The famous antibiotic Penicillin was accidentally discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming when he was attempting to study staphylococci

bacteria. Sometimes necessity makes the scientists discover new things. For instance, guided missiles had to be developed by German scientists during the World War II in order to destroy and defeat England. The classic theories put forward by Pythagoras, Aristotle, Archimedes, Socrates, Plato, Jabir Ibn Hayyan, etc. are still relevant today, and have made crucial contributions to scientific developments.

The Era of Modern Science

The age of science really led off in the middle of the 17th century. Robert Boyle was the first scientist to introduce the method of experiments and its importance in the field of science. In this period, various institutions of science and inventors started working in different countries of Europe such as England, France and Germany. Many famous scientists of ancient and medieval era like Galileo, Newton, etc. put forward many principles and theories in the different fields and areas of science. Since then modern science has utilized and built upon those methods and techniques to discover many of the things we take for granted in our world.

638-548 B.C.

Thales of Miletus - Greek philosopher; developed theory of matter based upon water; recorded the attractive properties of rubbed amber and lodestone.

c.540-475 B.C. Heraclitus - Greek philosopher; first of the Greeks to develop a theory of the human soul; he praised its creative resources and spoke of the importance of self-exploration; he spoke of the logos that is common to all and said that the universe is ruled by logos; he always urged that close attention be given to the polarites and concealed structures emodied in language.

His famous claim that an idividual can and cannot step into the same river twice reveals an interest in criteria of unity and identity; even though all material constituents have undergone change, it is still, in a sence, the same river. Preoccupied with change, he declared that fire is the central element of the universe, and he postulated a world with no beginning and no end...
581-497 B.C. Pythagoras - Greek philosopher and mathematician; held that numbers were basic to matter; the Pythagorean Theorem is named for his geometric formulation; developed atomic theory; students of his philosophy emphasized geometrical form as a basic property of atoms; developed mathematical relationships which led to musical harmony.

c.490-c.430 B.C. Empedocles - Some suggest (c.484-c.424) - Greek doctor, poet and philosopher. To account for real change, he assumed that there must be more than one kind of matter, and he postulated four roots as elements; earth, air, fire, and water. Love and hate were considered principles of attraction and repulsion that alternately dominated the universe in a recurring cycle. Empedocles presented a kind of biological theory of natural selection in an imaginative poem, On Nature. He also played an importqant role in the development of the Western or Sicilian school of Greek medicine. He cured a plague at the Sicilian city of Selinus and claimed he was a god. One legend, which forms the basis of Matthew Arnold's poem Empedocles on Etna, held the Empedocles, tired of life and wanting people to believe that the gods had taken him with them, committed suicide by leaping into the crater of Mt. Etna. 470-399 B.C. Socrates - Greek philosopher; emphasized the study of human nature in relationship to society; influence the growth of science through standards for clear definitions and classifications, for logic and order, and for prudent skepticism. Democritus of Abdera - Greek philosopher; pupil of Leucippus; developed atomic theory; elaborated idea that matter consisted of atoms having physical size and shape which constantly moved in a void and interacted in different ways; Greek word atoma means indivisible. Leucippus - proposed an atomic concept of matter. Plato - Greek philosopher; pupil of Socrates; dealt with the nature of the universe; developed atomic theory of chemical change; ascribed geometric forms composed of bounding planes to the elements of earth, fire, air and water based upon their physical properties; held that elements could convert into one another through rearrangement of bounding planes; used deductive reasoning as a learning method. Aristotle - updated engraving; Greek philosopher, educator and scientist; undertook a large-scale classification of plants and animals; introduced a method of scientific thinking that still plays a role today. Epicurus - Greek philosopher; founded the system known as Epicureanism. He studied with followers of Plato and Democritus before opening his school in Athens. The school, later called the Garden, accepted women and slaves. This, coupled with Epicurus' teachings concerning pleasure, led to public criticism of the school as a scene of debauchery. In reality, life there was fairly austere. Most of the writings of Epicurus have been lost. Fragments from his most important work, Peri

460-370 B.C.

c.450 B.C. 428-347 B.C.

384-322 B.C.

341-270 B.C.

physeos (On Nature), were recovered from the charred papyri of Herculaneum, buried by an eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. c.336-264 B.C. Zeno of Cition - Greek philosopher; founded the Stoic school of philosophy which held that matter, space, etc. were continuous. c.95-c.55 B.C. Titus Lucretius Carus-(ca. 99 BCE ca. 55 BCE) Also know as simply, Lucretius,
was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is an epic philosophical poem laying out the beliefs of Epicureanism, De rerum natura, translated into English as On the Nature of Things or "On the Nature of the Universe".

69-30 B.C. 354-430

Cleopatra VII - experimented with poisons; influenced alchemists. Aurelius Augustinus - (Saint Augustine) - North Africa; was the first to report that the forces exerted by rubbed amber and by lodstone are different properties. Jabir ibn-Hayyan - "Geber" c. 721-c. 815

c.760-c.815

Arab Alchemist and Physician Jabir ibn Hayyan, often known as Geber, is sometimes confused with a fourteenth-century Spanish mystic who also called himself Geber. In fact the latter deliberately took on the name of his distinguished predecessor, and thus is typically known as "the false Geber." As for the true Jabir, he is widely credited as the Father of Chemistry, the first alchemist to take his studies beyond superstition and into the realm of pure science. Among his many practical discoveries were arsenic, sulphur, and mercury. Born Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayyan, Jabir practiced alchemy and medicine professionally in the town of Kufa, now in Iraq, beginning around 776. Little else is known of his biography, except the fact that at one point he worked under the patronage of a vizier from the Barmakid dynasty, and that he was in Kufa when he died
c.850-c.925

Al-Razi - "Rhazes"

known in the West as Rhazes, was born in al-Rayy

outside Tehran. He is considered one of the greatest physicians Islam has ever produced. He traveled widely, visiting famous medical centers of his time in Jerusalem, Cairo, and Cordova. In 907 he was appointed director of a large hospital in Baghdad and a court physician as well. He wrote 237 books, of

which 36 have survived. The most famous of his works is Liber Continens, a medical encyclopedia. In his theories, al-Razi was a Galenist ; in practice, he was guided more by the principles of Hippocrates (1). He was known for taking detailed histories from his patients and for his keen observational skills. al-Razi combined psychological methods and physiological explanations. He used psychotherapy in a primitive but dynamic fashion

979-1037

Ibn-Sina - Avicenna - Islamic physician and philosopher; author of nearly 200 works in medicine, alchemy, language, philosophy and religion.

c.1397-c.1468 Johann Gutenberg - a craftsman from Mainz, Germany. Between 1430 and 1444 he was in Strasbourg, probably working as a goldsmith, and here he may have begun printing.

In 1438 he entered a contract with three others to develop a refined printing technique and became the inventor of moveabletype mechanical printing in Europe. He printed the 42-line Gutenberg Bible (c.1455) but in the end he lost a suit from one of his creditors, who confiscated the type for the Bible. The suit left Gutenberg financially ruined. Aided by Konrad Humery, he was able to set up another press, but little is known of his work thereafter.
Nicholas Copernicus - Polish astronomer; regarded the founder of modern astronomy.

1473-1543

He was born in Torunac, Poland. He studied mathematics and optics at Cracow, then canon law at Bologna, before becoming canon of Frombork. Copernicus discovered the mathematically yet unproven heliocentric solar system. In his treatise, 'On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres' he postulated that the planets, including the earth, revolve around the sun, and that the earth revolved around its axis once every day. The work had a hostile reception when it was published (1543), as it challenged the ancient teaching of the Earth as the centre of the universe. In the 1600' Galileo and Kepler began to develop the physics that would prove Copernicus right.
1493-1541 Phillippus Aureolus Paracelsus (Theophrastus Bombast von Hohemheim) - Swiss physician; controversial figure in medicine and alchemy; promoted the production of chemical medicines for illnesses of the human body; saw the human body as a chemical system monitored by spiritual alchemists; developed many medical remedies; developed

theoretical chemistry through sets of metal experiments which produced salt solutions; added salt to mercury and sulphur as components of metals. 1494-1555 Georg Bauer - "Agricola" - German educator, city official, and physician Georgius Agricola (Latinized for of George Bauer) is best known as the author of De re metallica (1556), a treatise on mining and metallurgy. The treatise was translated into English in 1912 by future U.S. president Herbert Hoover and his wife, Lou Henry Hoover. Agricola studied medicine at Leipzig University. He became a devoted follower of Erasmus, who wrote a foreward to Agricola's first book on mining and metallurgy (1930). While town physician of Joachimsthal (now Jachymov, Czech Republic), he became intensely interested in all aspects of the mining and metallurgy industry by which the town thrived and began a 25-year study of the subject, which culminated in hos posthumously published masterpiece. The 12-chapter treatise included 292 woodcult illustrations carfully executed by Blasius Weffring. Agricola also wrote a number of works on medicine, geology, mineralogy, politics, and economics.

1514-1564

Andreas Vesalius (31 December 1514 15 October 1564) was a

Flemish anatomist, physician, and author of one of the most influential books on human anatomy, De humani corporis fabrica (On the Structure of the Human Body). Vesalius is often referred to as the founder of modern human anatomy. He was professor at the University of Padua and later became Imperial physician at the court ofEmperor Charles V. Andreas Vesalius is the Latinized form of the FlemishAndries van Wesel, a common practice among European scholars in his time. His name is also given as Andrea Vesalius, Andrea Vesalio, Andreas Vesal, Andr Vesalioand Andre Vesale. Vesalius was born as Andries van Wesel to Anders van Wesel and Isabel Crabbe on 31 December 1514, in Brussels

1540-1603

William Gilbert - Some say (1544-1603) - English physician; known for his early studies on electricity and magnetism. His De magnete (1600) propounded the theory that the earth was a giant lodestone with north and south magnetic poles. His theory that the earth exerted a magnetic influence throughout the solar system was a precursor to the modern conception of gravity as an attracting force between masses. Gilbert was among the first to divide substances into electrics (spar, glass, amber) and nonelectrics.

1561-1626

Francis Bacon - English philosopher and scientist; introduced the idea that an understanding of the natural world could be gained from direct observation and experimentation.

1564-1642

Galileo Galilei (Italian pronunciation: [alilo alili]; 15 February 1564[4] 8 January 1642),[5] was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism. Galileo has been called the "father of modern observational astronomy",[6] the "father of modern physics",[7] the "father of science",[7] and "the Father of Modern Science".[8] His contributions to observational astronomy include the telescopic confirmation of the phases of Venus, the discovery of the four largest satellites of Jupiter (named the Galilean moons in his honour), and the observation and analysis of sunspots. Galileo also worked in applied science and technology, inventing an improved military compass and other instruments. Galileo's championing of heliocentrism was controversial within his lifetime, when most subscribed to either geocentrism or the Tychonic system.[9] He met with opposition from astronomers, who doubted heliocentrism due to the absence of an observed stellar parallax.[9] The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, and they concluded that it could be supported as only a possibility, not an established fact.[9][10] Galileo later defended his views in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which appeared to attack Pope Urban VIII and thus alienated him and the Jesuits, who had both supported Galileo up until this point.[9] He was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy", forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.[11][12] It was while Galileo was under house arrest that he wrote one of his finest works, Two New Sciences, in which he summarised the work he had done some forty years earlier, on the two sciences now called kinematics and strength of materials Galileo was born in Pisa (then part of the Duchy of Florence), Italy, the first of six children of Vincenzo Galilei, a famous lutenist, composer, and music theorist; and Giulia Ammannati. Galileo became an accomplished lutenist himself and would have learned early from his father a healthy scepticism for established authority,[15] the value of well-measured or quantified experimentation, an appreciation for a periodic or musical measure of time or rhythm, as well as the illuminative progeny to expect from a marriage of mathematics and experiment. Three of Galileo's five siblings survived

infancy, and the youngest Michelangelo (or Michelagnolo) also became a noted lutenist and composer, although he contributed to financial burdens during Galileo's young adulthood. Michelangelo was incapable of contributing his fair share for their father's promised dowries to their brothers-in-law, who would later attempt to seek legal remedies for payments due. Michelangelo would also occasionally have to borrow funds from Galileo for support of his musical endeavours and excursions. These financial burdens may have contributed to Galileo's early fire to develop inventions that would bring him additional income. Galileo was named after an ancestor, Galileo Bonaiuti, a physician, university teacher and politician who lived in Florence from 1370 to 1450; at that time in the late 14th century, the family's surname shifted from Bonaiuti (or Buonaiuti) to Galilei. Galileo Bonaiuti was buried in the same church, the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence, where about 200 years later his more famous descendant Galileo Galilei was buried too. When Galileo Galilei was 8, his family moved to Florence, but he was left with Jacopo Borghini for two years.[1] He then was educated in the Camaldolese Monastery at Vallombrosa, 35 km southeast of Florence.[1] Galileo's beloved elder daughter, Virginia (Sister Maria Celeste), was particularly devoted to her father. She is buried with him in his tomb in the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence. Although a genuinely pious Roman Catholic,[16] Galileo fathered three children out of wedlock with Marina Gamba. They had two daughters, Virginia in 1600 and Livia in 1601, and one son, Vincenzo, in 1606. Because of their illegitimate birth, their father considered the girls unmarriageable, if not posing problems of prohibitively expensive support or dowries, which would have been similar to Galileo's previous extensive financial problems with two of his sisters.[17] Their only worthy alternative was the religious life. Both girls were sent to the convent of San Matteo in Arcetri and remained there for the rest of their lives.[18] Virginia took the name Maria Celeste upon entering the convent. She died on 2 April 1634, and is buried with Galileo at the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence. Livia took the name Sister Arcangela and was ill for most of her life. Vincenzo was later legitimised as the legal heir of Galileo, and married Sestilia Bocchineri.[19]

1579-1644

Johann Baptista van Helmont - Flemish chemist; first to distinguish chemically produced gases; processes studied included combustion and fermentation; coined the term "gas".

1592-1655

Pierre Gassendi Pierre Gassendi (January 22, 1592 October 24, 1655) was a French philosopher, priest, scientist, astronomer, and mathematician. With a church position in south-east France, he also spent much time in Paris, where he was a leader of a group of freethinking intellectuals. He was also an active observational scientist, publishing the first data on the transit of Mercury in 1631. The lunar crater Gassendi is named after him. He wrote numerous philosophical works, and some of the positions he worked out are considered significant, finding a way between scepticism and dogmatism. Richard Popkin indicates that Gassendi was one of the first thinkers to formulate the modern "scientific outlook", of moderated scepticism and empiricism. He clashed with his contemporary Descartes on the possibility of certain knowledge. His best known intellectual project attempted to reconcile Epicurean atomism with Christianity. Gassendi was born at Champtercier, near Digne, in France to Antoine Gassend and Franoise Fabry.[1] A youthful prodigy, at a very early age he showed academic potential and attended the college at Digne, where he displayed a particular aptitude for languages and mathematics. Soon afterwards he entered the University of Aix-en-Provence, to study philosophy under Philibert Fesaye. In 1612 the college of Digne called him to lecture on theology. Four years later he received the degree of Doctor of Theology at Avignon, and in 1617 he took holy orders. In the same year he answered a call to the chair of philosophy at Aix-en-Provence University, and seems gradually to have withdrawn from theology. He lectured principally on the Aristotelian philosophy, conforming as far as possible to the traditional methods while he also followed with interest the discoveries of Galileo and Kepler. He came into contact with the astronomer Joseph Gaultier de la Vallette (15641647).[2] In 1621, he was the first person to give the Aurora Borealis a name. In 1623 the Society of Jesus took over the University of Aix. They filled all positions with Jesuits, so Gassendi was required to find another institution.[3] He left, returning to Digne, and then travelled for the chapter to Grenoble.[4] In 1624 he printed the first part of his Exercitationes paradoxicae adversus Aristoteleos. A fragment of the second book later appeared in print at The Hague (1659), but Gassendi never composed the remaining five, apparently thinking that the Discussiones Peripateticae of Francesco Patrizzi left little scope

for him. He spent some time with his patron Nicolas Peiresc. After 1628 Gassendi travelled in Flanders and in Holland where he encountered Isaac Beeckman, with Franois Luillier.[4][5] He returned to France in 1631, and two years later became provost of Digne Cathedral. In 1631, Gassendi became the first person to observe the transit of a planet across the Sun, viewing the transit of Mercury that Kepler had predicted. In December of the same year, he watched for the transit of Venus, but this event occurred when it was night time in Paris. During this time he wrote some works, at the instance of Marin Mersenne. They included his examination of the mystical philosophy of Robert Fludd,[6] an essay on parhelia,[7] and some observations on the transit of Mercury. The 1640s Gassendi then spent some years travelling through Provence with the duke of Angoulme, governor of the region. During this period he wrote only the one literary work, his Life of Peiresc, whose death in 1637 seemed to afflict him deeply;[8] it received frequent reprintings and an English translation. He returned to Paris in 1641, where he met Thomas Hobbes.[9] He gave some informal philosophy classes, gaining pupils or disciples; according to the biographer Grimarest, these included Molire, Cyrano de Bergerac (whose participation in classes is disputed),[10] Jean Hesnault and Claude-Emmanuel Chapelle, son of Lullier.[11][12] In 1642 Mersenne engaged him in controversy with Ren Descartes. His objections to the fundamental propositions of Descartes appeared in print in 1642; they appear as the Fifth Set of Objections in the works of Descartes.[13] Gassendi's tendency towards the empirical school of speculation appears more pronounced here than in any of his other writings. Jean-Baptiste Morin attacked his De motu impresso a motore translato (1642).[8] In 1643 Mersenne also tried to garner support from the German Socinian and advocate of religious tolerance Marcin Ruar. Ruar replied at length that he had already read Gassendi but was in favour of leaving science to science not the church.[14] In 1645 he accepted the chair of mathematics in the Collge Royal in Paris, and lectured for several years with great success. In addition to controversial writings on physical questions, there appeared during this period the first of the works for which historians of philosophy remember him. In 1647 he published the well-received treatise De

vita, moribus, et doctrina Epicuri libri octo. Two years later appeared his commentary on the tenth book of Diogenes Lartius.[15] In the same year he had published the more important commentary Syntagma philosophiae Epicuri.[16] In 1648 ill-health compelled him to give up his lectures at the Collge Royal. Around this time he became reconciled to Descartes, after years of coldness, through the good offices of Csar d'Estres.[17]

Death and memorial

He travelled in the south of France, in the company of his protg, aide and secretary Franois Bernier, another pupil from Paris. He spent nearly two years at Toulon, where the climate suited him. In 1653 he returned to Paris and resumed his literary work, publishing in that year lives of Copernicus and of Tycho Brahe.The disease from which he suffered, a lung complaint, had, however, established a firm hold on him. His strength gradually failed, and he died at Paris in 1655. A bronze statue of him (by Joseph Ramus) was erected by subscription at Digne in 1852

1596-1650

Rene Descartes - French mathematician and philosopher; developed atomic theory through explanations of properties of matter.

1602-1686

Otto von Guericke Otto von Guericke (originally

spelled Gericke, German pronunciation: [ek]) (November 20, 1602 May 11, 1686 (Julian calendar); November 30, 1602 May 21, 1686 (Gregorian calendar)) was a German scientist, inventor, and politician. His major scientific achievements were the establishment of the physics of vacuums, the discovery of an experimental method for clearly demonstrating electrostatic repulsion, and his advocacy of the Otto von Guericke was born to a patrician family of Magdeburg, Germany. In 1617 he became a student at the University of Leipzig. Owing to the outbreak of the Thirty Years War his studies at Leipzig were disrupted and subsequently he studied at the Academia Julia in Helmstedt and the universities of Jena and Leyden. At the last of these he attended courses on mathematics, physics and fortification engineering. His education was completed by a nine-month long trip to France and England. On his return to Magdeburg in 1626 he married Margarethe Alemann and became a member of the Ratscollegium of Magdeburg. He was to remain a member of this body until old age. Von Guericke was personally distrustful of the city's enthusiasm for

the cause of Gustavus Adolphus but was nonetheless a victim of the fall of Magdeburg to von Tilly's troops in May 1631. Destitute, but fortunate to escape with his life, he was an Imperial prisoner at a camp in Fermersleben until, through the good offices of Ludwig of Anhalt-Cothen, a ransom of three hundred thalers had been paid. Following a period of employment as engineer in the service of Gustavus Adolphus he and his family returned to Magdeburg in February 1632. For the next decade he was occupied rebuilding his own and the city's fortunes from the ruins of the fire of 1631. Under the Swedish and subsequently Saxon authorities he remained involved in the civic affairs of the city, becoming in 1641 a Kammerer and in 1646 Burgermeister, a position he was to hold for thirty years. His first diplomatic mission on behalf of the city, in September 1642, was to the court of the Elector of Saxony at Dresden to seek some mitigation of the harshness with which the Saxon military commander treated Magdeburg. Diplomatic missions, often dangerous as well as tedious, occupied much of his time for the next twenty years. A private scientific life, of which much remains unclear, was developing in parallel. His scientific and diplomatic pursuits finally intersected when, at the Reichstag in Regensburg in 1654, he was invited to demonstrate his experiments on the vacuum before the highest dignitaries of the Holy Roman Empire. One of them, the Archbishop Elector Johann Philip von Schonborn, bought von Guericke's apparatus from him and had it sent to his Jesuit-run College at Wurzburg. One of the professors at the College, Fr. Gaspar Schott, entered into friendly correspondence with von Guericke and thus it was that, at the age of 55, von Guericke's work was first published as an Appendix to a book by Fr. Schott - Mechanica Hydraulicopneumatica - published in 1657. This book came to the attention of Robert Boyle who, stimulated by it, embarked on his own experiments on air pressure and the vacuum, and in 1660 published New Experiments Physico-Mechanical touching the Spring of Air and its Effects. The following year this was translated into Latin and, made aware of it in correspondence with Fr. Schott, von Guericke acquired a copy. In the decade following the first publication of his own work von Guericke, in addition to his diplomatic and administrative commitments, was scientifically very active. He embarked upon his magnum opus - Ottonis de Guericke Experimenta Nova (ut vocantur) Magdeburgica de Vacuo Spatio - which as well as a detailed account of his experiments on the vacuum, contains his pioneering electrostatic experiments in which electrostatic repulsion was demonstrated for the first time and sets out his theologically based view of the nature of Space. In the Preface to the Reader he claims to have finished the book on March 14, 1663 though publication was delayed for another nine years until 1672. In 1664, his work again appeared in print, again through the good offices of Fr. Schott, the first section of whose book Technica Curiosa, entitled Mirabilia Magdeburgica, was dedicated to

von Guericke's work. The earliest reference to the celebrated Magdeburg hemispheres experiment is on p. 39 of the Technica Curiosa where Fr. Schott notes that von Guericke had mentioned them in a letter of July 22, 1656. Fr. Schott goes on to quote a subsequent letter of von Guericke of August 4, 1657 in which he states that he now had carried out the experiment, at considerable cost, with 12 horses. The 1660s saw the final collapse of Magdeburg's aim, to which von Guericke had devoted some twenty years of diplomatic effort, of achieving the status of a Free City within the Holy Roman Empire. On behalf of Magdeburg, he was the first signatory to the Treaty of Klosterberg (1666) whereby Magdeburg accepted a garrison of Brandenburg troops and the obligation to pay dues to the Great Elector, Friedrich Wilhelm I of Brandenburg. Despite the Elector's crushing of Magdeburg's political aspirations, the personal relationship of von Guericke and Friedrich Wilhelm remained warm. The Great Elector was a patron of scientific scholarship; he had employed von Guericke's son, Hans Otto, as his Resident in Hamburg and in 1666 had named Otto himself to the Brandenburg Rat. When the Experimenta Nova finally appeared it was prefaced with a fulsome dedication to Friedrich Wilhelm. The year 1666 also saw von Guericke's enoblement by Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor when he changed the spelling of his name from "Gericke" to "Guericke" and when he became entitled to the prefix "von". Schimank p. 69 reproduces von Guericke's petition to Leopold requesting the prefix "von" and the change of spelling. In 1677 von Guericke, after repeated requests, was reluctantly permitted to step down from his civic responsibilities. In January 1681, as a precaution against an outbreak of plague then affecting Magdeburg, he and his second wife Dorothea moved to the home of his son Hans Otto in Hamburg. There he died peacefully on May 11 (Julian) 1686, 55 years to the day after he had fled the flames in 1631. His body was returned to Magdeburg for interment in the Ulrichskirche on May 23 (Julian) (Schneider p. 144). The Otto von Guericke University of Magdeburg is named after him. reality of "action at a distance" and of "absolute space".

1604-1668

Johann Rudolf Glauber Johann Rudolf Glauber ( 1604 (?) 10 March

1670) was aGerman-Dutch alchemist andchemist. Some historians of [1] science have described him as one of the first chemical engineers. His discovery ofsodium sulfate in 1625 led to the compound being named after him: "Glauber's salt". Born in 1604 in Karlstadt am Main, the son of a barber, he was one of a large family and did not finish school, but is thought to have studied pharmacy and visited a number of [2] laboratories. He himself said that he was glad that he had not suffered the grind of high school but had instead learned by experience. He lived in Vienna(1625), Salzburg, Giessen, Wertheim (1649

1651), Kitzingen (16511655),Basel, Paris, Frankfurt am Main, Cologne and Amsterdam (16401644, 16461649, 1656-death). He worked first manufacturing mirrors and later for two periods as Apothecary to the court in Giessen, the second time as the Chief Apothecary, leaving because of the Thirty Years War. In Amsterdam he built up a business manufacturing pharmaceuticals (including chemicals such as Glauber's salt). This led to both great financial success and in 1649bankruptcy, which is the reason for his move from Amsterdam to Wertheim. He married twice, and with his second wife Helena Cornelius (married 1641) had eight children. His son Johannes Glauber probably helped him with his engraved illustrations. In 1660 he became seriously ill, which has been attributed to poisoning from [3] the various heavy metals used in his work, and in 1666 was crippled by a fall from a wagon and was confined to bed for the rest of his life. As a result he had to sell off books and equipment to provide for his family. He died on 16 March 1670 in Amsterdam.

1608-1647

Evangelista Torricelli - Italian physicist and mathematician; invented the barometer (1643). Franz De le Boe (Latin name, Franciscus Sylvius; also, Francois Du Bois) German physician, anatomist and chemist; based diagnoses and treatment of patients on blood acids, alkali and salts. Jean Picard - French scientist; observed the luminous glow in the Torricellian vacuum of a barometer produced by motion of the mercury wen the untstrument was carried from place to place. Blaise Pascal - French mathematician and scientist for whom the SI unit of pressure (Pascal) was named. Robert Boyle - English physicist and chemist; experimented in pneumatics; through research, he rejected the accepted definition of matter; proposed Boyle's Law (1662).

1614-1672

1620-1682

1623-1662

1627-1691

?-1692

Hennig Brand Hennig Brand(t) (c. 1630 c. 1710) was a merchant and alchemist in Hamburg, Ge rmany. He discovered phosphorus around 1669. The circumstances of Brand's birth are unknown. Some sources describe his origins as humble and indicate that he had been an apprentice glass-maker as a young man. However, correspondence by his second wife Margaretha states that he was of high social standing. In any case he held a post as a junior army officer during

the Thirty Years' War and his first wife's dowry was substantial, allowing him to pursue alchemy on leaving the army. He was one of the many searchers for the philosophers stone. Like other alchemists of the time, Brand searched for the "philosopher's stone", a substance which purportedly transformed base metals (like lead) into gold. By the time his first wife died he had exhausted her money on this pursuit. He then married his second wife Margaretha, a wealthy widow whose financial resources allowed him to continue the search. Like many before him, he was interested in water (H2O) and tried combining it with various other materials, in hundreds of combinations. He had seen for instance a recipe in a book 400 Auserlensene Chemische Process by F. T. Kessler of Strasbourg for using alum, saltpetre (potassium nitrate) and concentrated urine to turn base metals into silver[citation needed] (a recipe which did not work). Around 1669 he heated residues from boiled-down urine on his furnace until the retort was red hot, where all of a sudden glowing fumes filled it and liquid dripped out, bursting into flames. He could catch the liquid in a jar and cover it, where it solidified and continued to give off a pale-green glow. What he collected was phosphorus, which he named from the Greek word for "light-bearing" or "lightbearer." Phosphorus must have been awe-inspiring to an alchemist: it was a product of man, and seeming to glow with a "life force" that did not diminish over time (and did not need re-exposure to light like the previously discovered Bologna stone). Brand kept his discovery secret, as alchemists of the time did, and worked with the phosphorus trying unsuccessfully to use it to produce gold.

1630-1684

Edme Mariotte Edme Mariotte (Til-Chtel c. 1620 - Paris 12 May 1684)

was a Frenchphysicist and priest. Edme Mariotte was the youngest son of Simon Mariotte, administrator at the district Til-Chtel (16 Augustus 1652), and Catherine Denisot (26 September 1636 due to plague). His parents lived in Til-Chtel and had 4 other children: Jean, Denise, Claude, and Catharine. Jean was administrator in the Parlement of Paris from 1630 till his death in 1682. Denise and Claude, both married, stayed in the Dijon region, where as Catharine married Blaise de Beaubrieul, advisor of king Louis de XIV. Catherine and Blaise lived in the same street, perhaps on the [2] same address, where Jean lived. The early life of Edme Mariotte is unknown. His title "Sieur de Chazeuil" was probably inherited from his
[

brother Jean in 1682. It refers to the estate of his father, which was first [3][4] given to Jean. This estate was in the region Chazeuil. It is not clear whether Mariotte spent most of his early life at Dijon, and whether he was prior of St Martin sous Beaune. There are no references to confirm this. In 1668 Colbertinvited Mariotte to participate in the "l'Acadmie des Sciences", the French equivalence of the Royal Society. From that time on he published several articles. In 1670 Mariotte moved to Paris. The address on a letter found in the Leibniz archive shows that Edme lived in the rue de Bertin-Poirree, near the chapel of the guild of the goldsmiths in the rue des Orfevres in 1677. Perhaps he lived together with Jean and the couple Catherine and Blaise de Beaubreuil. Leibniz wrote that Edme stayed at Mr. Beaubrun's address, but probably he meant Beaubreuil, which sounds quite similar. Edme quitted the Academy in 1681 and died on the 12th of May 1684.

1635-1682

Johann Joachim Becher Johann Joachim Becher (6 May 1635

October 1682) was aGerman physician, alchemist, precursor of chemistry, scholar and adventurer, best known for his development of the phlogiston theory of combustion, and his advancement of Austriancameralism.

Early years
He was born in Speyer. His father, a Lutheran minister, died while he was a child, leaving a widow and three children. At the age of thirteen Becher found himself responsible not only for his own support but also for that of his mother and brothers. He learned and practiced several small handicrafts, and devoting his nights to study of the most miscellaneous description and earned a pittance by teaching. In 1654, at the age of nineteen, he published an edition of Salzthals Tractatus de lapide trismegisto.

1642-1727

Issac Newton - English mathematician and scientist; developed theory of matter; first to demonstrate the color components of white light with a prism and the reconstruction of these colors into white light with a second prism; researched the optical characteristics of chemical substances; studied gravitation and motion; developed the law of gravitation. Ole Christensen Roemer - Denmark; was the first to show that the velocity of light is finite. His conclusion was based on the variations of the time intervals between consecutive eclipses of one of the moons of Jupiter during the course of the revolution of the earth around the sun.

1644-1710

c.1650-1715 1656-1743

Thomas Savery Edmund Halley - English astronomer; discovered the proper motion of stars and the periodicity of comets. His activities also ranged from the studying of archaeology to serving as deputy comptroller of the mint at Chester. He was a very important part of the English scientific community at the height of its activity. A graduate of Oxford, he became a member of the Royal Society at the age of twenty two. In 1676 to 1678 from the island of Saint Helena, he cataloged the positions of about 350 Southern Hemisphere stars and observed a transit of Mercury. He worked out a theory of cometary orbits and concluded that the comet of 1682, otherwise known as Halley's comet, was periodic and correctly predicted that it would return in 76 years. In 1710, he compared current star positions with those listed in Ptolemy's catalog, he determined that the stars must have a slight motion of their own.

Halley was appointed Savilian professor of geometry at Oxford in 1704, and in 1720 he succeeded John Flamsteed as astronomer royal. At the Greenwich Observatory he used the first transit intrucment and devised a method for determining longitude at sea by means of lunar observations. Halley played an active role in the events and controversies of his time. He supported Isaac Newton morally and financially, pacified astronomer Johannes Hevelius regarding the disputed accuracy of methods for measuring stellar positions, and infuriated Flamsteed by scheming with Newton to publish Flamsteed's observations before they were complete. Among Halley's hardships were the murdering of his father, a prosperous salter and soapmaker, in 1684, and the death of his mother in 1672. Georg Ernest Stahl Georg Ernst Stahl (October 22, 1659 May 24, 1734) was a German chemist and physician. He was born at Ansbach. Having graduated in medicine at the University of Jena in 1683, he became court physician to Duke Johann Ernst of Sachsen Weimar in 1687. From 1694 to 1716 he held the chair of medicine at Halle, and was then appointed physician to King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia in Berlin. He died in Berlin. In chemistry he is chiefly remembered in part with the obsolete phlogiston theory, the essentials of which, however, he owed to J.J. Becher. He also propounded a view of fermentation which in some respects resembles that supported by Justus von Liebig a century and half later. In medicine he professed an animistic system, in opposition

1660-1734

to the materialism of Hermann Boerhaave and Friedrich Hoffmann. He hypothesized that all matter had a vital force, or a soul of sorts. He burned wood, and crediting the lower mass of the ashes compared to the original wood to the leaving of the vital force, because the wood had been killed in the process of burning. This theory was replaced by that of Antoine Lavoisier.

1663-1729

Thomas Newcomen - He is famous for inventing a steam engine in which steam admitted to a cylinder was condensed by cold water and the piston driven by atmospheric pressure. It was the first engine of it's time that would work on low-pressure steam. He worked on this with John Calley at first and then joined with Thomas Savery.

Thomas Savery invented a steam engine also, but his ran on highpressure steam which was very dangerous. Newcomen's engine was further improved near the end of the eighteenth century by a man named James Watt. Nevertheless Newcomen's invention was important because man no longer had to depend on horses or the wind or the nonconsistent energy source of constantly running water. Instead man could count on the steam produced by simply boiling of water. The steam energy was the key factor in what became known as the Industrial Revolution. Newcomen's steam engine was especially useful in mines. It was used for transporting metals and other mining products. It did this very well and very efficiently. Savery and Newcomen combined their ideas to come up with the invention that started an entire new branch of discoveries; because of the steam engine, chemists now wondered about other chemicals and fire. Why some things would burn and others would not.
1668-1738 1677-1761 1694-1768 1698-1739 1700-1782 Hermann Boehaave Stephen Hales George Brandt Charles Francois de Cisternay du Fay Daniel Bernoulli - Switzerland; was the first to devise a quantitative kinetic theory of gases.

1706-1790

Benjamin Franklin - American statesman and philosopher; experimented with electricity; introduced the terms "positive" and "negative", instrumental in establishing the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, the first U.S. science society; showed that electricity could magnetize and demagnetize iron needles. Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov Axel Fredric Cronstedt Joseph Black - Scottish chemist; laid the foundations for thermodynamics; worked with gases and showed that a gas could combine with a solid; recognized the importance of accurate weighing in chemical research. Henry Cavendish - English physicist and chemist; discovered hydrogen (1766); discovered nitric acid. Joseph Priestley - English clergyman and chemist; researched the relation among plants, animals and air; discovered hydrochloric and sulfuric acid (1775); isolated oxygen (1774); obtained water by igniting hydrogen and oxygen; made seltzer water by dissolving carbon dioxide in water. Torbern Olof Bergman Charles Augustin de Coulomb - French physicist; discovered the law of force between two charged bodies. After his graduation from the Ecole du Genie at Mezieres in 1761, he served as a military engineer in the West Indies and in other obscure French posts. In 1781 he was permanently stationed in Paris and was able to devote more time to research.

1711-1765 1722-1765 1728-1799

1731-1810

1733-1804

1735-1784 1736-1806

Coulomb then turned his attention to physics and published (1785-91) seven memoirs on electricity and magnetism. He adapted a torsion balance to measure electrical forces and demonstrated (1785) the inverse-square law for attractive and repulsive forces in both electricity and magnetism, and he later showed that the force is also proportional to the product of the charges--a relationship now called Coulomb's Law. Coulomb may be considered to have extended Newtonian mechanics to a new realm of physics. The unit of electrical charge is named for him.
1736-1819 1737-1798 James Watt Luigi Galvani - Italian physician and physicist; researched the relation between animal organisms and electricity; produced an electric current

using a circuit made up of dissimilar metals; this type of electric current production, using two metals in a moist environment, is known as "galvanism". 1737-1816 1742-1786 Louis Bernard Guyton de Morveau Karl Wilhelm Scheele - Scheele was a pharmacist-chemist famous for discovering chlorine. He also prepared oxygen but didn't receive credit because he hadn't published his work in a timely manner. Instead an English scientist named Joseph Priestly is credited with the discovery of oxygen..

Scheele is also famous for finding many different acids, all organic. His discoveries include the following acids: tartaric, gallic, oxalic, citric, malic, lactic, and prussic. He was very tedious in his investigation. He also discovered copper arsenate, hydrogen sulfide gas, hydrofluoric acid, and hydrocyanic.
1743-1794 Antoine Laurent Lavoisier - French chemist; stated the first version of the law of conservation of matter; recognized and named oxygen (1778); disproved phlogiston theory; helped to reform chemical nomenclature. Often referred to as the father of modern chemistry. He was the first to grasp the true explanation of combustion. Lavoisier contended that fire was the result of rapid union of the burned material with oxygen. Nothing, however, he maintained, was lost through this action. His theory directly opposed the phlogistic notion that combustible bodies lost something when burned. Founded on Lavoisier's oxygen theory, a new system of nomenclature was evolved; one which held that oxygen was an essential constituent of all acids. This we know today to be erroneous. His theories were the basis for great advances in chemistry. As a young man of many interests, he studied astronomy, botany, and mathematics, as well as chemistry at the College Mazarin near his Paris home. Of key significance in his later life was his study of law and his admission to the bar. This led to an interest in French politics, whereupon he obtained a position as tax collector at the age of 26. While in government work he helped develop the metric system to secure uniformity of weights and measures throughout France. His governmental interests, however, eventually proved his undoing. As one of 28 French tax collectors Lavoisier was branded a traitor by revolutionists in 1794 and guillotined at the age of 51. Ironically, Lavoisier was one of the few liberals in his position and had striven for many years to alleviate the hardships of the peasants.

1743-1817 1745-1818 1745-1827

Martin Heinrich Klaproth Johann Gottlieb Gahn Alessandro Volta - Italian physicist; physics professor; experimented with electrical forces; invented first practical battery using cells made from two kinds of metals; this verified his theory of differing electrical potentials for unlike metals; electric potential difference is known as voltage and its unit is the Volt (V). Peter Jacob Hjelm Jacques-Alexandre-Cesar Charles - French chemist, physicist, and inventer; invented the hydrogen balloon (1783); developed Charle's Law which states the relationship between temperature and the volume of a gas (1787). Claude Louis Berthollet Daniel Rutherford Pierre Somon de Laplace William Nicholson Joseph Louis Proust Marie-Anne Lavoisier - French linguist; translated the work of English chemists, drew Antoine's sketches and illustrations, kept his notes and published his final manuscript after his death. Antoine Francois de Fourcroy Johan Gadolin Smithson Tennant Jeremias Benjamin Richter Gottlieb Sigismund Kirchhoff Joseph Nicephore Niepce Charles Hatchett William Hyde Wollaston - English physician and chemist; discovered palladium and rhodium through his work with platinum metals (1803); invented the reflecting goniometer which measured the angles between

1746-1813 1746-1823

1748-1822 1749-1819 1749-1827 1753-1815 1754-1826 b.ca. 1757

1755-1809 1760-1852 1761-1815 1762-1807 1764-1833 1765-1833 c.1765-1847 1766-1828

crystal faces (1809). 1766-1844 John Dalton - English chemist and physicist; professor of mathematics and natural philosophy (1793); developed atomic theory; his theory (1805) accounts for the law of conservation of mass, law of definite proportions and law of multiple proportions; produced the first table of atomic weights; colorblind and mostly self-taught. Anders Gustaf Ekebert Anthony Carlisle Thomas Young Robert Brown William Henry - English chemist; formulated Henry's Law which states: the amount of a gas that will be absorbed by water increases as the gas pressure increases. Jean Baptiste Biot Etienne Louis Malus Amedeo Avogadro - His hypothesis stated that equal volumes of gases, at the same temperature and pressure, contain an equal number of molecules (1811). Bernard Courtois Louis Jacques Thenard Humphry Davy - (Also See) Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac - French chemist and physicist; developed the law of volumes concerning the combination of gases; discovered boron. Jons Jakobs Berzelius - Swedish physician and chemist; discovered cerium, selenium, lithium, silicon, titanium and thorium; coined the terms "isomer" and "isomerism"; published a revised version of the periodic table with atom weights very close to today's table (1828); proposed system of elemental symbols and chemical notation. Johann Wolfgang Dobereiner - German chemist; recognized the catalytic property of platinum; recognized the relationship between the elements and their atomic weight; made the earliest known attempt to organize

1767-1813 1768-1840 1773-1829 1773-1858 1774-1836

1774-1862 1775-1812 1776-1856

1777-1838 1777-1857 1778-1829 1778-1850

1779-1848

1780-1849

the elements by their properties. c.1781-1859 1785-1838 1785-1859 1786-1889 John Walker Pierre Louis Dulong William Prout Michael Eugene Chevreul - French chemist; studied the composition of fats which led to the investigation of new compounds. Joseph von Fraunhofer Augustin Jean Fresnel Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre - French artist and inventor; developed the daguerreotype photochemical process. Alexis Therese Petit Michael Faraday - English chemist and physicist; developed a process for liquefying chlorine; discovered benzene; introduced the laws of electrolysis (1833); developed a primitive electric motor; developed the voltmeter and the coulometer; devised terminology used in electrochemistry in collaboration with William Whewell. Eihardt Mitscherlich William Whewell Nicolas Leonard Sadi Carnot Carl Gustav Mosander Christian Friedrich Schonbein Charles Goodyear - American inventor; developed a process for vulcanization of rubber. William Henry Fox Talbot Friedrich Wohler (Woehler) - German chemist; professor of chemistry (1836-1882); synthesized the first organic compound (urea). Jean-Baptist-Andre Dumas - French chemist; studied periodicity; developed method for determining vapor densities; isolated methanol; developed method for determining he nitrogen content of organic

1787-1826 1788-1827 1789-1851

1791-1820 1791-1867

1794-1863 1794-1866 1797-1832 1797-1858 1799-1868 1800-1860

1800-1877 1800-1882

1800-1884

compounds. 1801-1868 1802-1850 1802-1876 1802-1887 Julius Plucker Germain Henri Hess Antoine Jerome Balard Jean-Baptist Boussingault - French agricultural chemist; studied the nutritive value of foods fed to domestic animals. Justin von Liebig Thomas Graham - Scottish chemist; studied diffusion of gases which led to the formulation of Graham's Law; developed a process to separate crystalloids from colloids, which he named "dialysis"; did research using phosphoric acid; studied diffusion of liquids. Auguste Laurent Henri Victor Regnault Robert Wilhelm Bunsen - German chemist; helped to develop the spectroscope; introduced the Bunsen burner that was developed by his laboratory assistant, Peter Desaga (1855); discovered the elements cesium (1860) and rubidium (1861). Ascanio Sobrero Claude Bernard - French physiologist; studied biochemical phenomena. Thomas Andrews Jean Servais Stas Henry Bessemer - English engineer and inventor; developed an inexpensive steel-making process that burned off the impurities in molten pig iron through the use of a hot-air blast. Julius Robert von Mayer - Mayer was born in the town of Heilbronn, Germany. He was a German physician and physicist. He and James Joule shared the credit for the discovery of the universal law of conservation of energy, or the first law of thermodynamics. This principle says that energy cannot be destroyed, energy in other forms tends to be converted to heat energy, and that a pure crystal at absolute zero would have a completely ordered arrangement of atoms.

1803-1873 1805-1869

1807-1853 1810-1878 1811-1899

1812-1888 1813-1878 1813-1885 1813-1891 1813-1898

1814-1878

Mayer published an article on heat and energy in 1842. Joule, an English physicist, made the same discovery while working independently. There is another law of Thermodynamics that goes along with the universal law of conservation of energy. It is the Law of Degradation of Energy which states that it is impossible to completely convert a given amount of heat energy into an exact amount of another form.
1814-1879 1815-1848 Heinrich Geissler Horace Wells - American dentist; first to experiment with nitrous oxide as an anesthetic (1844). Charles Adolphe Wurtz Henri Etienne Sainte-Claire Deville Adolph Wilhelm Herman Kolbe James Prescott Joule - English physicist; determined the mechanical equivalent of heat; proposed Joule's Law which describes the rate at which heat is produced by an electric current. August Wilhelm von Hofmann Edwin Laurentine Drake Alexandre Emile Beguyer de Chancourtois John Tyndall - Irish physicist; studied the diffusion of light by large molecules and dust, known as the Tyndall effect. Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz - German physicist, anatomist and physiologist; developed principle of conservation of energy; studied nerve cells and fibers and determined the speed of nerve impulses; investigated sight and hearing. Rudolph Julius Emmanuel Clausius - German mathematical physicist; restated the second law of thermodynamics; coined the term "entropy". Louis Pasteur - French chemist and microbiologist; developed the process of pasteurization. Charles William Siemens - English industrialist; born in Germany; improved the regenerative furnace used in the process of making steel.

1817-1884 1818-1881 1818-1884 1818-1989

1818-1892 1819-1880 1820-1886 1820-1893

1821-1894

1822-1888

1822-1895

1823-1883

1824-1887 1824-1904 1824-1907

Gustav Robert Kirchhoff William Williamson William Thompson (Lord Kelvin) - English mathematician and physicist; derived the second law of thermodynamics; recognized the existence of absolute zero; proposed the Kelvin temperature scale (1851). Pierre Jules Cesar Janssen Johann Wilhelm Hittorf Edward Frankland Hans Peter Jorgen Julius Thomsen Stanislao Cannizzaro George Johnstone Stoney Frederick Augustus Abel Marcelin Berthelot - French chemist; synthesized organic compounds. Alexander Mikhailovich Butlerov Joseph Wilson Swan - developed a process for making nitrocellulose fibers used in early electric lamps (1933). Friedrich August Kekule von Stradonitz - German chemist; demonstrated that carbon formed four bonds and that this could account for the formation of isomers (1858) Julius Lothar Meyer Francois Marie Raoult - formulated Raoult's Law which states that colligative properties are determined by the number of particles in solution rather than by the type of particle in solution. The properties so affected are vapor pressure, freezing point, boiling point, and the rate of diffusion through a membrane. James Clerk Maxwell - Scottish physicist; developed the field theory of electricity and magnetism; developed electromagnetic wave theory of light; developed a theory on viscosity of gases based on the statistical behavior of gas molecules. Archibald Scott Couper

1824-1907 1824-1914 1825-1899 1826-1909 1826-1910 1826-1911 1827-1902 1827-1907 1828-1886 1828-1914

1829-1886

1830-1895 1830-1901

1831-1879

1831-1892

1832-1913 1832-1919

Louis Paul Cailletet William Crookes - English chemist and physicist; His investigations of the photographic process in the 1850s motivated his work in the new science of spectroscopy. Using its techniques, Crooks discovered (1861) the element thallium, which won him election to the Royal Society. His efforts in determining the weight of thalium in an evacuated chamber led to his research in vacuum physics.

Crooks invented the radiometer in 1875 and, beginning in 1878, investigated electrical discharges through highly evaculated "Crookes tubes." These studies laid the foundation for J. J. Thomson's research in the late 1890's concerning discharge-tube phenomena. At the age of 68, Crookes began investigating the phenomenon of radioactivity, which had been discovered in 1896, and invented a device that detected alpha particles emitted from radioactive material. Crookes maintained an interest in agriculture and warned in 1898 that the world's population would face starvation unless new fertilizer sources were discovered. He was also interested in psychic phenomena. He was knighted in 1897.
1833-1896 Alfred B. Nobel - Swedish engineer, chemist and industrialist; commercially manufactured chemical explosives throughout the world and did other chemical research; manufactured glyceryl nitrate nitroglycerine (1862); the difficulty and danger of handling liquid nitroglycerine led him to experiment with ways of making it safer; he mixed nitroglycerine with powder, kieselguhr, and called it "dynamite" (1866); received a patent for dynamite (1867); establish a fund in his ill for the annual Nobel Prizes, awarded in the areas of chemistry, physics, physiology or medicine, literature and international peace. Peter Waage Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev - Russian chemist; developed the periodic table by placing the elements in order of increasing atomic weight (1869); predicted the existence and properties of elements that would fill the gaps left in his chart (1871); these elements were discovered between 1875 and 1885. Johannes Adolf Wislicenus Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer Cato Maximillian Guldberg

1833-1900 1834-1907

1835-1902 1835-1917 1836-1902

1836-1920 1837-1898 1837-1920

Joseph Norman Lockyer John Alexander Reina Newlands John Wesley Hyatt - American inventor and businessman; developed celluloid. Johannes Diderik Van der Waals Clemens Alexander Winkler Friedrich Konrad Beilstein William Henry Perkin- English chemist; produced first synthetic dye, mauve (1856). Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran Ernst Mach Josiah Willard Gibbs - American physicist; research let to basic theories for physical chemistry; stated the Phase Rule of thermodynamics. Louis-Marie-Hilaire Bernigaud, Count of Chardonnet - developed a process for making silk like fiber, later called rayon (1878). Lars Fredrick Nilson Per Theodor Cleve Karl Graebe John William Strutt (Lord Rayleigh) James Dewar Ludwig Boltzmann Wilhelm Pfeffer Wilhelm Roentgen - German physicist; studied the transmission and photographic capabilities of rays he called "x rays" (1895); received the first Nobel Prize (1901). Ira Remsen - American chemist and educator; carried out investigations in both organic and inorganic chemistry. Raoul Pictet

1837-1923 1838-1904 1838-1906 1838-1907

1838-1912 1838-1916 1839-1903

1839-1924

1840-1899 1840-1905 1841-1927 1842-1919 1842-1923 1844-1906 1845-1920 1845-1923

1846-1927

1846-1929

1847-1930 1847-1931

Joseph Achille Le Bel Otto Wallach - German chemist; research on chemical composition of camphors, perfumes and essential oils. Viktor Meyer Friedrich Ernst Dorn Eugen Goldstein Henri Louis Le Chatelier - French industrial chemist; in 1888 made the observation: "Any change in one of the variables that determines the state of a system in equilibrium causes a shift in the position of equilibrium in a direction that tends to counteract the change in the variable under consideration." Ferdinand Frederic Henri Moissan Antoine-Henri Becquerel - French physicist; discovered natural radioactivity (1896); shared the Nobel Prize for physics for this discovery (1903). Jacobus Hendricus Van't Hoff William Ramsay - English chemist; president of the Society of Chemical Industry; shared discovery of argon (1894), Krypton (1898), and xenon (1898); independently discovered helium on earth (1895); received Nobel Prize for chemistry for discoveries of these rare, or "noble" elements (1904). Emil Hermann Fischer - German organic chemist; analyzed structures of carbohydrates, proteins, enzymes and amino acids. Heike Kamerlingh Onnes Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald Hendrik Willem Bakhius Roozeboom Paul Ehrlich - German chemist and bacteriologist; proposed a chemical explanation of immunity. George Eastman Joseph John Thomson - English physicist; researched atomic structure; discovered that atoms contained particles which he called "electrons";

1848-1897 1848-1916 1850-1930 1850-1936

1852-1907 1852-1908

1852-1911 1852-1916

1852-1919

1853-1926 1853-1932 1854-1907 1854-1915

1854-1932 1856-1940

developed the "plum pudding" or "raisin muffin," model of the atom which consisted of electrons embedded in a positive sphere of matter (1904); received Nobel Prize for physics (1907); developed the mass spectrograph with Francis William Aston (1919). 1856-1931 1857-1894 1857-1925 1858-1929 1858-1940 1859-1906 Edward Goodrich Acheson Heinrich Rudolf Hertz Elwood Hayes Carl Auer (Baron von Welsbach) Robert Abbot Hadfield Pierre Curie - French physicist; researched radioactivity, he and wife, Marie, discovered radium and polonium (1898); they shared the Nobel Prize for physics (1903) with Antoine-Henri Becquerel. Svante August Arrhenius - Swedish physicist and chemist; originated the modern theory of ionization of electrolytes; received the Nobel Prize for chemistry (1903). Philipp Eduard Lenard Paul Louis Toussaint Heroult Charles Martin Hall - American chemist and manufacturer; first to invent a practical electrolytic process to extract aluminum from ores; formed the Pittsburgh Reduction Company (1888) which eventually became the Aluminum Company of America, ALCOA. Leo Hendrik Baekeland Frederick Stanley Kipping Walther Hermann Nernst George Washington Carver - American agricultural chemist. Alfred Werner Moses Gomberg Marie Curie - French physicist; researched radioactivity; she and husband, Pierre, discovered radium and polonium (1898); they shared the Nobel Prize for physics (1903) with Becquerel; Marie received the Nobel Prize

1859-1927

1862-1947 1863-1914 1863-1914

1863-1944 1863-1949 1864-1941 1864-1943 1866-1919 1866-1947 1867-1934

for chemistry (1911). 1867-1952 1868-1928 Vladimir Nikolaevich Ipatieff Theodore William Richards - American chemist - recognized during his lifetime as the leading authority in atomic-weight determinations. A Harvard University graduate, he served as full professor at Harvard from 1901 to 1928. Using superior gravimetric methods and applying physicochemical principles, he determined the atomic weights of a large number of elements with an accuracy never surpassed. His detection of the varying atomic weight of lead in 1913 coincided with the discovery of isotopes by Frederick Soddy. Richards was awarded the 1914 Nobel Prize for chemistry. (January 31, 1868 - April 2, 1928) Fritz Haber Robert Andrews Milikan Richard Abegg Fritz Pregl Phoebus Aaron Theodor Levene Bertram Borden Boltwod William Jackson Pope Jean Baptiste Perrin Kotaro Honda Georges Claude Ernest Rutherford (Baron Rutherford of Nelson) (Lord Ruthorford) British physicist from New Zealand; discovered several radioactive isotopes with colleagues (1899-1905); classified forms of radiation as alpha, beta, and gamma; received Nobel Prize for chemistry (1908); worked on submarine detection during WWII; developed atomic theory (1911); researched transmutational effects of alpha particles on gases (ca. 1919) and other elements. Mikhail Semenovich Tsvett Georges Urbain

1868-1934 1868-1953 1869-1910 1869-1930 1869-1940 1870-1927 1870-1939 1870-1942 1870-1954 1870-1960 1871-1937

1872-1919 1872-1938

1872-1942 1873-1952 1874-1940 1874-1949 1874-1952 1875-1946

Richard Willstatter Nevil Vincent Sidgwick Karl Bosch Andre Louis Debierne Chaim Weizmann - Russian-born chemist who worked in Great Britain. Gilbert Newton Lewis - American physical chemist; developed atomic theory; proposed the octet rule and the electron dot method of showing valence electrons; important contributor to acid-base theory and thermodynamics. Alfred Stock Adolf Windaus Charles Glover Barkla Francis William Aston - English physicist and chemist - discovered in 1919 that stable elements of low atomic weight are mixtures of isotopes. Using a mass spectrograph, which he developed while working with Sir Joseph John Thomson in Cambridge, and for which he received the 1922 Nobel Prize for chemistry. Aston also found that the masses of most atoms could be expressed as whole numbers when compared with oxygen (mass 16). With a more accurate spectrograph, however, Aston detected in 1927 a slight deviation from this whole-number rule. By graphing an index of the deviation (called the packing fraction) against the closest whole-number mass of an element, Aston derived important information concerning its structure and stability. (September 1, 1877 - November 20, 1945) Frederick Soddy - British physicist received (1921) the Nobel Prize for chemistry for the conception of isotopes and the displacement law of radioactive change. With Ernest Rutherford he developed the disintegration theory of radioactivity, which explained radioactivity as the decay of atoms to form other elements. Soddy proposed the isotope concept--that atoms could have the same chemical identity but different atomic weights. His displacement law of radioactive change suggests that an element emitting an alpha particle becomes a new element with a lower atomic number, whereas emission of a beta particle raises the element's atomic number. (September 2, 1877 - September 22, 1956)

1876-1946 1876-1959 1877-1944 1877-1945

1877-1956

1877-1957 1878-1936 1878-1968

Heinrich Otto Wieland Julius Arthur Nieuwland Lise Meitner - Austrian physicist; together with her nephew Otto R. Frisch, published a theoretical interpretation of nuclear fission in 1939; collaborated with Otto Hahn of Germany to discover protactinium (1917) the element from which actinium is formed; became head (1917-1938) of the physics department of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin; also collaborated with Hahn and Fritz Strassmann to accomplish the fission of uranium (1938); Fleeing Nazi persecution, she resumed her work at Sweden's Nobel Institute; her theoretical work helped clarify the relationships between beta and gamma rays and stimulated Hahn and Fritz Strassmann in their discovery of the fission of heavy nuclei.. Johannes Nicolaus Bronsted - Danish chemist, best known for his theory of acids and bases (1923), according to which an acid is a proton donor and a base is a proton acceptor. While professor (1908-1947) of physical and inorganic chemistry at the University of Copenhagen, he produced outstanding papers in thermodynamics (heat and its relationship to other forms of energy) and kinetics (the effect of forces upon the motion of material bodies. Albert Einstein - American physicist born in Germany; explained Brownian movement; published a paper that explained the photoelectric effect (1905) which provided the foundation for quantum theory and resulted in the invention of the photoelectric cell; published his general theory of relativity (1915) which contained a new description of gravity; received the Nobel Prize for physics for his work in quantum physics (1921). Max Theodor Felix von Laue Otto Hahn - German chemist-physicist; shared the 1944 Nobel Prize with Fritz Strassmann in chemistry for their discovery of the fission of heavy nuclei (first to recognize nucleur fission). He began his research work in radiochemistry in Sir William Ramsay's laboratory at University College, London, 1904. There, in the process of extracting radium from a sample of barium salt, Hahn discovered radiothorium. He obtained a research position at McGill University with Sir Ernest Rutherford, and in 1905 he again exhibited his talent for discovery by finding radioactinium.

1879-1947

1879-1955

1879-1960 1879-1968

Returning to Germany in 1906, Hahn was appointed professor at the University of Berlin in 1910. After he was named (1912) head

of the radioactivity department at the Kaiser Wilhelm (later Max Planck) Institute, Hahn and Lise Meitner, his collaborator of 30 years who joined him in 1907, discovered more radioelements. In 1917 they discovered the most stable isotope of element 91 (protactinium), the substance that helped resolve the complex actinium series. Hahn then became involved in the identification of artifical radioactive materials and their decay patterns. In collaboration with Fritz Strassmann, Hahn discovered (1938) that the transformation of uranium (element 91) artificially induced by neutron bombardment produced barium (element 56). Because barium is far removed from the original parent element, this discovery was considered at the time contrary to all theoretical expectations. This phenomenon, known as fission, led directly to the development of the atomic bomb.
1881-1945 1881-1955 Hans Fischer Alexander Fleming - Scottish bacteriologist; isolated lysozyme from tears (1922); observed a mold, he named penicillin, that prevented bacterial growth. Irving Langmuir - American chemist; improved incandescent lamp (1913); received Nobel Prize for chemistry (1932) for his study of monomolecular films; experimented with cloud-seeding (1950); helped refine theory of chemical bonding. Hermann Staudinger Johannes Hans Wilhelm Geiger - German physicist; occasionally collaborated with Ernest Rutherford; helped to develop first successful counter of alpha particles (1908); improved design of this instrument became known as the Geiger counter (1928). Percy William Bridgman Max Born - German physicist; received the Nobel Prize for physics for his work in quantum mechanics (1954). Friedrich Karl Rudolf Bergius Theodor Svedberg - Swedish colloid chemist. Niels Henrik David Bohr - Danish physicist; his model of atomic structure proposed that electrons orbit the nucleus in fixed orbits that are discrete energy states; received the Nobel Prize for physics for his work in atomic structure and radiation (1922).

1881-1957

1881-1965 1882-1945

1882-1961 1882-1970

1884-1949 1884-1971 1885-1962

1886-1950 1886-1956

Arthur Jeffrey Dempster Clarence Birdseye - American inventor and businessman; developed method for preserving foods by quick-freezing (1916-1928); formed General Foods Company (1924). Robert Robinson Henry Gwyn-Jeffreys Moseley - English physicist; discovered Moseley's law of characteristic x-ray spectra of elements (1913); demonstrated that the number of electrons in an element is the same as the atomic number, establishing the significance of the atomic number. Erwin Schroedinger - Austrian physicist; developed atomic theory of wave mechanics (1926); shared Nobel Prize for physics with P.A.M.Dirac (1933). Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman - Indian physicist; developed a spectroscopic technique named after him (1928); the scattering effect of light that a compound causes during Raman spectroscopy gives information about its molecular structure; received Nobel Prize for physics (1930). Selman A Waksman - American; soil bacteriologist; Professor of microbiology. Thomas Midgley Jr. John Rock - American obstetrician-gynecologist; performed first successful in vitro fertilization of a human ovum (1944). Walther Wilhelm Bothe - German physicist, received the 1954 Nobel Prize for physics for developing and applying the coincidence method. Using this method, Bothe and Hans Geiger demonstrated (1924) that the conservation of momentum and energy is valid in certain elementary processes and discredited the hypothesis that these physical properties are conserved only statistically. In 1929, Bothe and Werner Kolhorster demonstrated the existence of high-energy particles in cosmic radiation, and the following year Bothe, with H. Becker, detected a new radiation, which James Chadwick identified as the neutron. Bothe taught physics in Berlin and Giessen and directed the Max Planck Institute at Heidelberg, Germany, from 1934 until his death. (January 8, 1891 - February 8, 1957) Sir James Chadwick - English physicist; discovered the neutron; received

1886-1975 1887-1915

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the Nobel Prize for physics for this discovery (1935). 1892-1958 Louis-Victor de Broglie - French physicist; demonstrated mathematically that electrons and other subatomic particles exhibit wavelike properties (1927); this particle-wave duality was derived from the work of Albert Einstein and Max Planck; received Nobel Prize for physics (1929). Arthur Holly Compton - American physicist; discovered the Compton Effect, which showed that a proton has momentum. He was awarded the Nobel prize for physics jointly with C.T.R. Wilson (1927). Dmitri Vladimirovich Skobeltsyn - Russian physicist; obtained the first cloud-chamber photographs of cosmic rays. These showed that the rays either were, or produced, many charged, high energy particles. Christopher Ingold Harlold Clayton Urey - was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize for chemistry for the discovery and isolation of deuterium (heavy hydrogen). Because of this recognition as a Nobel laureate and his experience in isotope separation, Urey was brought into the wartime Manhattan Project as head of the gaseous-diffusion project for uranium separation. Soon after the war he began to speak out against the misuse of nuclear energy. His later research involved such diverse fields as geochemistry, astrophysics, and the origin of life. Marietta Blau - Austrian physicist; was the first to use nuclear track plates. Gerhard Domagk William Francis Giauque - American physical chemisty; did significant work in chemical thermodynamics, particularly on the behavior of substances at very low temperatures, for which he was awared the 1949 Nobel Prize for chemistry.

1892-1962

1892-

18931893-1981

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1895-1964 1895-1982

Giauque determined accurately the entropy of a large number of substances near absolute zero, and he proved that the third law of thermodynamics, which states that at absolute zero a perfect crystal has a zero entropy, was a fundamental law of nature. He also discovered how a strong magnet could be used to produce temperature very close to absolute zero.
1896-1937 1896-1957 Wallace Hume Carothers Gerty Cori - American biochemist born in Czechoslovakia.

1897-1956

Irene Joliot-Curie - French physicist; daughter of Marie and Pierre Curie; discovered artificial radioactivity along with husband Frederic JolietCurie. John Douglas Cockcroft - English physicist known for his early work with Ernest Walton on atomic particle accelerators, for which they received the 1951 Nobel Prize for physics. A graduate of Cambridge University (1934), Cockcroft served as professor of natural philosophy at Cambridge (1934-1946), director of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment (1946), and president of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. In 1932, Cockcroft and Walton achieved the first successful disintegration of atomic nuclei by artificial means. Using a voltage multiplier to generate 150,000 volts of electricity, they bombarded lithium atoms with accelerated protons to produce beryllium. The beryllium immediately split into two alpha particles, which were identified by bright scintillations on a zinc-sulfide screen and by the density of their tracks. Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett - English physicist; obtained the first cloud-chamber tracks of the induced transmutation of nitrogen and of other elements, and late made many cosmic-ray studies. He was awarded the Nobel prize for physics (1948). Rudolf Schoenheimer Sir Howard Walter Florey, Baron Florey - British pathologist and codiscoverer of penicillin. Born in Adelaide, Australia, and educated in medicine at the University of Adelaide, he later studied and taught in England. In 1935 he was appointed director of the Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford. Florey studied naturally occurring antibacterials, of which the Penicillum mold discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming seemed the most promising. In 1939 Florey and the GermanBritish biochemist Ernst Boris Chain isolated the active agent, penicillin, from a fraction of the mold and formulated procedures for extraction and production. With British industries affected by World War II, Florey took his process to the United States, where private and government laboratories produced sufficient quantities to combat bacterial infection in wounded soldiers. For his work he was knighted in 1944, shared the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine n 1945 with Chain and Fleming and was elected president of the Royal Society in 1960. Karl Ziegler - German chemist; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (1963) for their discoveries in the field of the chemistry and technology of high

1897-1967

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polymers. 1898Isidor Isaac Rabi - Austrian, American physicist; made prescise determinations of nuclear magnetic moments in beams of atoms by his radio frequency resonance method. He was awarded the Nobel prize for physics (1944). Percy Lavon Julian - American chemist; researched the Calabar bean plant; successfully synthesized physostigmine, which was used to treat glaucoma (1935). Thomas Hope Johnson - American physicist; in 1931 he obtained crystal deffraction of a beam of hydrogen atoms. In 1933 Johnson and Jabez Curry Street (1906-1989) observed that the cosmic-ray intensity from the west exceeded that from the east. This east-west asymmetry shows that there is an excess of positively charged particles in the primary cosmicray beam. Frederic Joliot-Curie - French nuclear physicist; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (1935) in recognition of the synthesis of new radioactive elements. Wolfgang Pauli - Austrian theoretical physicist; one of the founders of modern physics. He is most famous for his "Pauli exclusion principle." which states that no two electrons in an atom can have the same four quantum numbers. For his work in this area he was awarded the 1945 Nobel Prize for physics.

1899-1975

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1900-1958

While an undergraduate student in physics at Munich, Pauli wrote a comprehensive article on the theory of relativity that became the classic treatment of the subject. In 1924 he proposed a new quantum number (related to spin) for electrons, and the following year he enunciated the exclusion principle. In 1928, Pauli was named professor of theoretical physics at the Zurich Technical University, where, in 1931, he predicted that conservation laws demanded the existence of the neutrino, a particle later found. After being at Princton University during World War II, Pauli became a U.S. citizen, but he spent his last years in Zurich.
1900-1965 Paul Muller - Swiss chemist; discovered that dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane or DDT, a known synthetic chemical substance, was useful as an insecticide (1939). Richard Kuhn - Swiss chemist; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (1938) for his work on carotenoids and vitamins. (Caused by the authorities of his

1900-1967

country to decline the award but later received the diploma and the medal.) 1901-1954 Enrico Fermi - American physicist born in Rome; researched the transmutation of elements through neutron bombardment; his team produced the first controlled nuclear chain reaction at the University of Chicago; received the Nobel Prize for physics for the development of neutron-induced nuclear reactions (1938). Ernest Orlando Lawrence - American physicist; received Nobel Prize for physics for the invention and development of the cyclotron "atom smasher" (1939). Robert Jemison Van De Graaff - American physicist; constructed the first reliable, high voltage, electrostatic generator for nuclear research - "Van De Graaff Generator". Werner Karl Heisenberg - German physicist; published the first theory of quantum mechanics (1925); postulated the "uncertainty principle (1927); received Nobel Prize for physics (1932). Vincent du Vigneaud - American chemist; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (1955) for his work on biochemically important sulphur compounds, especially for the first synthesis of a polypeptide hormone. Rene Jules Dubos - American bacteriologist born in France. Linus Carl Pauling - American biochemist; applied X-ray diffraction, electron diffraction and quantum mechanics to chemistry; developed theories of rare gas compounds; developed mechanistic theory of enzymes (1946); determined the physical structure of proteins as helical (1951); developed and applied some of the laws of structural chemistry in work with proteins; researched the structure of DNA; received Nobel Prize for chemistry(1954) for research of the nature of chemical bonds; received Nobel Prize for peace (1962) for work in banning nuclear weapons testing; received National Medal of Honor (1975); shared in the quantum mechanical development of valence and resonance theory; introduced concept of electronegativity; founded the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine (1973); researched Vitamin C and nutrition. Louis LePrince-Ringuet - French physicist; obtained the first cloud chamber photograph of a meson-electron collision, from which the mass of the meson could be deduced.

1901-1958

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Arne Wilhelm Kaurin Tiselius - Swedish chemist; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (1948) for his research on electrophoresis and adsorption analysis, especially for his discoveries concerning the complex nature of the serum proteins. Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac - English physicist; published Principles of Quantum Mechanics (1930); received Nobel Prize for physics for his research in wave mechanics (1933). Eugene Paul Wigner - Hungarian physicist; published the first of a long series of important papers on the application of group theory in quantum mechanics. He was awarded the Nobel prize for physics jointly with Maria Mayer and J.H.D. Jenson (1963) Cecil Frank Powell - English physicist; discovered the pi-meson. Powell was awarded the Nobel prize for physics in 1950. Giulio Natta - Italian Chemist; investigated catalytic reactions like the synthesis of methanol, of formaldehyde from methanol and of butylaldehyde from propylene, which were used on an industrial scale. He also worked on synthetic rubber and on the polymerisation of olefins with organometallic catalysts developed by Karl Ziegler by which he obtained polypropylenes of highly regular molecular structure. Awarded the Nobel Prize (1963) in chemistry, jointly with Karl Ziegler. Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton - Irish physicist; shared the 1951 Nobel Prize for physics with Sir John D. Cockcroft for achieving (1932) the first artificial transmutation of elements. Walton received his Ph.D. from Trinity College, Dublin, and joined Sir Ernest Rutherford at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University. There, with Cockcroft, he devised a method of accelerating protons with high voltages and used them to bombard lithium nuclei. He correctly interpreted the appearance of helium nucei as a result of the splitting of the lithium atoms. Julius Robert Oppenheimer - American physicist; director of the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, NM (1942-1945);director of The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ (1947-1966). George Gamow - Russian born American physicist - contributed significantly to increasing the knowledge of nuclear reactions within stars. After graduating (1928) from the University of Leningrad, he traveled in Europe. Gamow worked with Niels Bohr and Ernest Rutherford before coming to the United States in 1934. He taught at George Washington Univeristy until 1956; thereafter, he was a professor

1902-1984

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at the University of Colorado. (March 4, 1904 - August 19, 1968) 1904-1979 Otto Frisch - Austrian-English physicist; advanced the theory that uranium, when bombarded by neutrons, breaks into smaller atoms; coined the term "fission" for this process. Emilio Segre - Italian born American physicist; known for his discovery of the antiproton, a negatively charged particle with the mass of a proton. In 1938 he began a life-long association with the University of California at Berkeley. From 1943 to 1946 he was a group leader at the Los Alamos division of the Manhattan Project. In 1955, Segre and Owen Chamberlain succeeded in producing and identifying the antiproton, for which they shared the Nobel Prize for physics in 1959. During his career, Sergre contributed to various fields of physics including study of the Zeeman effect, atomic spectroscopy, molecular beams, neutron physics, nuclear fission, and elementary particle physics. He collaborated with other physicists in the discovery of the elements technetium, astatine, and plutonium-239. Carl David Anderson - American physicist; won the 1963 Nobel Prize for physics for his work on cosmic rays. In his cloud chamber studies, Anderson found decisive proof of the existence of the positron, a positively charged electron. In 1938 he and Seth H. Neddermeyer announced the discovery of the meson, a type of subatomic particle whose existence had earlier been predicted by Hideki Yukawa. In 1948, Cecil Powell found that in reality another meson, called the pi-meson, or pion, had the properties of Yukawa's model and decayed to the known meson discovered by Anderson. Bruno Benedetto Rossi - Italian, American physicist; found and initial increase with thickness in the cosmic-ray intensity "transmitted" by an obsorber and explained this by cosmic-ray showers. A transition to decreasing intensities was observed beyond a certain thickness. Sir Ernst Boris Chain - German, English biochemist; Nobel Laureate in Medicine (1945) for the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect in various infectious diseases. Luis F. Leloir - Argentine biochemist, born in France; received the Nobel Prize for chemistry for the discovery of sugar nucleotides and the biosynthesis of carbohydrates (1970). Hideki Yukawa - Japanese nuclear physicist; postulated the existence of a short-lived subatomic particle that had a greater mass than the electron

1905-1989

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(1935); these intermediate particles were discovered two years later and named "mesotrons"; the term was then shortened to "mesons"; received Nobel Prize for physics (1949). 1907-1991 Edwin Mattison McMillan - American nuclear chemist; known for his contributions to the discovery of the transuranium elements neptunium and plutonium in 1940, and for developing the synchrotron in 1945. McMillan taught at the University of California at Berkeley from 1932 until retiring as professor emeritus in 1973; shared Nobel Prize for chemistry (1951) with Glenn T. Seaborg for the discovery and isolation of neptunium (93) of plutonium (94). Sir Alexander Robertus Todd - Engish Biochemist; Willard Frank Libby - American chemist; won the 1960 Nobel Prize for chemistry for his radiometric age-dating technique (1947), which uses the isotope carbon-14 to date archaeological specimens. He described his work in his book Radiocarbon Dating (1952; 2d ed., 1955). He taught at the University of California at Berkeley (1933-1945) and worked on the Manhattan Project (1941-1945). He then joined the Institute for Nuclear Studies at the University of Chicago (1945-1959) and finally the University of California at Los Angeles (1959-1980), where he directed the Institute for Geophysics and Panetary Physics. Libby twice served on the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. George Dixon Rochester - English physicist; discovered V-particles and hyperons. Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin - English chemist; used X-ray crystallography to determine the structure of organic substances, including penicillins. She was the first person to discover the crystalline structure present in insulin, penicillin and vitamin B-12. For this discovery she was awarded a Nobel Prize. Archer John Porter Martin - British biochemist; was awarded (with R.L.M. Synge) the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1952) for development of paper partition chromatography, a quick and economical analytical technique permitting extensive advances in chemical, medical, and biological research. Luis Walter Alvarez - American physicist; produced free protons with a particle accelerator; headed a team which designed a bubble chamber for detecting short-lived subatomic particles; received the Nobel Prize for physics (1968) for his 1960 discovery of these particles, called

1907-1997 1908-1980

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1911-1988

"resonances". 1911-1993 Polykarp Kusch - German physicist; made high precision determinations of the magnetic moment of the electron and found a small but theoretically significant difference between the predicted value and the experimental results. Kusch was awarded the Nobel prize for physics jointly with W.R. Lamb (1955). Melvin Calvin - American chemist; awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize for chemistry for his study of photosynthesis, a process by which green plants absorb carbon dioxide and convert it into sugar and oxygen. After early work on the structure of organic compounds, Calvin began using radioactive carbon-14 in the 1940's to trace the various steps of photosynthesis. By 1957 he and his associate, James A. Bassham, had made a detailed analysis of the many reactions that take place. Calvin then turned his attention to formulating theories on the chemical evolution of life. He also condicted solar energy research, including studies of the possibilities of artificial photosynthesis. With Bassham, Calvin wrote The Photosynthesis of Carbon Compounds (1962) and Chemical Evolution (1969). Glenn Theodore Seaborg - American chemist; shared the 1951 Nobel Prize for chemistry with Edwin McMillan for his participation in the discovery of most of the transuranium elements. Seabort received his Ph.D. in 1937 from the University of California at Berkeley, where he remained and did his early work on the isotopes of common elements. He later worked with McMillan, who isolated (1940) netpunium (atomic number 93), the first element beyond uranium. Seaborg and his associates later isolated the next transuranium element, plutonium. They also found a plutonium isotope, which promised to yield more fission energy than uranium.

1911-1997

1912-1999

In 1942, Seaborg moved from Berkeley to the University of Chicago to find ways of producing plutonium for the atomic bomb project. His group discovered (1944) two new elements, americium (95) and curium (96). These discoveries helped to confirm Seaborg's hypothesis that the transuranium elements resembled one another and so formed a transition series (the actinide series) similar to the lanthanide series of rare earths. In 1946 he returned to Berkeley, and during the next twelve years he and his collaborators discovered six more transuranium elements: berkelium (97) in 1949, californium (98) in 1950, einsteinium (99) in 1952, fermium (100) in 1953, menelevium (101) in 1955, and nobelium (102) in 1958. The discovery of these

elements was made possible by new particle accelerators that allowed heavy ions to be used as projectiles. Seabory was named (1958) chancellor of the Berkeley campus; in 1961 he became the first scientist to be chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, The Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in 1971, where he codiscovered (1974) element 106.
1913Willis Eugene Lamb, Jr. - American physicist; observed, during the course of spectral measurements of the fine structure of hydrogen in the microwave region, a small displacement (the "Lamb shift") of an energy level from its theoretical position as predicted by Dirac's quantum theory of the electron. Lamb was awarded the Nobel prize for physics jointly with P. Kusch (1955). Philip Hague Abelson - colloborated in the discovery of neptunium (element 93)and devised a method for large-scale synthesis of enriched uranium for use as a power source in submarines. He served as director of the Carnegie Institution of Washington's Geophysical Laboratory from 1953 to 1971. Martin D. Kamen - the discoverer of Carbon 14 and the originator of many of the techniques by which radioactive tracers are used to elucidate the chemistry of biological processes. He also carried out extensive research that underlies much of our understanding of the process of photosynthesis. For his discovery of Carbon 14 and work on tracers, Dr. Kamen received in 1996 the Enrico Fermi award, the highest physics honor of the United States. Richard Laurence Millington Synge - Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (1952), jointly with Archer John Porter Martin, for their invention of partition chromatography. Max Ferdinand Perutz - Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (1962), jointly with Sir John C. Kendrew, for their studies of the structures of globular proteins. James Alfred Van Allen - American physicist; showed from the data obtained from instruments carried by artificial satellites that the earth is encircled by two zones, called Van Allen radiation belts, of high-energy charged particles whic are trapped by the earth's magnetic field. Francis Harry Compton Crick - Nobel Laureate in Medicine (1962), jointly with James D. Watson and Maurice Wilkins, for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material.

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Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins - Nobel Laureate in Medicine (1962), jointly with James D. Watson and Francis C. Crick, for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nuclear acids and its significance for information transfer in living material. Robert Burns Woodward - Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (1965) for his outstanding achievements in the art of organic synthesis. Martin Deutsch - Austrian, American physicist; experimentally confirmed the prediction of the existence of positronium. William von Eggers Doering - obtained from the bark of the cinchona tree that is found in the Andes mountain range of Ecuador and Peru. They were probably discovered by Peruvian Jesuits, who introduced quinine into Europe around 1640. However the destruction of these trees to obtain quinine made them rare and so a way of making it synthetically was sought. This was found in 1944 by Robert Burns Woodward and Doering by synthesising quinine from coal tar. Quinines formula is C20H24N2O2. Sir John Cowdery Kendrew -Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (1962), jointly with Max Ferdinand Perutz, for their studies of the structures of globular proteins. Kenichi Fukui - Japanese chemist; applied the laws of quantum mechanics to chemical reactions involved in the development of effective drugs; shared Nobel Prize for chemistry with Roald Hoffman of the United States (1981). Frederick Sanger - Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (1958) for his work on the structure of proteins, especially that of insulin. Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (1980) for contributions concerning the determination of base sequences in nucleic acids. Owen Chamberlain - American physicist; known for his joint discovery, along with Emilio Segre, of the antiproton, for which both received the 1959 Nobel Prize for physics. His graduate studies at the University of California were interrupted by World War II, at which time he joined the Manhattan Project to build the Atomic bomb. In 1955 Chamberlain and Segre discovered the antiproton, a subatomic particle with the same mass as the proton but with a negative charge. Since that time, he has investigated the interaction of antiproton or antimatter proton with hydrogen and deuterium.

1917-1979

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Glenn T. Seaborg - American nuclear chemist; shared Nobel Prize for chemistry (1951) with Edwin Mattison McMillan for the discovery of plutonium (94). Rosalyn S.Yalow - American biochemist; received the Nobel Prize for developing radioimmunoassays as peptide hormones (1977); second woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine and physiology. Donald Arthur Glaser - American physicist; made the first bubble chamber. He was awarded the Nobel prize for physics in 1960. James Dewey Watson - best known for his discovery of the structure of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), for which he shared with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1962). They proposed that the DNA molecule takes the shape of a double helix, an elegantly simple structure that resembles a gently twisted ladder. The rails of the ladder are made of alternating units of phosphate and the sugar deoxyribose; the rungs are each composed of a pair of nitrogencontaining nucleotides. Rudolph L. Mossbauer - German physicist; predicted and found an extremely small frequency spread in the emission of low-energy gamma rays from nuclei bound in a crystal lattice. This effect results from giving the gamma-ray recoil momentum to the whole lattice instead of to an individual nucleus. The effect provides a very high precision frequency standard suitable for testing several predictions of the special and general theories of relativity. He was awarded the Nobel prize for physics jointly with R. Hofstadter (1961). Samuel Chao Chung Ting - American physicist; discovered a subatomic particle which he named the "J particle" (1974); a parallel independent discovery of the same particle was made by Burton Richter who named it the "psi particle"' it is now known as the "J/psi particle"; shared Nobel Prize for physics with Richter (1976). Yuan T. Lee - American physicist; developed a cross-beam molecular technique that gives detailed information about chemical reactions; designed a mass spectrometer detection system to monitor the collisions and scattering effects involved in this research technique; shared Nobel Prize for chemistry with Dudley R. Herschback (1986).

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