~ Famous Scientists ~

[MysteRy]

Robert Koch



Robert Koch was a German physician who is widely credited as one of the founders of bacteriology and microbiology. He investigated the anthrax disease cycle in 1876, and studied the bacteria that causes tuberculosis in 1882, and cholera in 1883. He also formulated Koch’s postulates. Koch won the 1905 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Early Life and Education:

Born in 1843 in Glausthal, Germany, Robert Koch was a childhood prodigy. He taught himself to read newspapers when he was only 5. He loved to read classical literature and was a chess expert. He gained an interest in science while in high school, and decided to study biology. Koch acquired his medical degree from the University of Göttingen, Germany in 1866.

Contributions and Achievements:

Koch developed a strong interest in pathology and infectious diseases as a medical student. After working as a physician in many small towns throughout Germany, he volunteered as a military surgeon during the Franco-Prussian war (1870-72). He was appointed a district medical officer for Wollstein after the war.

His main duty as a medical officer was investigating the spread of infectious bacterial diseases. Koch was very much interested in the transmission of anthrax from cattle to humans. Not very happy with the prevailing process of confirming the cause of infectious disease, Koch formulated four criteria in 1890 that must be achieved for establishing a cause of an infectious disease. These rules were termed as “Koch’s postulates” or “Henle-Koch postulates”. German pathologist Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle was a collaborator in Koch’s research.

Later Life and Death:

Robert Koch’s brilliant contributions were acknowledged in 1905, and he won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. The medical applications of biotechnology still heavily depend on the Koch’s principles of affirming the causes of infectious diseases. Koch died in 1910 in Black Forest region of Germany. He was 66 years old.

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Ronald Ross



Having won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1902, Ronald Ross is famous for his work concerning malaria. He was the one who discovered that the malaria parasite resided in the gastrointestinal tracts of mosquitos. Because of this, other scientists and doctors were able to deduce that mosquitoes spread the diseases and discovered ways to counter malaria. Because of his contribution as well as experience concerning malaria and other tropical diseases, he became the Director-in-Chief of the Ross Institute and Hospital for Tropical Diseases—an institute established to honor his works.

Early Life and Educational Background

Ronald Ross was the son of C.C.G. Ross who was a general of the English Army. He was brought to this world by his mother Matilda Charlotte Elderton and his birthplace was in Almora which is now Uttarakhand in India. Ronald was the eldest of the couple’s ten children and when he was eight, he had been sent to England where he lived with an aunt and uncle.

For his elementary education he went to Ryde and for his secondary learning he was sent in 1869 to one of the boarding schools in Springhill which is near Southampton. He was still just a boy when he developed a love for music, literature, poems, and mathematics. When he was 14, he was able to win a prize for an engagement in mathematics. A book called Orbs of Heaven was the one which woke up his interest in this field.

At a young age of 16, Ronald was able to secure a position to have an examination in the drawing exams for Oxford as well as for Cambridge. Because of his love for poems and literature, he initially wanted to be a writer but his path changed when he became a part of the St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College which was in London in 1874. He did this to follow his father’s preferences.

Since he was initially not fully committed to the path he has chosen, he spent a lot of his time writing plays, poems, and composing his own music. Despite this fact, he graduated in 1880 and a year before that, Ronald was able to pass the examinations for the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

Ronald Ross then worked as a ship surgeon and he first worked on a transatlantic steamship. At the same time, he was advancing his knowledge by studying to have the license for the Society of Apothecaries. On his first attempt, he wasn’t so lucky but during his second attempt in 1881, he was able to qualify and this allowed him to join the Army Medical School which made him a part of the Indian Medical Service. Not stopping at having gained a good educational experience, he even took a study leave in 1888 to 1889. He did this with the aim to obtain his Diploma in Public Health from the Royal College of Physicians and Royal College of Surgeons. To achieve this, he took a course about bacteriology and was taught by professor E.E. Klein.

Career

It was in 1894 when he set his mind on determining how mosquitoes propagated malaria. It wasn’t easy for him because for two and a half years, he failed but after that, he was able to successfully demonstrate how the malaria bacteria resided in the mosquitoes’ gastrointestinal tract—this was what helped him establish Laveran and Manson’s hypothesis as a fact.

His research started while he was at Presidency General Hospital where he studied in his own bungalow at the Mahanad village. From time to time, he went around the village to collect mosquitoes with the help of the Indian scientist Kishori Mohan Bandyopadhyay. In 1883, Ross became the Acting Garrison Surgeon of Bangalore and it was then when he realized how they can control mosquitoes and the propagation of malaria by countering their means of propagation and limiting the mosquitoes’ access to water.

Interestingly, Ross was assigned to work at Sigur Ghat which was near Ooty, a hill station. Three days after he arrived, he had malaria and made the observation that there was a mosquito on the wall which had a strange posture. This mosquito was what he called as the “dappled wings” kind of mosquito. He was transferred to Secunderabad, and it was there he was able to culture some 20 brown mosquitoes which he later on infected from a patient’s blood. After the blood feeding, he then dissected the mosquitoes and this was where he was able to discover the presence of the malaria bacteria which stayed in the gastrointestinal tract of infected mosquitoes.

In 1895, he went to India once more and stayed in Madras, Burma, as well as the Andaman Islands. It was during the years 1882 and 1899 that he was working at Calcutta’s Presidency General Hospital. He stayed in India for a few years until he resigned in 1899 and went back to England where he then went to join the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. There, he became a lecturer and made efforts to still help prevent malaria in other parts of the world like Cyprus, Mauritius, Africa, Greece, the Suez Canal, and other areas which were being negatively affected especially because of the First World War.

His dedication for fighting malaria was at a very high degree that he even established an organization to fight malaria specifically in Sri Lanka. Because of his efforts, both academically, and scientifically, he was promoted as the Professor and Chair of Tropical Medicine of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine come 1902. This was a position which he held up until 1912. In 1912, Ross was appointed as London’s Physician for Tropical Diseases at King’s College Hospital. During this time, he was also the Chair of Tropical Sanitation in Liverpool. Up until 1917, Ross held these positions until he was an honorary consultant in Malariology in the British War Office. From 1918 to 1926, he was working as the consultant for malaria in the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance.

He was married to Rosa Bessie Bloxam and they had two sons. He died because of a long-term illness coupled with asthma and was buried next to his wife in Putney Vale Cemetery.

[MysteRy]

Rosalind Franklin



There is probably no other woman scientist with as much controversy surrounding her life and work as Rosalind Franklin. As a scientist Miss Franklin was distinguished by extreme clarity and perfection in everything she undertook.

Early Life:

Rosalind Franklin was born in London, England on 25th July 1920. Franklin did extremely well at science and then studied physics and chemistry. When she was 15, she decided to become a scientist.

Rosalind attended St Paul’s Girls’ School, London, where she displayed great talent in physics and chemistry. From there she went up to Newnham College, Cambridge in 1938. After graduation in 1941, she was awarded a research scholarship to work on gas chromatography, but left in 1942 to work at the British Coal Utilization Research Association, where she worked on the microstructure of coke. As a result of her research, she gained her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree from Cambridge in 1945.

Contributions and Achievements:

Rosalind was asked to join a research group by John Randall. She had been asked to set up a laboratory to study DNA fibres using X-ray crystallography, where atoms can be precisely mapped by looking at the image of the crystal under an X-ray beam. She had the entire responsibility for determining the structure of DNA. Franklin was able to apply her knowledge of physical chemistry and as a result, she made thinner fibers in order to produce more exact and easier to interpret X-ray patterns.

She discovered A and B forms of DNA, but concentrated on A as it showed more X-ray spots. This form does not show the helical structure as well as form B, which she originally thought of as a ladder with bonds between the bases of the rungs. She did record in her laboratory notebook on the 24th February 1953 that she had revised her thinking to that of a three dimensional helix.

Twenty five years after the fact, the first clear recitation of Franklin’s contribution appeared. The Double Helix, although it was buried under allegations that Franklin did not know how to interpret her own data but her own publication in the same issue of Nature was the first publication of this more clarified X-ray image of DNA. The Double Helix inspired several people to investigate DNA history and Franklin’s contribution but the path to the Double Helix supplied information about original source materials for those that followed. After finishing her portion of the DNA work, Franklin led pioneering work on the tobacco mosaic and polio viruses.

Rosalind Franklin’s critical contributions to the Crick and Watson model was – Franklin’s lecture at the seminar in 1951, where she presented the two forms of the molecule, type A and type B, and her position whereby the phosphate units are located in the external part of the molecule. and she specified the amount of water to be found in the molecule in accordance with other parts of it, data that has considerable importance in terms of the stability of the molecule. Franklin was the first to discover and formulate these facts, which in fact constituted the basis for all later attempts to build a model of the molecule.

The rules of the Nobel Prize forbid posthumous nominations and because Rosalind Franklin had died in 1958 she was not eligible for nomination to the Nobel Prize subsequently awarded to Crick, Watson, and Wilkins. The award was for their body of work on nucleic acids and not exclusively for the discovery of the structure of DNA. By the time of the award Wilkins had been working on the structure of DNA for over 10 years, and had done much to confirm the Watson – Crick Model. Crick had been working on the genetic code at Cambridge and Watson had worked on RNA for some years.

A debate about the amount of credit due to Franklin continues. What is clear is that she did have a meaningful role in learning the structure of DNA and that she was a scientist of the first rank. Franklin also did important research into the micro-structure and properties of coals and other carbons, and spent the last five years of her career elucidating the structure of plant viruses, notably tobacco mosaic virus. She died at the age of 37 from complications arising from ovarian cancer.

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Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel



From the name alone, it would be enough to have an inkling of what this man of science contributed to today’s society. Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel made a great contribution in the field of mechanical engineering, particularly in today’s transportation powering methods. He is most famous for having invented the diesel engine but apart from that, Diesel also happens to be a connoisseur of the arts, a social theorist, and a linguist whose brilliant mind made breakthroughs which are still much appreciated by the modern society.

Early Life and Family Background

Born on March 18, 1858 in Paris, France, Rudolf Diesel was the son of Theodor Diesel who was a leather worker, and Elise Strobel. Both of his parents were Bavarian Germans who hailed from Augsburg. When the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 happened, the Diesel family had to be expelled from France which caused them to transfer to London. Young Rudolf Diesel was, however, sent back to Augsburg by his father to continue the education which he was able to have in France.

Although unable to graduate in his 1879 class because he was ill with typhoid, he mad wise use of his time by gaining practical experience in engineering at the Sulzer Brothers Machine Works or the Gebrüder Sulzer Maschinenfabrik in Winterthur, Switzerland. He became fascinated by engineering because of his visits to National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts. The following year, Rudolf Diesel graduated with flying colors and made his way back to Paris where he had the chance to work at the firm which Karl Paul Gottfried von Linde, his former refrigeration professor ran. Diesel had been Linde’s student at Technical University Munich.

Career

Diesel assisted Linde to come up with the design as well as the construction of a modern refrigeration as well as ice plant back in 1880. A year later, it was none other than Diesel himself who became the director of the plant. Come 1883, Diesel was married to Martha Flasche with which he had their sons Rudolf Jr. and Eugen, and their daughter Heddy. He continued to work with and for Linde and together, they were able to gain many patents in both France and Germany.

While he was working as one of the employees of the Linde firm, Diesel was captivated by the theoretical works of Nicholas Carnot, a French physicist who was the brains behind the principles of today’s modern combustion engine. Diesel believed that it was possible to build an engine which which is four times more efficient than what they had back then.

This inspiration set his ideas in motion and in 1885, he began to work on his project to have a more efficient engine. For more than a decade, he had worked on different engine designs and come 1892, he was granted the patent to have an engine burn what was then the cheapest fuel available which was powdered coal. During the time he was working on his engines and designs, his projects earned funding from Maschinenfabrik Augsburg which is now known as MAN Diesel as well as Friedrich Krupp AG now known as ThyssenKrupp.

The Diesel Engine

Rudolf Diesel was able to power the very first diesel engine on the tenth of August, 1893 and what served as its fuel was peanut oil. He was able to find workarounds for some of the problems and he was then able to introduce the first 25-horsepower 4-stroke one-cylinder compression engine come 1879. This more advanced engine which became well-known after it was first displayed in the 1898 Munich Exhibition.

The engine that Rudolf Diesel came up with is a kind of internal combustion engine with a compression ignition mechanism that works by having heated fuels. The fuels used for powering the engine can either be bio-derived or petroleum based. This mechanism that does not require complex spark ignition systems is what really sets the diesel engine aside and makes it more efficient. According to Diesel himself, “It is the diesel’s higher compression ratio that leads to its greater fuel efficiency. Because the air is compressed, the combustion temperature is higher, and the gases will expand more after combustion, applying more pressure to the piston and crankshaft.”

His diesel engine was made to be usable for marine engines, automobiles, electric power generators, factories, trains, oil drilling equipment, and mining machines. The American rights for the diesel engine were sold to the brewer named Adolphus Busch, but in Europe, it is still MAN Diesel that operates the leading facility for diesel engines. Not only did Diesel create a more efficient engine, he had also warned of the possible air pollution dangers that may arise from the use of engines, and he even wrote a book about the human condition which also suggested how businesses should be owned by the employees.

Death and Disappearance

In September 29, 1913, Diesel went aboard the steamer Dresden to cross the English Channel. En route to London to be in the Consolidated Diesel Manufacturing meeting, he vanished. He went to his cabin around 10 PM after having dinner and asked to be called the following morning around 6 AM. During the roll call, his cabin was empty and had never been seen alive since then.

His clothing were left untouched on his unused bed and ten days later after his disappearance, crew from the Dutch boat named Coertsen chanced upon the decomposing body of a man which floated in the North Sea which is near Norway. The body was not brought on board because of its state, but personal items such as his pill case, pocket knife, I.D. card, and an eyeglass case was taken to help identify him. Eugen, the younges of Rudolf Diesel’s sons identified these personal effects as his father’s.

There are some theories about the death of Diesel, one of which is suicide which is considered as the most likely one. Some conspiracy theories suggest homicide based on military interest on his works. However, there is limited explanation for the death of the man who was able to create a huge change on engine efficiency.

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Rudolf Virchow



Rudolf Virchow was an emient German pathologist and politician, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential physicians in history. One of the founding fathers of “social medicine”, Virchow developed the concept of pathological processes, and by drawing influence from the cell theory, analyzed the effects of disease in various organs and tissues of the human body.

Early Life and Education:

Rudolf Virchow was born in 1821 to a modest farming family. Virchow proved to be a very bright student, and received a free scholarship for medical training in Berlin. He started his medical studies in 1839, earning his M.D. degree in 1843.

Contributions and Achievements:

The world owes the understanding of the cellular basis for many diseases, such as cancer, to Rudolf Virchow. Particularly passionate about pathological histology, the science of diseased cells and tissues, he published a scientific paper in 1845, that discussed the oldest known pathological descriptions of leukemia. Virchow was also an fervid social reformer.

When he was selected to look into a terrible outbreak of typhus fever in Germany, his report highlighted social conditions and blamed the government for the state of affairs that caused the outbreak. He concluded that improper system of sewers, deficiency of clean drinking water and unhygienic conditions led to the spread of the disease. As a consequence, Virchow was suspended for two weeks and he also faced degradation. Virchow, however, stood still in his reform efforts, and carried out on with his scientific research.

An entire pathological institute was established for Virchow at the University of Berlin, where he worked for the rest of his career. He discovered that outside stimuli affected cells, and that diseased cells arise from already diseased and cancerous cells. He focused on clinical observation, physiological experiments and pathological anatomy, occasionally using laboratory animals, operating at the microscopic level. Virchow published probably his most influential work, “Cellular Pathology”, reporting that the cell was the most fundamnetal unit of disease pathologies, including that of cancer.

Later Life and Death:

Rudolf Virchow was appointed a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1861. He was honored with the Copley Medal in 1892.

Virchow died of heart failure in Berlin on September 5, 1902. He was 80 years old.

[MysteRy]

Salim Ali



Salim Ali, one of the greatest ornithologists and naturalists of all time, is also known as the “birdman of India”. He was one of the very first scientists to carry out systematic bird surveys in India and abroad. His research work is considered highly influential in the development of ornithology.

Early Life:

As a 10-year-old, Salim once noticed a flying bird and shot it down. Tender at heart, he instantly ran and picked it up. It appeared like a house sparrow, but had a strange yellowish shade on the throat. Curious, he showed the sparrow to his uncle Amiruddin and questioned him about the bird’s kind. Unable to answer, his uncle took him to W.S. Millard, the Honorary Secretary of the Bomaby Natural History Society. Amazed at the unusual interest of the young boy, Millard took him to see many stuffed birds. When Salim finally saw a bird similar to the child’s bird, he got very excited. After that, the young Salim started visiting the place frequently.

Salim Moizuddin Abdul Ali was born on November 12, 1896. He attended college, but did not receive any university degree. To assist his brother in wolfram mining, he went to Burma, but spent most of his time looking for birds. Soon, he returned back to Bombay.

Contributions and Achievements:

As soon as Salim returned, he studied zoology, and secured a position of a guide at the museum of the Bombay Natural History Society. Only 20 years old, he conducted the visitors and instructed them about the preserved birds. His interest in the living conditions of birds grew even more. Therefore, Salim visited Germany and saw Dr. Irvin Strassman. He came back to India after one year but his post in the museum had been removed for financial reasons.

Salim Ali, as a married man, required money to make a living, so he joined the museum as a clerk. The job allowed him to carry on with his research. His wife’s house at Kihim, a small village near Mumbai, was a tranquil place surrounded by trees, where Salim would spend most of his time researching about the activities of the weaver bird.

He published a research paper discussing the nature and activities of the weaver bird in 1930. The piece made him famous and established his name in the field of ornithology. Salim also traveled from place to place to find out more about different species of the birds.

From what he had collected, he published “The Book of Indian Birds in 1941″ in which he discussed the kinds and habits of Indian birds. The book sold very well for a number of years. He also collaborated with S. Dillon Ripley, a world-famous ornithologist, in 1948. The collaboration resulted in the ‘Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan’ (10 Volume Set); a comprehensive book that describes the birds of the subcontinent, their appearance, habitat, breeding habits, migration etc. Salim also published other books. His work “The Fall of Sparrow” included many incidents from his real life.

Later Life and Death:

Salim not only researched about birds, but also contributed to the arena of protection of nature. For his extraordinary efforts, he was given an international award of INR 5 lacs, but he donated all the money to Bombay Natural History Society. The Government of India honored him with Padma Vibushan in 1983.

This genius man died at the age of 90 on June 20, 1987.

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Sally Ride



Sally Ride is yet another inspiration to women and kids all over the world. Forging her name into the field of space aeronautics, she was a woman who went through a lot of firsts in NASA history. She is officially the first American woman who travelled to space.

Her Life and Education

Sally Kristen Ride was born on May 26, 1951 in Encino California, the older of two daughters. Her father, Dale B. Ride, was a professor of Political Science in Santa Monica College while her mother, Carol Joyce Anderson Ride, was a volunteer counselor who worked at the women’s correctional facility. Both of her parents instilled in her the importance of exploring, which she credits as the foundation from which her passion for science was born.

Sally was athletic in her early days, and was on a partial tennis scholarship when she attended the Los Angeles prep school Westlake High School for Girls. Before attending the prep school, she also attended Portola Junior High. She also enjoyed running, and played softball and volleyball. She had a brief professional tennis career.

She attended three semesters in Swarthmore College and signed up for some physics courses in UCLA before finally going to Stanford University as a junior where she earned two degrees in 1973: a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics as well as a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. Still keeping her passionate for science, she eventually earned her Master of Science degree and her Doctorate in Physics, also in Stanford. Within this period, she was actively doing research on the interaction of x-rays and an interstellar medium.

She had a brief marriage with Steven Hawley, a fellow astronaut, from 1982 to 1987. The marriage did not bear them any children.

Career in NASA

Sally Ride immediately pursued her dream when she saw an ad in the Stanford student newspaper about the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) invitation for qualified students to join their astronaut program in 1977. She applied for a spot after earning her degrees in Stanford. She began spaceflight training in 1978 and was one of the first six female astronauts selected by NASA among 8,000 other hopefuls. She started out as a capsule communicator for the second and third shuttle flights in 1981 and 1982, respectively as part of the team’s ground support.

She finally experienced space travel when she was 32 years old. She was part of NASA’s 7th shuttle mission and was the mission specialist on the Challenger. They launched on June 18, 1983 and was back on earth in June 24. She was the first ever woman who operated the shuttle’s robotic arm as part of the team’s mission to launch communication satellites. A trip of many firsts, this was the first successful deployment and retrieval of satellites while using the shuttle’s robotic arm.

Before the actual flight, she caught the attention of the media because of her gender. There were questions about how the flight would affect her reproductive organs, and there were some who asked if her emotions as a woman could affect the way she did her job. But Sally stood firm in saying that she was an astronaut, period. Standing her ground made her the first American woman to travel into space.

In October 5, 1984, Sally made history once again by being the first American woman to return to space. A nine-day mission on the Challenger, she was once again in charge of operating the robotic arm. She readjusted the radar antenna and removed ice from outside the shuttle.

Her training for her third Challenger mission was cut short because of the January 1986 Challenger disaster. Seven crew members died on that day as the shuttle suddenly broke apart a mere 73 seconds after take-off. The shuttle program became inactive for 32 months after the event. All in all, she spent over 343 hours in space.

Because of her historical experiences in space aeronautics, Sally continued to work for NASA and was part of the Rogers Commission—a team set up by then president Ronald Reagan that investigated the Challenger disaster. She was part of the accident investigation board that worked on the Columbia shuttle tragedy in 2003 as well. Her knowledge also led her to become part of the committee that defined NASA’s spaceflight goals in 2009.

After NASA

Sally left NASA in 1987, but never neglected her passion for space and science. She went back to Stanford as part of the university’s Center for International Security and Arms Control and eventually went to the University of California in San Diego as a professor of Physics in 1989. She also served as the director for the California Space Institute. She was SPACE.com’s president from 1999 to 2000 as well.

In 2001, a science outreach company called Sally Ride Science was born. She founded the organization to support her vision of encouraging girls and young women to explore and pursue their passion for science the same way she did. Part of their many programs was a MoonKam experiment that allowed students to take photos of the moon. She was the company’s President and Chief Executive Officer, while a childhood friend and partner for 27 years, Tam O’ Shaughnessy, served as co-founder, Chief Operating Officer, and Executive Vice President.

Further proofs of her drive to pull kids into the world of science are the five children’s books she wrote about science. She published To Space and Back in 1986, Voyager in 1992, The Mystery of Mars in 1999, Exploring Our Solar System in 2003 and The Third Planet in 2004.

Sally Ride was recognized time and again for her numerous contributions to space aeronautics and her unending passion for space and science. She finally became part of the Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2003.

Sally Ride fought against pancreatic cancer for 17 months and died at the age of 61 on July 23, 2012. Her remains were cremated and placed at Woodlawn Cemetery in Santa Monica, California next to her father.

[MysteRy]

Sheldon Lee Glashow



The American physicist, Sheldon Lee Glashow received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1979, with Steven Weinberg and Abdus Salam for their complementary efforts in originating the electroweak theory. This theory is an important contribution to the unification of elementary particles and forces. He is also known for his work which led to the prediction of neutral currents, charmed particles, and intermediate vector bosons, all of which were subsequently discovered by experiments. He is the author of around 300 research papers and three books: Interactions, The Charm of Physics, and From Alchemy to Quarks. Currently he is the Metcalf Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Boston University.

Early life, education and career:

Sheldon Lee Glashow was born on December 5, 1932, in the northern tip of Manhattan in New York City to Jewish immigrants from Russia. He was the youngest of three children of Lewis Gluchovsky, a plumber, and Bella Rubin. He received his early education from the Bronx High School of Science in New York City. In 1954 he completed his graduation in Arts from Cornell University and five years later in 1959, he received a Ph.D. degree in physics from Harvard University under Nobel-laureate physicist Julian Schwinger. At Harvard he founded important theories of electromagnetic and nuclear particle interaction, which laid the basis for the next generation of research on quarks and leptons.

After a small period at the Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, CERN in Geneva, and the California Institute of Technology, Glashow spent five years (1961 to 1966) teaching at the University of Stanford and the University of California (Berkeley), before returning to Harvard in 1967 as lecturer of physics. He has served the science policy committee of CERN since 1979.

During 1972 Glashow married Joan Alexander, with whom he had two children, Bryan and Rebecca, and two step-children, Jason and Jordan.

Contributions to scientific field:

With the assistance of Julian Schwinger, Glashow in 1961 extended his work on electroweak unification models. Through his workings he discovered the basis of the accepted theory of the electroweak interactions and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979, along with Steven Weinberg and Abdus Salam.

In 1964, while working with James Bjorken, Glashow was the first to predict the existence of a fourth quark, which he originally named the “charmed quark” (now charm quick). Through this he demonstrated that the quark pairs would largely cancel out flavor changing neutral currents, as well as eliminating a technical disaster for any quantum field theory with unequal numbers of quarks and leptons-an irregularity.

Along with Howard Georgi in 1973, Glashow devised the first grand unified theory. This work was the groundwork for all future unifying work.

Apart from scientific articles, Glashow has written a number of popular articles, a collection of tales, charts, cartoons, and poems about physics and physicists. He is also one of the members of the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He was the focus of a far-reaching profile in the Atlantic Monthly during August 1984.

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Shintaro Hirase



There are many kinds of scientists in the world and while some work in fields that regularly get the spotlight, there are those that do important work and yet do not really get as much popularity that they deserve. Shintaro Hirase happens to be one of those people and while he isn’t as well-known as other scientists, his works and research as a malacologist are very exciting and contribute a lot to the study of shells and molluscs. His works are used in dozens of research projects even until today and his collections happen to be a marvel as well though there aren’t really much of them left given to the war and the bombings that did away with a lot of Japan’s buildings and other notable works.

The Early Life of Shintaro Hirase

Shintaro Hirase had an early start in the field of malacology (a branch of zoology that places focus on the study of molluscs) because he grew up under the influence of another very well-known malacologist and that was his father, Yoichiro Hirase. Shintaro was born on February 24, 1884 and as mentioned, he was under the influence of his father so it can be said that his foray into the field of zoology and his study of malacology was something he inherited from his father who was very enthusiastic about his job and his interest in malacology.

Aside from formal schooling, he had his father to help drive his interest and this is why together, the two managed to form an extensive collection of seashells that were found along Japanese islands and other islands that were near Japan. It has been said often enough that the collection formed by the two is some of the best to be found anywhere although today, only about 30% of the extensive collection is left.

Today, only about 5000 specimens are left and the reason for the demise of the majority of the collection was because of the bombing in Tokyo. It was the incendiary bombs dropped by US troops that ruined most of the collection. What happened was they dropped the bombs the house of Shintaro Hirase and some bombs were also dropped in the Research Institute for Natural resources during the bombing of Tokyo. The collection was housed in the institute in the year 1948 and was comprised of Shintaro’s own collection and that of his father’s. a great deal was lost to them and to Japan that day but it has to be said that the remaining 30% still inspires awe in people and really show how dedicated they were to their craft.

His Works

While he spent a lot of his time and most of his life building the collection, that wasn’t all be was known to do since he also published several works that prove to be quite valuable in the study of shells and mollusc that were found in Japan. These works are so profound that even until today, they are still in use and in print. One of his works, the Jap J Zool was based on the review of Japanese oysters and was published in 1932. In this work, he talked about the breeding of Japanese oysters and went in-depth about their anatomic qualities.

His other published work, a review of scaphopods was published in the Journal of Choncology. Another work he published was on the study of Japanese shells and this book happens to be one of the most interesting to read and to look at since it included pictures of Japanese shells in their natural colours. All his works were praised to the highest degree and copies can be obtained up until today.

While a majority of his earlier years were spend doing research on shells, collecting shells and writing, his later years were spend teaching because he took a job at Seikei college in Japan where he taught about the subjects that were near and dear to his heart. He taught zoology for several years in the university but also did some research on the side.

His Death

Shintaro Hirase died in 1939 and had an obituary published in the Macological Society of London and in it, they gave a great review of his life and his accomplishments. In it, they touched not only upon his works and his accomplishments but also gave an insight as to what he was as a person. In it, they talked about his career as a teacher of zoology in Seikei college and also how enthusiastic he was about his work. They also made mention of how he was devoted to his work and had no political interests at all. It is interesting to note that his lack of political interest was a sign that the bombs dropped in his house were non-intentional and were purely by chance.

It goes without saying that Shintaro Hirase, just like his father, was truly dedicated to his work and was really an academic. It takes no small amount of devotion to come up with the collection and the works that he did and still be able to teach if he wasn’t really into his craft. A quick glimpse of his books will show you how much he enjoyed his occupation and his love of the subject. To him, it wasn’t just something to pass the time but it was what he loved to do.

His books and collection are not only interesting to see but they have also been used in other studies especially when it comes to studies done on conservation and breeding. Indeed, he had a huge impact in the study of malacology and zoology and it is very refreshing to know that he passed on his knowledge and enthusiasm to his students. There are no reports whether or not the devastated collection was ever replaced or if a new collection was started but even if they did replace it with newer specimens, the ones left over from the original collection were of great value and were surely retained.

[MysteRy]

Sigmund Freud



Sigmund Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939), physiologist, medical doctor, psychologist, was an influential thinker of the twentieth century. Freud’s innovative treatment of human actions, dreams, and indeed of cultural object s as invariably possessing implicit symbolic significance has proven to be extraordinarily productive, and has had immense implications for a wide variety of fields, including anthropology, semiotics, and artistic creativity and appreciation in addition to psychology. However, Freud’s most important and frequently re-iterated claim, that with psychoanalysis he had invented a new science of the mind, remains the subject of much disapproval and controversy.

Contributions and Achievements:

Freud conceptualized the mind symbolically as an ancient ruin which had to been uncovered much like an archeologist would discover the treasures of an ancient civilization. This gave birth to Psychoanalysis. Freud’s account of the sexual genesis and nature of neuroses led him naturally to develop a clinical treatment for treating such disorders. This has become so influential today that when people speak of ‘psychoanalysis’ they frequently refer exclusively to the clinical treatment. The object of psychoanalytic treatment may be said to be a form of self-understanding, once this is acquired, it is largely up to the patient, in consultation with the analyst to determine how he shall handle this newly-acquired understanding of the unconscious forces which motivate him. Freud became more and more sophisticated in his technique of psychoanalysis, and he became particularly adept at using his patient’s biased impressions of him to help the patient to discover the origins of the unconscious memory which led to the symptoms from which they suffered.

Freud’s theories and research methods have always been controversial. He and psychoanalysis have been criticized in very extreme terms. For an often-quoted example, Peter Medawar, a Nobel Prize winning immunologist, said in 1975 that psychoanalysis is the “most stupendous intellectual confidence trick of the twentieth century”. However, Freud has had a tremendous impact on psychotherapy. Many psychotherapists follow Freud’s approach to an extent, even if they reject his theories.

The contemporary scientific climate in which Freud lived and worked should be taken into consideration. When the towering scientific figure of nineteenth century science, Charles Darwin, published his revolutionary Origin of Species, Freud was four years old. The evolutionary principle completely altered the existing conception of man, whereas before man had been seen as a being different in nature to the members of the animal kingdom by virtue of his possession of an immortal soul, he was now seen as being part of the natural order, different from non-human animals only in degree of structural difficulty.

This made it possible and reasonable for the first time to treat man as an object of scientific investigation, and to imagine of the vast and varied range of human behavior, and the motivational causes from which it springs, as being amenable in principle to scientific explanation. Much of the creative work done in a whole variety of diverse scientific fields over the next century was to be inspired by and derive nourishment from this new world-view which Freud, with his enormous esteem for science, accepted implicitly.

Freud also followed Plato in his account of the nature of mental health or psychological well-being, which he saw as the establishment of a melodic relationship between the three elements which constitute the mind. A key concept introduced by Freud was that the mind possesses a number of ‘defense mechanisms’ to attempt to prevent conflicts from becoming too acute, such as repression (pushing conflicts back into the unconscious), sublimation (channeling the sexual drives into the achievement socially acceptable goals, in art, science, poetry, etc.), fixation (the failure to progress beyond one of the developmental stages), and regression (a return to the behavior characteristic of one of the stages).

Published works:

Freud’s work is preserved in a 23 volume set called The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Some of Freud’s most interesting works are The Interpretation of Dreams, his own favorite, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, about Freudian slips and other day-to-day oddities, Totem and Taboo, Freud’s views on our beginnings, Civilization and Its Discontents, his pessimistic commentary on modern society, and The Future of an Illusion, on religion. All are a part of The Standard Edition, but all are available as separate paperbacks as well. This renowned man died of the cancer of the mouth and jaw that he had been suffering since 20 years of his life.

[MysteRy]

Srinivasa Ramanujan



Early Life and Education:

Srinivasa Ramanujan Aiyangar was an Indian Mathematician who was born in Erode, India in 1887 on December 22. He was born into a family that was not very well to do. He went to school at the nearby place, Kumbakonam. Ramanujan is very well known for his efforts on continued fractions and series of hypergeometry. When Ramanujan was thirteen, he could work out Loney’s Trigonometry exercises without any help. At the of fourteen, he was able to acquire the theorems of cosine and sine given by L. Euler. Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics by George Shoobridge Carr was reached by him in 1903. The book helped him a lot and opened new dimensions to him were opened which helped him introduce about 6,165 theorems for himself. As he had no proper and good books in his reach, he had to figure out on his own the solutions for all the questions. It was in this quest that he discovered many tremendous methods and new algebraic series.

In 1904, he received a merit scholarship in a local college and became more indulgent into mathematics. He lost his interest in all other subjects due to which he lost his scholarship. Even after two attempts, he did not succeed to get a first degree in the field of arts. In 1909, he got married and continued his clerical work and, side by side, his investigations of mathematics. Finally in 1911, he published some of his results.

It was in January 1913 that he sent his work to a Cambridge Professor named G. H. Hardy but he did not appreciate Ramanujan’s work much as he had not really done reached the standard of the mathematicians of the west. But he was given a scholarship in May by the University of Madras.

Contributions and Achievements:

Ramanujan went to Cambridge in 1914 and it helped him a lot but by that time his mind worked on the patterns on which it had worked before and he seldom adopted new ways. By then, it was more about intuition than argument. Hardy said Ramanujan could have become an outstanding mathematician if his skills had been recognized earlier. It was said about his talents of continued fractions and hypergeometric series that, “he was unquestionably one of the great masters.” It was due to his sharp memory, calculative mind, patience and insight that he was a great formalist of his days. But it was due to his some methods of working in the work analysis and theories of numbers that did not let him excel that much.

He got elected as the fellow in 1918 at the Trinity College at Cambridge and the Royal Society. He departed from this world on April 26, 1920.

[MysteRy]

Stephanie Kwolek



Stephanie Kwolek was an organic chemist, best known for inventing Kevlar in 1965. Kevlar is an immensely strong plastic, which was first used as a replacement for steel reinforcing strips in racing car tires and has gone on to be used in a large number of applications where high strength is required without high weight.

Stephanie Louise Kwolek was born in 1923 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Her father died when she was only 10 years old, but he passed on his interest in science, particularly natural science to the young girl.

Aged 23, Kwolek graduated with a degree in chemistry from Margaret Morrison Carnegie College of Carnegie Mellon University. She was quickly recruited to work as a chemist at Dupont Chemicals in Buffalo, NY. Four years later, she moved to Wilmington, Delaware where she spent the remainder of her career with DuPont.

After nine years of research work, Kwolek made her major breakthrough, discovering Kevlar. Her pathway to discovery began a year earlier, when she began looking for a new, lightweight plastic to be used in car tires. The idea was that lighter tires would allow vehicles to enjoy better fuel economy.

Not only did Kevlar find use in tires, its combination of lightness and strength has seen it used in a large variety of protective clothing applications, such as bulletproof vests, which have saved the lives of countless police officers and other people.

Speaking about her discovery, Stephanie Kwolek, “I don’t think there’s anything like saving someone’s life to bring you satisfaction and happiness.”

Stephanie Kwolek died on June 18, 2014, at the age of 90.

Awards

Stephanie Louise Kwolek was awarded the National Medal of Technology; the Perkin Medal, which is seen as the highest award in American industrial chemistry; the Chemical Pioneer Award of the American Institute of Chemists; and the Howard N. Potts Medal for Engineering. In 1994, she was admitted to the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

[MysteRy]

Stephen Hawking



Stephen Hawking is an English theoretical physicist and cosmologist who is widely considered to be one of the greatest scientists alive today. He is currently the director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology, University of Cambridge.

Early Life and Education:

Born on 8 January 1942 to a biologist father, Hawking had two younger sisters. He was an average student at school, deeply interested in science. After winning a scholarship in natural sciences, he acquired a degree in physics from the University College, Oxford. Thereafter, Hawking also studied astronomy and cosmology at Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

Contributions and Achievements:

In his early days at Cambridge, Hawking was diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a motor neuron disease in which the nerves controlling the muscles become inactive while the sensory nerves function normally. Due to this sustained condition, it normally takes him about 40 hours to devise a 45 minute lecture.

Hawking is known for furthering Einstein’s theory of general relativity with quantum theory. He has about twelve honorary degrees. Awarded the CBE in 1982, he became a Companion of Honor in 1989. He received numerous awards, medals and praises. Hawking is also a Fellow of The Royal Society and a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences. He was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.

Stephen Hawking is working as the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics since 1979, a position once held by Sir Isaac Newton. Arguably the most famous scientist alive today, he is considered a living legend for his amazing contributions to quantum physics.

A highly successful active lecturer and author, Hawking makes use of an adaptive communication system known as Equalizer to combat ALS. It involves a speech synthesizer. Using the Equalizer, he has authored a book and several scientific papers and lectures, though he is capable of speaking at a mere rate of 15 words per minute.

Hawking’s 1988 book “A Brief History of Time” quickly became an instant best-seller and was translated into 30 languages. It has sold over 10 million copies worldwide to date. His 2001 book “The Universe in a Nutshell” is hailed as a masterpiece in the history of modern physics.

Personal Life:

Stephen Hawking got married to Jane Wilde, a language student, in 1965, and together they have three children and one grandchild.

The couple got separated in 1991. As of 2009 Hawking has been almost completely paralyzed.

[MysteRy]

Steven Chu



A 1997 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, Steven Chu is an American physicist who was the 12th Secretary of Energy in the United States. He is known for his work on cooling and also trapping atoms using laser light, and this is what won him the Nobel Prize. He is one of the leading advocates of nuclear power and renewable energy use because he believes that shifting the source of power from fossil fuels can help in battling the adverse effects of climate change.

Childhood Years and Family Background

Steven Chu comes from a family of scholars and it is no shock to have such a brilliant mind considering his family’s background. Before he was born in February 28, 1948 in St. Louis Missouri, Ju Chin Chu, his father, had moved to the United States in order to further his education in chemical engineering and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After two years, Ching Chen Li, Steven Chu’s mother, joined his father to study economics. Before his parents had their academic endeavors in the U.S., his paternal grandfather and one of his uncles had also studied science-related courses before returning to their homeland in China. Later on, his father had teaching positions at Washington University and Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute.

There is no denying how important good education was for Steven Chu’s family, and most of his elders had Ph.D.’s in either engineering or science. His brothers had earned several MDs, Ph.D.’s, and a law degree when he had just finished one advanced degree. To Steven, he felt as if schoolwork was a chore rather than intellectual adventures, but it was Geometry which made him appreciate mathematics. Strange as it may sound to some, his life did not revolve around academic endeavors. He also had a fondness for making plastic model warships and planes, and there was a time when he began creating numerous gadgets with several moving parts. He, along with a friend even played with their own homemade rockets and made a business out of a chemistry-based hobby by testing the soil of neighbor’s lawns for missing nutrients and acidity levels.

Educational Background and Career

Despite his seemingly mediocre academic achievements when compared to his brothers and relatives back in high school while he studied at Garden City High School, Steven Chu received his B.S. Degree in Physics as well as his B.A. Degree in Mathematics from the University of Rochester in 1970. In 1976, he had support from a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship when he went to work on getting his Ph.D. from University of California.

After he had gotten his doctorate, he remained in the University of California for two more years as a postdoctoral researcher before he joined Bell Labs where he along with his co-workers worked on their laser-cooling project which won them the Nobel Prize for Physics. After his career in Bell Labs, he became one of the Physics professors at Stanford University back in 1987, and served as the university’s Physics Department Chair from 1990-1993 and again in 1999-2001.

During his years in Stanford, he along with three other university professors started what was known as the Bio-X Program. It focused on the interdisciplinary research involved in medicine and biology. They also played a key role for the procurement of funds for the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology.

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory became a center for research efforts on solar energy and biofuels under Steven Chu’s leadership. It was August of 2004 when he was appointed as Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s director, and later on he joined the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology as well as UC Berkeley’s Department of Physics. His interest in solar energy research made him lead the Helios project whose aim is to find and develop ways on how to harness solar energy as a renewable energy source which can be used for transportation.

It was in 2009 when he became the 12th Secretary of Energy of the United States, and he was sworn under President Barack Obama’s administration. He is the first person to have become a member of the U.S. Cabinet after winning the Nobel Prize. He served from 2009-2013 and had continued his other scientific work alongside his being the Secretary of Energy.

Advocacies

Steven Chu is a vocal advocate and openly expresses his support for more research efforts for the use of nuclear power and renewable energy. He has also become a member of the Copenhagen Climate Council which was created in order to build momentum for the United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Copenhagen back in 2009. He believes that by shifting away from using fossil fuels, the negative effects of climate change as well as global warming can be battled. In 2009 and 2011, Chu was a speaker at the National Science Bowl and he talked about how important the science students of America are, and that they will carry on environmental planning as well as other global initiatives.

Another advocacy he is known for is making the roofs of buildings as well as roads have white or at least other lighter colors in order to reflect more sunlight back to space to help mitigate the effects of global warming. This vision was supported by Samuel Thernstrom who expressed his support for Chu’s idea The American magazine, and said that this idea can indeed have an important role when it comes to the world’s climate concerns.

Awards and Other Recognitions

Apart from being a co-winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize for Physics award for their work on laser cooling for atoms, he has also received other awards including the Humboldt Prize in 1995 given by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, an honorary doctorate given by the Boston University, Harvard University, Penn State University, and Washington University in St. Louis, and an honorary degree he got from Yale University and Polytechnic Institute of New York University.

He has two sons from his previous marriage with Lisa Chu-Thielbar, and in 1997, married British American Jean Fetter who is an oxford-trained physicist.

[MysteRy]

Svante Arrhenius



Svante Arrhenius was a Swedish physicist and physical chemist who formulated the theory of electrolytic dissociation. One of the founding fathers of physical chemistry, Arrhenius also present a revolutionary model of the greenhouse effect. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his brilliant contributions.

Early Life and Education:

Born on February 19, 1859 near Uppsala, Sweden, Svante Arrhenius’s father worked for Uppsala University as a land surveyor. A childhood prodigy, Arrhenius taught himself to read and even solve simple mathematics problems when he was only 3. He received his early education from the renowned Cathedral School in Uppsala. After completing his bachelor’s degree in 1878, Arrhenius earned a doctorate in 1884 at Uppsala University, where he was also awarded the the honorary title of docent the same year.

Contributions and Achievements:

Svante Arrhenius sent his 150-page thesis regarding the conductivities of electrolytes to several famous scientists across Europe. Wilhelm Ostwald was very much impressed, who even made a trip to Uppsala to recruit Arrhenius for his research team.

Arrhenius extensively broadened his ionic theory in 1884 and gave detailed definitions for acids and bases. He received a travel stipdent from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1886. Arrhenius revolutionized the study of electrolytes by stating that electrolytes are separated into ions when there is no current flowing through the solution.

Controversies regarding the causes of the ice ages led Arrhenius to build the earliest climate model of the influence of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which he presented in “The Philosophical Magazine” in 1896. He therefore became the first scientist to discuss the effect of industrial activity on global warming. Arrhenius also performed extensive research on bacterial toxins and various plant and animal poisons.

Later Life and Death:

Svante Arrhenius suffered a serious attack of acute intestinal catarrh in September 1927. He died a few days later, on October 2, 1927. Buried in Uppsala, Arrhenius was 68 years old.