SCIENTISTS

And thei r contributions

towards science
 Johannes Kepler
(1571-1630)
 Modern astronomy begins with Copernicus (1473-1543)
declaring (1530) the Earth rotates on its axis once daily and
travels around the Sun once yearly. Next Tycho Brahe (1546-1601)
made important contributions by devising instruments to observe
motion of planets. In particular, Brahe compiled extensive data on
the planet Mars. However, Johannes Kepler made the monumental
discovery of the time. Brahe, fearing his bright assistant might
eclipse him as the premiere astronomer of the day, assigned
Kepler the perplexing orbit of the planet Mars (Mars has the most
elliptical orbit of all the planets). Ironically it was precisely the
Mars data that allowed Kepler to develop his three laws describing
the orbit of planets around the Sun. Kepler's Three Laws of
Planetary Motion: 1. Planets revolve around the Sun in an elliptical
path, with the Sun occupying one of the foci of the ellipse. 2.
Straight line joining sun and planet sweeps out equal areas in
equal intervals of time. 3. Squares of planets' orbital periods are
proportional to the cubes of the semimajor axes of their orbits.
 Galileo Galilei
(1563-1642)
 Mathematician/astronomer/physicist who made
numerous contributions to modern science. Galileo was first
to use telescope to gather evidence proving the earth
revolves around the sun. His position represented such a
radical departure from accepted thought that he was tried by
the Inquisition in Rome, ordered to recant, and forced to
spend the last eight years of his life under house arrest. But
most of Galileo's projects didn't conflict with the church's
interests, falling bodies, magnets, floating objects, the tides,
compasses, arc of a cannonball, and rolling objects. He
informally stated the principles later embodied in Newton's
first two laws of motion. He also invented the mechanical
pendulum clock, improved the telescope, and developed the
first thermometer. Because of his pioneering work in
gravitation/motion and in combining mathematical analysis
with experimentation, Galileo is credited with ushering in the
new age of science.
 Sir Isaac Newton
(1643-1737)
 There can be no outstanding scientist list without Sir Isaac
Newton; he made revolutionary advances in mathematics, optics,
physics, and astronomy. In 1687 Newton published the
Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica. Principia, as it has
become known, is recognized as the greatest scientific book ever
written! Newton analyzed motion of bodies under the action of
centripetal forces. The results were applied to orbiting bodies,
projectiles, pendulums, and free-fall near the Earth. He further
demonstrated planets were attracted toward the Sun by a force
varying as the inverse square of the distance and generalized that
all heavenly bodies mutually attract one another. In order to
perform his calculations, Newton invented calculus. Newton also
explained a wide range of previously unrelated phenomena such
as eccentric orbits of comets, tides and their variation, precession
of the Earth's axis, and motion of Moon as perturbed by gravity of
Sun. Newton was deeply interested in light and published optics in
1704. Although he believed a wave theory more probable, he
relied on a corpuscular theory to account for phenomena such as
reflexion, refraction, colors, and diffraction. Newton's Three Laws
of Motion: 1. A body continues in a state of rest, or motion with a
constant velocity, unless compelled to change by an unbalanced
force. 2. The acceleration of an object is directly proportional to
the net force acting upon it and inversely proportional to its mass.
 Charles
Darwin(1809-1882)

 Darwin studied medicine at Edinburgh University but was

repelled by the sight of surgery performed without anesthesia and
entered Cambridge University to become a clergyman. In 1831
after receiving his degree, Darwin served as an unpaid naturalist
on the H.M.S. Beagle for a five-year scientific expedition to the
Pacific coast of South America. The research resulting from this
voyage formed the basis of Darwin's famous book, On the Origin
of Species by Means of Natrural Selection. Published in 1859,
Darwin concluded: 1. Evolutionary change was gradual and
required thousands to millions of years. 2. Primary mechanism for
evolution was process called natural selection. 3. Millions of
species alive today arose from single original life form through
branching process called "specialization." Variation within species
occurs randomly and survival/extinction determined by organism's
ability to adapt to its environment. Darwin's work had a
tremendous impact on society since the theory challenged beliefs
about the creation of life on earth. After publication of Origin of
Species, Darwin continued to write on botany, geology, and
zoology until his death in 1882. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.
 Louis Pasteur
(1822-1895)
 French chemist/biologist who made numerous
contributions to science including: 1. Separated mirror
image molecules and studied effect of polarized light.
2. Demonstrated handedness of molecules from plant
mold using one isomer of racemic acid. 3. Yeast is an
organism and does not require oxygen for
fermentation. 4. Pasteurization (mild heating) after
fermentation kills microorganisms and prevents
souring. 5. Identified parasite responsible for killing
silkworms and saved French silk industry. 6. Proposed
germ theory of disease urging doctors to use clean
instruments, wash hands, and disinfect bandages in
The Germ Theory and its Application to Medicine and
Surgery. 7. Developed treatment to prevent anthrax.
Named technique "vaccination"' and applied it to
chicken cholera and rabies.
 James Clerk
Maxwell (1831-
1879)
 Maxwell is considered the scientist of the 19th century who
had the greatest influence on 20th century physics. In 1931
Einstein described Maxwell's work as "the most profound and the
most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of
Newton." Maxwell calculated the speed of propagation of an
electromagnetic field as approximately that of the speed of light.
He proposed the phenomenon of light is an electromagnetic
phenomenon. In 1873 Maxwell published his Treatise on Electricity
and Magnetism which contains his famous Maxwell equations; the
four partial differential equations are one of the great
achievements of 19th-century mathematics. Maxwell also
formulated, independently of Ludwig Boltzmann, the Maxwell-
Boltzmann kinetic theory of gases. This theory showed that
molecules at high temperature have only a high probability of
moving toward those at low temperature. Maxwell's approach did
not reject the earlier studies of thermodynamics but used a better
theory of the basis to explain the observations and experiments.
 Emil Fisher(1852-
1919)
 No one made greater contributions to chemistry than
Fisher. In his early years developed new dyes and identified
the active ingredients in tea/coffee/cocoa. Between 1882-
1906 Fisher performed perhaps the most outstanding work
in the history of chemistry. He established structures for the
16 stereoisomers of the aldohexoses (C6H12O6)�glucose
being the most prominent member. In the process he
synthesized glucose, fructose and mannose starting with
glycerol. In other work he showed substances such as
adenine, xanthine, caffeine, uric acid, and guanine all
belonged to the family he called purines. Fisher advanced
our knowledge of protein by developing methods to
separate/identify individual amino acids. He also
synthesized proteins and identified the peptide bond
holding them together in chains. Fisher devised cross
representations (today called Fisher projections) and
proposed the often used lock & key model to explain the fit
of a drug onto a receptor site.
 Albert Einstein(1879-
1955)

 Einstein is probably the most famous

scientist of all time. He burst on the scene in
1905 when he managed to solve three of the
outstanding problems of physics:
photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, and
special theory of relativity. These three
publications have become known as the
"Einstein trilogy." Einstein's greatest work
occurred in 1915 when at the "advanced age"
of 36, he published the general theory of
relativity showing that gravity and
acceleration are the same.
 Ediwin Hubble
(1889-1953)

 In 1924 Hubble measured the distance to the

Andromeda nebula and showed it was about a hundred
thousand times as far away as the nearest stars. It had to
be a separate galaxy, comparable in size to our own Milky
Way but much further away. Hubble began to classify
galaxies according to their content, distance, shape, and
brightness patterns. By observing redshifts in the light
wavelengths emitted, Hubble concluded that galaxies move
away from each other at a rate dependent to the distance
between them (Hubble's Law). The further away they were
the faster they receded. Hubble calculated the point where
the expansion began and estimated the age of the universe
at about 2 billion years (more recent estimates put it at 20
billion years). No person had a greater impact in
determining the extent of our universe than Edwin Hubble.
From proving that other galaxies existed to proving that
galaxies move apart from one another, Hubble's work
defined our place in the cosmos. In honor of Hubble's
achievements, the Orbiting Space Telescope was named
 Paul Dirac (1902-
1984)
 Considered the second outstanding scientist of the 20th
century, Dirac was one of the pioneers of quantum
mechanics and developed the first theory of the
electron that took into account special relativity. The
theory described many observed attributes of the
electron that previous theories had been unable to
anticipate. But the most remarkable prediction of the
theory was that the electron should have an anti-
particle associated with it, having the same mass, but
with a positive instead of negative charge. In 1932 this
particle�later called the positron�was discovered, and
since then many other anti-particles have been
predicted and observed. Dirac developed a version of
the Schrödinger Equation, known as the Dirac
Equation, which is relativistically correct. For his work
on anti-particles and wave mechanics, he received the
Nobel Prize in physics in 1933. Dirac was Lucasian
Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge from 1932 to
1969 and professor of physics at Florida State
 Stephen Hawking
(1942)
 Stephen Hawking was born on January 8th 1942. He did
his undergraduate degree in physics at Oxford and then
went on to graduate training in Cosmology at Cambridge. It
was during his later year at Oxford that he developed
medical problems and was subsequently diagnosed with
Motor Neuron Disease. This however, did not prevent him
from earning his PhD and subsequently embarking on a
very successful research career.
 Another major area that he worked on was the area of
quantum mechanics. One of the aims in physics was to find
a unifying theory: one that would explain all matter in the
universe. The problem was that physical laws that could be
applied to macroscopic structures no longer worked at
subatomic levels. However, through his research on the
origins of the earth, he started to develop links between
gravity and the behavior of atoms. This information then
allowed for the development of the Grand Unified Theory,
which physicists use to explain all matter.
 Made By
Utkarsh Mishra
S1-B