Outstanding scientists of the world

Our century is rightly called the century of rapid scientific & technical progress that has changed practically all spheres of human activity. Every year hundreds of scientific discoveries are introduced in industry, agriculture, medicine, education & service. New inventions are appearing every day to make our lives easier, longer, warmer, speedier & so on. The development of science has increased man’s knowledge of nature so greatly that now it influences all sides of human life.

It has been estimated that the number of discoveries & inventions made during the last 25 years are equal to those which were made during the previous history of humankind. We can be proud of the fact that a great contribution to the development of our civilization has been made by our compatriots. But of course all these achievements were absolutely impossible without inventions & discoveries of the previous centuries. Modern physics can’t develop for example, without knowing the laws discovered by Isaac Newton; chemists can’t invent new substances without taking into consideration the laws & regulations on which periodic system of elements is based. This wonderful system was discovered by Dmitri Mendeleev, a prominent Russian scientist. We can say the same almost about every branch of modern science. The world knows the names of many great scientists: mathematicians, physicists, chemists, biologists, linguists, historians, etc. A lot of discoveries have been made by them in different fields of science & engineering. Here are the names of some of them.

ISAAC NEWTON (1643 -1727), one of the greatest scientists of all times, achieved world fame as the discoverer of the law of universal gravitation & the differential calculus. It was a most important mathematical invention. Gravity had been known long before Newton’s time. His discovery was that he extended the law of gravity to the whole Universe. He suggested that it was gravity which bound the Moon to the Earth & the other planets to the Sun. Then came the formulation of Newton’s three laws of motion, the analysis by experiment of white light & the nature of colors. While studying the nature of white light & color Newton came to the conclusion that white light is composed of many different colors known to us as the spectrum. He made a research on a new type of telescope, called the reflecting telescope. It was very small in diameter, but it magnified objects to forty diameters. These great discoveries, which have changed the course of thought, have also influenced the course of science from that day until present. His main publication was ‘’ Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy’’, of which there have been several editions. The whole development of modern science begins with this great book. Newton’s contribution to physics, astronomy & mathematics is so great that he may be considered the founder of modern mathematics, physics & spectroscopy.

MIKHAIL LOMONOSOV (1711 – 1765) is the father of the Russian science, an outstanding poet, the founder of Russian literature. He was a physicist, a painter, an astronomer, a geographer, a historian & a statesman. He wrote the first scientific grammar of the Russian language.

Mikhail Lomonosov was born in 1711 in the family of a fisherman in the northern coastal village of Denisovka not far from Arkhangelsk. When he was ten years of age his father began to take him sea fishing. That dangerous life taught the precacious youngster to observe the phenomena of nature more closely. During the long winter nights the boy studied his letters, grammar & arithmetic diligently.

Since he was the son of a peasant, he was refused admission to the town school, so he walked to Moscow. By concealing his peasant origin he gained admission to the Slavonic-Greek-Latin Academy & for five years lived from hand to mouth on 3 kopecks a day. The noblemen’s sons studying with him made fun of the twenty-year-old giant, who despite their jeers & his own desperate poverty, made rapid progress.

After 5 years came the chance of entering the Academy of Sciences as there weren’t enough noble-born students to fill the quota. His ability & diligence attracted the attention of the professors, & as one of the best students he was sent abroad. He spent all the time there in delving into the work of leading European scientists studying chemistry, metallurgy, mining & mathematics. On his return to Russia in 1745 he was made a professor & the first Russian scientist to become a member of the Academy of Sciences.

For versatility Lomonosov has no equal in Russian & world science. Many of his ideas & discoveries won recognition only in the 19^th century. He was the first to discover the vegetable origin of coal, for instance, & as a poet & scientist he played an eminent role in the formation of the Russian literary language, eliminating distortions & unnecessary foreign borrowings. He had a great thirst for knowledge. The great son of the Russian people Mikhail Lomonosov died in 1765. His living memorial is the Moscow University which he founded in 1755.

ALBERT EINSTEIN (1879 - 1955) is a great man of science, made famous by his theories of relativity. Einstein is perhaps the greatest scientist of the 20^th century. He was born in Ulm, Germany; received a Nobel prize in physics in 1921 for his work in quantum theory. Some of his ideas made possible the atomic bomb, as well as television & other inventions. In 1933 he had to leave his country because of the nazis; he went to the USA where he became a professor at Princeton University.

ERNEST RUTHERFORD (1871 - 1937), the great pioneer of nuclear physics, made fundamental discoveries concerning the nature of radioactivity. He distinguished between the two types of radiation, which he named alpha & beta rays. In 1919 Rutherford was the first to split the atom by natural means. He deduced the existence of a heavy, positively charged core in the atom, which he called the nucleus. Rutherford received the Nobel Prize for his investigations into the decay of the elements & the chemistry of radioactive substances.

MICHAEL FARADAY (1791 -1867), an English physicist & chemist, contributed greatly to the development of modern science. In 1825 he discovered benzene. However, it is with electricity & electrochemistry that his name is usually linked. About 1821 he began experimenting in electricity. At that time many scientists were trying to discover how magnetism & electricity were connected. It was known that a magnet could be made by twisting wire round a bar of iron & passing an electric current through the wire. Ampere, the famous French scientist, showed by his experiments that an electric current could produce the same effects as a magnet. Faraday wanted to answer if an electric current could produce magnetism & if a magnet could produce an electric current. After many years of hard work he was able to show that when a magnet is placed near a coil of wire it makes an electric current flow for a moment through the wire. He also discovered that when an electric current is passed through one of two parallel wires it makes another electric current flow for a moment in the other wire. In other words Faraday discovered the connection between electricity & magnetism & showed that electromagnetic induction was possible. On the ground of those discoveries, he built the first transformer & a machine which generated a continuous electric current & called it a ''dynamo''. That was the model of the great dynamos that provide light & heat for our cities today & produce electric current to drive electric trains & machinery of every kind. Yet, while Faraday was making his discoveries, the first steam trains were running in England & most people were using oil-lamps to light their homes benzene. However, it is with electricity & electrochemistry that his name is usually linked. He was also the discoverer of the laws that control the process of electrolysis.

CHARLES DARWIN (1809 -1882), an outstanding naturalist, spent five years on the ‘’Beagle’’ during her voyage in the Southern Hemisphere (1831 - 1836). He made observations of the geology & natural history of the region, & after his return to England he published a book about reef formation, which is still generally considered valid. In 1859 he published his great work ‘’On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life’’. One of the most important results of Darwin’s work was the demonstration that the evolution of plants & animals gives no evidence of divine guidance. Evolution is the theory that all living things (plants & animals) have developed from earlier & different forms, & have not been specially created. This fact led to a conflict between the upholders of religion & the scientists.

DMITRI IVANOVITCH MENDELEYEV (1834 - 1907) is the outstanding Russian chemist. His greatest discovery was the periodic law of chemical elements. He explained it in his work ‘’Principles of Chemistry’’ published in 1869. It was a great scientific achievement. So science received the key to the secrets of matter. Mendeleyev’s periodic law opened a new era in the history of chemistry. All the greatest discoveries which have been made since then in the fields of chemistry & physics have been based on this law. In Mendeleyev’s time chemists knew 63 different elements. Chemists knew many of their properties but there was no general system. Mendeleyev set himself the task of working out a general law. He thought that there must be some fundamental property characteristic of an element. After many experiments Mendeleyev came to the conclusion that that property is the atomic weight. He placed the elements in the order of their atomic weight. They are arranged in periods & groups. That is how in the spring of 1869 he discovered the periodic system. Mendeleyev knew about the existence of some unknown elements, for which he left several blank spaces in his table of elements. He even described their properties. Mendeleyev’s discovery made it possible for the scientists to find 38 new chemical elements to fill the empty spaces left in the Periodic Table. At the same time they tried to find elements heavier than the last element in the Periodic Table. In 1955 the American scientist Dr. Glenn Seabord obtained element No 101 & named it Mendelevium in honor of the creator of the Periodic Law.

IVAN PETROVITCH PAVLOV (1849 – 1936) was one of the greatest physiologists of modern times. His work has had a revolutionary influence on the way man now regards both himself & animals. Pavlov’s greatest discovery was the conditioned reflex. He believed that even the most complex behavior of animals is governed by conditioned reflexes. An action when repeated many times, leads to a certain way of behavior. In this way the animal acquires new habits. Animals learn by acquiring conditioned reflexes. Man learns by acquiring ideas, but conditioned reflexes play a very important part in his life as well.

Not long before his death, Pavlov wrote his ”Letter to Youth”. In this letter he gave his advice to young people who wanted to become scientists. Here are some of his thoughts.

First of all – learn the ABC of science before you try to reach its heights. Always study. Develop patience. Never try to escape the hard jobs in science. Study, compare, gather facts.

The second thing is modesty. Never think that you know everything.

The third thing is passion. Remember, science requires your whole life. Science demands of man the greatest effort & supreme passion. Be passionate in your work.

IVAN VLADIMIROVITCH MICHURIN (1855 – 1935) dedicated his life to the study of the laws of the organic world & to means of changing it. Everything that this great thinker & practical worker achieved in the sphere of selection, genetics & the theory of plant evolution is a classic example of the application of the dialectic method to the study of the laws of nature.

Michurin developed a theory of plant evolution, a theory of heredity & variability, & began a new stage in the development of biology. His scientific achievements are being applied by agricultural experts & farmers in their practical work in many countries of the world. Michurin’s methods find practical application & are widely popularized among the progressive scientists throughout the world.

KONSTANTIN TSIOLKOVSKY (1879 – 1935) was born in a small Russian village near Ryazan. Through all his life he had been working at the problem of interplanetary travel. He believed in the possibility of creating the instrument able to reach space. After a life-long study he came to the conclusion that this man-made instrument may be a rocket. Tsiolkovsky'’ prediction was published only in 1954, when his collected works were printed by the Academy of Sciences.

In his books the scientist worked out the theories of cosmic flight. Tsiolkovsky believed that “ humankind will not remain on Earth forever”, & he dreamt to see that day. His books fired the imagination of other scientists in Russia & abroad. In 1929 a German scientist, professor Herman Obert, wrote to him: “You candled this fire. We shall not let it die. It is necessary that man’s greatest dream should be realized.” Tsiolkovsky died in 1935.

COPERNICUS. For centuries men thought that the Earth stood still, & the stars, the planets, the Sun & the Moon were going round the Earth in space. And if it were the opposite, men would fall from the Earth. But at the beginning of the 16^th century a young scientist at Cracow University in Poland, named Copernicus, began studying the stars & the planets. Copernicus thought that if the old theory were true, it would be difficult to explain the movement of the planets. He decided that the Earth was not the center of the universe but was itself a planet that moved round the Sun.

Not all of Copernicus’s ideas were right. He thought correctly that the Moon went round the Earth, & the Earth moved round the Sun, but he thought that the stars did not move at all. Copernicus was so much afraid of what everyone would think of his ideas that he wrote them down only when he was almost dying. Yet, he was the first man to explain correctly our Solar System.

ANDREI DMITRIEVITCH SAKHAROV (1921 – 1989), an outstanding scientist & public figure, was born on May 21, 1921, into the family of teachers. The biography of Sakharov as one of the “secret” authorities in thermonuclear physics mainly falls on the times of the “thaw” (оттепель). He graduated from Moscow University in 1942. In 1947 he defended his thesis for the degree of Candidate of Science. In 1953 he defended his Doctorate thesis & was elected member of the Academy of Sciences. In 1948 he began serious work on hydrogen bomb & while working on the problem he came to the conclusion that any atomic & nuclear weapons should be banned. He wrote many articles on the problems which were published abroad.

In 1966 he took part in his first human right demonstration, a one-minute silent protest in Pushkin Square. A year later, he wrote a letter to Communist Party leader Leonid Brezhnev defending imprisoned dissidents. He protested against the invasion in Afganistan, against every violation of human rights. Abroad Sakharov was recognized as a civil rights activist & received the Peace Nobel’s Prize in 1975. His international repute as a scientist kept him out of jail. But at home he was persecuted, deprived of all his titles & orders & exiled to the city of Gorky (Nizhni Novgorod). In Gorky he continued to work for peace, justice & human rights. It was Michail Gorbachev who helped A.Sakharov to return to Moscow. He was given back all his titles & 3 years later he was elected deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

Sakharov died in 1989. He is remembered by everybody as an outstanding humanist, one of the best representatives of humankind who could teach & inspire & who foresaw the changes that are taking place now. He realized even in 1968 that our society should develop in a new direction.

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