.

Death:

The famous scientist died in 1908 at Croissic in Britanny and is still remembered up till now among the outstanding Physicists.

[MysteRy]

Henrietta Swan Leavitt



American astronomer, Henrietta Swan Leavitt is renowned for her discovery of the period-luminosity relation of Cepheid variables. This major discovery became the starting point for the ability of astronomers to determine the distance of stars from the earth. Her work transformed human understanding of the relative brightness and variability of stars.

On her discovery, Henrietta Swan Leavitt quoted:

“A straight line can readily be drawn among each of the two series of points corresponding to maxima and minima, thus showing that there is a simple relation between the brightness of the variables and their periods.”

Early Life, Education and Career Achievements:

Born on July 4, 1868 in Lancaster, Massachusetts, Leavitt was the daughter of George Roswell Leavitt, a Congregationalist minister and his wife Henrietta Swan Kendrick. When she was a child, her family moved to Cleveland, Ohio.

Leavitt attended Oberlin College in 1885 and in 1892 graduated from the Society for the Collegiate Instruction for Women (now known as Radcliffe College). After her graduation, Leavitt remained in school an additional year to take further astronomy courses. She then traveled in America and in Europe during which time she lost her hearing. Three years after graduation, she became a volunteer research assistant at Harvard College Observatory under the astronomer Edward Pickering, who had initiated a research program on the measurement of stellar magnitudes. Seven years later, in 1902, Pickering hired Leavitt to the Observatory’s permanent staff at $.30 per hour, and she worked there until her death.

As an assistant at Harvard College Observatory, though she was talented enough, she was given little theoretical work. Pickering did not like his female staff to pursue such endeavors. Instead, she was given the position of chief of the photographic photometry department and was assigned the tedious task of cataloguing “variable” stars, whose brightness appears to ebb and flow in predictable patterns.

While investigating the Magellanic Clouds (neighbor-galaxies of the Milky Way), Leavitt revealed 1,777 new variable stars. More importantly, in 1912, by comparing different photographs of the same variable star, Leavitt established that stars of the “Cepheid” type had bright-dim cycle periods inversely proportionate to their magnitude (the stronger the star, the slower its cycle).

Leavitt found out that the variable stars’ cycles must depend not on how dazzling they appear (“apparent” luminosity), but how bright they really are (“intrinsic” or “absolute” luminosity). Later, Leavitt devised a period-luminosity ratio that applies to all Cepheid stars and which enabled astronomers to calculate the distance from Earth to any visible Cepheid star in the universe.

Death:

Pickering did not allow Leavitt to follow up on her ground-breaking discovery, and continued to treat her as a mere lab assistant. Her efforts would have won her a Nobel Prize but she died of cancer in 1921 at age fifty-three. The asteroid 5383 Leavitt and the crater Leavitt on the Moon are named after her to honor deaf men and women who have worked as astronomers.

[MysteRy]

Henry Bessemer



Sir Henry Bessemer was a prominent British engineer, inventor and entrepreneur. He developed the first cost-efficient process for the manufacture of steel in 1856, which later led to the invention of Bessemer converter.

Early Life and Education:

Born in Charlton, Hertfordshire on January 19, 1813, Henry Bessemer’s father, Anthony Bessemer, was an engineer and inventor, who was also appointed a member of the French Academy of Science, for making amendments to the optical microscope.

Bessemer was mostly self-taught who exhibited extraordinary inventive skills since childhood. He learnt mettalurgy at his father’s type foundry, helping in the production of gold chains.

Contributions and Achievements:

Henry Bessemer’s early invention of a group of six steam-powered machines for manufacturing bronze powder gained him wealth and fame. He also made other inventions in his early days, including an advanced sugarcane-crushing machine.

Bessemer is best known for devising a steel production process that inspired the Industrial Revolution. It was the first cost-efficient industrial process for the big-scale production of steel from molten pig iron by taking out impurities from pig iron using an air blast. Bessemer’s process still continues to inspire the production of modern steel.

The Royal Society of London elected Bessemer into fellowship in 1877. Two years later, in 1879, he was knighted. Throughout his career, he registered more than 110 patents.

Later Life and Death:

Henry Bessemer continued his research and made several inventions in the later years of his life. He died on March 15, 1898 in London. Bessemer was 85 years old.

[MysteRy]

Henry Cavendish



A natural philosopher, the greatest experimental and theoretical English chemist and physicist of his age, Henry Cavendish (10 Oct. 1731 – 24 Feb. 1810) was distinguished for great accuracy and precision in researches into the composition of atmospheric air, the properties of different gases, the synthesis of water, the law governing electrical attraction and repulsion, and calculations of the density (and hence the weight) of the Earth.

Early Life:

Cavendish attended Cambridge University from 1749 to 1753, but left without a degree. He engrossed himself in scientific studies but did not bother to publish a number of his important discoveries as Cavendish was sociable only with his scientific friends. Even the only existing portrait of him was sketched secretly. He approached most of his investigations through quantitative measurements.

Contributions and Achievements:

He was the first to recognize hydrogen gas as a distinct substance for which he calculated their densities as well as the densities of several other gases. He showed that it produced dew, which appeared to be water, upon being burned. He also found it to be much less dense than air. Cavendish also investigated the products of fermentation, showing that the gas from the fermentation of sugar is indistinguishable from the “fixed air” characterized as a constituent of chalk and magnesia by Black ( in modern language, carbon dioxide). In his study of the methods of gas analysis Cavendish made one amazing observation.

He was glinting air with excess oxygen (to form oxides of nitrogen) over alkali until no more absorption took place and noted that a tiny amount of gas could not be further reduced, “so that if there is any part of the phlogisticated air of our atmosphere which differs from the rest, and cannot be reduced to nitrous acid, we may safely conclude that it is not more than 1/120 part of the whole.” As is now known, he had observed the noble gases of the atmosphere.

In addition to his achievements in chemistry, Cavendish is also known for the Cavendish experiment, the first to measure the force of gravity between masses in a laboratory and to produce an accurate value for Earth’s density. The apparatus he was working with was devised by the Rev. John Michell, though he had the most important parts reconstructed to his own designs, it depended on measuring the attraction exercised on a horizontal bar, suspended by a vertical wire and bearing a small lead ball at each end, by two large masses of lead. His work and constant observation led others to accurate values for the gravitational constant (G) and Earth’s mass.

Based on his results, one can calculate a value for G of 6.754 × 10?11N-m2/kg2, which compares favourably with the modern value of 6.67428 × 10?11N-m2/kg2.

Cavendish compared the electrical conductivities of equivalent solutions of electrolytes and expressed a version of Ohm’s law. He was not the first to profound an inverse-square law of electrostatic attraction, but Cavendish’s exhibition, based in part on mathematical reasoning, was the most effective. He founded the study of the properties of dielectrics and also distinguished clearly between quantity of electricity and what is now called potential.

Cavendish’s work and reputation have to be considered in two parts, the one relating to his published work, the other to the large amount he did not publish. During his lifetime he made notable discoveries in chemistry and physics mainly for which he is known the best and recognized.

[MysteRy]

Henry David Thoreau



Henry David Thoreau was an American essayist, poet, practical philosopher and and natural scientist, known for his doctrines of Transcendentalism. He is noted for his book “Walden”, a statement of simple living in a natural environment. His another important work, “Civil Disobedience”, is often cited as a vigorous advocate of civil liberties.

Early Life and Education:

Born in Concord, Massachusetts, Thoreau studied philosophy, science and mathematics at Harvard University between 1833 and 1837. After he graduated in 1837, Thoreau became a schoolteacher briefly before opening a grammar school himself with the help of his brother.

Contributions and Achievements:

Thoreau’s work consists of more than 20 volumes. A few of his extraordinary contributions include books and essays about natural history and philosophy, in which he analyzed the major sources of modern day environmentalism; ecology and environmental history.

His philosophy of nonviolent resistance inspired such later figures as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Leo Tolstoy. Thoreau highlighted the theories for human culture appropriated by the American natural environment. He is often classified as an individualist anarchist and a major source of inspiration for anarchists worldwide.

Thoreau’s two legendary acts, his two years in a cabin he built near Walden Pond and his imprisonment for civil disobedience, typify his doctrines of New England Transcendentalism.

Later Life and Death:

Thoreau spent the last years of his life at a home on Belknap Street, Westborough, where he had moved along with his family in 1850. He stayed there until his death of tuberculosis in 1862.

[MysteRy]

Henry Ford



Henry Ford was an American industrialist and inventor who formulated the assembly-line methods for automobile manufacturing, which led to faster production at lower costs. One of the most popular figures in history, Ford’s inspired the Industrial Revolution in the United States and worldwide.

Early Life and Education:

Born on a farm in Greenfield Township, Michigan, Henry Ford had two brothers and two sisters. His father gave him a pocket watch when he was fifteen. Even at such a young age, Ford reassembled it and gained the reputation of a watch repairman. When his mother died in 1876, he refused to take over the family farm. Ford became an apprentice machinist in 1879. He also worked for Westinghouse company as a steam engine repairman.

Contributions and Achievements:

Henry Ford built his first steam engine when he was only fifteen. He constructed his first internal combustion engine in 1893 and his first automobile in 1896. Ford changed the way automobiles were designed and built, bringing in the assembly-line factories for the mass production of vehicles that later led to lower prices, and therefore caused a storm in automobile ownership throughout the United States and abroad. He created his first gasoline-driven buggy or Quadricycle in 1893 which was entirely self-propelled.

Ford founded the Ford Motor Company in 1903 and was president of the company from 1906 to 1919. He resumed his post from 1943 to 1945. The gross sales of his company exceeded 250,000 in 1914. The total sales went over 450.000 1916. Ford became the vice president of the Society of Automotive Engineers when it was established in 1905. The institute was formed to systematize automotive parts in the United States.

Later Life and Death:

Henry Ford fell ill and went into retirement in 1945. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage two years later in 1947. Ford was buried in the Ford Cemetery in Detroit. He was 83 years old.

[MysteRy]

Henry Moseley



The British physicist, Henry Moseley is known for his establishment of truly scientific basis of the Periodic Table of the Elements by sorting chemical elements in the order of their atomic numbers. In his short career, he contributed a lot towards the science of physics through his research. Many scientists believe that if Moseley had survived a bit longer he would have contributed a great deal to the knowledge of atomic structure and also earned the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Early Life:

Henry was born in Weymouth, Dorset, on the southwestern coast of England on November 23, 1887. He belonged to a rich, aristocratic, and scientifically accomplished family. Henry Nottidge Moseley, his father was a biologist and also a professor of anatomy and physiology at the University of Oxford. Henry’s mother, Amabel Gwyn-Jeffreys Moseley was the daughter of the biologist and conchologist John Gwyn Jeffreys. It was not a surprise when Henry showed his interest in zoology.

Moseley was always a very bright student. He received a King’s scholarship to attend Eton College where he excelled in mathematics, and was introduced to the study of x rays by his physics teacher. In 1910, he graduated from Trinity College of the University of Oxford after which he earned a position in the laboratory of Ernest Rutherford at the University of Manchester under the supervision of professors such as Sir Ernest Rutherford.

Contributions and Achievements:

In 1913, while working at the University of Manchester, Moseley observed and measured the X-ray spectra of various chemical elements obtained by diffraction in crystals. Through this he discovered a systematic relation between wavelength and atomic number. This discovery is now known as the Moseley’s law. Before his finding, atomic numbers had been thought of as an arbitrary number, based on sequence of atomic weights. Moseley also predicted a number of missing elements and their periodic numbers in the Periodic Table.

His method in early X-ray crystallography was able to sort out many chemical problems promptly, some of which had confused chemists for a number of years. Both the apparent irregularities in the location of elements such as argon and potassium and the positioning of the rare earth (inner transition) elements in the periodic table could now be elucidated on the basis of atomic number.

Moseley is also known for the development of of early X-ray spectrometry equipment which he learnt to design with the help of William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg at the University of Leeds. This device basically consisted of glass-bulb electron tube in which the ionization of electrons caused the emission of X-rays photons finally resulting in photographic lines.

Later Life:

In 1914, Henry Mosely planned to continue his physics reasearch at Oxford so he resigned from his position at Manchester. His plans were never materialised because when the first World War broke out he decided to enlist in the British Army. On August 10, 1915 he was shot dead during the Battle of Gallipoli, in Turkey.

This great physicist died very young at the age of twenty-seven but his contribution to the scientific world will never be forgotten.

[MysteRy]

Hermann Rorschach



Hermann Rorschach is a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who developed what we now know as the Rorschach inkblot test. The Rorschach inkblot test is a personality projection test where individuals are shown one of ten inkblots at a time while taking note of what they think and see in each of the images.

Early Life, Education and Career

Hermann Rorschach was born on November 8, 1884 in Zurich, Switzerland. He was the eldest of three children. He was only 12 years old when his mother died in 1897. Seven years after that, his father also died. He was a local art teacher and was very keen on encouraging his son to use his creativity to express himself effectively. In fact, H.F. Ellenberger, a medical historian and psychiatrist, described Rorschach’s childhood as very artistic and intellectual.

Rorschach spent his youth in a place in Northern Switzerland called Schaffhausen and immediately showed a fascination for inkblots when he was in high school. In fact, a Swiss childhood game called Klecksography that involved making pictures out of random inkblots proved to be Rorschach’s favorite, that his friends started calling him “Klecks”.

Before graduating in high school, Rorschach was torn between aiming for a career in science and a career in art. He even wrote to Ernst Haeckel, the famous German Biologist, to ask for his advice. Of course, Haeckel responded that Rorschach would be better off in pursuing a career in science.

Rorschach attended Academie de Neuchatel in 1904 and studied geology and botany. After just a single term, he transferred to Universite de Dijon to take French classes.

In 1904, he finally went to the University of Berne to attend medical school. He specialized in psychology and travelled throughout Zurich, Berlin and Nuremberg to complete his studies. He finally graduated in 1909 at the University of Zurich.

He married his Russian classmate from medical school, Olga Stempelin, in 1910. He was working in a mental institution in Switzerland at that time. In 1913, he decided to leave his job and left for Russia with his wife. After just a year in Russia, he decided to go back to Switzerland where he worked at the Walden Psychiatric University as one of the residents. His wife was temporarily detained in Russia but was able to travel back to Switzerland eventually. They had a daughter named Elizabeth who was born in 1917 and a son named Wadin who was born in 1919.

In 1915, he became the associate director for the Herisau Asylum.

The Rorschach Inkblot Test

While he was still studying, Rorschach had started wondering why different people reacted differently to certain stimuli. This was also the period when there was a lot of excitement on the continuous development of psychoanalysis. He was instantly reminded about the inkblots that he had played with as a child and was curious to find out why different people interpreted the same inkblots differently.

The psychiatrist Szyman Hens had already been using inkblots to study the fantasies that his patients had. Rorschach took a great interest in this concept when he found out about it. He also took into consideration the methods of his acquaintance, Carl Jung. Jung was tapping into random people’s unconscious minds by using a series of word association tests.

There were other speculations on other influences that Rorschach may have had on his the concepts he applied in his inkblot tests as well. There was a popular book of poems that was published by a German doctor named Justinus Kerner in 1857 that was said to have gotten its inspiration from an inkblot. Alfred Binet, a French psychologist, had also previously used inkblots for a creativity test.

Because Rorschach was interested in both art and psychoanalysis, he suddenly realized that the two could actually be combined. He started showing random inkblots to people just to see what their responses would be. He then created the Rorschach Inkblot test to study and analyze how patients would react and what associations they would form from random stimuli.

To test the system, he tried it on 300 patients with 100 of them as control subjects. The test involved showing each patient a series of 10 inkblot cards, half of them in black and white and the other half with colors. Each patient is then asked what they associate each inkblot with as Rorschach took notes of each patient’s answer. Once done with all the inkblots, these were shown to each patient again as they are asked to explain the answers that they gave previously. The answers were evaluated based on location, content, quality and conventionality. From the data he gathered, he was able to draw conclusions about the social behavior of each patient.

In 1921, he published the book Psychodiagnostik. This was one of the bases for his continuously developing inkblot test.

His Death and Further Developments

Hermann Rorschach died suddenly on April 2, 1922 of peritonitis in Herisau, Switzerland at the young age of 37. It is believed that this was the result of a ruptured appendix. He left behind his wife and two kids and was still holding the position of Associate Director at the Herisau Asylum during his death.

Despite his early death, the impact that his inkblot test had created remained. The German psychologist Bruno Klopfer saw the importance of the studies that Rorschach started and picked up where he left off. He started to make improvements on the test’s scoring system. He also became an advocate of the importance of projective personality tests, eventually causing them to be a popular psychological and psychiatric tool.

By the 1960s, Rorschach’s inkblot test became the most widely used projective personality test in the United States. In fact, it was ranked eighth in a long list of tests used all over the US for outpatient mental health care.

Rorschach’s inkblot test still faces a lot of controversy and criticism to this day. Despite this fact, it is still one of the primary tests used in hospitals, schools, jails and courtrooms and is used to decide on parental custody rights, assess the emotional issues of children, and determine if a prisoner is eligible for parole or not.