Most of my favorite scientists:
Attached is an array of pictures taken from a physics class website that I taught nearly a decade ago. Most of the scientists pictured are my personal heroes. My two most favorite are: 1. Albert Michelson – the first American to win the Nobel for physics. He was one of the first to measure the speed of light and who demonstrated that light beams do not require “the ether.” (This was a crucial piece of evidence that led to Einstein’s Special Relativity.) 2. Ludwig Boltzmann was the father of the atomic theory of gases. The first volume (book) of his treatment came under widespread attack and he committed suicide shortly after completing the second volume. Boltzmann wrote in the forward to Part II: “I am conscious of being only an individual struggling weakly against the stream of time. But it still remains in my power to contribute in such a way that, when the theory of gases is again revived, not too much will have to be rediscovered….”
Two women who did not (and do not) receive sufficient recognition are Émilie du Châtelet and Rosalind Franklin. Du Châtelet made the standard French translation of Issac Newton’s book Principia, containing his basic laws of physics. She then went on to show that Newtonian force and momentum alone were not adequate to describe the motion of objects, postulating total energy must also be conserved. Franklin was an English X-ray crystallographer and chemist who made contributions to the understanding of DNA, RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite. Her work was instrumental in understanding the structure of DNA – for which Crick and Watson won the Nobel Prize in 1962, but her contributions were largely recognized posthumously even though she was hired by Crick to make the necessary measurements.
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14 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Oh, and Eratosthenes. Calculated the circumference of the earth 250 years before the birth of Christ.
MrBeelzeebubbles
Level 7
Aug 28, 2018
0
You need to get woke, the earth is flat!
Clair Patterson. Pioneered radioactive dating, worked out the age of the earth, set up the first 'clean room' and tirelessly campaigned against lead pollution in the face of entrenched opposition from the automotive and food industries. Unfortunately, no Nobel Prize for geology.
MrBeelzeebubbles
Level 7
Aug 27, 2018
1
I am also a big fan of Aristarchus of Samos, who, in around 450 bc was the first to propose a heliocentric model of the solar system. At least he was the first that we know of.
Flyingsaucesir
Level 8
Aug 27, 2018
1
My favorite is Nicholas Tesla. May I commend you for selecting a person of color in the is pic as well. So many have gone unaccredited through centuries of Eurocentric Imperialism of the educational systems .
Fibonacci1618
Level 7
Aug 27, 2018
0
Einstein's Wife. Mileva Maric' was, IMO, quite impressive and may have helped Einstein achieve fame . She was befriended by Marie Curie.
Healthydoc70
Level 7
Aug 26, 2018
2
Have been half heartedly trying to mathematically understand Maxwell’s equations for a while-wave propagation is very interesting, charge distribution
It’s only an intellectual hobby for me, but it’s maddeningly interesting!
Howitstarts23
Level 6
Aug 26, 2018
1
Reading about all the notable scientists is a remarkable undertaking and so many contributed so much over time. The phrase "standing on the shoulders of giants" is apropos. I would definitely include Paul Dirac and Richard Feynman to your list, just to name two of my own.
jlynn37
Level 8
Aug 26, 2018
1
@TheAstroChuck It would take a whole page to list them all.
Rosaland Franklin and Percy Julian escape me. Anybody else, all big contributors in their own right. You may want to check a book from Emilio Segre (You probably have), he wrote a very good summary of most physicists that help develope, in the first half of the last century, the bulk of most of what we know today. The human side of most of those stories is quite remarkable.
IamNobody
Level 8
Aug 26, 2018
1
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