Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was born on November 7, 1888. His father was a lecturer in mathematics and physics so that from the very childhood he was immersed in an academic atmosphere. He entered Presidency College, Madras, in 1902, and in 1904 passed his B.A. examination, winning the first place and the gold medal inphysics; in […]
Christian Huygens was born at the Hague on April 14, 1629, and died there on July 8, 1695.In 1654, his attention was directed to the improvement of the telescope. Together with his brother, Christian Huygens devised a new and better way of grinding and polishing lenses. As a result of theseimprovements, Huygens was able during
Sir Benjamin Thompson alias Count Rumford was born on March 26, 1753.Perhaps it was John Fowle, the Harvard educated village teacher who first noticed signs of talent in young Thompson—his skill with mechanical devices, his almost faultless command of language and grammar before his thirteenth year. These skills laterwon him the right, along with friend
Charles Robert Darwin was born on February 12, 1809 in Shrewsbury, England. Darwin was the British naturalist who became famous for his theories of evolution and natural selection. Like several scientists before him, Darwin believed all the life on earth evolved over millions of years from a few common ancestors.From 1831 to 1836 Darwin served
Blaise Pascal was born at Clermont on June 19, 1623. His father moved to Paris in 1631, partly to prosecute his own scientific studies, partly to carry on the education of his only son, who had already displayed exceptional ability.His father, struck by his display of ability, gave him a copy of Euclid’s Elements, a
Birbal Sahni was born on November 14, 1891, at Bhera (Punjab) now in Pakistan. His father was a chemistry teacher who was interested in the study of nature. During vacations the older Sahni used to take the boy on treks in the mountains. Together they used to collect rocks, plants and fossil-bearing rocks. The young
Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston on January 17, 1706.A list of Franklin’s inventions reveals a man of many talents and interests. It was the scientist in Benjamin that brought out the inventor. His natural curiosity about things and the waythey workmade him try to find ways to make them work better.Benjamin had poor vision
Count Alessandro Volta was born in Como, Italy, into a noble family. Alessandro Volta was the inventor of the voltaic pile, the first electric battery. In 1775 he invented the electrophorus, a device that, once electrically charged by having been rubbed, could transfer charge to other objects.Between 1776 and 1778, Volta discovered and isolated methane
Amedeo Carlo Avogadro was born in Turin, Italy on 9 August, 1776. Avogadro went to school in Turin. Coming from a family of well established lawyers, Avogadro was guided toward a legal career, and became a bachelor of jurisprudence in 1792, at the young age of just 16 years. Four years later he gained his
Andreas Vesalius was born on December 31, 1514 in Brussels, then in the Holy Roman Empire to a family of physicians. His father enrolled him in the Brothers of the Common Life School in Brussels to learn Greek and Latin according to standards of the era.In 1528 Vesalius entered the University of Louvain taking arts,
Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) first encountered magnifying glasses when he was sixteen. He was working in Amsterdam as an apprentice and bookkeeper to a Scottish textile merchant, where magnifying glasses were used to count thread densities for quality control purposes.In April 1673 he reported his first observations—bee mouthparts and stings, a human louse and a fungus—to the
Sir Alexander Fleming was born at Lochfield near Darvel in Ayrshire, Scotland on August 6, 1881. He attended Louden Moor School, Darvel School, and Kilmarnock Academy before moving to London where he attended the Polytechnic. He spent four years in a shipping office before entering St. Mary’s Medical School, LondonUniversity. He qualified with distinction in
Born in 287 B.C., in Syracuse, a Greek seaport colony in Sicily, Archimedes was the son of Phidias, an astronomer. Except for his studies at Euclid’s school in Alexandria, he spent his entire life in his birthplace. Archimedes proved to be a master at mathematics and spent most of his time contemplatingnew problems to solve,
Aryabhata (476-550) is the first of the great astronomers of the classical age of India. He was born in Kerala but later lived in Kusumapura, which his commentator Bhaskara I (629 AD) identifies with Pataliputra (modern Patna).His book, the Aryabhatiya, presented astronomical and mathematical theories in which the Earth was taken to bespinning on its
Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdin Adbul Kalam, the twelfth President of India, is rightfully termed as the father of India’s missile technology.He was born to parents Jainulabdin Marakayar and Ashiamma on 15th October, 1931, at Dhanushkodi in Rameshwaram district, Tamil Nadu.Dr. Kalam as an eminent Aeronautical Engineer, contributed for the development of India’s first Satellite Launch