Impact of Science and Technology (Economics and Science, Technology and Society)

Antoine Lavoisier

French chemist who contributed to the chemical naming system

Albert Einstein

German physicist who:

• Proposed the equivalence of matter and energy based on the constant speed of light in all reference frames

• Developed the theory of general relativity stating that an object's gravity is due to the curvature of space

• Proposed the existence and size of atoms using Brownian Motion

• Explained the photoelectric effect as due to the quantization of light

Stephen Jay Gould

American paleontologist who developed the evolutionary theory of punctuated equilibrium

Biodiversity

The number of different types of species in an area Example. A rainforest has higher biodiversity than the artic.

Michael Faraday

English scientist who discovered electromagnetic induction

John Michell

English philosopher who:

• Described the cause of earthquakes

• Described earthquakes as waves

• Invented the torsion balance to measure the mass of the Earth

Harold Urey

American chemist who discovered deuterium, a radioactive molecule of hydrogen, and collaborated on the Urey-Miller abiogenesis experiment showing a possible origin of life on Earth

Erwin Schrödinger

Austrian physicist who developed the main equation for quantum physics and proposed the electron cloud model of the atom

Robert Hooke

English scientist who developed Hooke's law for springs (elasticity) and described the expansion of matter when heated

Uncertainty Principle

a fundamental property of nature: it is impossible to exactly determine both the position and momentum of a particle at a given time

Stanley Miller

American chemist who discovered that organic amino acids could be made from inorganic molecules; performed the Urey-Miller abiogenesis experiment showing a possible origin of life on Earth (with Harold Urey)

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

Dutch microbiologist; founded the science of microscopy by describing microscopic organisms

Theodor Schwann

German physicist and physiologist who extended cell theory to include animal cells

James Hutton

Swedish geologist who developed the theory of uniformitarianism, explaining that Earth is continuously being formed

Carl Linnaeus

Swedish biologist known as the father of taxonomy; developed the modern system of classification used to name, identify, and classify living things

Marie Curie

Polish-French physicist and chemist who defined radioactivity as a property of atoms (uranium/thorium experiment) and helped discover radium and polonium; wife of Pierre Curie

Edwin Hubble

American astronomer who developed Hubble's Law, providing insight into the expanding universe

Pierre Curie

French physicist who helped discover radium and polonium; husband of Marie Curie

Rudolf Virchow

German physician and scientist who was the pioneer of modern pathology; proposed that diseases arose from their individual cells

Democritus

Greek philosopher who believed that atoms were uniform, incompressible, and indestructible; named the building blocks of matter atomos

Werner Heisenberg

German physicist who developed the uncertainty principle

J.J. Thomson

British physicist who conducted cathode-ray experiments to discover the electron and proposed the "plum pudding model of an atom"

Francis Crick

English biologist who proposed that the structure of DNA is a double helix (with James Watson and Rosalind Franklin)

James Clerk Maxwell

Scottish physicist who developed the theory of electromagnetism; showed that electricity, magnetism, and light are all manifestations of the electric field

Heliocentricity

the accepted astronomical model that the sun is at the center of our solar system; theory was put forth by Copernicus in 1543 and expanded upon by Galileo in 1632

Continental Drift

the movement of continents due to the activity of the tectonic plates beneath them

Scientific Knowledge

scientific fact discovered using the scientific method

Dmitri Ivanovsky

Russian biologist who proved the existence of an infectious agent causing disease in tobacco plants using the Chamberland filter-candle

John Dalton

English chemist and physicist who developed the fixed orbital model of the atom using gas phase experiments

Max Planck

German physicist who discovered the photoelectric effect leading to the principle of quantum mechanics

Galileo Galilei

Italian mathematician and scientist who furthered Copernicus' idea of heliocentricism, discovered Jupiter's moons, and was credited with the scientific method

Green Revolution

a series of technological advances in the 20th Century that significantly advanced agricultural output, particularly in the developing world

Alexander Fleming

Scottish physician and microbiologist who discovered the first antibiotic (penicillin)

Louis Pasteur

French biologist, chemist, and pharmacist known as the father of germ theory; created the first vaccinations for rabies and anthrax, discovered airborne illnesses, disprove the theory of spontaneous generation using the swan neck flask

Gregor Mendel

Austrian biologist known as the father of modern genetics; formulated the three laws of inheritance based on his experiments on pea plants, leading to his terming of dominant and recessive genes.

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)

organisms that have had intentional changes made to their DNA such that they are able to live longer and be more hearty. Example. Round-Up resistant soybeans

Isaac Newton

English mathematician and scientist who formulated the Laws of Motion and the Law of Universal Gravitation

Industrial Revolution

period of rapid growth in using machines for manufacturing and production; began in Great Britain in the mid-1700's

Scientific Method

a series of deliberate steps by which scientists observe, hypothesize, test, analyze data, and communicate results

Dmitri Mendeleev

A chemist (1834-1907) who published the first periodic table with elements arranged by mass

Charles Darwin

an English naturalist who developed the idea of natural selection and the theory of evolution; these ideas were published in the book On the Origin of Species

Thomas Hunt Morgan

American biologist who advanced the theory of genetics by studying fruit flies

Matthias Jakob Schleiden

German botanist; co-founder of cell theory (with Theodor Schwann); proposed that all structural plant parts are made of cells

Natural Selection

the process by which, over time, the population as a whole contains more individuals who are better suited to that environment.

Example.

faster antelopes survive to pass down traits

Alfred Wegener

German geologist who developed the theory of continental drift

Rosalind Franklin

British chemist who used X-ray crystallography to research the DNA molecule's density and helical shape

Principle of Uniformitarianism

the belief that physical laws, and therefore geologic processes, are constant; these processes have always occurred in the same manner at the same rate and will continue to do so

Daniel Bernoulli

Swiss mathematician and physicist who developed the Bernoulli Principle to explain the relationship between the speed and pressure of a fluid

Aristotle

Greek philosopher; created the first taxonomy of organisms by grouping animals with similar characteristics

Inge Lehmann

Danish seismologist and geophysicist who discovered Earth's inner core

James Watson

American biologist who proposed that the structure of DNA is a double helix (with James Watson and Rosalind Franklin)

Murray Gell-Mann

American physicist who proposed that matter is made of quarks

Shen Kuo

Chinese mathematician and scientist who invented the magnetic compass and defined "true north" as magnetic north

Johannes Kepler

German astrologer and mathematician who proposed three laws of planetary motion that describe the orbits of the planets as ellipses

Niels Bohr

Danish physicist who developed the quantum model of the atom showing that only certain electron orbitals exist

Stratigraphy

the branch of geology that studies the formation and characteristics of rock strata

Radioactivity

when an atom changes the number of protons in the nucleus and releases radiation

Ernest Rutherford

New Zealand physicist who discovered that nearly all the mass of an atom is in its nucleus and contributed to the Geiger-Marsden gold foil experiments

Eratosthenes

Greek mathematician and geographer who founded the science of geography and accurately calculated Earth's size

Nicolas Steno

Danish scientist who developed stratigraphy, the study of Earth's layers

Wolfgang Pauli

Austrian physicist who discovered the existence of neutrons and developed the Pauli exclusion principle

Nicolaus Copernicus

Polish mathematician and scientist who discovered heliocentricity, which explains that the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of the solar system

Christiaan Huygens

Dutch mathematician and physicist who supported the wave nature of light

Desertification

A permanent and irreversible reduction in the ability of land to support vegetation, often caused by overfarming or overgrazing

Harry Hess

American geologist who discovered seafloor spreading