Born on Feb. 19, 1473, in Thorn (Torun), Poland, Nicolaus Copernicus was destined to become, through the publication of his heliocentric theory 70 years later, one of the seminal figures in the history of scientific thought. Copernicus study liberal arts at Bologna (1496-1501), medicine at Padua, and law at the University of Ferrara, from which […]
The English chemist and physicist Michael Faraday, (Sept. 22, 1791- Aug. 25, 1867) is known for his pioneering experiments in electricity and magnetism. Many consider him the greatest experimentalist ever lived. Several concepts that he derived directly from experi-ments, such as lines of magnetic force, have become common ideas in modern physics.Faraday was born at
Marie Curie was born in Warsaw on November 7, 1867, the daughter of a secondary-school teacher. She received a general education in local schools and some scientific training from her father. She became involved in a students’ revolutionary organisation and found it prudent to leave Warsaw, then in the part of Poland dominated by Russia,
Louis Pasteur (December 27, 1822 – September 28, 1895) was a French microbiologist, chemist and humanist. He is known most famously for his demonstrations supporting the germ theory of disease and his vaccinations, most notably the first vaccine against rabies. However, he also made many discoveries in the field of chemistry, most notably the assymetry
Robert Oppenheimer’s name has become almost synonymous with the atomic bomb, and also with the dilemma facing scientists when the interests of the nation and their own conscience collide.His early education was at the Ethical Culture School in New York. He took math and science classes, but also enthusiastically studied Greek,Latin, French, and German. He
Joseph Priestley was born near Leeds in England on March 13, 1733. Priestley had no real interest in the sciences. In fact, he never took a single formal science course during his entire lifetime. This all changed when he met the one and only Benjamin Franklin, one of the most prominent scientists of the day, while on
John Logie Baird born on August 13, 1888 pioneered early television with the mechanical scanning system he developed from 1923 to the late 1930s. He is remembered today as an inventor (178 patents) with considerable insight, who was in many ways ahead of his time. Among his pioneering ideas were early versions of colour television,
The German astronomer Johannes Kepler, (Dec. 27, 1571-Nov. 15, 1630) was the first strong supporter of the heliocentric theory of Copernicus and the discoverer of the three laws of planetary motion.At the age of 24, Kepler published Cosmographic Mystery, 1596, in which he defended the Copernican theory and described his ideas on the structure of
Sir Joseph John Thomson was born in Cheetham Hill, a suburb of Manchester on December 18, 1856. He enrolled at Owens College, Manchester, in 1870, and in 1876 entered Trinity College, Cambridge as a minor scholar.He became a Fellow of Trinity College in 1880 and he remained a member of the College for the rest
Jagadish Chandra Basu was born in India in 1858. He received his education first in India, until in 1880 he went to England to study medicine. Basu returned to India, taking up a post initially as officiating professor of physics at the Presidency College in Calcutta. Here he converted a small enclosure adjoining a bathroom
Jean Bernard Leon Foucault born on 18 September 1819 was a French physicist best known for the invention of the Foucault pendulum, a device demonstrating the effect of the Earth’s rotation. He also made an early measurement of the speed of light, invented the gyroscope, and discovered eddy currents. The Foucault crater on the Moon
James Chadwick was born in Cheshire, England, on 20 October, 1891. He attended Manchester High School prior to entering Manchester University in 1908; he graduated from the Honours School of Physics in 1911 and spent the next two years under Professor (later Lord) Rutherford in the Physical Laboratory in Manchester, where he worked on various
James Clerk Maxwell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. Maxwell’s early education was provided by his Christian mother and included studying the Bible. Maxwell went to Edinburgh Academy in his youth. In 1845, at the age of 14, Maxwell wrote a paper describing mechanical means of drawing mathematical curves with a piece of string.In 1854, Maxwell
James Watt was born in Greenock in 1736. Watt had little formal education due to poor health in his youth, but pottering about in his father’s shop he developed an interest in trying to make things ‘work like clockwork’.In his late teens he went to London to learn to be a ‘mathematical and philoso-phical instrument
Isaac Newton (1641-1727) was born very premature and not expected to survive. It was said he could be fitted into a quart pot. His father had died three months earlier. When Isaac was three, his mother married a wealthy elderly clergyman from the next village, and went to live there, leaving Isaac behind with his