scientists
Albert Einstein - He was the whole package who set the first science riot on Jan 8th, 1930 when 4500 people without tickets broke into the New York Museum to view a film on him. He had a distinctive look of untamed hair and a witty persona with his quips like “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”
Einstein was born in 1879 in Ulm, Germany, and was a precocious child. He started his journey in the field of science at an early age when he wrote a paper on magnetic fields in his teens. The turning point in Einstein’s discoveries was in 1905 when he published four of his most important papers, one of them being the relationship between energy and matter (E = mc2). His other great works comprise of:
Theory of general relativity in 1916
Discovery of the photoelectric effect in 1921 for which he won a Nobel Prize in Physics.
Quantum theory of light
The special theory of relativity
Avogadro’s number
Marie Curie - Madame Curie was born as Maria Salomea Skłodowska in Warsaw Poland in the year 1867. Due to her family’s poor condition and her gender she had to bear many adverse situations and cross hurdles to become one of the greatest scientists in the world. After finishing their schooling, Curie and her sisters were not allowed admission for higher education. They became part of a secret organization called “Flying University” that provided a pro-Polish education. Finally, Curie headed for Paris in 1891 after working as a governess to support her sister’s education. Her journey to the discovery of radium and other important work is sketched below:
Inspired by the work of a French Physicist Henri Becquerel at the University of Paris, Curie began looking at uranium and the mysterious rays emitted by it.
She married Pierre Curie who was an accomplished Physicist who later joined her research of exploring uranium-rich ore. They discovered two elements; polonium (named after Curie’s native Poland) and radium.
Curie and her husband won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 for their work in radioactivity.
Apart from Physics, Curie’s work in chemistry also made her one of the most famous chemistry scientists. She got her second Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911 for her discovery of polonium and radium. She is the only person to receive Nobel Prize in two different streams i.e. Physics and Chemistry.
There are many other accomplishments of Curie like establishing the Radium Institute in Paris and heading the first French military radiology center during World War I. She was the first medical physicist.
She died in 1934 from anemia which is supposed to have stemmed from exposure to so much radiation during her research.
Issac Newton - Issac Newton was born on 25th December 1642 in Woolsthorpe, England. He studied at Cambridge University and in 1687 published his calculations and results on planetary motion in his book Principia. The Principia revealed that the same fundamentals of gravity and force governed both the planetary motions through space and motion of projectiles on earth through the air. He lived more than 200 years before the Nobel Prizes were awarded hence he did not win any Nobel prize in his lifetime. Newton was known for his arrogance and a flair for quotes like “Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.” Some of his groundbreaking work include:
Development and refinement of telescopes.
Many fundamentals of mathematics like the application of algebra to geometry, the discovery of binomial theorem, and the development of calculus.
Newton’s three laws of motion.
Newton’s work in astronomy and understanding of orbits of celestial bodies is one of his greatest works.
Newton was devoted to optics and intensively studied light and instruments that use light. The modern color theory was first described by Newton.
Dmitri Mendeleev - One of the most famous chemistry scientists, Dmitri is the man behind the periodic tables which is an iconic symbol of science. Dmitri Mendeleev was born in Verkhnie Aremzyani on 8th February 1834 in the Russian province of Siberia. He started publishing original research papers by the time he attained 20 years of age.
Mendeleev was both an academic chemist and a teacher.
He worked in Germany during 1859-1860 with Robert Bunsen at the Heidelberg university. Bunsen used chemical spectroscopy to discover the element cesium which Mendeleev got introduced to.
At the age of 27, Mendeleev worked like a demon for 61 days to take out a 500-page book on chemistry called “Organic Chemistry”. He received the Demidov prize for this book and was placed at the forefront of Russian education.
Dmitri was nominated for the Nobel prize for three consecutive years (1905, 1906, and 1907) but never received it.