~ Famous Scientists ~

[MysteRy]

Nicholas Culpeper



Leave it to the rebels of the world to make an impact on history. When one thought of the “bad boy” of the herbalist world, one would automatically think of Nicholas Culpeper. This herbalist who lived in 17th century England would lead a tragically short life. Yet his brief life was nothing short of being fraught with meaning. Though his career was cut short, he would be later known as “The People’s Herbalist.” To this day, many owe Culpeper and his radical beliefs a debt of gratitude. At the time, he would use what would then be viewed as unconventional methods, and was, at a time, accused of witchcraft. But who was Culpeper? What was it in him that made him a man of the masses?

A Peek into Childhood

The rebel herbalist’s life was nothing short of personal tragedy. Born on October 18, 1616, he was to be the only son of the young Reverend Nicholas Culpeper, and his wife Mary. The family that he was born into was of aristocratic origins and owned land. At the time, this was a privilege denied to many. His father passed away suddenly just two weeks before he was even born. This was most unfortunate as the young clergyman had only been appointed Lord of Ockley Manor just a few months before.

After burying her husband, Mary would name her son Nicholas after the father her son never got to meet. She would later leave Ockley Manor, and take the young Nicholas to live with her in her family home in Isfield, Sussex.

The fledgling Nicholas was born in a time where medical knowledge was only limited to a privileged few, the licensed physicians. Like most children, Nicholas grew up with a fascination of the wonders of the world. He would be influenced by his grandfather, Reverend William Attersole.

Being the Minister of St. Margaret’s Church, the old Reverend was a strict and stern man. He was an intellectual, and thus held his grandson’s education of upbringing to be of high regard. Reverend Attersole had high ambitions for the young Nicholas, including sending him to Cambridge, where he had once been educated. Attersole was known for being a devout Purist, and even authored a number of many biblical commentaries and theological works.

Nicholas would learn to read and write Latin and Greek from his grandfather. At an early age, Culpeper had a fascination with the stars, and had read books on astrology in his grandfather’s library at the age of 10. He would later discover William Turner’s Herbal. This would spark Culpeper’s interest in medicine, as well as medicinal plants and herbs. He would pore over the books in his grandfather’s library for hours on end, until the old Reverend would later restrict his grandson’s reading material to the Bible.

The Reluctant Theologian

When Culpeper reached the aged of 16 in 1632, his grandfather sent him to Cambridge University. He was to study Theology, in order to fulfil his grandfather’s dreams of him being a Church Minister, much to his dismay. The young rebel would show no interest in Theology, and would read the medical works of Hippocrates and Galen. He would take out his frustration on his grandfather by drinking and smoking with his peers.

Culpeper fell madly in love with heiress Judith Rivers. Knowing their relationship would prove too much of a scandal, with her being born into a rich and powerful family, the two had hoped to elope. They had devised a plan where they would sail to the Netherlands and settle there until all would prove to be well.

However, this was not meant to be. During their rendezvous at Lewes, his sweetheart’s coach had been struck by lightning in a mad twist of fate. She did not survive, and the young man was devastated. He would later abandon his studies and become a recluse.

His personal tragedies would not end there. A year later, his mother passed away due to breast cancer, though the gossips would say that she died of shock upon discovering her only son’s affair with the young heiress. This would only cause Culpeper to refuse to continue his studies at Cambridge.

Naturally, his grandfather was disappointed in his grandson and disowned him from the family fortune. The reverend would use his contacts to set his grandson up with apprenticeship with the Master Apothecary, Daniel White. From then, he would sever all ties with the renegade Culpeper.

Starting Over

For seven years, Culpeper would serve as apprentice to White. Much of this time was dedicated to cataloguing various medicinal herbs. However, he never lost his fascination with astrology and would later admire the works of astrologer William Lilly. A chance meeting with Lilly would develop his fascination with the astrologer’s work, and would later provide inspiration for the struggling apprentice.

Culpeper would later marry 15-year old Alice Field, who had just very recently come into a considerable inheritance from her wealthy merchant father. Because of this, Culpeper was able to abandon his duties as an indentured apprentice and purchase a home for himself and his wife. He would later set up shop in the poorer areas of London.

Nicholas would set himself up as astrologer, botanist, and physician. This did not set well with the Society of Apothecaries, as they believed that only those who were fully qualified would be worthy to practice the craft. In their eyes, this was complete and utter defiance.

A Man of the Masses

Soon, Culpeper had a reputation for being a healer for the poor. He would sympathize with them in their plight, because he too had experienced their struggles. He was very active, seeing around 40 patients a day. He would charge very little or nothing at all for his services.

His grandfather passed away in May 1640. As a final slap to his face, he was left 40 shillings in the old Reverend’s will. This came to no surprise to him, as Culpeper only viewed his grandfather as a looming authoritarian figure who treated him more like a burden than family.

Servitude during the War

In 1642, Civil war was upon them. Culpeper responded to call-to-arms, and wanted to fight in the front lines for the Puritans. However, he was appointed field surgeon because of his medical knowledge. He would take only medicinal herbs with him. Soon, he was commissioned to captain his own infantry.

One day, during battle he was struck down by a musket shot. Though the Puritans were victorious that day, Culpeper’s days in the battlefield were over.

Affordable Treatment for All

Working amongst the poor in London sparked Culpeper’s belief that medical treatment should not be limited to just the privileged class. This would spark controversy amongst his fellow physicians who regarded him as a traitor who used unorthodox methods in treating his patients.

Culpeper was able to translate Pharmacopia Londonesis from Latin into English. This was most frowned upon by the Royal College of Physicians. Culpeper had the tome published under the name A Physical Directory in 1649. It was his desire to make herbal medicine available to those who needed it the most.

The rebel physician would later write and publish many books, which to this day continue to be of use to the medical field. His health deteriorated due to the wound he received on the battlefield. After a long battle with tuberculosis, he expired on January 10, 1654 aged just 38 years. He would leave behind his widow, Alice. Though he fathered 7 children with her, only one child named Mary would outlive her father.

It is personal tragedy that sparked inspiration into this otherwise tortured soul, and made his works immortal even unto this day.

[MysteRy]

Nicolaus Copernicus



Also known as the founder of modern astronomy, Nicolaus Copernicus was the first person to devise a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology, which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe. Copernicus’ heliocentric theory acted as the catalyst for the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, which is sometimes known as the Copernican revolution. His work forever changed the place of man in the cosmos; no longer could man legitimately think his importance greater than his fellow creatures. Besides an astronomer he was also a great mathematician, physician, quadrilingual polyglot, classical scholar, translator and artist.

Early Life:

Nicolaus Copernicus was born on 19 February 1473 in the city of Toru? (Thorn) in Royal Prussia, where his father, a native of Krakow, had established as a wholesale merchant. His mother was the daughter of a wealthy Toru? merchant. Nicolaus was the youngest child in the family. After his father’s death, he was raised by his mother’s brother, Lucas Watzelrode, a bishop in the Catholic Church. In 1941-1942 Nicolaus completed his matriculation from Kraków Academy after which he devoted himself, during three years, to mathematical science under Albert Brudzewski and incidentally attained some painting skills.

Contributions and Achievements:

During his time at the Kraków Academy he acquired a thorough mathematical-astronomical knowledge. He also studied the idealistic and natural-science writings of Aristotle and Averroes that stirred his interest in learning, and made him familiar with humanistic culture. In 1497 he resumed his studies, this time in Italy, where he went to many universities including Bologna, Padua and Ferrara. There he completed his bi-doctorate in medicine and law. By attending astronomical lectures of many Italian astronomers such as Domenico Maria Novara, Copernicus extended his astronomical knowledge.

After studying for six years, Copernicus returned to Poland in the year 1503 where he was appointed as a canon in the cathedral of Frauenburg and spent a protected life for the rest of his days. In addition to his clerical duties, he continued his astronomical research and medical practice.

From 1513, the foundation of his great work was laid down at Frauenburg, where he began work on his heliocentric theory. His theory was a concise description of the world’s heliocentric mechanism, without mathematical apparatus, and varyied in some important aspects of geometric construction from De revolutionibus; but it was already based on the same assumptions regarding Earth’s triple motions.

He wrote a manuscript explaining his new theory which was read by many astronomers, and rumors of Copernicus’ claim that the earth revolves about the sun spread all through Europe. His theory attracted many mathematicians and various astronomers who came to Copernicus to learn more about his new theory. One of them, Rheticus, even published a book unfolding this theory in 1540. Even though Copernicus finished writing his book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, about a decade earlier, in 1530, he postponed its publication fearing the reactions his ground-breaking theory might stir up.

However, he finally published his book in 1543, the same year he died. His book is considered to serve the beginning of modern astronomy and the defining epiphany that began the scientific revolution.

[MysteRy]

Niels Bohr



Niels Henrik David Bohr is considered as one of most dominant and influential physicists of the 20th century. His remarkable work in understanding the atomic structure and quantum Mechanics earned him the Nobel Price in Physics in 1922. He also acted as a prominent part of the team of physicists working on the Manhattan Project. His contribution to the field of physics has received remarkable praise from many scientists all over the world.

Bohr’s Early Life and Educational Background:

The Danish physicist was born on 7 October 1885 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He belonged to a highly influential and well educated family. His father, Professor Christian Bohr taught physiology at the University of Copenhagen, while his mother Ellen Adler, came from a prominent Jew family. It was his father who was greatly responsible for awakening his interest in physics. In his adolescence, he played for Copenhagen-based Akademisk Boldklub as a footballer.

Bohr received his early education at the Gammelholm Grammar School. In 1903, he joined the Copenhagen University, where he initially studied philosophy and mathematics. After he won a prize for an essay on physics he decided to adopt physics and drop philosophy. He received his Master’s degree in Physics in 1909. Bohr completed his Doctorate from Christian Christiansen in 1911. Later he conducted experiments under the guidance Professor J. J. Thomson at the Trinity College, Cambridge as a post doctorate student.

Professor Bohr got married, in 1912, to Margrethe Nørlund. They had six sons, out of which one died in an accident and the other died in childhood. One of his sons, Aage Bohr, carried Niels’ work forward and became a physicist. Aage was also awarded the Nobal Prize in physics in 1975.

Bohr’s Contributions:

In 1913, Bohr’s model of atomic structure was published which became the basis of the famous quantum theory. In 1916, Niels Bohr became a Professor at the University of Copenhagen and later founded the Institute of Theoretical Physics in 1921. Bohr’s institute became headquarter for theoretical physicists and most of the best known physicists contributed there.

Due to security reasons Niels Bohr assumed the name of Nicholas baker for the top-secret Manhattan Project in New Mexico, America. Soon after the World War II, Bohr started advocating the peaceful use of nuclear energy in Copenhagen.
‘The Bohr model of the atom’, ‘The shell model of the atom’, ‘The correspondence principle’, ‘The liquid drop model of the atomic nucleus’, the identification of uranium isotope and ‘The principle of complementarity’ are some of his major contributions to the field of physics and chemistry.

Final Days:

Bohr died on 18th November 1962, at the age of 77 because of a heart failure. He is buried in the Assistens Kierkegaard in Copenhagen, Denmark. In 1965, in honor of Bohr the Institute of Physics at the University of Copenhagen changed its name to the Niels Bohr Institute. Chemical Element ‘Bohrium’ and ‘Asteroid 3948 Bohr’ being named after him are few of his legacies.

[MysteRy]

Nikola Tesla



Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American engineer and inventor who is highly regarded in energy history for his development of alternating current (AC) electrical systems. He also made extraordinary contributions in the fields of electromagnetism and wireless radio communications.

Early Life and Education:

Nikola Tesla was born in the Croatian town of Smiljan (Austrian Empire) in 1856 to a priest father. He studied electrical engineering at the Austrian Polytechnic in Graz and later attended the Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague. Unfortunately his father died early, and he had to leave the university after completing only one term.

Tesla accepted a job under Tivadar Puskás in a Budapest telegraph company in 1880. He was later promoted to chief electrician and later engineer for the company. He later moved to Paris to work for the Continental Edison Company as an engineer.

Contributions and Achievements:

After moving to New York, United States, Tesla worked for Thomas Alva Edison, but the two did not get along well. He started working with George Westinghouse in 1885. There, he devised an electrical distribution system that employed alternating current (AC).

Tesla made public the first successful wireless energy transfer to power electronic devices in 1891.

Probably Tesla’s most important contribution to energy history is the use of alternating current (AC). The Westinghouse Electric Company was the first implement this technology by lighting the World Colombian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. It proved to be a more efficient and effective method as compared to the direct current (DC) system of Edison to transport electricity in a grid. The technology quickly became the basis for most modern electricity distribution systems. Besides the AC system, Tesla helped in the development of generators and turbine design. The earliest demonstration fluorescent lighting was also his accomplishment.

Later Life and Death:

Nikola Tesla continued his research work on electricity generation and turbine design in his later life. Even at 81, he claimed to have completed a “dynamic theory of gravity” – something which was never published. He died in New York City of a heart thrombus in January 1943. He was 86 years old.

[MysteRy]

Noam Chomsky



Noam Chomsky is an eminent American theoretical linguist, cognitive scientist and philosopher, who radically changed the arena of linguistics by assuming language as a uniquely human, biologically based cognitive capacity. He suggested that innate traits in the human brain give birth to both language and grammar. The most important figure in “cognitive revolution” and “analytic philosophy”, Chomsky’s wide-ranging influence also extends to computer science and mathematics.

Early Life and Education:

Avram Noam Chomsky was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1928. Both his parents were prominent Hebrew scholars. He entered the University of Pennsylvania in 1945, where he achieved a bachelor’s degree in linguistics in 1949, a master’s degree in 1951, and later earned his doctorate in 1955.

Contributions and Achievements:

Noam Chomsky became a member of the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and perfomed his services at MIT as a visiting professor. Influenced by the ideas of his mentor, Zellig Harris, Chomsky published his famous work, “Syntactic Structures”, in 1957. During that era, concepts regarding the origin of language were inspired by behaviorist ideas, for instance those of renowned Swedish psychologist B. F. Skinner, who advocated that newborn babies had a blank mind (tabula rasa) and that children acquired language by means of learning and mimickry.

Chomsky rejected that belief and argued that human beings were in fact born with the innate ability to realize the generative grammars that constitute every human language. Children make use of this innate ability to learn the languages that they are exposed to.

Chomsky established his linguistic theory in 1965 with “Aspects of the Theory of Syntax”, and in 1975, with “The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory”. Later works in cognitive science supported his claims. The influence of Chomsky on linguistics is similar to that of Charles Darwin on evolution and biology. His ideas have significant logical implications for various subjects of psychology, and also extends to cognitive science, anthropology, sociology and neurology.

Later Life:

Noam Chomsky won an honorary fellowship at the Literary and Historical Society in 2005. Two years later, he received The Uppsala University Honorary Doctor’s degree in 2007, named after Carolus Linnaeus. He was honored with the President’s Medal from the Literary and Debating Society of the National University of Ireland, Galway in 2008. Chomsky has been serving as an honorary member of The International Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters (IAPTI) since 2009.

[MysteRy]

Omar Khayyam



Omar Khayyam was one of the major mathematicians and astronomers of the medieval period. He was acknowledged as the author of the most important treatise on algebra before modern times. This is reflected in his Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra giving a geometric method for solving cubic equations by intersecting a hyperbola with a circle. His significance as a philosopher and teacher, and his few remaining philosophical works, has not received the same attention as his scientific and poetic writings.

Early life and Career:

Omar Khayyam was born on the 18th of May, 1048 AD in Iran. Omar Khayyam’s full name was Ghiyath al-Din Abu’l-Fath Umar Ibn Ibrahim Al-Nisaburi al-Khayyami. He was born into a family of tent makers. He spent part of his childhood in the town of Balkh, northern Afghanistan, studying under Sheik Muhammad Mansuri. Later on, he studied under Imam Mowaffaq Nishapuri, who was considered one of the greatest teachers of the Khorassan region. Khayyam had notable works in geometry, particularly on the theory of proportions.

He was a Persian polymath, mathematician, philosopher, astronomer, physician, and poet. He wrote treatises on mechanics, geography, and music. The treatise of Khayyam can be considered as the first treatment of parallels axiom which is not based on petition principle but on more intuitive postulate. Khayyam refutes the previous attempts by other Greek and Persian mathematicians to prove the proposition. And he refused the use of motion in geometry.

Khayyam was the mathematician who noticed the importance of a general binomial theorem. The argument supporting the claim that Khayyam had a general binomial theorem is based on his ability to extract roots. Khayyam was part of a panel that introduced several reforms to the Persian calendar. On March 15, 1079, Sultan Malik Shah, accepted this corrected calendar as the official Persian calendar.

Khayyam’s poetic work has eclipsed his fame as a mathematician. He has written about a thousand four-line verses or quatrains. In the English-speaking world, he was introduced through the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam which are rather free-wheeling English translations by Edward FitzGerald (1809-1883). Khayyam’s personal beliefs are discernible from his poetic oeuvre. In his own writings, Khayyam rejects strict religious structure and a literalist conception of the afterlife.
Khayyam taught for decades the philosophy of Avicenna, especially in his home town Nishapur, till his death. Khayyam, the philosopher can be understood from two rather distinct sources. One is through his Rubaiyat and the other through his own works in light of the intellectual and social conditions of his time. The latter could be informed by the evaluations of Khayyam’s works by scholars and philosophers such as Bayhaqi, Nezami Aruzi, and Zamakhshari and Sufi poets and writers Attar Nishapuri and Najmeddin Razi. As a mathematician, Khayyam has made fundamental contributions to the Philosophy of mathematics especially in the context of Persian Mathematics and Persian philosophy with which, most of the other Persian scientists and philosophers such as Avicenna, Biruni, and Tusi are associated.

Death:

Omer Khayyam passed away on December the 4th 1131 in Nishapur, Persia now known as Iran.

[MysteRy]

Otto Hahn



Otto Hahn was a German chemist and researcher, who is widely considered to be one of the most influential nuclear chemists in history. He pioneered the fields of radiochemistry and radioactivity. Also known as “the father of nuclear chemistry”, Hahn crusaded against the use of nuclear weapons after World War II. As an influential citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany, he had also strongly opposed Jewish persecution by the Nazis.

Early Life and Education:

Hahn was born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1879 to a rich entrepreneur named Heinrich Hahn. He developed an interest in chemistry at 15, though his father wanted him to study architecture. He studied chemistry and mineralogy and later received his doctorate in organic chemistry from the University of Marburg in 1901, where also worked for two years as an assistant to his doctoral supervisor Theodor Zincke.

Contributions and Achievements:

Hahn accepted a job at the University College of London in 1904, where the famous discovery of radiothorium, a new radioactive substance, took place. He continued his pioneering research in nuclear chemistry at McGill University in Montreal, where he discovered radioactinium, a radioactive isotope of thorium.

He went back to Germany in 1907 and joined the University of Berlin as a lecturer. Hahn made his most significant contribution to energy history in 1938. While working with Fritz Strassmann, a fellow chemist, he discovered that the element barium was produced when uranium atoms were bombarded with neutrons.

Actually Hahn and Strassmann had come upon nuclear fission, the primary chemical process involved in a nuclear reaction. This legendary discovery indirectly helped develop the atomic bomb and nuclear energy. For his discovery of nuclear fission, Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1944. He went forward with his research and the development and separation of new elements using the process of nuclear fission.

Later Life and Death:

Otto Hahn joined the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (KWG) in 1946. He was the last president of the institution. Hahn was also founding president of the Max Planck Society (MPG), where performed his duties from 1948 to 1960.

Hahn died on July 28, 1968. He was 89 years old.

[MysteRy]

Otto Haxel



There were a lot of scientists who made their names during the Second World War, and a lot of them were involved in the field of physics and nuclear development. Because of the need for solutions for the problems then, there were a lot of chances for those who aspired to be known to make their marks and contributions. One of those scientists happened to be Otto Haxel, a nuclear physicist from Germany who had a hand in the German nuclear energy projects. Being a noted name in nuclear physics, he had been a member of the Nuclear Physics Working Group of the German Atomic Energy Commission, and like several other bright minds of those times, he also held academic positions which allowed him to share his knowledge in the field of nuclear physics.

Early Life and Educational Background

Otto Haxel was born on the 2nd of April in 1909 in Neu-Ulm in Bavaria, Germany. He had his education from the Technische Hochschule München, which is now known as the Technische Universität München, from 1927-1933. During those years, he also took courses from the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, and he was able to receive his doctorate in 1933. He was under Hans Geiger’s supervision for his doctorate, and Geiger had been known for the invention of the Geiger counter. Being under Geiger’s tutelage, he had taken the opportunity to be Geiger’s teaching assistant at the University of Tübingen from 1933 up to 1936. Because of his experience in the academic field, Haxel was able to complete his Habilitation in the year 1936.

Academic Career and Other Pursuits

Haxel’s academic affiliation with Geiger paved his way to become a notable figure in the academic scene back then as well. He was able to go to the Technische Hochschule Berlin and became one of the teaching assistants there after his Habilitation had been completed. In 1939, he became a lecturer at the same university. About a year later, Haxel met Fritz Houtermans, who was going to be one of his future collaborators. This meeting was made possible through Max von Laue because Houtermans had just been released from the Gestapo incarceration.

Otto Haxel had been one of the members of the Uranverein or the Uranium Club. This club was also known as the German nuclear energy project, and several of the greatest scientific minds of Germany had been recruited for their cause. From the years 1940 up to 1942, Haxel was a member of the Uranium club, and he had his specialty on studying neutron absorption properties that uranium had. After his time with the Uranium Club, he was called for military service in 1942. There, he was in charge of a group which was doing nuclear research. They were under Admiral Rhein of the German Navy—he had previously been a submarine commander.

From the years 1946 up to 1950, Haxel was the staff of Werner Heisenberg who was then at the Max-Planck Institu fur Physik. In 1949, he had been appointed as the supernumerary professor at the Georg-August-Universität in Gottingen. These years were spent in Gottingen and it was during his time there when he had his collaborative work with Houtermans. Houtermans was working at the II. Physikalischen Institut which was at the University of Gottingen when they did their collaborative work.

Another notable name Haxel had been affiliated with is J. Hans D. Jensen, who had been a scientist working in Heidelberg’s Institut für theoretische Physik, and Hans Suess from Hamburg’s Institut für physikalische Chemie. Together, their collaborative work had been on “magic numbers” and their development.

Haxel himself had been one of the ordinarius professors in Germany, and he was the ordinarius professor at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität in Heidelberg for their physics department. He had also been the director of the Unversity of Heidelberg’s II. Physikalischen Institut. Apart from his scientific endeavors and contributions, he was able to contribute to the movement of environmental physics. This was made possible through his application of nuclear physics. Because of his development of environmental physics and other significant contributions, it led to the formation of the Institute of Environmental Physics, which is also known as the Institut für Umweltphysik. This was founded in 1975, and Karl-Otto Münnich had been the founding director.

Apart from being a member of the Uranium Club, Haxel had also played a part in other notable groups which were about science. From 1956 to 1957, he became a member of the Nuclear Physics Working Group also known as the Arbeitskreis Kernphysik which was under the Commission II “Research and Growth” or Fachkommission II, Forschung und Nachwuchs of the German Atomic Energy Commission. While he was a member of the Nuclear Physics working group, he was able to work alongside the chairman Werner Heisenberg and vice-chairman Hans Kopfermann.

From 1970 to 1975, he had been the Scientific and Technical Managing Director or wissenschaftlich-technischen Geschäftsführer of the Karlsruhe Research Center or Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe. He had also been a signatory of the Gottingen Eighteen manifesto.

His Latter Years

Because of his contributions for the nuclear energy industry, the Friends of the Karlsruhe Research Center was established and they award the Otto Haxel Prize to bright minds who have their own achievements in nuclear energy studies. Haxel himself had been awarded the Otto Hahn Prize of the City of Frankfurt am Main because of his work and dedication for channeling nuclear energy and understanding its production.

On a more personal note, Haxel’s friendship with Houtermans led to his very own marriage. Houtermans had four marriages. Houtermans had been married to Ilse Bartz, who was a chemical engineer and they worked together when they had to publish a paper. Ilse and Houtermans got divorced, however, and Haxel married her after she was divorced from Houtermans. Houtermans then remarried Charlotte Reifenstahl, who was a physicist, whom he married as his first wife. It can be said that because of his affiliation and friendship with Houtermans, it had been the way for him to have met his own wife.

[MysteRy]

Paul Dirac



Paul Dirac (full name: Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac) was an English theoretical physicist and mathematician who is widely regarded to be one of the founders of quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. Noted for his 1928 relativistic quantum theory of the electron, and for predicting of the existence of antiparticles, Dirac shared the 1933 Nobel Prize for Physics with Erwin Schrödinger.

Early Life and Education:

Born on August 8, 1902 in Bristol, England, Paul Dirac’s father was an immigrant from Saint-Maurice, Switzerland who taught French. He attended the Bishop Road Primary School, and later the Merchant Venturers’ Technical College, where his father was a French teacher. Dirac acquired a degree in electrical engineering at the University of Bristol in 1921.

When theory of relativity became famous in 1919, he gained an interest in the technical aspect of relativity. Dirac joined the University of Cambridge as a research student in 1923, where he further developed Heisenberg’s unpublished hypothesis regarding quantum mechanics.

Contributions and Achievements:

Paul Dirac is known as one of the greatest physicists in history. His contributions laid the groundwork for quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. He formulated quantum field theory after reworking his own Dirac equation as a many-body equation. The work predicted the existence of antimatter and matter–antimatter annihilation. Dirac was the first physicist to devise quantum electrodynamics. He also discovered the magnetic monopole solutions.

Dirac was made Lucasian professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge in 1932, where he taught for almost 37 years. He began indepedent research in the area of quantum theory in 1925. A few years later, he published his famous work “The principles of quantum mechanics” (1932), for which he shared the 1933 Nobel Prize for physics with Erwin Schrödinger. He was appointed a fellow of the Royal Society in 1930.

Later Life and Death:

Paul Dirac died on October 20, 1984 in Tallahassee, Florida. He was 82 years old.

[MysteRy]

Paul Ehrlich



Paul Ehrlich was a German scientist whose influence extended across diverse fields, including immunology, hematology and chemotherapy. Ehrlich discovered the first practical treatment for syphilis, for which he shared the 1908 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Russian biologist Élie Metchnikoff.

Early Life and Education:

Born in 1854 into an affluent Jewish family, Paul Ehrlich developed an interest in the process of staining cells with chemical dyes as a youth. He studied medicine at the Universities of Strasbourg, Breslau, Freiburg and Leipzig. Ehrlich earned his medical degree from the University of Leipzig in 1878.

Contributions and Achievements:

During his experimentation with cellular staining, Ehrlich noticed that chemical reactions took place in cells and that these reactions were the cause of cellular processes. He concluded that chemical agents could cure diseased cells and fight infectious agents, an idea that radically changed therapeutics and medical diagnostics. Ehrlich coined the term “chemotherapy”. He also detected a particular chemical reaction in the urine of typhoid patients and made important contributions for the treatment of various eye diseases.

Ehrlich was appointed a head physician at Charité Hospital, Berlin, where he came up with an exclusive staining method to recognize the tuberculosis bacillus. Ehrlich also differentiated the various kinds of blood cells of the body, and by doing so, became one of the founders of hematology. Ehrlich discovered the application of methylene blue for curing nervous disorders.

He published about 37 scientific papers between 1879 and 1885. Perhaps his most influential work, “Das Sauerstoff-Bedürfniss des Organismus” (The Requirement of the Organism for Oxygen), published in 1885, maintained that oxygen consumption changes with various types of tissue and that these changes form a measure of the intensity of vital cell processes.

Later Life and Death:

Paul Ehrlich shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Russian biologist Élie Metchnikoff in 1908. He died of a stroke in Hesse, Germany, on August 20, 1915. Ehrlich was 61 years old.

[MysteRy]

Pearl Kendrick



Whooping coughs can bring a lot of discomfort to individuals affected by it. Pearl Kendrick, an American bacteriologist, helped in co-developing the vaccine which counters whooping cough. Apart from this breakthrough, she also had contributions for improving the international vaccine standards to better promote health protection. Her name is one of the more prominent names for women who have contributed to science and although she wasn’t the sole inventor of the vaccine, her other contributions have made their own mark for various healthcare concerns.

Early Life and Educational Background

The reason behind inventing a vaccine which can counter whooping cough was that when Pearl Kendrick, born Pearl Louella Kendrick in August 24, 1890 turned three years old, she had been hit with whooping cough. Back then it was known as “pertussis” and it was named after the bacteria called Bordetella pertussis. Around 45 years later she had her revenge by developing the very first anti whooping cough vaccine.

Pearl’s father was a preacher, and in 1908, she graduated from high school. She first attended Greenville College where she stayed for a year before moving to Syracuse University where she received her diploma in the year 1914. In 1934, she graduated from Johns Hopkins University.

Pearl Kendrick’s Quest to Fight Whooping Cough

As a backgrounder, whooping cough during those times was a dreadful disease and during the year where it was most prevailent, it had claimed more than 6000 lives in just the United States alone. In the 1940s, whooping cough had been responsible for infant deaths—even more so than measles, polio, tuberculosis, and it had caused so much more childhood deaths compared to all those infant diseases combined. The effects caused by whooping cough were so alarming that infected children had been quarantined for two weeks while wearing a yellow armband which had the words “whooping cough” in big black letters.

Having been affected by this condition, it was one of Kendrick’s motivation to find a solution to counter whooping cough. She was a native of the Grand Rapids of Michigan, and while she was there, she had an office at the Western Michigan Branch Laboratory of the Michigan Department of Health. During the same period, she began to immerse herself in concerns about public health at the same time she was working her way to have her Ph.D. in microbiology.

While she was at Western Michigan Branch Laboratory, she met Grace Elderling who was going to be her partner in discovering the vaccine which would eventually counter whooping cough. Kendrick had a heart for promoting better children’s health programs and with Elderling, they were the perfect team. However, it was the time of the Great Depression, and because of this, funding for research as well as making programs realities were scarce—a major challenge which the team faced.

This did not, however, stop Kendrick and Elderling from developing the vaccine to counter whooping cough—something which they actually did during their off hours when work in the laboratory was over. It was in 1932 when she began this research, and it began as a fun engagement which later on turned out to be something which could save millions of lives.

Kendrick used the Grand Rapids as her clinical trial area and she was working with a team of local physicians to develop the vaccine along with Elderling. Samples were collected from the physicians in the area, and these same physicians also were the first ones who had their very first test vaccines.

Times were hard because of the lack of funding, but this didn’t stop Kendrick who wasn’t doing this for personal acclaim but really just to help improve the lives of those who were potentially going to be affected by whooping cough. In 1936, Kendrick had the chance to invite the first lady then, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt to her laboratory. Initially, the first lady thought of using orphans to investigate further how the trial vaccines could work. This idea, however, did not sit well with Kendrick. Kendrick suggested to work based on the ties she has made with the locals of the Grand Rapids area from where she can find willing volunteers who can make finding more conclusive results possible. The first lady spend a total of 13 hours with Kendrick that day, and probably seeing a heart and a spirit for her work, she helped provide funding for the research done by Kendrick and Elderling.

Because of the funding which came after the first lady’s visit, Kendrick and Elderling were able to continue working on a larger scale trial come 1934. This trial later on involved more than 5,800 children from which they were able to gain positive and conclusive results from. The results were astounding. The children who first received the vaccine demonstrated having a stronger immune system—indicative of the positive effects of the vaccine.

During that large-scale trial, Kendrick also addressed the situation concerning quarantine times. According to Kendrick, affected children can be infectious from up to a period of 3 weeks, but after 5 weeks, more than 90 percent of them were no longer infectious. Because of these findings, Michigan adapted a 35-day quarantine period.

In the year 1934, the vaccine which Kendrick and Elderling created was used all over the United States as a routine vaccine. In the early years of 1960, incidences of whooping cough had decreased to less than 5% compared to the rate in 1934. This success in coming up with a vaccine to counter whooping cough did not stop Kendrick and Elderling in coming up with better solutions for child health concerns. In 1942, they were able to combine 3 vaccines into a single shot which fought diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus. This is now known as the DPT shot which is now a standard vaccine nationwide. Of note is that although whooping cough incidences have been reduced all over the United States, it still continues to cause deaths in some other developing countries of the world.

Kendrick retired from her work as a member of the Michigan Department of Public Health in 1951. She then became one of the faculty members of the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan. On October 8, 1980, she died at the age of 90 in the Grand Rapids.

[MysteRy]

Percy Lavon Julian



It has been said that Mother Nature has all sorts of plants that can make a difference in the way people take care of their health and also ward off diseases and remedy ailments. One man that has made use of plants to come up with drugs that remedy illnesses is Percy Lavon Julian. Percy Lavon Julian is a research chemist and one of the first advocates of plant-based drugs from the U.S. In fact, he is one of the first men to study the chemical fusion of medicinal drugs that are derived from plants.

His other distinctions include being the first chemist to fuse physostigmine which is a natural product and pioneering the large-scale, industrial production involving the chemical fusion of steroids, progesterone, testosterone and human hormones derived from sitosterol and stigmasterol—both derived from plants. The work of Percy Lavon Julian would help start the path for the production of corticosteroids, pills for birth control and cortisone production.

Later on, Percy Lavon Julian would put up his own business to integrate steroid intermediates that were derived from wild yams from Mexico. This work of his would help lower the price of steroid intermediates that pharmaceutical manufacturers paid for such things which meant that his works also helped them expand the usage of a number of important drugs.

Percy Lavon Julian was really quite prolific in that he received approximately 130 patents for his chemical discoveries. In fact, Percy Lavon Julian was one of the very first black citizens to get a Ph.D. in chemistry. Another feather in his hat is that he is also known as the first ever black chemist to be given a spot in the National Academy of Scientists. He was also the second black man in any field to be inducted into the National Academy of Sciences. The first was a man named David Blackwell.

He had a lot to go through in terms of his life, career and studies mainly because he was African-American, and he lived during a time where their rights weren’t at all recognized. He also overcame personal scandals to become the great scientist and chemist that the world knows him to be.

Education and Life

Percy Lavon Julian hailed from Montgomery, Alabama and he was the eldest if 6 kids. His parents were Elizabeth Lena Julian Adams and his father was James Sumner Julian. Both Percy Lavon Julian’s parents were graduates of a school that was to become the Alabama State University of modern times. James, his father, worked as a clerk in the USPS. Percy Lavon Julian’s paternal grandfather worked as a slave. While his mother had a good job working as a teacher, Percy grew up in a rather racist environment since it was the time when the uber-racist Jim Crow laws were deeply entrenched in US culture. This was what made the achievements of the Julian family rather extraordinary since they lived during a time where most African-Americans didn’t always move past the 8th grade. However, Percy Lavon Julian’s parents made it a point that their kids were able to obtain higher education.

In college, Percy Lavon Julian went to DePauw University which was in Greencastle, Indiana. The college had limited slots for African-Americans and Julian was forced to live in ways that were rather humiliating due to the segregation which so firmly encroached the rights of their kind. For one, he was prohibited to stay in the dorm and he had to live in a dorm off-campus that would not even give him meals. It was a very long time before he found a place that would serve him food.

He wanted to get a Ph.D. in chemistry but he found out that it wasn’t too easy for African-Americans. That wouldn’t hold him back. He moved to Harvard for his Austin Fellowship but the school withdrew his teaching assistantship since they were worried that their white students wouldn’t be too happy being taught by a black man. He wasn’t able to get his Ph.D.

The Turning Point

There was a point in his life where a scandal broke out and he had to leave his job. This was when Julian’s mentor, a man named William Blanchard, served as a savior and threw him a life-line that he so desperately needed. Julian was offered a teaching position at DePauw University in 1932 and he was to teach Organic Chemistry—this was in 1932. Josef Pikl, a student from the University of Vienna, was asked by Julian to visit the US and in 1935 the pair was able to complete their work which involved the total synthesis of a chemical called “physostigmine.” The pair also confirmed a structural formula which they assigned to it.

Another of Julian’s major works involved the extraction of stigmasterol which was a chemical that could serve as raw material to make human steroidal hormones since his wife was suffering from infertility at that time. He got the name from the West African Calabar bean Physostigma venenosum. It was around the same time that German scientists Butenandt and Fernholz studied stigmasterol from soybean oil which could also be turned into progesterone.

His Work on Steroids

After he was denied a job at DePauw for racial reasons, he then tried to look for a job in Appleton, Wisconsin but was denied again since the city had a law against African-Americans staying in the city after sundown. Instead, he got soybean oil from a company called Glidden where he would use the oil to be the starting point to synthesize human steroidal sex hormones.

Glidden offered him a job where he supervised a plant in the year 1936. His job at Glidden took a turn in 1940 when he started to work on fusing estrogen, testosterone and progesterone that came from stigmasterol, sitosterol and plant sterols from soybean oil. He used a foam technique which he came up with and patented.

His Death

This brilliant man died on the 19th of April 1975 of cancer. He was buried at the Elm Lawn Cemetery in Illinois.

[MysteRy]

Peter Debye



Physics is a field dominated by some of the most famous names in history. One man that had a lot to contribute to the field of physics is one Peter Debye. He is a Dutch-American physical chemist and physicist who was also a Nobel Laureate for Chemistry. He was a brilliant man with lots of interesting projects and theories to share with the world.

His Early Life

Peter Debye was born on 24 March 1884 in Maastricht, Netherlands. His name was originally Petrus Josephus Wilhelmus Debije but records show that he eventually changed the name. Peter Debye went to school at Aachen University of Technology that was located in Rhenish, Prussia. It was just 30km away from his hometown. In school, he focused on studying mathematics and classical physics. He got an electrical engineering degree in 1905 and just 2 years later, in 1907, he published his very first paper that featured a most elegant solution to be used for solving problems that concerned eddy currents. While he was studying at Aachen, he was taught theoretical physics by Arnold Sommerfeld. Arnold Sommerfeld – who was a theoretical physicist – has stated that it was actually Peter Debye that he considered as one of his most important discoveries.

In 1906, Sommerfeld took Debye with him to Munich, Bavaria where he was given a job. Debye was to be his assistant. It was in 1908 when Debye obtained his doctorate degree and submitted his dissertation paper on the subject of radiation pressure. In the year 1910, he used a method to derive the Planck radiation formula. Mac Planck, who already had a formula for the same problem agreed that Debye’s formula was a lot simpler.

The year 1911 saw Debye moving to Switzerland where he would teach at the University of Zurich. The position opened when Albert Einstein agreed to take on a job as a professor in Prague. After his stint at the University of Zurich, he moved to Utrecht in 1912, and then to Gottingen a year after in 1913. He stayed a bit longer in Gottingen but in 1920 he moved to ETH Zurich. It took another 7 years for him to make the move to Leipzig in 1927 and then to Berlin in 1934. Again, he succeeded Einstein and became the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics director. It was during the era of Debye as director that most of the facilities of the Institute were built. In 1936, Debye was granted the Lorentz Medal and he became the Deutsche Physikalische Gesselschaft president from 1937 to 1939.

Contributions to Science

Indeed, he was a man of many talents and visions and this could be seen in his scientific works. The very first of his many major scientific contributions was in 1912 when he found a way to use the dipole moment to the movement of charges in asymmetric molecules. This was what led him to begin developing equations that related dipole moments to dielectric and temperature constants. It was because of this work that the units for molecular dipole moments are called debyes. In the same year, he went to work to expand on the theory of specific heat to lower temperatures simply by using low-frequency phonons. The theory of specific heat was first put forth by Albert Einstein.

A year after he went to work to extend the specific heat theory put forth by Einstein, he again went to work on the theory of Neils Bohr on atomic structure. It was this time that he introduced elliptical orbits. The concept was not something new, though, since his teacher Arnold Sommerfeld already introduced it before Debye did. From 1914-15, Peter Debye worked with Paul Scherrer on calculating the effect of varying temperatures on crystalline solids and the X-ray diffraction patterns they generated.

In 1923, Debye worked with Erich Huckel, his assistant, to develop and improve the theory of electrical conductivity in electrolyte solutions that were put forth by Svante Arrhenius. They did manage to make some improvements by way of the Debye-Huckel equation and while it is true that Lars Onsager made further improvements to their equation, the original equation is still looked upon as a major step towards gaining a better understanding of solutions that involved electrolytes. That same year, in 1923, Peter Debye went to work on developing a theory to help understand the Compton Effect.

His Later Work

Debye worked as a director of physics from 1934 to 39 at the Kiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin as the director of physics. From 1936 onwards, he also held a job at the Frederick William Institute of Berlin as a Theoretical Physics professor. It is important to note that in the years he held these positions, Hitler was already the ruler of Nazi Germany and also in Austria.

Debye went to the US and went to Cornell University where he delivered the Baker Lectures. He left Germany a year later and became a professor at the same university where he also served as chairman of the Chemistry department. He held the position for a decade and even became a member of the Alpha Chi Sigma fraternity. He was granted US citizenship in 1940 and unlike the Debye of earlier years where he moved around from position to position, he actually stayed at Cornell for the rest of his career. In 1952, he retired from the University but that did not stop him from conducting research until he died.

Personal Life

In some biographies, it was stated that Debye moved to the US because he refused to accept the citizenship that was foisted on him by the Nazis. Although some records state that Debye was actively participating in cleansing the Wilhelm Kaiser Institute of Jewish people and other non-Aryan people, this truth is still being debated.

Peter Debye got married to Mathilde Alberer in 1913 and they had a son named Peter P. Debye. They also had a daughter which they named Mathilde Maria. Peter, their son, became a physicist and worked with his father on some researches. The younger Peter Debye also had a son who became a chemist.

[MysteRy]

Pierre Curie



Pierre Curie was a French physical chemist who discovered radium and polonium, while studying radioactivity with his wife, Marie Curie. Widely considered to be one of the founders of founders of modern physics, he pioneered the fields of crystallography, magnetism and piezoelectricity. Curie shared the 1903 the Nobel Prize in Physics with his wife for their work on radiation.

Early Life and Education:

Born in Paris, France on May 15, 1859, Pierre Curie was a childhood prodigy. He showed an extraordinary aptitude for mathematics and geometry. Curie completed the equivalent of a higher degree when he was only 18, but failed to pursue a doctorate due to some financial problems. He instead accepted a job as a laboratory instructor.

Contributions and Achievements:

Pierre Curie is widely credited to be one of the founders of modern physics. As a young researcher, his work had already brought important discoveries related to heat waves, crystals, magnetism and symmetry. He formulated the Curie’s law before he married Marie Sklowdowska in 1895. The Curies, the husband and wife, together discovered polonium and radium while conducting research in radioactivity.

Together with Henri Becquerel, the Curies shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in physics for their revolutionary work on radioactivity.

Later Life and Death:

Pierre Curie died in a street accident in Paris on 19 April 1906. He was only 46 years old.

[MysteRy]

Pierre-Simon Laplace



Pierre-Simon Laplace was a prominent French mathematical physicist and astronomer of the 19th century, who made crucial contributions in the arena of planetary motion by applying Sir Isaac Newton’s theory of gravitation to the entire solar system. His work regarding the theory of probability and statistics is considered pioneering and has influenced a whole new generation of mathematicians.

Early Life and Education:

Pierre-Simon Laplace entered Caen University when he was only 16 and he soon developed a strong interest in mathematics. When he was only 19, he moved to Paris, without finishing his degree, to work as a professor of mathematics at the École Militaire with the fellow mathematician Jean-le-Rond D’Alembert. Five years later, Laplace had already written 13 scientific papers regarding integral calculus, mechanics and physical astronomy, which gained him fame and acclaim all over France.

Contributions and Achievements:

Pierre-Simon Laplace is highly regarded for his influential five-volume treatise “Traité de mécanique céleste” (Celestial mechanics; 1799-1825), which developed a strong mathematical understanding of the motion of the heavenly bodies, including several anomalies and inequalities that were noticed in their orbits. Laplace suggested that the nature of the universe is completely deterministic.

Laplace heavily contributed in the development of differential equations, difference equations, probability and statistics. His 1812 work “Théorie analytique des probabilités” (Analytic theory of probability) furthered the subjects of probability and statistics significantly.

Laplace was made a member of the Paris Academic des Sciences in 1773, where he assumed a senior position in 1785. He was given the duty of standardizing all European weights and measures.

His work on celestial mechanics is considered revolutionary. He established that the small perturbations observed in the orbital motion of the planets will always remain small, constant and self-correcting. He was the earliest astronomer to suggest the idea that the solar system originated from the contraction and cooling of a large rotating, and consequently flattened, nebula of incandescent gas. Laplace published his famous work on probability in 1812. He supplied his own definition of probability and applied it to justify the fundamental mathematical manipulations.

Later Life and Death:

Laplace died in Paris, France, on March 5, 1827. He was 77 years old. It is impossible to overstate the influence Laplace had on the progress of the mathematical theory of mechanics. Various fundamental concepts, for instance the Laplace operator in potential theory and the Laplace transform in the study of differential equations, are named after him.