Famous Scientists of the World

Famous scientists of the world!

1. John Napier (Inventor of Logarithm):

Many mathematical calcula­tions are involved in the field of astrology, navigation, business, engineering and war sciences. John Napier devised an easier method for carrying out complex mathe­matical calculations. By Napier’s method, complex operations of multiplication and division can be done easily and quickly. The method developed by John Napier is called Logarithm Method.

By using logarithms, the complex multiplications are ex­pressed as additions, and divisions as subtractions. The exponents on numbers are expressed as logarithm multiplications. After these con­versions, the values are obtained from standard, logarithm tables, and by addition and subtraction the result is obtained. Antilogarithm of this value provides the actual solution of the problem. Separate logarithm and antilogarithm tables were prepared by John Napier.

The inventor of logarithms, John Napier, was a Scottish mathe­matician. He was born at Merchiston Castle, near Edinburgh, in 1550. At the time of his birth, his father was just 16. At the age of 13, Napier entered the University of St. Andrews, but his stay appears to have been short, and he left the University without taking a degree.

Very little is known about Napier’s early life, but it is thought that he travelled abroad because, according to one custom, the sons of the Scottish landed gentry had to travel abroad. Napier was back home in 1571, and he stayed either at Merchiston or at Gartness for the rest of his life. In 1572, Napier got married. His wife died in 1579. A few years after his wife’s death, he married again.

Napier’s life was spent amid bitter religious dissensions. In 1593, he wrote a book on the church of Rome, in which he wrote that Popes of church would destroy the world between 1688 and 1700. The 10 editions out of 21 printed so far were sold during his life time.

Following the publication of this work, Napier occupied himself with the invention of secret instruments of war. He invented two kinds of burning mirrors. He also made a metal chariot from which shots could be discharged through small holes.

Napier devoted most of his spare time to the study of mathematics and science. The result of this was that his name became associated with mathematics. He also discovered an instrument which was used for addition, subtraction and calculating square roots. This instrument was known as Napier Rod.

Although Napier discovered many things, greatest of these is logarithms. Napier started working on logarithms in 1593. He gradu­ally elaborated his computational system whereby roots, products and quotients could be quickly determined. On this basis he developed logarithms, table. Napier’s invention of logarithms overshadows all his other mathematical work. He did many researches on trigonometry and Napier’s Analogy. Napier died in Merchiston on April 4, 1617.

The contributions of Napier to mathematics are contained in two treatises—Description of Marvelons Canon of Logarithms, which was published in 1614, and Construction of the Marvelons Canon of Loga­rithms, which was published in 1620 a few years after his death.

Although Napier is not with us today, his method of logarithms is still widely used. In our country, students get acquainted with logarithms in secondary classes. This method is used by all countries of the world. Although computer has reduced the use of logarithms to some extent, the importance of this method can’t be overlooked. It still remains the most economical method of speedy calculation.

2. Evangelista Torricelli (The Inventor of Barometer):

Torricelli’s name is usually associated with the invention of the barometer but, in fact, he designed many other things also.

At Florence in Italy, there is a museum devoted to the history of science. Among the exhibits is a telescopic lens which, to the casual observer, appears to be a well-developed lens a little over four inches in diameter. Even an opti­cian will be surprised to know of the precision with which it is made. It is accurate to within a ten thou­sandth of a millimeter; and we will be far more surprised when we learn that it was made in 1646. Its maker was Evangelista Torricelli. It was made at the time when no modem precision instruments were available. From this fact we can imagine the amazing degree of accuracy which Torricelli possessed.

Most of us know Torricelli as the inventor of barometer, but only few are aware of the interesting story behind this invention.

According to this story, Grand Duke of Tuscany got a well dug in the courtyard of his palace. The surface of water was about 40 feet below the courtyard level. In order to bring the water upto ground level, a hand-pump was installed with its pipe dipping in the well water. The pump handle was operated repeatedly, but the water did not rise in the pipe more than the height of 33 feet.

Initially it was thought that there was some defect in the pump. But on careful examination the pump was found to be in quite order. This incident was reported to the Duke but he also could not under­stand why the pump was unable to bring water to the ground level. In these days Galileo was the Mathematician to the Grand Duke. So the problem was referred to him. Galileo at that time was old and practically blind, so he asked his disciple Torricelli to look into it.

Torricelli was aware that a heavier liquid cannot be raised to the same height as a lighter liquid. He selected mercury for his experiment which is more than thirteen-and-a-half times heavier than water. He calculated that if the measure of 33 feet is divided by 13.5, the equivalent height to which mercury might rise would be about 30 inches. Therefore, the use of mercury, he thought, would reduce the length of the experimental glass tube to only one yard.

To carry out the experiment, Torricelli took a glass tube of about 1 yard length with its one end closed. He filled it with mercury, closed the open end with his thumb and immersed it in a dish full of mercury so that the open end remained dipped in mercury. When he removed his thumb from the open end from below the mercury level, the mercury in the tube came down slightly and stood at a column length of about 30 inches. The upper part of the tube became empty. This empty column was named as ‘Torricelli’s vacuum.’ This experiment proved that water by hand-pump cannot be lifted to more than the height of 30 inches x 13.5, that is, about 33 feet and the apparatus used in this experiment later became the basis of evolving the barometer.

Torricelli’s barometer was taken to the peak of a mountain where the height of the mercury column was found to fall down. This proved that as we go above the surface of the earth, atmospheric pressure decreases. On the basis of this experiment Pascal proved the statement of Galileo that air has weight. Today the barometer has become an es­sential instrument for weather men.

This great Italian scientist designed several types of telescopes, microscopes and made optical instruments with an almost incredible degree of precision. He was not only an experimental scientist but also a good mathematician. He discovered the fundamental formula for integral calculus. At the age of 19, Torricelli entered the University of Rome where in later years, he became a professor. His first treatise, A Commentary on the work of Galileo, was published in 1641. He lived during the period of famous physician Harvey and philosophers and mathematicians like Bacon, Pascal and Galileo.

It was most unfortunate that this great scientist died on 25th October 1647 at the early age of 39. Had he lived for some more years, he would have definitely contributed a lot to the advancement of science and technology.

3. Michael Faraday (The Inventor of Electromagnetic Induction):

Today, thousands of power stations all over the world are pro­ducing electricity with the help of generators. Without the invention of the generator electric power could not have been a reality.

And moreover it is difficult to visualize our life today without electricity. The credit of inventing this machine goes to Michael Fara­day. When he made the first gen­erator he was not aware that his invention would turn out to be one of the most important boons of the scientific age.

Michael Faraday, the father of Electromagnetic Induction, was born in 1791 at Newington, England. He was the son of a blacksmith and worked as an apprentice in book­binding during his early years. He developed interest in science after he attended some lectures given by Sir Humphry Davy in 1812. He sent his study notes to Davy with a request for a job. In 1813, he began to work as Davy’s assistant at the Royal Institution. One year later, he accompanied Davy on a European tour. This turned out to be a highly rewarding experience for the modestly educated young scien­tist.

After his return to the Royal Institution, Faraday had to work hard, since he was the main source of income for the Institution which was then facing financial problems. During this period, Faraday worked in the field of glass and steel. He performed many chemical analyses and investigated the chlorides of carbon for Davy. His work resulted in the discovery of benzene in 1825.

Davy left the Royal Institution, but Faraday was immensely in­fluenced by Davy and carried out many experiments for him. When Faraday discovered in 1823 that gases could be liquified by pressure, Davy got the credit. After this, serious differences crept in between the two, so much, so that Davy opposed the election of Faraday as a Fellow of the Royal Institution.

In 1820, Hans Oersted discovered that when electric current passes through a conductor it could produce magnetic field. Faraday heard about this and thought that it would also work the other way round, that is, magnetic field can generate electricity. He carried out experiments he invented the process of electromagnetic induction and formulated the laws of electromagnetic induction.

He demonstrated that if a magnet is moved inside a wire loop, electricity is generated. He also demonstrated that if a current carrying wire is suspended near a magnet it revolves around the magnet. These experiments made him famous-throughout Europe. In 1831, he made the first dynamo. Joseph Henry also made a generator at the same time. All modern dynamos, generators and transformers are based on the work of Faraday and Henry.

One famous incident of Faraday’s life is worth mentioning. When he invented electromagnetic induction, he presented an experiment to demonstrate it before many people who came from all over the world. Among the spectators was a lady with her young baby. Faraday took a coil of copper wire and connected its ends to a galvanometer. He inserted a bar magnet into the coil. With the insertion of the magnet the needle of galvanometer moved, indicating generation of electricity. When he removed the magnet, the needle moved back. Faraday explained to the audience that this was the basis of generating elec­tricity.

When the demonstration was over, the lady became angry. “Is it an experiment? Have you called the people to befool them?” she asked Faraday. Faraday replied politely, “Madam, just as your child is quite young, so is the case with my experiment. So far it is like a baby. In future, it may be of utmost importance.”

Faraday’s statements have come true today. There is no electric generator and transformer which do not work on the principle of electromagnetic induction. If Faraday would have not invented electro­magnetic induction, perhaps we would have not got electricity.

In the next few years, Faraday demonstrated by passing currents through solutions that all kinds of electricity, however generated, were the same. In this way, he developed the laws of electrolysis in 1834 which are taught to the students of physics even today.

In 1839, Faraday suffered a mental breakdown. His convales­cence took four years. His breakdown left him with a poor memory which grew worse with time. However, he returned to his work and started investigating the effect of a magnetic field on non-metallic substances. He discovered paramagnetism and diamagnetism. Al­though Faraday was very fond of giving lectures on science subjects, in the late 1850s he had given it up because of his failing memory.

In 1861, Faraday, then 70, retired from the Royal Institution and moved to a house in Hampton Court that Queen Victoria has offered him. By now his condition was so bad that he required permanent assistance. On 25 August 1867, he breathed his last. He was given a private funeral at High-gate Cemetery.

Faraday was a scientist noted for blending theory and experiment in his researches. He had little money to spend on apparatus and knew no mathematics. Many of his inventions were not put to use until decades after his death. Two electrical units are named after Faraday. One is the Faraday Unit used in measuring quantities of electricity, and the other is the Faraday Unit used in measuring the capacity of a capacitor.

4. Pythagoras (A Mathematical Genius of Ancient Times):

Pythagoras was born at a time when mathematics was in its primi­tive stage, but this great mathema­tician of ancient times, established a theorem known as Pythagoras Theorem which is taught to stu­dents even in primary classes. This theorem is widely applied in some form or the other in mathematical studies. The theorem states that in a right-angled triangle, the square on the hypotenuse (longest side) is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides.

In a right angled triangle, if one side is 3 cm long, the other side is 4 cm long, then the third longest side will be 5 cm long. It means that the 3 cm long side will have nine squares each of one square cm, and the 4 cm side will have 16 squares. The sum of these would be 25. In this way the third side will have 25 squares each of one square cm.

This great philosopher and mathematician was born in Samos (Greece) some 2500 years ago. Unfortunately, he left no writings behind him, for in those days even parchment for writing had not been invented. Most of what we know about him, therefore, comes to us from later writers and, as with all great men; fact is often mixed with legend in the story of his life and thought.

Samos Island was an important trading centre. Pythagoras was born in a rich family and, undoubtedly, he was given the best education available.

It is said that even at an early age he showed signs of extraor­dinary intelligence. By the time he was 16, his teachers could no lon­ger answer his questions. He was subsequently sent to study under Thales of Miletus. At this time, Pythagoras formulated his best-known theorem, which he then set out to demonstrate. He was, in fact, one of the founders of the system of geometrical proofs taught in schools today. Pythagoras is also credited with proving that the sum of the interior angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles.

In those days, there were no books to study. The only way to study further was to travel and meet other scholars. During the next 30 years, Pythagoras travelled in Persia, Babylon, Arabia and as far as India, where Buddha was founding his new religion.

It is said, Pythagoras spent many years in Egypt where he learned about music and worked out the connections between arithmetic and music. There he also worked on the musical scale. By the time he reached his fifties, he had learned much about mathematics. Now he wanted to establish a school where he could teach others.

Pythagoras migrated to Southern Italy in 532 BC to escape Samos’s tyrannical rule. There he established his school in about 529 at Crotonay. Soon he had a following of 300 young men. In fact, it was more like a religious sect than a school where members could learn to understand each other. The subjects of study in the school were arith­metic, geometry, music-and astronomy. Members were also taught the Greek philosophy. Pythagoras was a deeply religious man and believed in living a purposeful and decent life.

Pythagoras also worked on the Theory of Numbers. He had knowledge about drawing the figures of pyramids, cubes, etc. He thought that stars move in curvilinear paths. He also believed that days and nights are the results of the movement of earth around some cent­ral fire, i.e., sun. He also established a relationship between music and mathematics.

Unfortunately, the Pythagoreans became involved in politics. Wherever they gained power, they showed contempt for the ignorant. This led to their downfall. The people rose against them. Even Pythago­ras went into exile, where he eventually died at the age of 80.

Two hundred years after his death, the Senate erected a statue of Pythagoras in Rome, honouring him as “the wisest and the bravest of the Greeks”

5. Srinivasa Ramanujan (World Famous Mathematician):

The greatness of Ramanujan as a mathematician can be judged from the fact that his birth cen­tenary was celebrated widely in December 1987. His contribution to the theory of numbers brought him worldwide acclamation.

One famous incident of his life is as follows:

When he was a child, the teacher was taking the arithmetic class. On the black-board three bananas were drawn. The teacher asked the students –”If we have three bananas and three boys how many bananas will each boy get?” A smart boy in the front row replied – “Each will get one” “Right”, said the teacher.

While the teacher was explaining the method of division, a boy sitting in one corner asked –  “Sir, if no banana is distributed among no one, will every one still get the banana?” “What a silly question to ask?” said all the students with a roar of laughter. The teacher, however, was very much impressed with the question and said – “There is nothing to laugh at about. I will explain what he means to say. He is asking if zero is divided by zero, will the result be one.”

The boy had asked a question that had taken mathematicians several centuries to answer. Some mathematicians claimed that zero divided by zero was zero, but others claimed it to be unity. The correct answer was found by Indian mathematician Bhaskara who proved that zero divided by zero is equal to infinity.

The boy who had asked the astounding question was Srinivasa Ramanujan who later became a great mathematician. This Tamil child’s father was a petty clerk in a cloth shop. Because of his family’s poor financial condition, Ramanujan could not get proper education.

When he was just 13, he solved the world famous Loney’s Trigonometry. At the age of 15, he obtained a copy of George Schoobsidge Carr’s Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics. This book had a collection of about 6000 theorems. He verified all these theorems, and on this basis he developed some new theorems.

In 1903, he secured a scholarship from the University of Madras. But since he was devoted totally to mathematics, he neglected other subjects in which he failed and consequently the scholarship was withdrawn the following year. His father was shocked. When he found that his son was all the time playing with numbers. He thought Ramanujan had gone mad. To set him right, he forced his son to marry. The girl chosen was eight-year old Janaki.

After his marriage, Ramanujan began to look for a job. He had to find money not only for his bread and butter, but for paper as well to do his mathematical calculations on. He started using even scraps of paper he found lying in the streets. Sometimes he would use a red pen to write over blue ink in order to use the same paper twice. He managed to get a clerical job on a monthly salary of Rs. 25. Later, some teachers and educationists interested in mathematics initiated a move to provide Ramanujan with research fellowship. He was granted a fellowship of Rs. 75. a month from University of Madras, though he had no qualifying degree.

During these days he wrote a letter to the great mathematician G.H. Hardy of Cambridge University and also sent 120 theorems to him. Hardy and his colleagues realised the greatness of the work. They made arrangements for Ramanujan’s passage and stay at Cambridge University. On March 17, 1914 Ramanujan sailed for Britain.

Ramanujan found himself a stranger at Cambridge. The cold was hard to bear and being a Brahamin and Vegetarian, he had to cook his own food. However, he continued his research in mathematics. In Ramanujan, Hardy found an unsystematic mathematician who played with numbers. For his work, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society on February 28, 1918. He was the second Indian to receive this distinguished fellowship. In October of the same year, he became the first Indian to be elected Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. In algebra, his work is considered to be equal in importance to that of great mathematicians like Eular and Jacobi.

While Ramanujan continued his research work in England, tuber­culosis was affecting him. He was sent back to India. He had become pale and very weak. Even in these conditions, he continued to play with numbers. He died of tuberculosis on April 26, 1920, at Chetpet in Madras. Besides being a mathematician, Ramanujan was an astrologer of repute and a good speaker. He used to give lectures on subjects like “God, and Infinity”.

Ramanujan award was instituted in order to honour him. Ramanujan Institute was also founded in his memory which is func­tioning even today under the University of Madras.

6. Thomas Alva Edison (Inventor who Took more than 1000 Patents):

In 1889, a great international exhibition was held in Paris, where a large section was devoted to the display of inventions and discover­ies of one man, Thomas Edison. He was invited to Paris where he was given a warm reception. At a banquet given in his honour, one of the speakers observed that Edison had made so many inventions and discoveries that hardly anything was left for anybody else to invent. During his life time, Edison ob­tained over 1000 patents for his in­ventions. In the entire history of scientific progress, no single scie­ntist has given to the world so many inventions and discoveries.

Thomas Alva Edison was born at Milan, U.S.A. He was the son of a man who had tried his hand at every kind of occupation without succeeding in any. As a boy, Edison was weak in health and full of questions. He refused to accept anything unless he could test it for himself. This attitude got him expelled from school with the remark from his teacher that his brain was ‘addled’. Thereafter he was taught by his mother, who was a school teacher.

At the age of 10, Edison set up his first laboratory in the basement of his home. When he needed more money to buy supplies for his experiments, he went to sell newspapers and sweets on the trains running along the Detroit and Port Huron branch of Grand Trunk Railway. He did it for over a year. During this period he constructed a simplified working model of telegraph.

Early in 1861, the civil war broke out between North and South, and people were impatient to have news of the battles. Edison planned to print a newspaper himself. For 12 dollars, he bought an old hand printing press in Detroit. He borrowed some paper and set up his press in the train. He named it Grand Trunk Herald. It was the first newspaper ever to be published and distributed from a railway train. It had a circulation of about 400, mostly among railway employees. During this period, he set up a simple laboratory on the train, and took advantage of all his free time during his journeys to read, carry out experiments and make notes.

During this time, Edison met with an accident that made him deaf. He got down from the train at a station to sell papers and did not notice the train had started off again. He ran after it, and a railway man leaned out and tried to pull him in. The boy had his hands full of newspapers and the only thing the man could do was to drag him in by the ears. A little later, Edison noticed that his hearing was getting weaker; this was the beginning of his lifelong deafness.

One day, his laboratory in the train compartment caught fire. Due to this, railway authorities got annoyed and his scientific apparatus along with chemicals were thrown out of the train, and he was no longer allowed to sell newspapers.

In 1862, Edison saved the child of the station master from a train accident. The father of that child did not have anything to pay in appreciation, but promised to teach Edison telegraphy. Edison learned telegraphy from him and, in 1868 he secured his first patent on tele­graph. In the same year, he invented a machine to record notes.

The following year, he drifted to New York, where after a further time of poverty he was employed at a stock exchange telegraph agency. He offered his telegraph apparatus to the president of the stock exchange hoping to get 3,000 dollars for it. The president thought high of Edison’s device and offered him 40,000 dollars. This was the beginning of lucky days for Edison.

In 1876, he set up his laboratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey, where in 1878 he invented the incandescent electric bulb. On the New Year day the whole street was decorated with his electric bulbs. This uniquely impressive decoration was seen by correspondents from all over the world. While working on the electric bulb, he discovered the principle of thermionic emission which later led to the development of the thermionic valve.

In 1887, he moved to a larger laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey, from where an incessant stream of new inventions originated. Edison invented a machine which was later developed into the Reming­ton typewriter and an electric pen which developed into the mimeo­graph. In 1877, he produced his most celebrated inventions. This was the gramophone or phonograph. In 1889,’ he built a motion picture camera.

In 1912, he would have been awarded the Nobel Prize with his former associate Tesla for their work in electrical generation and supply, but such was the animosity between them that Tesla refused to have his name linked with him. So neither won the award.

In the last decade of his life, he became famous as a wizard of technical age. He remained busy in inventing new things until his last breath on October 1931. In spite of so much fame, he was very modest about his own gifts. This fact is depicted in his famous saying – “Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration”. In 1960, his name was included among the famous Americans as a Member of the Hall of Fame.

7. Wilbur and Orville Wright (Inventors of Aeroplane):

The invention of aeroplane has made every part of this world within the reach of human being. In fact, some aeroplanes can fly even faster than the speed of sound.

While we travel long distance in comfort at the speed of sound, we hardly give a thought to those people who took enormous risks, and many even lost their lives, in bringing the aeroplane to its present shape and speed. In the evolution of air travel, the names that stand out most conspicuously are Wilbur Wright and Orville Wright — popularly remembered as the Wright Brothers.

Wilbur and Orville Wright were the sons of Milton Wright, a clergyman by profession. He was married at the age of 41 with Susan Kethrine. Among their five children, Wilbur was born in 1867 and Orville in 1871. Later, Milton Wright became the bishop in a church.

In 1878, when Wilbur was 11 years old and Orville seven years old, their father gave them a toy which could fly up to the ceiling of the room. It was made of paper, bamboo and cork. A rubber band rotated a propeller and made the toy fly straight into the air like a helicopter.

The boys were very much excited to see the flying toy. They thought if such a small toy could fly up to the ceiling of the room, a bigger structure could definitely fly much higher. They started making a similar toy of a larger scale. The major work was done by Wilbur, because Orville was quite young. The toy made by them could not succeed much, because as they increased the size, the flying height was proportionately decreased. After three years the Wright family shifted to Retchmund, where the two brothers started making kites. The kites made by Orville became famous as flying machines in Retchmund city.

When Orville was 12, he developed the hobby of embossing with wood. He purchased an old printing press and started printing a newspaper. At the age of 17, Orville developed a fairly big printing press, and both the brothers started printing newspapers. They also started a magazine which became quite famous.

As, the industrial revolution was in full swing, their newspaper failed because of competition from big newspapers. After the failure in newspapers, they started making bicycles. When they were busy in selling their bicycles in Dayton, Otto and Gustav Lilienthal of Germany were doing some dangerous but interesting experiments to find a mechanism to fly like birds in the sky. Wright brothers got acquainted with the details of these experiments. In 1896, Otto Lilienthal died in a gliding attempt. Wright brothers were very much shocked to hear this news. This tragic incident created a deep interest in making flying planes in the minds of Wright Brothers.

One day, Wilbur noticed a box in his shop which had bent edges. An idea struck him that the wings of the flying plane could be made in this form. He thought that wings should be designed in such a way that they could be moved up and down during the flight. Just after a few days, they made a model of a plane, in 1899. It was a kite-shaped biplane. Both the brothers went to Carolina for conducting its trial. After this trial they remained busy for four years in flying trials. Their progress was very slow, and they had to face many failures.

They, however, did not give up hope, and kept developing new- models one after the other. On the morning of December 17, 1903, Orville Wright made the world’s first controlled, successful powered flight when he took off from Kill Devil Hill at Kitty Howk in North Carolina on a 12 horse power biplane which he and his elder brother had designed and built. This plane reached a height of 10 feet and stayed aloft for 12 seconds covering a distance of 37 metres. The second flight was made by Orville.

The fourth and last flight was made by Wilbur who was able to fly a distance of 850 feet in one minute. These flights were witnessed by five people including a child. They were congratulated by them. But, unfortunately, a gust of air crushed their plane.

After this success, Wilbur went to France in 1908. He made many flights up to a height of 91 metres, but he died in 1912 due to typhoid. Now Orville was left alone, but he continued his work. He made 57 flights on his self-built plane and went up to a height of 27 metres. He set up the Wright Aeronautical Laboratory in 1916 in which research related to airplanes was conducted. In his life time Orville was able to see the flying speeds rise from 300 miles per hour to supersonic speed. Posterity will never forget the contributions of Wright Brothers in the field of aeronautics.

Even today, the original plane which was used by Wright Brothers in Kitty Hawk for the first successful flight of the world is preserved in the National Air and Space Museum, Washington D.C.

8. Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha (Initiator of India’s Atomic Energy Programme):

India’s achievements in the field of atomic energy are well known. There are a number of nuclear reactors and atomic power stations functioning in the country today. All this is due to the efforts of Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha. The atomic energy programme in our country was initiated by him in 1948. He was the first chairman of India’s Atomic Energy Commission.

Dr. Bhabha was born on Oc­tober 30, 1909, in Bombay, in a wealthy Parsi family. He had his early education in Bombay. At his home, he had a large collection of books on various science subjects. Bhabha, therefore, had developed a keen interest in science from child­hood. He also took keen interest in painting, poetry and Western music.

After graduating from Elphinstone College and the Royal Institute of Science in Bombay, he went to Cambridge University for further studies. His father wanted him to become an engineer, but Bhabha was more interested in Physics. From Cambridge University, he got his engineering degree in 1930 and Ph.D. degree in 1934. During his studies, he got many scholarships and medals.

At Cambridge Univer­sity, he worked with Niels Bohr. Later, Bhabha worked with world famous scientists like Fermi and Pauli. In 1937, Bhabha worked with Walter Heitler in the field of cosmic rays. He became famous all over the world for his work on cosmic rays. He did significant research in identifying the elementary particles called ‘mesons’.

Bhabha returned to India in 1940, and was appointed a reader and later a professor of Physics at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. In 1945, he founded the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and became its Director. His scientific achievements, fame and friendship with Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru enabled him to get gov­ernment finances for atomic programmes and research. Apart from being an eminent scientist, he was also a skilled administrator.

In 1948, Bhabha became the first Chairman of Atomic Energy Commission of India, and under his able guidance Indian scientists worked on the development of atomic energy. In 1956, Apsara, the first atomic reactor, in Asia went into operation at Trombay (Bombay). Two other nuclear reactors Circus and Zerlina were installed under Bhabha’s guidance.

Bhabha was chairman of the first United Nations’ Conference on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy held at Geneva in 1955. He was the first who advocated a check on the proliferation of nuclear energy and banning of atomic bombs by all countries. He was also offered a post in the Cabinet which he refused.

However, he continued to be a sci­entific adviser to Prime Minister Nehru and to his successor Lal Bahadur Shastri. The first atomic power station in India went into op­eration at Tarapur. After two years, a plutonium plant was made. India exploded her first underground nuclear device on May 18, 1974, at Pokhran, Rajasthan. This success was the result of the research initiated by Dr. Bhabha.

Dr. Bhabha was also appointed the Chairman of the Commission for the Peaceful uses of Atomic Power. Dr. Bhabha died in an air crash on January 24, 1966 when he was on his way to attend an international conference. His sudden death shocked the whole nation.

In his honour, Atomic Energy Institute, Trombay, was renamed as Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, and Tata Institute of Fundamen­tal Research, as Bhabha Institute of Fundamental Research.

Dr. Bhabha remained unmarried throughout his life. He used to say that he was married to creativity. Contrary to the common belief that scientists have no interest in arts and literature, Dr. Bhabha was deeply interested in these fields. He was himself a very good painter.

Dr. Bhabha led a simple and unpresumptuous life. He was a very good orator, was soft spoken and had very attractive looks. One daily newspaper wrote about him – “He is clean and beautiful, just opposite to normally a scientist.. He looks like a film director or actor”. He will be always remembered as the architect of India’s atomic energy pro­gramme.

9. Archimedes (Who Detected Impurity in the Golden Crown without Breaking):

King Hieron of Syracuse was a brave and religious man. He used to celebrate his victories by offer­ing some present to the Gods. It is said, that once King Hieron got a crown of gold made for offering to his gods. A specific quantity of gold was given to the goldsmith to make the crown. The goldsmith fabricated the crown and gave it to the king on the scheduled day.

The king became suspicious that the goldsmith had alloyed silver with gold, but the crown was made so beautifully that the kind did not want to break it in order to confirm his suspicion. At the same time, he was anxious to get its purity tested without damaging it. He called for Archimedes, the famous scientist of the town, and asked him to test the crown without damaging it.

Archimedes examined the problem very carefully, but could not solve it at once. It is said that the solution of the problem flashed in his mind suddenly when he was lying in his bath tub. He noticed how, when he got in the bath tub, his body displaced the water, making the water level in the bath tub rise. He jumped out and ran down the street, naked, shouting “Eureka, Eureka” (I have found it). On the basis of this discovery, he was able to estimate the extent of impurity in the gold crown.

In order to check the purity of the crown, he filled a vessel with water and dipped the crown in it. The water displaced by it was measured. Now, once again, he filled the vessel with water, and dipped an equal mass of pure gold in it. The water displaced was again collected and measured. The amount of water displaced in the two observations was different. From this experiment he estimated the im­purity in the golden crown. Later, on the basis of this discovery, the method of finding out the relative density of substances was estab­lished.

Archimedes also formulated the law of floatation of bodies. He also evolved the principle of levers. With the help of levers and pulleys, he was able to lift a loaded ship on to the bank. The crowd which saw this experiment was astonished. Many thought Archimedes had some super power. Archimedes once said – “If I am given a rod of proper length and proper place to hook its one end, I can lift the earth with the help of a lever.”

Archimedes was a gifted mathematician too. He calculated the value of pi. He also evolved the mathematical formula for finding out the circumference and area of a circle. He also invented the water-screw by which water can be lifted up. It is, in fact, a cylindrical vessel in which a wide screw moves up and down.

Archimedes made several types of war machines. These machines worked by means of levers and pulleys. He studied the properties of light with the help of mirrors. There is a story that Archimedes set fire to some Roman Ships by beaming the sun’s rays on to them with the help of big mirrors. This may sound like fiction, but there is positive evidence that Archimedes conducted many striking experiments with mirrors.

Archimedes wrote several books such as, ‘On the Sphere and Cylinder’, ‘Measurement of the Circle’, ‘On Floating Bodies’, and ‘On Balances and Levers’.

Probably there is no student of science who is not familiar with the name of Archimedes. He was a great scientist of his times. Even after 2000 years we remember Archimedes, and use his principles.

After the war in 212, B.C. when Syracuse came under the Roman Empire, Archimedes was very distressed. One day, when he was making some geometrical figures on the ground, he heard some clash of arms and clatter of horses’ hoofs outside his house. A Roman soldier came into his house and looked threateningly at the calm old man. Archimedes was so much engrossed with his work that he did not notice that an armed soldier has entered his house. Without caring for the danger to his life, he told the soldier – “Please, do not spoil my circles.” The confused soldier raised his sword and killed old Archimedes.

10. Gregor Johann Mendel (Father of Genetics):

Today, scientists work in big laboratories equipped with highly sophisticated instruments, but Gre­gor Mendel was a scientist who, with the help of pea plants, carried out so many experiments and de­rived certain laws of genetics which are true even today. Mendel was the first naturalist who, by experimenting with plants, gave a scientific shape to genetics.

Gregor Mendel was an Aus­trian monk. He studied science at the University of Vienna. Later, he returned to his monastery at Brunn (now called Brno), and taught natu­ral sciences at the school there. In fact, right from his childhood Mendel was deeply interested in nature.

For conducting experiments in genetics Mendel grew pea plants in his monastery garden. He studied certain characteristics of the pea plants over a number of generations. These included the length of the stem, position of the flowers, colours of seed coats and the form of the ripe seeds. From his experiments, he drew many conclusions regarding how one characteristic is related to the other.

Mendel crossed pure-bred tall and dwarf pea plants sowed the seed obtained, and found that these produced all tall plants in the first generation. However, a cross between two hybrids produced tall and dwarf plants in the ratio of 3:1. From these experiments, Mendel concluded that the characteristic of height is a dominant one, while that of dwarfness is a recessive one. In the second generation, this trait is not very dominant.

A cross between two pure-bred pea plants, one having round yellow and the other having wrinkled green seeds, yielded plants having only round yellow seeds in the first generation. But when the seeds of the first generation were crossed with each other, the plants appearing in the second generation had round yellow, round green, wrinkled yellow and wrinkled green seeds in the ratio of 9:3:3:1. This experiment proved that the traits of round and yellow seeds were dominant as compared to the characteristic of wrinkled green seeds.

Based on the conclusions of his experiments, Mendel proposed the following laws of inheritance in 1865:

1. Law of Dominance:

Out of a pair of contrasting traits brought together in a cross, only one of them expresses itself in the resulting hybrids. The trait expressed is said to be dominant and the other which remained suppressed is called recessive.

2. Law of Segregation:

When the factors that determine a pair of contrasting characters are brought together in a hybrid, they do not intermix but maintain their individualities.

3. Law of Independent Assortment:

The factors responsible for one or more pair of traits are distributed independently to the gametes, i.e., assorted independent of those of the other pair.

The factors considered responsible by Mendel for the expression of traits have been identified as genes. These genes are present along the length of the chromosomes and are transferred from the parents to the offspring during reproduction. Gene is the unit of inheritance.

Mendel carried out breeding experiments for about nine years to explain the mechanism of inheritance. But the main surprise was that Mendel’s discoveries were not noticed by other scientists during his life time. These laws were rediscovered by other scientists in 1900 after his death.

In his experiments, Mendel clearly proved that offspring almost have all the traits of their parents, with some exceptions. Off-springs can never be prototype of their parents. Two organism of the same species are not exactly alike, but differ in some respect or the other. This difference is called variation. The genetics and variation have been the basis of the evolution of species. Mendel, the great scientist of genetics, died on January 6, 1884.