OUR SCIENTISTS

Why Do We Need Sleep?

2010-02-23T03:50:00.000-08:00

Obviously, we are aware on how important sleep is. Whether we understand or not the full concept of what sleep can do to our bodies, we knew that having a day without sleep is terrible. Your eyes and body are heavy, your head hurts, you feel exhausted and you cannot concentrate. Your work and everyday function is greatly affected.

So, what is sleep anyway and why do we need it?

Sleep is a state wherein one is relatively suspended from sensory and motor activities. You can be totally or partially unconscious and while majority of your voluntary muscles are inactive. Before, it was thought that sleep is just a constant and regular block of time when you are not awake. With the advancement of science, scientists had determined that sleep plays a critical role in our body's immune system, our learning, memory, metabolism and other vital organ functions.

As we age, the time we are spending for sleep lessen. From 16 to 18 hours a day for newborns, adults on the average sleep for 7 to 8 hours daily. And because we are all aware to this fact, many older people ignore their sleeping problems, thinking that it is normal. Adults still need 8 hours of sleep. How well you function for the day's tasks and works greatly depends on the quantity and the quality of sleep you had.

Sleep is beneficial for us to react quickly, think clearly, improve our concentration and enable us to create memories. As a matter of fact, the learning pathway in the brain is very active during sleep. Losing even 1 hour of sleep has its price. Your ability to do focus and do physical tasks is greatly decreased resulting to lower performance in school or at work. Also, you tend to make wrong decisions when you are sleepy placing you at more risk.

Sleep also affects our mood. Lack of sleep is often linked to irritability, troubled relationships and poor behavior. Moreover, those who are chronically deprived of sleep are prone to depression.

Most importantly, it is good to our health. Sufficient sleep decreases our risk in having high blood pressure, heart problems and other medical conditions. It is also during sleep that certain hormones that enhances our immune system are at its peak. This might be one reason why a good night's sleep helps you from getting sick.

School Science Project: Energy

2010-02-23T03:49:00.000-08:00

Some of the best school science project ideas have to do with energy. Energy can be a pretty flexible topic in terms of how many projects you can create from the many different forms and sub-topics alone. A school science project on energy is always a great choice because most of the time these projects end up being entered into the science fairs, or getting a perfect grade in class.

An easy and classic school science project that involves energy is creating an electric circuit that is powered by fruits. The acidity found in some fruits are usually enough to power a battery which in turn can power a small device. Sometimes the fruit can be the battery itself. Electric energy is always fun to work with. Many times, there is no need to use fruit. Creating a working circuit can be a project on its own for the younger grades.

Being able to harness electric energy from other sources also makes a good school science project. Having a basic electric generator that is charged through solar panels, hydro-power, or wind energy makes another great demonstration of what can be done when energy is converted. If the generator or energy converter can show that it has converted various forms of energy into electric energy and successfully powers an electricity needing appliance then the project is a success! This project is also perfect to go hand in hand with a discussion of renewable energy versus using fossil fuels.

Another great school science project that uses energy is creating a solar oven. Using the power of the sun, this project shows students how the sun's heat energy can be absorbed and used to do something useful, like bake cookies or heat a batch of brownies. It also shows students how some forms of energy can be limited. In this situation, the solar oven will only work on a sunny day, and actually has the possibility of being destroyed on a rainy day. This shows that energy should not be wasted.

Energy is truly a fascinating subject, and is one of the best parts about physical science classes. It can be complicated to understand, but it's always fun to study. This becomes more true when the school science project on energy that your child is working on proves to be a success! It's also a great way to introduce them to other school science project ideas that involve the principles of physics. Getting your child interested in energy and physics at a young age can really help them out with their school work in the future.

Science Experiments for Kids

2010-02-23T03:48:00.000-08:00

Science can be one of the most fascinating subjects your kids will ever take up. It's one of the few subjects in school that encourages coming up with tangible examples of the different concepts it teaches. The science experiments for kids suggested by teachers and in most science textbooks are great ways for children to master their science lessons, and to supplement their learning.

As a parent encourage as many science experiments for kids as possible. Your children will appreciate your support in their studies, and you just might encourage them enough to take a lifelong interest in science. The more involved you can be, the better it will be for your child. If you're unsure where to begin, go through your child's textbook for experiment ideas, or ask your child's teacher for some help! Also be sure to read some safety precautions before any project or experiment.

One of the easy science experiments for kids that you can do is to raise tadpoles. This science experiments teaches children about life cycles and metamorphosis. To make it an experiment, feed your tadpoles different foods and see which ones grow faster or stronger. When they become frogs, you can see which set became bigger. This experiment is really easy and simple, but it's pretty interesting. Your daughter may not enjoy it too much, but chances are that your son really will!

Another of the great science experiments for kids is crystallization. Showing your child how to supersaturate a salt and water mixture, and creating crystals from this mixture can be a fun activity for a weekend. To make it more interesting, and something a child will enjoy, color the water with food coloring. Tell your child you'll be making blue crystals or pink crystals, or yellow crystals. When they do take up crystallization in school, they will look back at this experiment and realize they understand the concept already!

There are other science experiments for kids that you and your child can use as ways to spend time together. Creating a solar oven, extracting fruit DNA, or harnessing hydro-power are just a few ideas that can help make science both really interesting and fun for your child. The fact that they can do these experiments at home is a bug plus towards encouraging your children in scientific study!

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2010-02-23T03:47:00.000-08:00

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The Future of Technology

2009-12-10T05:10:00.000-08:00

It is exciting to look into the future of technology. In an age of continuous innovation and invention, when the discovery of today loses its sheen tomorrow, it is not easy to pinpoint technologies that will transform our future.

Engineering and technical developments are everyone's concern, as they will not be confined to industry, university classrooms, and R&D labs. Instead, they will make a tremendous difference in our day-to-day lives. Here I will attempt to identify some of the technologies that will revolutionize our lives and our values in the coming years.

1. Quantum Computers Unlike current PCs, quantum computers will have switches that can be in an on or off state simultaneously. The mechanism that will make this possible is known as superposition, and the switches are referred to as quantum bits. The system will make quantum computers operate very fast. A basic quantum computer is likely to be operational by 2020.

2. Programmable Matter Scientists are in the midst of creating a substance that can take a specific shape to perform a specific task. The substance is known as claytronics, and it consists of catoms. Individual catoms are programmed to move in three dimensions and position themselves so that they assume different shapes. This technology is likely to have numerous applications ranging from medical use to 3D physical rendering. It may take around two decades to become a reality.

3. Terascale Computing Techies are working on a project that would make our PCs able to contain tens to hundreds of parallel working cores. The device will have the capability to process huge amounts of information. To create this technology, Intel is exploring the possibility of using nanotechnology and allowing for billions of transistors.

4. Repliee Robots Repliee is one of the most advanced life-like robots ever created. Repliee, an android, is covered with a substance which is very similar to human skin. Sensors placed inside the robot control its movements and enable it to respond to its environment. Astonishingly, the robot can flutter its eyelids and replicate breathing. Repliee operates best in a static condition.

5. Organic Computers To further advance the computing realm, techies need to create a hybrid CPU that is silicon based but contains organic parts as well. The most promising progress in information processing concerns a neurochip that places organic neurons onto a network of silicon or other materials. Future computers will be able to bridge the silicon and organic spheres to utilize processors that incorporate both of these elements.

6. "Spray-On" Nanocomputers The "spray-on" nanocomputer would consist of particles that can be sprayed onto a patient. It would monitor the patient's medical condition and communicate wirelessly to other machines.

7. Carrier Ethernet Carrier Ethernet is a business service/access technology. It can serve as a transport method for both business and residential service. Ethernet will dominate the metro space in the future and will slowly displace SONET/SDH over the next 10 to 20 years.

Development sustains life. However, techies cannot afford to forget that technological advancement will remain inadequate in the absence of contributions from all branches of knowledge and will not flourish if it does not benefit society.

ACCORDING TO THE DICTATION OF YOUR INNER CLOCK

2009-12-10T05:08:00.000-08:00

Looking into natural and social processes, everything is happening according to a predetermined rhythm - the seasons, the growth of vegetation and the tides. The human body is also governed by a specific rhythm. During one day the human organism undergoes various physical changes, some of which are quite surprising.

Scientists have proven that the height of every person in the morning, right after awakening, is on average 2cm longer than in the evening. This can be explained by the fact that during sleep the body liquids fill and swell cartilage between the spinal vertebras. This process lengthens the spine, but during the day this liquid is lost by motion and the spine returns to its original length.

Body temperature is lowered during sleep and gradually rises upon waking; Pulse accelerates in the morning and reaches its maximum rate at around noon; The level of male and female sex hormones reaches maximum value early in the morning. Chemical processes in the human body are not acting anarchically but are governed by specific schematics. Differences between individual rhythms exist due to the different daily biological rhythms of the organism and those happening over a long period of time. It is possible to track life cycles and determine in advance which days of the month are the most convenient for certain activities.

In every person's life there are three cycles that happen simultaneously: emotional, intellectual and physical. The emotional cycle lasts 28 days and increases or reduces the individual creativity, affecting relations with other people and the individual's general mood. The physical cycle lasts 23 days and affects a person's libido, their health and resistance to illnesses. The intellectual cycle stretches to 33 days and it affects the ability of judgment, memory processes and decision making. These cycles can be graphically represented as waves on the path of life for every person. Unstable or critical periods are those when the amplitude is dropping or rising - changing its intensity and the person is most vulnerable when two or more amplitudes cross ways.

The consequences of lengthy travel can be extremely unpleasant, especially if climate and time zones are changed. This can seriously upset the natural rhythm of an individual. Doctors and scientists will eventually succeed in clarifying many conditions of vital importance in medical research simply by exploring the rhythms of the human organism.

Inspiring future scientists and engineers by revealing an array of 'If Onlys'

2009-10-30T06:15:00.000-07:00

High profile figures contribute their thinking to stimulate the next generation of UK scientists and engineers

From Lord Winston to Gary Lineker, leading figures from the worlds of entertainment, science, and business have come up with a plethora of 'If Onlys' - their one inspiration, discovery or invention that they wish existed - to capture the public's imagination and encourage the UK's budding young scientists and engineers to come up with their own inventions or creations for the National Science and Engineering Competition, by 30 October.

In providing their 'If Only' ideas, more than 60 of these high profile figures hope to make young people recognise that it is their imaginations that will enable them make what seems impossible now, possible in the future. Entering the Competition is a chance for young people to celebrate their science and engineering achievements and could be the first step to making their own 'If Only' a reality.

John Humphrys, Journalist and Radio and TV presenter: "If Only" I could invent a gadget attached to the chair on which politicians sit when I interview them which would give me an instant evaluation of their answers: "totally honest", "partly honest but mostly disingenuous"; "self-serving claptrap"; "downright lies." But on reflection it would probably make my role redundant!"

Lord Winston: "If Only" there was such a thing as a breakthrough in science, think of the credit in which an individual scientist like myself could legitimately wallow. But nearly every important piece of scientific progress is made incrementally and we mostly explore the ideas of others or rediscover what other scientists have already found, and sometimes which others have forgotten."

Gary Lineker, ex-England footballer and BBC commentator: "If Only" I had a time machine so I could go back and play one extra game for England to become England's all time highest ever scorer."

All the contributions are available to view on www.thebigbangfair.com/ifonly

Sir Roland Jackson, Chief Executive of the British Science Association, which leads the National Science and Engineering Competition in partnership with Young Engineers, commented: "How often do we hear people say 'If Only'? It is amazing to think that many of the wishes made by people years ago are now a reality. Young people, who have the skills to match their imaginations, will be the UK's future scientists and engineers. They will be the ones making the fantastic inventions and discoveries that are sure to come - things we may currently think are only impossible dreams."

Stu Ellins, Chief Executive of Young Engineers, said "This Competition is an excellent vehicle to highlight the many and varied projects being undertaken by school students, as well as a great way to highlight the possibilities that engaging with science and engineering can bring young people. Although 'If Only' is a fun exercise, the reality is that the world faces serious issues such as pollution, climate change, disease, food supply and even caring for an ageing population, all of which need creativity and innovation in science and engineering to find solutions. It's essential that we as a nation support the young people who will make vital discoveries and inventions a reality and the National Science and Engineering Competition does just that."

The National Science and Engineering Competition together with The Big Bang: UK Young Scientists' and Engineers' Fair, the UK's biggest celebration of science and engineering where the winners will be announced, celebrate the fantastic success young people are already achieving using their skills to make their ideas happen. 11-18 year-olds can visit www.nationalsciencecompetition.org before 30th October to nominate the projects they are proud of for the chance to win some of the £50,000 worth of prizes available. The culmination of the Competition at The Big Bang takes place in Manchester in March 2010. There, they will get the chance to compete for the title of the next UK Young Scientist of the Year and UK Young Engineer of the Year, and many remarkable accomplishments will be on display.

How to change your routine so it changes your Life

2009-10-30T06:14:00.000-07:00

Are you stuck in a rut? To answer this question objectively you have to look at the condition of your life in relation to your behaviour patterns. You may be either consciously or subconsciously sabotaging your personal growth by refusing or unwilling to change old habits that are holding you back.

Quite often we find that we are living a life that society has labelled "normal".We live in a home, have regular employment, are involved in a relationship and have material trappings that are supposed to make us feel content. However this "normal" level we have attained may still make us feel unfulfilled if we are not living a life that brings out our true potential.

We all have habits that form our personality. Habits continually direct the way we behave on a day-to-day basis and have become well-established traits of that personality. Habits allow us to carry out activity without conscious thought.

The biggest drawback to change is that people perceive that who they are at present is how their lives were meant to be. A blueprint set by fate that states that circumstances cannot change very easily. If only they knew how erroneous this is. The root of the problem lies in the way we think. Changing our thoughts will change our routine which in turn will change our lives.

As an example I read in a local paper recently about a former fraudster who had served time for his crimes. He was walking down a street and found a wallet containing cash and credit cards that belonged to a local businessman. Whereas previously he would have seen this as an easy opportunity for personal gain, he found contact details inside the wallet and returned it to its rightful owner. When interviewed, it turned out that he'd decided to go straight after meeting his ideal partner and made his mind up to change his ways.

You see, not only has he changed his behaviour but now he thinks about the environment he's in. The world hasn't changed but the way he reacts to it has.

This is an extreme example but nevertheless shows the difference you can make to your life if you are willing to change your habits. Old patterns of behaviour can be broken and new ones put in its place.

So then how do we do this? Quite simply by using imagination. It cannot be emphasised enough that this is the most powerful mental force we possess. With the use of imagination scientists, engineers, businessman to name a few have down the years changed our lives with inventions and discoveries that were first created in their minds by the use of imagination - and it is in our imagination that our future hopes and dreams first appear.

To speed up changing our mental habits, sit down somewhere quietly, get comfortable and think about one aspect of your personality that you feel is holding you back from achieving a particular goal or desire. For example, lets say you are particularly attracted to a person of the opposite sex at work but hadn't the confidence to approach this person. The thought of walking up to them and engaging in conversation makes you feel anxious and nervous.

Whilst you're sat, we are going to play a little mind movie in your head for about 10 to 15 minutes. Imagine you are now self assured and confident and can walk up to the person you are attracted to and easily engage in conversation. Imagine this person smiling back at you and being completely receptive to your advances, and then experience the positive emotions that this brings. It may take a bit of practise but repeated effort will bring results eventually.

Swine Flu: Natural Cure and Home Remedies for Swine Flu

2009-10-30T06:12:00.002-07:00

Swine flu has been creating a terror effects all round the globe and has been declared epidemic in most part of the world. This is caused by influenza A (H1N1) virus. Swine Flu is H1N1, or pig influenza - an acute respiratory infection, usually affects pigs, but the ability to pounce and man. Presumably, the disease appeared after the animal is picked up one of several varieties of the virus - a new strain, scientists have found traces of the North American pig flu or swine flu, the North American avian influenza, and swine and human virus commonly found in Asia and Europe. The first cases of human infection by virus reported on 18 March in Mexico.

What are Swine Flu symptoms? * High temperature * Cough * Shortness of breath, Feel Trouble in breathing

The most significant symptoms of a swine flu infection are the fever with chills, body ache and fatigue, a cough and sore throat, nausea, and diarrhea.

Ayurveda: It has the best form of herbal remedies for swine flu. Ayurvedic medicines are pure natural substances made of herbs and it's very effective in the prevention of swine flu. Ayurvedic medicines used as a remedy to reduce swine flu symptoms contain herbs like neem (Indian lilac), elderberry, ginger and pepper extracts. Once the symptoms have reduced, herbs such as triphala, Divya Giloy Sat or Guduchi or Tinospora or Amrita etc used to eliminate all the symptoms completely. Swine Flu Herbal Medicine boosts the immune system against the H1N1 virus. Divya Giloy Sat or Guduchi or Tinospora or Amrita is an important ayurvedic medicine used to treat all kinds of flu symptoms and it is natural swine flu prevention medicine. It works by treating infections and increasing the body's resistance against organisms.

Herbal Remedy and Supplements Strong dietary and vitamin supplements like vitamin C, vitamin D, etc. and certain probity's can be useful in the treatment and prevention of swine flu. The Herbal remedies strengthen the immune system, to fight against the viruses and organisms causing swine flu.

Swine Flu Home Remedies and several natural ways to treat these swine symptoms that can be effective in relieving swine flu symptoms, along with the natural remedies for swine flu:

- A mixture of 1 tbsp of honey with 1/2 tbsp cinnamon powder can be consumed. This relieves swine flu symptoms like cold, nasal congestion and sore throat. - Steam inhalation with basil leaves added to the water, it helpful in relieving swine flu symptoms & relieving lung congestion. - Chewing fresh garlic cloves: Another effective home remedy as garlic, Good antiviral. - Consuming lemon tea: Relieve symptoms like cough, headaches, etc. Swine flu can be treated effectively using the above mentioned herbs and remedies, and is a healthier option compared to the treatment with allopathic medicines and antiviral.

Swine flu prevention naturally is the best remedy to stop the rapid spread of swine flu. -Regularly ventilated area, do wet cleaning, wash your hands frequently. - Strengthen your immune system, more often outdoors, move more. - Before going out into the street or in public places cover nose - it has antiviral activity against influenza. - Try to avoid communication with ill people. If this is unavoidable, wear respirators or gauze dressing. - After working with raw meat, Wash your hands carefully. Do not eat raw or half-meat. Porcine influenza virus, like any virus is destroyed at a temperature of 65 degrees. Disinfectants kill him instantly. - If you did not spring a flu shot, you can raise the immunity of special preparations. Usual onion and garlic increase the protective forces of organism.

If you have found a host of influenza symptoms (fever, muscle pain, coughing, sneezing, weakness, dizziness, nausea), be sure to contact the clinic. They clarify the diagnosis and treatment will designate.

How to protect yourself from it? The best means of prevention - it is your common sense and hygiene. Washing hands regularly and cover mouth and nose, while venturing out, it is an important to swine flu prevention. Along with the treatment for swine flu, consume as much as liquids, taking adequate rest and sleep. If sick, do not need go to work or school - better to rest at home, do not aggravate their condition and do not infect others.

Science FAQ

2009-10-30T06:12:00.001-07:00

I would approaching to use the LSMO product, but I don't know how much to...
It would be very helpful if you could provide more information about LSMO product. Describe as much as you can roughly speaking its physical and chemical properties, along with your definition of the word product. Do you mean "product" in a...

In a small hose down hole I've see a mammal that looks resembling a mammoth...
It is a river rat they eat them Down south La

Is South Africa a capitalist or socialists country and whose system...
They are capitalists and are a republic now thanks to Nelson Mandela a great man who fought for freedom!

Triton is a moon of which planet?
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What are some ways to build dry acetone?
Dry acetone is not anhydrous but has less water.It is dried by some dehydrating agent like anhydrous calcium chloride .It can also be obtain by heating it in atmosphere at 100 C.We can also use sodium carbonate.For other methods visit acetone

What are tropical cyclones?
A tropical cyclone is a storm system which is fueled by the heat released when moist air rises and the water mist in it condenses. Tropical cyclones are known by other terms, such as typhoon, hurricane, tropical storm, cyclonic storm and tropical depression, depending on their location and strength. They...

What do you scrounging by the permanent status total zilch?
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The main influences are making a difficult job very simple and automating a reliable task which requires many repetitive steps.For example latest computer animation softwares can do a reliable task in 1 hour which equals 10000 man hours.Softwares are also very adjectives for making complex calculations...

What is a rainforest?
A rainforest can be described as a tall, dense jungle. It is called a rainforest because of the high amount of precipitation it gets each year. Rainforests have a minimum conventional annual rainfall between 1750mm and 2000mm. The climate of a rainforest is very hot and humid, meaning that...

What is a torque attraction?
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What is a virtual print?
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What is Pythagoras' Theorem?
If you want the actual equation instead of that it's A^2 * B^2 = C^2 C being the hypotenuse, and A and B being the two sides that make that hypotenuse. Explain the pythagorean relation.

What is the extinction coefficient of beta carotene contained by Acetone at...
2160 at 478nm. All around 2000 in that wavelength range. Acetone is not used as normally as pentane or hexane so hard to find answer.

What is the permanent status used for hose down to be exact other within potential trouble...
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Which two oceans does the Panama Canal association?
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Why is entrepreneurship an integral sector of cutback
Entrepreneurship encourages innovation in countries, in demand to increase productions and lessen costs. Whenever new organizations and businesses start, with them comes central investments. This increases employment opportunities in the places of investments. In turn it increases the purchasing power of people which is spent on commodities...

" ___ = .5" Expresses In Symbols That The Probability Is Fifty-fifty...
'P" That is not correct just the letter p is the correct answer, do not put any hyphens

" What Is The Mass Of 2.00 L Of An Intravenous Glucose Solution With...
2L=2,000_ml X 1.15_g/ml=2,300_grams is the correct calculation and answer.

" You Have 30 Dogs And 28 Chickens. Which One Doesn't ?"
Which one doesn't what?? Good question KYMM1969 as Which one Doesn't is me as I only have 1 dog and no chickens. Well I do hold some chicken in the freezer but not 28! Lol

"?Why Is Gender An Issue In Social Problems?
These questions are about social problems. Mmeo, the reason why sexual characteristics is such a big issue in social problems is because of the domination factor mostly. And some of it is also because of discrimination. One sex is always discriminating against the other because they...

"A Little Bit Of Stress Is Useful - It Keeps People In Their Toes."?..
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"Are People's Feet Bigger Now Than They Were 100 Years Ago"?
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"Budgeting Is An Instrument Of Planning As Well As A Tool Of Coordination...
Budgeting refers to the process of planning revenues and expenses of the company. If it is considered as an important planning tool then it is also considered as a significant tool of coordination and control. The reason is that when forecasts...

"d" Yellow Pine With No Knots, Does This Wood Exist And Is It Good...
Customer looking for this and i never heard of a stainable "d"grade yellow pine. I found this description of yellow pine grades, which points to a site next to this reference pocket guide. By definition, D grade has more...

"Good Guys Finish Last And So Do Bad Girls", Do You Agree With It...
I Was Reading An Article That Was Supposed To Reach Out To Teens. I'm Not Sure What To Make Of It, But The Author Ended Off The Article With "Good Guys Finish Last And So Do Bad Girls". She Didn't...

"How Do I Determine What's On The Opposite Side Of The Earth Of A...
I'm trying to figure out what location is "opposite" our hometown at 42degrees54'4" -73degrees21'5" The place you seek is in the Indian Ocean, SW of Australia. To find the latitude of that location, translate N latitude to S latitude....

"Just In Time Concept reduced the pressure of inventory techniques"...
Just in Time (JIT) is an important philosophy that many modern factory are following now a days. It saves warehouse space for storing inventories and in the shutting down improves are return on Investment (ROI) of the factories. Over the last decade purchasing and...

"modern Currency Has No Value On Its Own As A Commodity"then Why Is...
"Currency" is a medium for transferring value. The asset backing that currency, such as gold ingots, platinum, or the like is what has a value as a "commodity", the actual efficacy of the commodity changes with market conditions. The single commodity...

"Self Confidence Is An Essential Interpersonal Variable For Effective...
Self confidence,esteem are both needed in communication and life,low self esteem leaves a person incomplete in so many ways,they are really hard on themselves and ponder everyone is laughing at them,therefore they prefer to stay in the background of time never letting anyone know what...

"XP Starter Edition cannot operate within this region.Windows will very soon...
Depending on the region you stay in and the place where you purchased your Windows XP Starter Edition copy you can contact the micro-soft help desk to trouble shoot your problem if you hold a genuine license for the product. You can...

Means to utilize the energy of the Sun

2009-10-30T06:07:00.000-07:00

Solar energy is the energy produced by the sun. During the fusion process that the sun undergoes during its lifetime, it emits radiation. The fusion process produces many different wavelengths of radiation and sub-atomic particles.

Collecting and converting usable energy from solar radiation can be accomplished by using many different forms of technology and includes various direct and indirect methods of harnessing the solar energy.

There are basically two ways to use this solar radiation, by collecting the heat from the light, and photovoltaic conversion of the light. There are many different methods of collecting the heat and converting it to electricity, and many ways of converting the light as well.

One of the simplest ways that people use solar heat energy is by using greenhouses. A greenhouse is built so that it can best collect the sunlight and heat that it receives from the sun. Using special glass or plastics, the greenhouse and everything within it retains the heat energy from the sun. This heat is trapped inside the greenhouse by the roof and walls allowing plants to grow in an otherwise too cold climate.

By combining various technologies and the use of alternative power sources such as electricity from the grid, a controlled growing climate can be maintained to optimize specialty and agricultural crop growth. A large greenhouse could make use of a solar updraft tower to generate most or all of the additional electricity it may require to keep the climate controlled.

A solar updraft tower is a simple use of the excess heat generated by light heat that the greenhouse receives. Hot air rises and is channeled from along the ceilings of the greenhouse and directed into a tower. The hot air rises and the turbine blades are pushed by the hot air rushing past them to generate electricity. Storing any excess power in batteries for the night when there is no sun can also keep the use of grid power to a minimum.

Expanding on the collection of heat from the sun, there are power plants in the hot sunny desert areas that collect the heat from the sun and convert the heat to electricity.

Some of these solar energy plants make use of curved, highly reflective and focused surfaces to optimize the collection of heat from the sunlight. They focus the light onto a central tube that is filled with synthetic oil that gets very hot. This hot oil is then piped into a boiler filled with water that is flashed into steam from the heat of the oil. The steam produced is then used to turn turbines that produce electricity. This is a highly effective way to convert solar energy into usable power.

Another way to collect the energy from the sun is through direct photovoltaic conversion. Here the light is converted into electricity by using special materials called photodiodes that are made into cells. The photodiodes emit electrons when the photons from the sunlight hits them. By using arrays of the special cells and electrically connecting them together, enough power is produced by the transduction process to make it a worthwhile alternative energy.

As more and more people demand the use of free solar energy, governments as well as businesses are subsidizing researchers, and these combined efforts are meeting this demand by coming up with materials that can produce more and more energy from a given amount of sunlight. Solar electricity produced by arrays of solar panels is now almost as cost effective as using petroleum, coal, and nuclear generated power.

The most common method of using solar energy is to store them in photovoltaic cells. This method was first used in U.S. space satellites in 1950s. The cells are made from silicon. When sunlight enters the cells, it causes the electrons to move about. The electrons then move towards the front side of the solar panels. This causes an imbalance of the electrons between the front and back side of the panels. On joining the two surfaces, a conductor is formed, just like a wire, and current begins to flow. The individual solar cells are arranged together in a PV module and the modules are grouped together to form an array. This current is used to charge cells and this energy is used to light lamps, tube lights and also to drive cars now. The current can also be used to run appliances.

Another method of using solar energy is to direct the solar rays to a convergence point using a curved reflector and then make a current flowing system like a photo cell and store energy. This method is now used in India and U.S.

Our planet receives enough raw energy in the form of sunlight in sixty minutes to illuminate all of the worlds lights for a full year. Unfortunately, a very small part of it can be harnessed so most of the population still gets most of its energy from power plants that burn fossil fuels. Fortunately for our environment, we have recently seen an increasing trend in the demand for solar energy. This is partly due to the fact that solar panels are becoming cheaper as technology advances.

At the equator, the Sun provides approximately 1000 watts of energy per square meter on the earths surface. This means that 1 square meter of each panel can generate approximately 100 GW of raw power per year, which is enough to illuminate more than 50,000 houses. The entire area that would need to be covered by solar panels to power the entire world for a year would be the equivalent to one percent of the entire space of the Sahara Desert. The amount of power solar panels can generate on a given day depends on a few variables like smog, cloudy days, low temperatures and humidity.

Solar panel farms are a lot like other normal power plants with the only big difference being that most power plants get their energy from fossil fuels. And when conventional plants burn fossil fuels, they generate the by products which are contributing to global warming. Solar panel farms or solar heat plants (or CSP plants) absorb the rays of the sun to generate electrical energy.

This process of energy conversion in solar heat plants is rather simple. The panels absorb the rays of the sun, which then shines on the power receiver. In this receiver, the energy is converted into steam from the suns rays. The steam is taken to tanks where it will be used to spin turbines and generate electricity. The process is clean because it requires no fossil fuels to be burned. It is safe for the environment and doesn't contribute to global warming like conventional power plants.

If more solar panel farms are implemented, the demand for oil will be reduced sharply. Today, there are many households that use solar panels for energy and more people are adding panels every day. When this demand for solar energy and other alternatives goes up, fewer people will use gas and fossil fuels, and the prices for these will surely drop as well.

Even though the initial investment into your solar panel system is a bit expensive, the panels will undoubtedly pay for themselves in the long run. Not only do you save money and perhaps even make some with your panels, you help the environment by reducing greenhouse gases and emissions. These systems are so durable they have been known to last years. PV cells are supposed to stay good anywhere from twenty-five to forty years. Most suppliers of solar panels have a standard twenty-five year warranty.

Finally, solar panels take minimal maintenance and they can be placed basically anywhere that gets a good amount of sunlight all year. Scientists worldover say that the future lies with solar energy. Using solar energy for home use like heating, cooking, driving car and for all other uses like charging your mobile phone, street lights and heating the swimming pool and powering your computer will become a way of life. Just as the saying goes that sun never stops shining in California, a solar energy home will never lack the power required to run the house.

China is another country which is fast using this solar technology for its future growth. Japan already is moving in the direction of saving its excess power and the government there is helping device methods to save money on fuel. The future of solar energy homes is spreading rapidly in the east. The Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy is formulating a program to introduce solar energy to more than a million homes in the next few years.

India has long days and plenty of sunshine, especially in the Thar Desert region of Rajasthan. With abundant solar energy available, this zone is attracting attention from the Indian government for its research purposes. Solar energy is being used in India for heating water for both industrial and domestic purposes.

2009-10-27T03:16:00.001-07:00

BIOCON IN PACT WITH US FIRM FOR DIABETES DRUG DEVELOPMENT

2009-09-11T20:54:00.000-07:00

BIOCON has invigorated its diabetics drug development drive by teaming up with US based biopharma player Amylin Pharmaceuticals. The companies have entered into an exclusive co-development and marketing partnership for a peptide hybrid or phybrid. This phybrid will combine properties of two peptides - essentially small proteins - into one molecule to treat diabetes. ?For instance, this bifunctionality could lower glucose levels as well as induce weight loss.
"Against using single properties on their own, this technology is likely to give a differentiated clinical outcome by enabling the interplay of two peptides with dual benefits (like lower sugar level and weight loss)," COO of Biocon Arun Chandavarkar, told Economic Times.

NOVARTIS GETS NOD FOR HUMAN TRIALS OF "H1 N1" VACCINE IN INDIA

2009-09-11T20:36:00.000-07:00

SWISS drug firm Novartis has received the government's nod to start human trails for its wine flu vaccine in India after it has shown strong immune response in 80% of the subjects who were administered one dose in experiments conducted in the UK.
However, the government has said that it would not place any orders for the vaccine till the experiments are successful in at least 600-800 people in India, health ministry secretary and director general of Indian Council of Medical Research, Vishwa Mohan Katoch said. Since swine flu was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in June, Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies have been racing to get their vaccines ready in a bid to check the outbreak.
Novartis' newly developed vaccine, to be called Celtura, against influenza A H1N1 (swine flu) has shown effective result during a pilot test conducted on 100 healthy volunteers aged between 18 and 50. Trial leader Dr Iain Stephenson said, "The clinical trial of Novartis MF59-adjuvanted cell -based H1N1 vaccine indicates that the swine flu vaccine elicits a strong immune response and is well-tolerated. The results showed that the serum antibody responses were highest among subjects who received two doses of the vaccine. However, a single vaccine may be sufficient to protect against H1N1".
The trails have a significance for India as it is one of the vaccines being eyed by India to be given to healthcare and emergency workers around January next year.
Novartis is presently carrying out global trails of this vaccine in more than 6,000 adults and children around the world, a company statement said.
Last week, the health ministry had decided to let GlaxoSmithKline conduct human trials of its swine flu vaccine. The Anglo-American drug maker, however, had replied to the ministry saying the government will have to place a certain order for the vaccine with the company before it starts human trails in India, director-general health services (DGHS) Dr RK Srivastava told ET. However, the government has been very categorical saying that before placing orders for any import of vaccines, the vaccines will have to undergo safety and efficacy trials on the Indian population before being introduced in the countrey.
"Such clauses are not acceptable, these can be virtual orders which are temporary. Real orders will be placed only once we are ensured of the safety and immunogenicity of these vaccines on Indian population," Mr Katoch said.

NUCLEAR SCIENTIST ENDED LIFE, SAYS REPORT

2009-08-30T00:11:00.000-07:00

The forensic report of nuclear scientist L.Mahalingam has reportedly of foul play behind his "unnatural death."
The Forensic Science Department on Monday submitted the report which said there were no traces of poison in Mr Mahalingam's viscera, oficial sources said.
Though police is awaiting a final report from doctors, it indicates a case of suicide. Mahalingam went missing on June 8 and his body was found in Kali river.

ISRO CHIEF SAYS MISSION IS NOT A FAILURE AS MOONCRAFT ACHIEVED ALL SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVES

2009-08-29T23:33:00.000-07:00

CHANDRAYAAN - DEAD IN SPACE:
At 2 am on Saturday, Isro chairman gopalan Madhavan Nair was woken up by his colleagues with a devastating piece of news: India's first mooncraft, Chandrayaan-I, was lost.
the spacecraft's radio contact with the mission command at Deep space Network at Byalalu, 40 km from the city, snapped at 1.30 am, and efforts to restore it remained futile.
Mr Nair's colleagues plan to make another attempt to re-establish the communication link on Saturday night. A sense of despair, however, has already set in among space of despair, however, has already set in among space scientists because they are convinced that Chandrayaan-I has met with an early end.
"We have no clue yet (about what went wrong). It is very difficult to predict the chances of recovering the spacecraft," Mr Nair said.

Shakuntala Devi, Indian scientist

2009-08-29T23:30:00.000-07:00

Shakuntala Devi""1Shakuntala Devi is generally known as a `Human Computer` because of her extraordinary talents in solving complex mathematical problems without any mechanical aid. Yet, Shakuntala Devi dislikes being called the `human computer` as she strongly believes that people have minds better than any computer. Her passionate interest in exploring and expanding the learning capacity of the human mind led her to develop the concept of `mind dynamics`. Shakuntala Devi has spelled bound and challenged the world with her unique talents.
Genius Shakuntala Devi born on 4th November 1939 in Bangalore India. She was born in a well-known Brahmin priests family. Her father performed magic tricks in schools and colleges. She was doing card tricks with him when she was only three. Shakuntala Devi received her early lessons in mathematics from her grandfather. By the age of five she became an expert in complex mental arithmetic and was recognized as a child prodigy. She demonstrated her talents to a large assembly of students and professors at the University of Mysore a year later. At the age of eight she had success at Annamalai University by doing the same.
In 1977 she extracted the 23rd root of a 201-digit number mentally. On June 18, 1980 she demonstrated the multiplication of two 13-digit numbers 7,686,369,774,870 x 2,465,099,745,779 which was picked at random by the Computer Department of Imperial College, London. She answered the question in 28 seconds. Her correct answer was 18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730. This extraordinary incident found her a place in the Guinness book of World records.
Through her expertise she also motivates the young minds to discover the world of mathematics. She maintains that a child`s curiosity and receptivity during infancy and childhood can never be matched, and we must nurture the young minds by offering the right learning process and motivation to develop the innate strengths possessed by every child. She has been traveling around the globe performing for the student community, Presidents, Politicians, Prime Ministers and Educationalists.
She shares some of the methods of mental calculations in her world famous book `figuring: the Joy of Numbers`. `Puzzles to puzzle you`, `More Puzzles to Puzzle you`, `The Book of Numbers`, `Mathability: The Math Genius in Your Child`, `Astrology for you`, `Perfect Murder`, `In the Wonderland of Numbers` which talks about a girl Neha and her fascination for numbers and `Awaken the Genius in Your Child` are some of the books written by her.
She happens to be an outstanding astrologer and gives remedies based on date and time of birth and place. Her clients include celebrities and well known personalities. The Vedic Math Forum India is associated with Shakuntala Devi and plans to organize a workshop with her in the near future.

Mr N.R.Narayana Murthy, Indian Scientist

2009-08-29T23:28:00.001-07:00

"I want Infosys to be a place where people of different genders, nationalities, races and religious beliefs work together in an environment of intense competition but utmost harmony, courtesy and dignity to add more and more value to our customers day after day." As said by N.R.Narayana Murthy. He is known to lead an unpretentious lifestyle in his modest residence in Bangalore along with wife Sudha Murthy and has a reputation for being a calm, self-effacing, soft-spoken person and caring father like figure for the employees of Infosys, shunning pricey suits, and avoiding a high-flying lifestyle. He has become the most admired business leader among the business schools in India by his `simple living high thinking` phenomenon.
N.R. Narayana Murthy""1This Indian industrialist, software engineer was born on 20th August 1946 into a Kannadiga Deshatha Brahmin family in Mysore, India. Graduated with a degree in electrical engineering from National Institute of Engineering, University of Mysorein 1967, he received his master degree from IIT Kanpur in 1963. He joined IIM Ahmedabad as chief systems programmer after his Masters degree. At IIM he worked on a time sharing system and designed and implemented a basic inetrpreter for Electronics Corporation of India Limited. Then he has worked for Patni Computer Systems in Pune. At Tata Engineering and Locomotive Co.Ltd he met his wife Sudha Murthy. Mr. Murthy is the brother-in-law of serial entrepreneur Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande and the uncle of former NASSCOM Chairman and Mphasis chief Jerry Rao. Murthy couple moved to Mumbai.
In 1981 with six other software professionals he founded `Infosys`. He has been served as CEO of Infosys for twenty years. Nandan Nilekani, the co-founder of Infosys succeeded Murthy in 2002. he is a member of the Board of Directors of INSEAD, Board of Overseers of the University of Pennsylvania`s Wharton School, Cornell University Board of Trustees, Singapore Management University Board of Trustees and the Board of Advisors for the William F. Achtmeyer Center for Global Leadership at the Tuck School of Business. He is the chairman of the governing body of both the International Institute of Information Technology - Bangalore, and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Mr. Murthy likewise sits on the Board of Governors of the renowned "Harvard Business School of the East" --- the Asian Institute of Management (AIM), a premier graduate school of business located in the Philippines; one of only two business schools in Asia to be internationally recognized with both AACSB and EQUIS accreditations.
The recipient of numerous awards and honors Narayana murthy in 2000 was awarded a civilian award by the Government of India, the `Padma Shri`. The first recipient of the Indo-French Forum Medal in 2003 by the Indo-French Forum. The award was given in recognition of his role in promoting Indo-French ties. He was voted the World Entrepreneur of the Year - 2003 by Ernst & Young. He was one of the two people named as Asia`s Businessmen of the Year for 2003 by Fortune magazine. In 2001, he was named by TIME / CNN as one of the twenty-five, most influential global executives, a group selected for their lasting influence in creating new industries and reshaping markets. The Max Schmidheiny Liberty 2001 prize was given to Murthy in recognition of his promotion of individual responsibility and liberty. Leading magazine `Business Week` named him as one of the nine entrepreneurs of the year and also featured him in Business Week`s `The Stars of Aia` for three successive years 1998, 1999 and 2000. In 1998, the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, one of the premier institutes of higher learning in India and his former institute, conferred on him the Distinguished Alumnus Award, and in 1996-97, he was awarded the JRD Tata Corporate Leadership Award.
N.R. Narayana Murthy""1In a global study conducted by Burson-Marsteller with the Economist Intelligence Unit in December 2005, Narayana Murthy was voted as the seventh most amired CEO/Chaiman in the world with 14 other renowned name like Bill gates, Steve Jobs and Warrwn Buffett. In May 2006, Narayana Murthy has, for the fifth year running, emerged the most admired business leader of India in a study conducted by Brand-comm, a leading Brand Consulting, Advertising and PR firm. `The Economist`, an English language weekly news and international affairs publication, ranked him 8th among the top 15 most admired global leaders (2005). He was ranked 28th among the world`s most-respected business leaders by the Financial Times (2005). He topped the Economic Times Corporate Dossier list of India`s most powerful CEOs for two consecutive years - 2004 and 2005.
Today, customers, employees, investors and the general public as a highly respected, dynamic and innovative company acknowledge Infosys. In March 1999, Infosys Technologies became the first India-registered company to be listed on an American stock exchange. He says perhaps we are the only nation in the world were people fight to be called backward rather than forward. Therefore we should thank him for bringing India on the world`s IT map and providing jobs to thousands. To him "Performance leads to recognition. Recognition brings respect. Respect enhances power. Humility and grace in one`s moments of power enhances dignity of an organisation,"

Dr. Abraham M. George

2009-08-29T23:24:00.000-07:00

Dr. Abraham M. George was a born in Trivandrum,Kerala.His parents were Mathew and Aleyamma George. At the age of 14 he got admitted to prestigious National Defence Academy in Khadakwasla.He passed as a Second-Lieutenant in a medium artillery regiment of the Indian Army in the year in 1966 and was posted to North-East Frontier that borders China.
After 10 months Goerge was injured due to a dynamite explosion and was advised for rest.After returning from rest he was transferred to Indo-Pak border.After two years he got promotion and he was made Captain. Abraham M. George described about his army life: "There is, I suppose, some stage in each one`s life that has a greater impact on his future than all others. For me, it was these army experiences that helped shape much of my outlook on life.while he was serving as a caption of Indian Army he started suffering from hearing problem.He took medical leave from Indian Army moved to United States for a special surgery.
Dr. Abraham M. George""1At that time his mother was in America and working for NASA as a research scientist.She was also teaching physics in various university.He started new life there and began study again. George got admitted to New York University`s Stern S chool of Business as a graduate student. After few years he became the the citizen of United States. He did his masters in developmental economics and finance.He tried to join World Bank but he was not successful.Then he did his Ph.d and started teaching in various Universities.Later he joined Chemical Bank( this bank is now associated with JP Morgan Chase Bank) as an officer.After serving two years here he decided to start his own business. He established his own company, Multinational Computer Models Inc (MCM).
This company sold computerized financial systems to big multinational company.The system protect those company from international financial risks.Later MCM was associated with Credit Suisse First Boston where George was the Chief financial adviser and Managing Director .In 1998 George sold MCM to SunGard Data Systems. In the early part of 1995 George came back to India after a long time.In India he observed and also came to know from various media about the the injustices and inequalities of Indian society.He also noticed and realized the cause of poverty, illiteracy ,health problem and the poor condition of women in India.He devoted himself in various charitabe works.He founded a non-profit charitable trust named The George Foundation,based in Bangalore.The objective this foundation is to work for various problems of the poor and illeterate people in Indian society.
This foundation has started many projects in poverty eradication,spreading education, health, empowerment of women, press freedom, and other major works for the underprivileged people.This foundation is associated with TGF mission which is working for the promotion of democratic institutions and values. For this work he got several acclaim from the famous people around the world. Pulitzer Prize winner famous writer Thomas Friedman of the New York Times remarked his book, The World is Flat, "We must have more Abraham Georges - everywhere - by the thousands." Abraham George established the Indian Institute of Journalism & New Media, Bangalore where he is the dean.He is working on environmental health problems and giving his full effort to remove Lead and Gasoline and for that he also set up the National Referral Centre for Lead Poisoning in India in 2000. Dr. George is currently the Chairman at eMedexOnline LLC, a medical diagnostic software company in the U.S.
As he is a genius in international finance he wrote many books on this subjects including ,International Finance Handbook (2 volumes) published by John Wiley & Sons ,Foreign Book by Dr. Abraham M. George""1exchange Management and the Multinational Corporation,published by Holt, Reinhart and Winston and Protecting Shareholder Value: International Financial Risk Management,published by Prentice Hall.
So far George has written two books on injustices and inequalities of India.One is India Untouched: The Forgotten Face of Rural Poverty, Writer`s Collective and another is Lead Poisoning Prevention and Treatment: Implementing a National Program in Developing Countries.
Apart from that he also penned three dozen articles in international finance and on issues related to global poverty.
He got several awards including ,NYU Stern School of Business` Stewart Satter Social Entrepreneurship Award, USA, Spirit of India Award, America India Foundation, USA,Hind Ratna Award, Non-Resident Indian Association, Delhi,Millennium Awards, Indian American Kerala Cultural and Civic Center, USA.

AMARTYA SEN, INDIAN ECONOMIST, NOBEL PRIZE WINNER

2009-07-29T00:26:00.000-07:00

Amartya Sen""1Amartya Kumar Sen, an Indian economist and a winner of the Nobel Prize was born on 3rd November 1933 in Santiniketan, Westbengal. Santiniketan the University town established by the poet Rabindranath Tagore, another Indian Nobel Prize winner. His ancestral home was in Wari, Dhaka in modern-day Bangladesh. His family migrated to India following partition in 1947. Rabindranath Tagore is said to have given Amartya Sen his name "Amartya" meaning "immortal". Sen`s maternal grandfather Ksitimohan Sen was a renowned scholar of medieval Indian literature. Amartya Sen was born to professor father Ashutosh Sen, who taught Chemistry at Dhaka University and mother Amita Sen. Indian writer and scholar Nabaneeta Dev Sen was his first wife with whom he had two children Antara and Nandana. Antara is renowend Indian journalist and Nandana is a bollywood actress. But their marriage broke up after they moved to London in 1971. Eva Colorni was his second wife with whom he had two children, Indrani and Kabir. Indrani is a journalist in New York and Kabir teaches P.E in the Boston area. Eva died from stomach cancer in 1985. An economic historian, an expert on Adam smith and Fellow of King`s College, Cambridge The Hon. Emma Georgina Rothschild is his present wife. St Gregory`s School in Dhaka in modern-day Bangladesh was Amartya Sen`s high-school. Before moving to Trinity College, Cambridge Sen studied in India at the school system of Visva-Bharati University and Presidency College, Kolkata, where he earned a First Class BA in 1953. At Trinity College he received B.A in 1956 and then a Ph.D. in 1959. He was also allowed four years to immerse himself in philosophical issues during his stay at Trinity College.

He has taught economics at University of Calcutta, Jadavpur University, Delhi, Oxford where he was first a Professor of Economics at Nuffield College and then the Drummond Professor of Political Economy and a Fellow of All Souls College, London School of Economics, Harvard and was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1998 to 2004. In January 2004 Sen returned to Harvard. He is also a contributor to the Eva Colorni Trust at the former London Guildhall University.

Amartya Sen in 1998 for his work on famine, human development theory, welfare economics, the underlying mechanisms of poverty and political liberalism won the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences i.e. Nobel Prize for Economics. He became the first Asian academic to head an Oxbridge college. Among his many contributions to development economics, Sen has produced work on gender inequality. He is currently the Lamont University Professor at Harvard University. Amartya Sen`s books have been translated into more than thirty languages. He is a trustee of the Economists for Peace and Security.

SIR C V RAMAN

2009-02-11T07:50:00.000-08:00

SIR C V RAMAN

( 1888 - 1970 )

C.V.Raman is the first Nobel Scientist of India. He won Nobel Prize in 1930 in physics for his discovery “Raman Effect”.

Chandrashekara Venkata Raman was born on November 7, 1888 at Tiruchinapalli. He was the son of college teacher. He did his M.A. at Presidency college in Chennai. He took up an administrative job in the Finance Ministry in Kolkatta. His interest in science made him to become a member of the Indian Institute for cultivation of science.

He studied acoustics. He went to London on a lecture tour. On his return journey he was fascinated by the blueness of the sky and sea. He questioned himself why were they blue. He found and concluded that the blueness was due to the scattering of light by water molecules. He wished to prove his theory. He did research in optics. In 1924 he was elected FRS. London for his contribution to optics.

He discovered the scattering of light and later it was named Raman effect. This was discovered on 28 February 1928. He was awarded Nobel Prize. In 1943 he founded his own institute in Bangalore, the Raman Research Institute. He continued his research till his death on November 20, 1970. He worked earlier in Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

The Raman effect is important in understanding the molecular structure of chemical compounds. It is the Phenomenon that causes changes in nature of light when it is passed through a transparent medium whether solid, liquid or gaseous.

February 28, annually is being celebrated as National Science day in India.

ALESSANDRO VOLTA

2009-02-11T07:31:00.001-08:00

ALESSANDRO
VOLTA
(1745-1827)

The Italian physicist Alessandro Volta (1745-1827) introduced something new. He found, in 1800, that two metals (separated by solutions capable of conducting an electric charge) could be so arranged that new charge was created as fast as the old charge was carried off along a conducting wire. He had invented the first electric battery and produced an electric current.
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).

LUDWIG BOLTZMAN

2009-02-11T07:25:00.000-08:00

LUDWIG BOLTZMAN
( 1844 - 1906 )

The Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann (1844-1906) had analyzed the behavior of gases on the assumption that they were an assemblage of a vast number of randomly moving particles (the kinetic theory of gases). They were able to derive Boyle's law on this basis, provided they made two further assumptions;
that there were no attractive forces between gas molecules.
that the gas molecules were of zero size.
Gases that fulfill these assumptions are perfect gases.
Neither assumption is quite correct. There are small attractions between gas molecules, and though these molecules are exceedingly small, their size is not zero. No actual gas is quite "perfect", therefore, although hydrogen and the later-discovered helium come close.

MADAM CURIE

2009-02-11T07:21:00.000-08:00

MADAM CURIE

( 1867 - 1934 )

A lady scientist Marie Curie who discovered Radium was born at Warsaw in Poland. Her name was Marie-Sklodowska. She married Pierre Curie who was also a scientist and became famous as Madam Curie.

Madam Curie was fortunate. Both her parents were teachers. Her childhood was spent in studies and at 16. She came out of highschool with a gold medal. In 1891 she went to Paris and obtained science degree from Sakhan university. There she fell in love with Pierre and they got married.

Madam curie started her carrer in science with Prof.Henri Becquerel, the discoverer of radio activity. Both husband and wife did research. Their mutual interest was in magnetism. After Becquerel discovered that Uranium salts emitted rays that resembled X-rays, the Curies set out to discover whether there were other substances that emitted such rays. They finally managed to isolate the radium metal in 1910. to do this research the Curie couple requested the government of Bohomia to donate 10,000 kgs. Of uranium pitchblende free of cost. It was found in plenty there. They gotit free of cost. For months together the couple did a lot of hard work to extract radium from it. For this work Marie Curie, Pierre Curie and Becquerel received the Nobel prizefor physics in 1903.

In 1911 Madam Curie wa awarded the Nobel prize in chemistry for her work on the isolation of radium and polonium and for the study of the chemical properties of these elements.

Soon after the discovery, radium was found effective in the treatment of cancer. The Curies had a daughter and she was Irene curie who married Fredric Juliot. Both Irene and Juliot were scientist and they were awended Nobel Prize in 1935 for chemistry. They synthesized artificial radio active substances.

In 1906 Pierre died in a road accident. Marie Curie established Curie Insitute of Radium. An element ‘Curium’ is named after her and a unit of radio activity ‘Curie’ have been named in her honour.

Throughout her life Marie Curie was exposed to radio active substances. She died of leukemia and blood cancer on July 4, 1934.

The life of Marie and Pierre Curie shows how they were devoted to science. The entire Curie family worked for the benefit of mankind.

JONS JAKOBS BERZELIUS

2009-02-11T07:16:00.000-08:00

JONS JAKOBS
BERZELIUS
(1779-1848)

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.

KANADA

2009-02-11T07:15:00.000-08:00

KANADA

( 600 B.C.)

Vaisesika Sutras are a blend of science, philosophy and religion. These sutras or Aphorisms were propounded by the Indian scientist Kanada.

The essence of these Sutras is the atomic theory of matter.

Kanada said: “Everything is made up of ‘Paramanu’. When matter is divided, then further divided, till further no division is possible, the remaining indivisible entity is Paramanu. This does not exist in a free state nor can it be sensed through any human organ. It is indestructible.” Paramanu is atom. The name is given by Kanada.

Kanada, the scientist identified different or a variety of Paramanus. He said that each paramanu has a specific property which is same as the class of substance to which it belongs to. This peculiar property has made to be called vaisesika sutra.

He also discovered : If two paramanu belonging to one class of substance combined a devinuka is produced. This devinuka or binary molecule has the properties similar to those of the two original paramanu.

Paramanu or atom belonging to different classes of substance could also combine in large numbers., “because of the peculiarily or speciality of paramanu all things seen in the world are formed” he said.

Heat is the root cause for a change. When you heat a substance there will be a change. Due to heat mango ripens. Due to heat the earthen pot blackens. Due to heat water boils. So Kanada claimed that heat was responsible for any change.

Kanada was a saint. He was in a hermitage. National Aeronautical Laboratory in Bangalore runs a science magazine in Kanada’s name. The magazine is Kanada.

JOSEPH LISTER

2009-02-11T07:13:00.000-08:00

JOSEPH LISTER

( 1827 - 1912)

Lord Joseph Lister was a British surgeon. He received his medical degree from university college, London. He was professor of surgery at Edinburg and later at King’s college hospital.

Lister studied Louis Pasteur’s work on micro organisms in fermentation process and thought that minute germs also cause infections. He developed techniques of antisceptic surgery. He developed techniques of antisceptic surgery. He established the British Institute of preventive medicine in 1893. It was called Lister institute after his death in 1912.

Lister involved Carbolic acid dressings, cleansing instruments and ligatures in carbolic solutions. Carbolic acid or phenol is a disinfectant that prevent all the post operative problems of infection.

Lister was the first physician to be elevated to the House of Lords. The honour was bestowed upon him by Queen Victoria. She was a patient of Lister earlier.

JOHN DALTON

2009-02-11T06:24:00.000-08:00

JOHN DALTON
(1766-1844)

An English chemist, John Dalton (1766-1844), went through this chain of reasoning. In this, he was greatly aided by a discovery he made. Two elements, he found, might, after all, combine in more than one set of proportions, but in so doing they exhibited a wide variation of combining proportions and different compound was formed for each variation

JOHN NAPIER

2009-02-11T06:21:00.000-08:00

JOHN NAPIER

( 1550 - 1617 )

Today we are all living in computer age. Logarithms are not much in vogue. But at one time even in 20th century for difficult mathematical calculations logarithms were the base. The concept of Logarithms was introduced by the British mathematician John Napier.

Napier was born in 1550 at Merchiston castle near Edinburgh. He entered the university of St.Andrews at the age of 13. But he left it early without obtaining a degree. He returned to his native after he traveled abroad. He married in 1572 but his wife died in 1579. Again he married.

In 1593 he wrote a book on the Church of Rome. In the book he had boldly said that the Popes of Church would destroy the world between 1688 and 1700. The book saw twenty one editions of which ten editions were sold during his life time.

He invented Napier Rod an instrument used for addition, subtraction and calculating, square roots. In 1593 he started working on logarithms. He prepared tables of natural logarithms; that is, logarithms to base ‘e’. These were later modified by Henry Briggs by using the number 10 as the base.

Napier did research on trigonometry. He contributed to the development of spherical trigonometry.

Description of Marvelons Canon of Logarithms (1614) and construction of the Marvelons Canon of logarithms (1620) are the two treatises published by Napier. Logarithm tables help students a method for speedy calculation.

Napier died on 4 April 1617 in his native place.

JAMES CHADURICK

2009-02-11T05:43:00.000-08:00

JAMES CHADURICK

(1891 - 1974)

Chadurick was the discoverer of Neutron. He found that when Beryllium was exposed to bombardment by Alpha particles, it released an unknown radiation. He interpreted this radiation as being composed of particles of mass approximately equal to that of the PROTON but having no charge, he called neutrons. Chadurick was a British physicist. He won Nobel prize in physics for his discovery of the NEUTRON in 1935.

The study of neutrons led the discovery of Nuclear Fission and the first Nuclear reactor.

Neutron is an elementrary particle that is a part of the atoms of all elements except normal hydrogen. It is present in the nucleus of the atom along with other particle Proton.

Reactor is an assembly in which nuclear Fission can be carried out in a controlled manner.

CARL WILLIAM SCHEELE

2009-02-10T20:24:00.000-08:00

CARL WILLIAM SCHEELE
( 1742 - 1786)

Swedish scientist, self-educated. He used to work as an assistant in pharmacies and showed a talent in chemistry from a very young age. In spite an offer made to him to study in London or Berlin, he operated a pharmacy in kipping where he spend the rest of his life and made all his important inventions. He was especially interest on chemical analysis and worked particularly with the chemical reactions between silver nitrate and sunlight, therefore making a break through in the chemistry of photography. The records from his experiments were of a great importance for the next generations of scientists.

UGLICHNO MARCONI

2009-02-10T20:22:00.000-08:00

UGLICHNO MARCONI

( 1874 - 1937)

Marconi is the inventor of wireless telegraphy and radio. He was born at Bologna in Italy on 25 April 1874. He was encouraged by his mother to do research. Marconi was conducting experiments in his father’s estate after he studied physics in a technical school. He showed interest in sending telegraphic messages without the help of wire. He had come to understand that Heirich Hertz had believed that radio waves could be used to carry messages. Marconi sent wireless messages. He positioned an electric bell in between many instruments in one corner of the room. He went to the other corner of the room and pressed the Morse Key. (Samuel Morse. The inventor of telegraphy). To his surprise the electric bell placed at a distance of 30 feet rang. The ringing of the bell with the radio waves was possible. In an another instance, he placed his self made transmitter on one side of a hill and received the message on the other side. This experiment made him to send messages to long distance also. By 1897 he had succeeded in rado communication over a distance 20 kilometres. He established the Marconi company in 1897. In 1899, He transmitted a radio signal across the English channel a distance of nearly 50 kilometres.

Marconi’s invention made radio broadcasting to begin in England on 14th February 1922. Radio is the term applied to methods of signaling through space, without connecting wires, by means of electromagnetic waves generated by high frequency alternating current.

Marconi was made the president of the Royal Italian Academy in 1930. Several changes took place in radio communication after its invention by Marconi. He lived to see all of them. He died on 20 July, 1937 in Rome. In 1909 Marconi received the Nobel Prize for his invention.

HOMI JEHANGHIR BHABHA

2009-02-10T20:20:00.000-08:00

HOMI JEHANGHIR BHABHA

(1909 - 1966 )

Famous Indian scientist who was instrumental in establishing the Atomic Energy commission in India. Bhabha was born on October 30, 1909 into a wealthy Parsi family. Even as a child he showed interest in science. His father wanted bhabha to become an engineer and sent him abroad for higher studies. But bhabha’s interest like Enrico Fermi and the Austrian Physicist Wolfgang Pauli.

Bhabha made research on cosmic rays. He joined the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Cosmic rays are fast moving, extremely small particles coming from outer space. They were detected first by V.F.Fless in 1912. Cosmic rays are atomic nuclei accelerated to very high energies. They are highly penetrating. When these rays enter the earth’s atmosphere they collide with the atoms in the air and produce showers of electrons. Along with W.Heitler, a German physicist Bhabha solved the mystery surrounding these rays. Bhabha recognized the presence of a new nuclear particle in the showers which he called ‘meson’. In 1940 he retuned to India from England as second world war broke. He was elected fellow of the royal society for his contributions relating to cosmic rays and quantum mechanics.

Due to the concerted efforts of Bhabha Tata institute of fundamental research was set up. He set up this institute with the encouragement of the then. Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru a prestigious centre for research in nuclear physics which later came to be known as the Bhabha Atomic research centre. Bhabha’s interest was to make India, a nuclear powered country. Under his guidance three atomic reactors Apsara, Cirus and Zerlina were built. He was also responsible for the construction of the country’s first atomic poer station at Tarapur. The station began in 1963. Two years later a plutonium plant was installed. He also encouraged research electronics, space science, radio astronomy and microbiology. The radio telescope at Ooty is one of his creations. He was of the attitude tha atom is for peace. He was one of the eminent members of the ‘atom for peace’ conference. It is on 24 January 1966 Bhabha died in an aircrash on his way to attend an international conference. He was 57.

Bhabha was a person of varied interests. He spend his spare time painting and writing poetry. He was fond of western classical music. He was a first class painter. His pencil sketches are famous. Few paintings of Bhabha are still preserved in British art galleries.

Homi Bhabha was a bachelor. He was once asked if he was married. ‘Yes’ he replied and then siling he added, ‘to creativity.’

HIPPOCRATES

2009-02-10T20:17:00.000-08:00

HIPPOCRATES (B.C.)

Today the doctors who came out of the universities take an oath that they serve mankind. The oath they take is in the name of Hippocrates, the father of Medicine. The oath runs as follows:
“Into whatever houses I enter, I enter to help the sick; If anyone shows interest in learning this process of treatment for implementation I shall offer guidance free of cost. My education is law abiding.”

Hippocrates was born on the Greek Island of COS. He was the son of a priest. In those days the Greeks believed that the people suffered from diseases because of the displeasure of Gods and the sick people had to go to the temple and accept ointment and medicines from the priests only. Hippocrates when he was brought up did not believe in this mode of healing of the patients. He believed only in the facts ascertained by experiments and observations in treating patients suffering from diseases. He said:”diseases are not God sent to be taken back by Gods”. He also said that every disease had its own explanatory cause and if this element of physical cause of the disease is detected they may be treated to cure it. Nothing is achieved by sleeping in temples and offering prayers.

According to Hippocrates nature is the best healer. In the treatment of disease nature plays an important role. In the maintenance of good health he advocated these facts namely (1) Creation of healthy or sick free atmosphere (2) Development of personal or individual habits.

Hippocrates depended upon hydro therapy. He used a mixture of hot and cold waters for the treatment of fever, wounds etc., He demonstrated as to how cold water bath would give comfort to man, retaining the body temperature also. He preferred Sub bath for TB patients. He said to them to drink fresh and good milk.

Hippocrates became successful because of his scientific approach. Experimentation, observation and inference. He detected the causes and the symptoms of the disease he cured. He told doctors to examine the patients carefully and note down the symptoms of the diseases and begin the treatment.

Hippocrates’s Aphorisms are popular.

WILLIAM GILBERT

2009-02-10T20:04:00.000-08:00

WILLIAM GILBERT
( 1540-1603 )

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.
Centuries later, the English physicist William Gilbert (1540-1603) was able to show that it was not amber alone that acted so, but that a number of other substances as well gained an attracting power when rubbed. About 1600, he suggested that substances of this sort be called "electrics", from the Greek word for amber.
As a result, a substance that gains such a power, through rubbing or otherwise, is said to carry an electric charge, or to contain electricity.

HEINRICH RUDOLPH HERTZ

2009-02-10T20:03:00.001-08:00

HEINRICH RUDOLPH HERTZ

( 1857 - 1894)

Hertz was a German Scientist. He opened the way for the development of radio. Television and RADAR with his discovery of electromagnetic waves.

Hertz was born on 22 February 1857 at Hamberg into a rich family. He studied architecture and mechanical engeneering. But he developed interest in science and research. He worked under Herman Won Helm Holt in Berlin university. He got his degree in 1880. He went to Keel as a teacher where he studied electro magnetism. Manwell had opined that electric and magnetic waves can be transmitted as light waves. Hertz desired to prove this statement. He made transmitters to transmit electro magnetic waves and receivers to receive them. This has helped today’s Radio, TV and Radar.

Hertz used a rapidly oscillating electric spark to produce waves of ultra high frequency. He showed that these waves caused similar electrical oscillations in a distant wire loop. He also showed that light waves and electromagnetic waves were identical thus proving James C.Maxwell’s theoretical conclusions.

Hertz determined the wave length. He confirmed that the speed of electro magnetic waves is equal to the speed of the light waves. It is 300 million metres.

Hertz is the SI unit of frequency of a periodic phenomenon. It is the number of repetitions of a periodic phenomenon per second. It is named after the scientist Heinrich Hertz. The symbol is Hz. Eg: the frequency of aleternating current used in India is 50 Hz.

HARAGOBIND KHURANA

2009-02-10T20:00:00.000-08:00

HARAGOBIND KHURANA

(B.1922)

Haragobind Khurana, the Indian Scientist is the third Indian who won Nobel Prize in the field of physiology and medicine in 1968. He shared it with Robert W.Holley and Marshall W.Nirenberg for interpretation of the genetic code and its function in protein synthesis.

Khurana was born on Jan 2, 1922 at Rajpur in Punjab. He was the son of a village tax collector. The family was illiterate in the entire village. But khurana studied well and passed degree examination from Lahore college. He took post graduate degree in chemistry in 1945 from Punjab university. Then he went to Manchester University for higher studies. He obtained his doctorate degree in 1948. On his return to India, he was disappointed. He could not get a job for many months. He went back to England and worked with Nobel Laureate Sir Alexander Todd at Cambridge University. In 1952 he went to Canada and married the daughter of M.P.Switzerland.

Khurana helped to decipher the Genetic Code by recreating Synthetically each of the 64 possible triplets of DNA (De onyribo nucleic acid) which work in combination as instructions for the protein synthesizing mechanism of the cell. He succeeded in Synthesizing the first wholly artificial gene. It was E.coli or Escherichia coli.

E.Coli is a bacteria that lives in the intestines of human beings and animals. Khorana and his team worked to build a gene of this organism. Piece by Piece they built up the 207 genes of this bacteria. In August 1976, the man made gene was inserted into E.Coli which began to work like the natural gene. Khorana’s achievements made available a technique to change genes and observe the results of those changes.

Khorana is the recipient of many awards. To mention a few he has been given Merch award of the chemical institute of Canada, Gold medal of the professional institute of Canadian public service, Dannie Heineman prize, Lasker foundation award and Louis Horutiz prize.

Khorana has published more than 300 papers on genetic research. He is Padma Bhushan.

HALDANE J.B.S.

2009-02-10T19:56:00.000-08:00

HALDANE J.B.S.

(1892 - 1964 )

Haldane was an English born Indian biologist. He was born on November 5, 1892 at oxford. Even as a child he was different from other children. When he was a two year old he was immitating the faces of various dogs. He was experimenting upon himself. His father was a noted physiologist. He helped his father in experiments. He learnt many languages and read books on various subjects. He was sharp in mathematics which brought him Russell prize at 16. He was taught at Cambridge and at university college in London. He did reaserch in Biochemistry. In 1925 he showed interest in genetics and elected the fellow of Royal Society in 1932. He was made professor of Genetics in University college, London.

He decided to emigrate to India in 1957 and got citizenship in 1961. He didn’t go back to England. He made contributions to several diverse subjects such as medicine, evolution, physiology, genetics, biochemistry, mathematics and cosmology. He estimated the rate of mutation of a human gene. He said that mutation, the sudden change in a gene occurs once for every 50,000 people per generation. He wrote two books titled ‘Enzymes’ (1930) and ‘The causes of Evolution’ (1932). They are scientific classics. His discoveries in biochemistry have been known as laws of enzyme chemistry.

He did research in physiology also. He found how chemicals, CO2 gas, ice cold temperature affect breath. He discovered cure for tetanus and convulsions. His book ‘My friend Mr.Losakey’ is specially written for children.

While in India, he was inspired by Hindu philosophy and the principle of nonviolence. He liked to wear dhoti and kurta. He was appointed a professor at the Indian statistical institute, Kolkata. He was director, Genetics and Biometry laboratory, Bhuvaneshwar. He died of cancer at Bhuvaneshwar at the age of 71. Even at his death bed he was cheerful and wrote a poem ‘Cancer’s a Funny Thing’. He had made research on colour blindness and haemophilia.

John burdon Sanderson Haldane, Popularised science during his life time. He was also a social worker.

VON LIEBIG

2009-02-10T06:08:00.001-08:00

VON LIEBIG
(1803-1873)

German chemist, Justus von Liebig (1803-1873) who, by 1831, could obtain fairly reliable empirical formulas as a result. (Liebig was one of the great chemistry teachers of all time. He taught at the University of Giessen, where he established the first real laboratory course in chemistry. Numerous chemists studied with him and learned laboratory procedures from him. Liebig was one of the influences making chemistry, in which France had been pre-eminent in the eighteenth century, almost a German monopoly in the nineteenth century.) Soon afterward, in 1833, the French chemist Jean Baptiste Andre Dumas (1800-1884) devised a modification of the method, one which allowed the chemist to collect nitrogen also among the products of combustion. In this way one could determine the proportions of nitrogen in an organic substance.

IVAN PETROVICH PAVLOV

2009-02-10T06:02:00.000-08:00

IVAN PETROVICH PAVLOV

( 1849 - 1936)

Pavlov was a Russian physiologist who won the 1904 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine for unraveling the mechanism of the digestive process and his work provided psychology with a more objective methodology and led to new methods of treating mental illness. Using dogs for experiments he established the idea of conditioned reflexes which for example, makes a pre conditioned dog salivate merely on hearing a bell, in expectation of food though it may not be actually there.

Pavlov demonstrated his theory of conditioned reflex in 1901. In 1920 he extended his theory of animal behaviour to human psychology. He invented new techniques in his work. He provided a foundation for modern gas troenterology and behaviourist school of psychology.

HIPPOLYTE BAYARD

2009-02-10T05:56:00.000-08:00

HIPPOLYTE BAYARD
( 1807 - 1887)

The most unfortunate from the pioneers of photography. Discovered one direct positive photographic method. He was the first person to hold a photographic exhibition (for humanitarian reasons) and the first who combined two negatives to created one print (called Combination Printing). As a civil servant and with five hundred franks that received as financial help from Arago for improving his method, prevented him from presenting the discovery of photography at the French Academy of Sciences.

GAY LUSSAC

2009-02-10T05:52:00.000-08:00

GAY LUSSAC

( 1778 - 1850 )

Joseph Louis Gay Lussac was a French chemist and physicist. He stated Gas laws.

Gay Lussac was a physics lecturer at Sorbonne and he became a professor at the Ecole Polytechnique. In 1802 he reformulated Charles Law of thermal expansion of gases.

Charle’s law states that the volume of a given mass of gas at constant pressure is directly proportional to the absolute thermodynamic temperature; equivalently all gases have the same coefficient of expansion at constant pressure.

Gay Lussac’s Law states that when gases react they do so in volume which bear a somple ratio to one another and to the volume of the resulting substances in the gaseous state, all volumes being measured at the same temperature and pressure. That is the gases combine chemically in simple proportions by volume.

Gay Lussac also obtained sodium and potassium in 1808 and 1815. He was the first to obtain an acid without oxygen or anhydrous prussic acid. He developed new methods of volumetric analysis.

Jean Baptiste Biot was Gay Lussac’s friend. Both were physicists. They once made a daring balloon flight which took them to more than 7000 metres. At an elevation of about 7016 metres the balloon stopped going high and Gay Lussac threw all kinds of things off from the ballon. It is said that the people who were peasants who saw them believed that the objects were throuwn from heaven.

Gay Lussac proposed the law of combining volumes in 1809 which states that gases form compoiunds with each other in simple, definite proportions which can be expressed by the formula of the compounds.

Eg: Formula for water – H2O shows that it is formed of 2 parts of hydrogen and one of Oxygen.

Gay Lussac also improved processes for making sulphurc and oxalic acid in industry.

GREGOR JOHANN MENDEL

2009-02-10T05:48:00.000-08:00

GREGOR JOHANN MENDEL

(1822 - 1884)

Mendal was the father of modern genetics. He was an Austrian monk. He studied science at Vienna University. He taught natural sciences at the monastery school at Brunn (Bruno in Czech). It was a technical high school.

Mendal was fond of nature. He loved flora and fauna. He cross bred different varieties of Pea Plants and studied different characteristics like colour, height and seed shape. He observed that each characteristic was passed on to the next generation independently of the other characteristics and various characteristics in the parent plants recombined randomly in their off springs. He conducted breeding experiments for about nine years to explain the mechanism of inheritance. This led him to formulate his laws. According to him the individual characteristics are determined by inherited factors which are governed by two laws namely the Law of Seggregation and the Law of Independent Assortment.

Law of Seggregation says that each hereditary characteristic is controlled by two factors which separate and pass into separate reproductive cells. Their individualities are maintained.

Law of independent assortment states that pairs of factors separate independently of each other when reproductive cells are formed.

The factors regarded for the expression of special nature have been identified as genes. The genes are transferred from the parents to their children during reproduction. There may be few exceptions. That is they differ in some respect or the other which is called variation. Both the genetics and variation are the basis for the evolution of the species.

Mendel presented his work at the meeting of Brunn Natural Science Society in 1865. But this was not much attended at that time. However his work was rediscovered in 1901. Mendel spent his last few years of his life experimenting with bees. He had the Apiary surrounding the monastery. He died in the year 1884.

WILLIAM HENRY FOX TALBOT

2009-02-10T05:13:00.000-08:00

WILLIAM HENRY
FOX TALBOT
( 1800 - 1877)

Professor of literature, egyptologist, mathematician, classicist, physicist, transcriber of chaldean cuneiform texts, who with his inventions on photography created the foundations for the development of this art and science for the next one hundred and fifty years. After a trip to Italy, where he used camera lucida for complicated designs, decided to discover a more practical and easy way to record images. He succeeded quite early, in 1835 by creating the first negative. His greatest discovery the negative process, minimizes exposure time considerably compared to passed methods. With the help and guidance of his friend Herschel achieves extraordinary results, which announces on January 1839 at the Royal Society and since then English and French argue on who first announced the discovery of photography.

SIR FREDRICK GRANT BANTING

2009-02-10T05:12:00.000-08:00

SIR FREDRICK GRANT BANTING

( 1891 - 1941 )

Banting was the Canadian physician. He was a medicinal scientist. He extracted the insulin hormone from the Pancreas. Insulin is a protein hormone which is produced by the islets of Langerhans of the Pancreas. It is widely used in the treatment of diabetes mellitus. Banting’s research made it possible to prolong the lives of the victims of diabetes. Otherwise they were facing death as the level of glucose accumulation in the blood stream was to be higher. Banting isolated insulin in a fantastic way. His assistant was Best. Both tied the Pancreatic duets of several dogs for a period of seven weeks, after which the Pancreas crumbled up and were functionless as digestive organs. The is bets of Langerhans remained intact and a solution was extracted from these cells. Banting and Best did their work in the laboratory of John J.R. Macleod at the university of Toronto. Macleod didn’t participate in the work. But still Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine was awarded to both in 1923. They shared where as Best didn’t get anything. But Banting sent half of the award amount to his assistant charles H. Best. They demonstrated the role of insulin in controlling the blood sugar levels. Insulin injection results promptly in decline in blood glucose concentration and an increase in formation of products derived from glucose.

Banting died in 1941.

FREDRICK WOHLER

2009-02-10T05:09:00.000-08:00

FREDRICK WOHLER

(1800 - 1882)

German chemist Fredrick Wohler was the first to synthesize an organic compound ureas, from an inorganic chemical. The synthesis destroyed the belief that organic substances could only be formed in living plants or animals.

Wohler was born in July 1800 in a tiny village near Frank Fortommaine. His father guided him well. Wholer showed keen interst in chemistry. He did many experiments using voltaic cells. He joined Marberg university to study medicine at 20. he examined the impure objects produced in the human body to turn out as urine. He got his medical degree from Hidelberg University. But he did research in chemistry as per the suggestion made by his chemistry professor. He went to Stockholm and worked under chemist Bezelius. He made a compound silver cyanate using nitrogen, carbon, oxygen and silver. Wohler found another scientist Justace Livebig who made the same compound whose formula remained same. But these two same compounds had different properties and behaving differently. These two scientists became close friends.

Wohler made potassium cyanate and when it was mixed with ammonium sulphate needle shaped urea or ammonium cyanate crystals were produced. This was a new discovery. Till such time no such organic chemical was made. It was a mile stone in the development of science.

Wohler also developed a process for preparing metallic aluminium, and isolated beryllium and yttrium. He died in 1882.

HERCULES FLORENCE

2009-02-10T05:06:00.000-08:00

HERCULES

FLORENCE

( 1804 - 1879)

Few details are known for his life. In 1824 goes to Brazil and takes part in a scientific mission at the Amazon, whre he becomes preoccupied with the idea of recording images from his trip. From 1830 devotes himself to research and experimentation for photography. The above gives Brazil the ability to claim that is one of the places in the world, where photography was found.

EUCLID

2009-02-10T05:04:00.000-08:00

EUCLID

(300 B.C.)

Euclid is called the father of geometry. He was the Greek Mathematician and wrote the book ‘Elements’ the oldest mathematical work. The first printed version of Elements appeared in 1482 in Latin and the first English translation was published in 1570. It was used as a reference book until 20th century and regarded as a model of logical reasoning. It is understood that Euclid was educated in plato’s academy. He is supposed to have been taught in Alexandria.

‘Elements’ is a set of thirteen valumes which contain information about point, lines, circles, triangles, ratio and proportions, solid geometry and geometrical figures like sphere, pyramid etc., Euclidian geometry have become famous all over the world.

Euclid said, “There is no royal road to learning. In geometry all must go the same away.”

Once Euclid was teaching geometry to students. A student stood up and asked him. “Can you tell me just what is the practical advantage in studying geometry?”

Euclid didn’t answer him. He called his servant and said, “Give this gentleman some money. He cannot learn without money.”

Once few teacher asked Euclid to tell how to measure the height of a great pyramid as there is no way. But Euclid smiled. He measured the length of the Pyramid’s shadow at the precise time when the length of his shadow was exactly equal to his height.

Euclid said that is it impossible to become a theoretical researcher if one does not practice geometry. The other books written by Euclid are data, division of figures, phenomenon, surface, lociprisms, and cones common lessons in music.

In the middle of 19th century new methods different from that of Euclid were introduced and new books were published. They are called non Eucledian methods. David Hilbert was the pioneer of this new method in 1899. Albert Einstein took help from Euclidian geometry to develop his theory of relativity. He said that two events in his youth were important of which one is the study of Euclidian geometry at the age of 12.

ERNEST LORD RUTHERFORD

2009-02-10T05:02:00.000-08:00

ERNEST LORD RUTHERFORD

( 1871 - 1937)

Rutherford gave us the description of an atom. He showed that there is a small part inside an atom. He developed atomic theory resembling description of a solar system. He raid that an atom is composed of a heavy nucleus in the center, with a positive charge of electricity and negatively charged electrons surrounding it.

Rutherfor was born on August 30, 1871 in Newzealand. He was educated in Newzealand and pursued his higher studies at Trinity college, Cambridge University.

He worked under physicist J.J.Thomson. In 1898 he became the professor of physic at Mc.Gill university in Canada and studied radioactivew disintegration. In Cavendish laboratory he deiscovered that there were different kinds of rays given off by radioactive substances. He called them alpha and beta rays.

He distinguished them and showed that radio activity involved natural transmutation of rado active elements. The alpha rays helped him to decide the structure of an atom. For his work on radio active substances he was awarded the Nobel prize for chemistry in 1908. in 1917 he successfully bombarded nitrogen with alpha particles, changing the atoms to oxygen atoms and he became the first person to change one metal into another. He was appointed Director of the Cavendish laboratory in 1919. Rutherford named hydrogen nucleur ‘Proton’. He was the President of the Royal Society from 1925 to 1930.

He died on 19 October 1937 at Cambridge in England. He was buried in West Minister Abbey. The element Rutherfordium whose atomic number is 104 is named after him in his memory. Rutherford’s conclusion that an atom consist of a small positively charged nuclears became the basis for Wiel’s Bohr’s work on the atomic structure. Wiel’s Bohr and Rutherford were intimate friends.

ENRICO FERMI

2009-02-10T01:07:00.000-08:00

ENRICO FERMI

( 1901 - 1954)

Fermi, the Italian – American Physicist was one of the pioneers of the nuclear age. He was born on 26, September 1901 in Rome. At the age of 21, he obtained his Ph.D. in the fields of X-rays from the university of Pisa. In 1926 he made his first major contribution to physics with his work on the statistical behavious of a monoatomic gas, later called Fermi gas. In 1927 he was appointed as a lecturer of physics in Rome University. Ten years of research he discovered that when a element is bombarded by a slow moving neutron, it becomes adioactive and starts emitting radiations. The result is, one element charges into another element. In 1933 he discovered a neutral particle called neutrino. He produced eightly new artificial nuclei by neutron bombardment.

Fermi went to USA on an invitation to speak at Columbia University. Thereafter he remained there only. In 1938 he was awarded Nobel Prize in Physics. He became a professor in the Columbia University in 1939 and a US citizen in 1944. he designed the first nuclear reactor in Chicago. The reactor generated the energy by nuclear fission. He was instrumental in developing of an atombomb during the second world war.

Fermi joined Chicago University after second world war. The institute of nuclear studies there was name after him. In 1944 – 45 he had served as Associate Director of the Los Alamos Laboraory in New Mexico. He received the medal of merit in 1946. He was the recipient of the first annual award of the Atomic energy commission in 1954. 100th element fermium was named after him. An award called Fermi award was instituted in his honour and is awarded for outstanding work in Science in America.

Fermi died on 28 Nov, 1954 in Chicago.

EDWARD JENNER

2009-02-10T01:04:00.000-08:00

EDWARD JENNER

(1749 – 1823)

Today we have number of life saving Vaccines for several diseases. These vaccines are produced on Jenner’s theory. Edward Jenner was a British Physician who established the practice of vaccination. He is the discoverer of small pox Vacination. Small pox is fully eradicated. This was a dreadful disease 250 years ago. Usually people suffering from it died. Those who survived would have become ugly or blind. Jenner found vaccination for prevention of small pox.

Jenner was born on May 17, 1749 at Berkely. He studied medical science, while he under went training under a surgeon, he observed in 1766 milk maids once ‘infected with cow pox developed a life long immunity to small pox. Cow pox is a disease of cows. One who milks a cow suffering from this disease can get it. After completing his training Jenner began his medical practice in 1773. he ascertained that cow pox protects from small pox only when cow pox is introduced at a particular stage. In may 1796, he inoculated an 8 year old boy with fulid from cowpox listers. Two months later, he inoculated the boy with live active small pox virus but the disease did not follow. Nobody took Jenner’s experiment seriously. Few practioners believed that cowpox and small pox were two different diseases some people made adverse remarks stating that injecting a fluid from a cow into the human blood is a dreadful act. But Jenner ignored them. Actually, Jenner’s was the first successful immunizing procedure against any disease. Jenner won world wide admiration for his discovery. He was awarded by British parliament. He also made further discoveries about animals. But he devoted his whole life on fighting against small pox.

Jenner died in 1823 at Berkely, until 1881, the cow pox vaccine was the only inoculating material available. To day innumerable vaccines have been developed and they are being made effective. The principle of vaccine has been extended to prevent fertility.

AMEDEO AVOGARO

2009-02-10T00:46:00.000-08:00

AMEDEO
AVOGADRO
(1776 - 1856 )
Amedeo Avogadro was an Italian scientist born in the Kingdom of Sardinia ad Piedmont, most noted for his contributions to the theory of molarity and molecular weight. He was born on August 9, 1776. The number of molecules in one mole is called Avogadro’s number is honor of him, as is Avogadro’s law.

Avogadro’s law implies that the relationship occurring between the weights of same volumes of different gases (at the same temperature and pressure) corresponds to the relationship between respective molecular weights. Hence, relative molecular masses can be calculated from the masses of gas samples.

Avogadro developed this hypothesis after Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac had published in 1808 his law on volumes (and combining gases). The greatest difficulty Avogadro had to resolve was the huge confusion at theat time regarding atoms and molecules ? one of most important contributions of Avogadro’s work was clearly distinguishing one from the other, admitting that simple particules too could be composed of molecules, and that these are composed of atoms.

In 1820 he became a professor of Turin’s university. With suspicious enthusiasm, he took part in political revolutionary movements of 1821 (against the king of Sardinia), so two years later he was removed from his position (or as it was officially declared, the university was very glad to allow this interesting scientist to take a rest from heavy teaching duties, in order to be able to give a better attention to his researches). Well before this, following the increasing attention to lus works, Avogadro had been recalled at Turin university in 1833, where he taught for another twenty years.

In honor of Avogadro’s contributions to the theory of molarity and molecular weights, the numbr of molecules in one mole was renamed Avogadro’s number.

But his own time, Avogadro’s principle was seriously neglected. Historians of science have several theories as to why this should be so, as Avogadro was a respected scientist during his life. But the real reason is probably more prosaic. In the clannish world of scientific discovery, it pays to be at the center of the action. Avogadro was by this time a professor, and chairman, of physical chemistry at the University of Turin. But in Italy far away from the major science centers of England, Germany, France or even Sweden. He never got to rub shoulders with the “great ones” of his day, so his ideas did not receive the credit they deserved.

He was a professor until his retirement at the age of 74. He died on July 9th, 1856.

William Crookes

2009-02-09T07:33:00.001-08:00

WILLIAM CROOKES
1832-1919

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.

The English physicist William Crookes (1832-1919) had devised, by 1875, a still better evacuated tube (a Crookes tube), in which the electric current through a vacuum could more easily be studied. It seemed quite clear that the electric current started at the cathode and traveled to the anode, where it struck the neighboring glass and created the glow of light. Crookes demonstrated this by placing a piece of metal in the tube and showing that it cast a shadow on the glass on the side opposite the cathode. (The electrical experimenters of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, beginning with Benjamin Franklin, had assumed that the current flowed from the concentration arbitrarily named positive to that named negative. Crookes had now shown that, in actual fact, the assumption was wrong and that the flow was from negative to positive.)

CHARLES DARWIN

2009-02-09T07:24:00.000-08:00

CHARLES DARWIN
( 1809 - 1882 )

“Survival of the fittest” and “Struggle for existence” whenever we talk about Charles Darwin we remember these words. Charles Darwin was the British naturalist who laid the foundation of the modern theory of evolution.

Darwin was born at Shrewsburg on Feb 12, 1809. Even as a child he developed a passion for collecting insects and minerals. Though he went to Edinburg university to study medicine it was a great failure. So in 1828 he went to Cambridge to dtudy Theology. But there also he neglected studies and spent much of his time in the pursuit of beetles. However he got the degree in 1831. There was a call for a naturalist who could accompany a scientific expedition. It was planned to sail around the world in the ship HMS Beagle. Darwin got it. He made a good lot of collections of bones of extinct animals and also that of the existing. He studied the difference between the two. This helped him to get a clear picture on evolution. He wrote an account of his travels sitting in London after he returned from voyage. In 1859 he explained his theory of evolution in his famous book “The origin of species by natural selecton.” The book became a popular one. He has said in the book that all the varied form of life on earth could in the course of time, have evolved from a common ancestry. At this juncture he said “Fittest Survive.”

The variation of animals and plants under domestication is second book published in 1868. he had his own typical method of collecting information.

Darwin died on April 19, 1882 and was buried near the tomb of Sir Issac Newton. Darwin had ten children. But seven only survived of which four were scientists and three of them were fellows of the Royal Society. The theory of evolution as proposed by Darwin still holds. In his book “The Descent of Man” he has described the evolution of man from apes.

CHARAKA

2009-02-09T07:21:00.000-08:00

CHARAKA

We know nothing about Charaka as a person. But his studies in the field of physiology, etiology and embryology have been made known. His monumental work “Charaka Samhita” an Ayurvedic treatise has gained popularity. It is believed that Charaka was the son of a sage who walked from place to place to cure the sick. Charaka lived 20 centuries ago.

Charaka says the body functions because it contains three dosha or humours namely bile (pitha), phlegm (Kafa) and wind (Vata). According to him, these doshas are produced when dhatus such as blood, flesh and marron act up on the food eaten. When the balance among the three dosha is disturbed there will be illness. To cure illness he prescribed medicinal drugs.

Charaka studied the anatomy of human body and various organs. He found that there are 360 bones in human body including teeth. He regarded heart as a controlling centre and it is connected to the entire body through 13 main channels. If there is any obstruction in these channels the result is disease. He gave a correct picture about the concept of digestion, metabolism and immunity.

SIR JOHN FREDERICK WILLIAM HERSCHEL

2009-02-09T07:15:00.000-08:00

SIR JOHN FREDERICK
WILLIAM HERSCHEL
(1792 - 1871)

He alone could have offered all that was needed for the invention of photography but this multi talented scientist needed it much less than all the others. He had many talents including drawing very well. In 1819 he had already discovered the ability that “hypo” had to fix the photographic images and he is the one who solved the “fixing” problem of pictures that his friend Talbot had. He was the one who first used the terms “photography” “negative” “positive” and “snapshot”. He was the first to photograph glass negatives and in the end he discovered a different photographic method called cyanotype. His contact with other important scientists of his time in Europe and his new ideas in many scientific fields made him without a doubt the leading figure in the English scientific community.

BRAHMAGUPTA

2009-02-09T07:12:00.000-08:00

BRAHMAGUPTA
( B.598)

Brahmagupta was the Scientist to tell first that it is the nature of the earth to attract bodies as it is the nature of water to flow.

Brahmagupta, the eminent Indian mathematician was born at Bhillamala in Gujrat. He was the court astronomer to King Vyagnramukha of the dynastry.

He first framed the ruler of operation for zero. He founded the numerical analysis. He gave a solution to indeterminate equations like ax2 + 1 = y2. He declared that addition or subtraction of zero to or from any quantity, negative or positive, does not affect it. He concluded that the product of any quantity with zero is zero and division of any quantity by zero is infinity.

24+0=24, 24-0=24 or -24-0=-24, 24x0=0
He solved equations like ax+b=0 and ax2+bx+C+0. He is the first mathematician to treat algebra and arithmetic as two separate branches of mathematics.

Brahmasphutasiddhanta and Karanakhandakhadyaka are the two threatises of Brahmagupta. The former contains chapters on arithmetic and algebra. The latter is a hand book on astronomical calculations.

Brahmagupta was an orthodox. He believed that the earth was round. He effectively used algebra for the first time in calculations.

Bhaskara said Brahmagupta is the gem of the circle of mathematicians.

DMITRI IVANOVICH MENDELEEV

2009-02-09T07:10:00.000-08:00

DMITRI IVANOVICH MENDELEEV
( 1834 - 1907 )

Mendeleev was a Russian Chemist who was the first to propose that the seemingly different chemical elements can be sorted out according to certain similarities in their properties. The arrangement he proposed is called the PERIODIC TABLE. His table proved to be a unifying principle in chemistry and led to the discovery of many new chemical elements.

Mendeleev studied chemistry at the university of St.Petersburg. He became a professor of general chemistry in 1867 after he received his Ph.D in 1865. He participated in the early development of oil fields in Southern Russia. He went to USA in 1876 and studied the petroleum industry there. Then he returned to St.Petersburg and resigned his job at university in 1890 in order to support for a group of student activists in their unrest against conservative academic policies.

Mendeleev wore for most of his life a large and baggy jacket without a belt, made of dark grey cloth, that too being his own creation.

In his table Mendeleev found that if elements are arranged in order of increasing atomic weights, elements with similar physical and chemical Properties occur at periodic intervals.

In the periodic table Mendeleev ordered the elements according to their atomic weights. It is an arrangement of the chemical elements in order of increasing atomic number into vertical columns and horizontal rows in such a way that elements with similar properties occupy the same columns. The vertical columns are known as groups and the horizontal rows are known as periods. The groups in the modern periodic table are numbered from 1 to 18 rather I to VIII and 0 in the old classification.

Mendeleevium is a transuranic chemical element belonging to group 3 (a) Old classification III (b) Its atomic number is 101. This element has been named after Mendeleev.

S. CHANDRASHEKAR

2009-02-09T07:06:00.000-08:00

S. CHANDRASHEKAR
(1910)

Subramanyam Chandrashekar was the third Indian to win the Nobel Prize in science. The others earlier were C.V.Raman and Hargovind Khurana.

S.Chandrashekar was born on October 10, 1910 in Lahore. He studied at Madras. He was a book worm and read many books. He did his B.A. at the Presidency college, Chennai. By that time he had many papers to his credit. He went to Cambridge as fellow of Trinity college. He was in USA at the age of 27 becoming an astrophysicist. Otto Struve, Director of Yerkes observatory and an astronomer offered him a job at the Chicago University.

Chandrashekar worked in yerkes observatory also. He had two students Trung Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang at Chicago.

They wanted Subramanyam as their teacher. In 1997 they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Chandrashekar studied the stars. He is best known for “Chandrashekar’s limit”. The fact is that this imposes a limit on the size of a highly dense star known as the white Dwarf. If this type of star has mass in excess of the limit it explodes to become a very bright star called “super nova”. Until all the excess matter is shed into space. Later it was confirmed that all the white dwarf stars in the sky have masses withing this limit. Chandrashekar calculated his limit based on mathematical equations. He also described the formation of “black holes”.

They are super heavy objects. A spoon of which may weigh several thousands of tons. His work on rotating fluid masses and blueness of the sky is highly commendable.

He got the Noble Prize in physics in 1983. He wrote few books and are found valuable.

JOHANN HEINRICH SCHULZE

2009-02-09T07:01:00.000-08:00

JOHANN HEINRICH SCHULZE
(1687 - 1744)

German professor at the University of Altdorf. With experiments, proved that silver nitrate becomes dark due to sunlight and not by temperature. He is the first that created photograms with paper masks, which unfortunately could not last due to lack of paper fixer. His observations that opened the path, for the creation of photography became know after his death

EDMUND HALLEY

2009-02-09T06:59:00.000-08:00

EDMUND HALLEY
( 1656 - 1742 )

Edmund Halley was a British astronomer and a mathematician. He was noted for his work on comets. Comets are formed by the collection of dust and gas. Halley calculated the orbit of a comet he observed in 1682. He proved that the comet was the same one astronomers had seen in 1531 and in 1607. He also predicted that it would return in 1758. This comet has been named after him. It is a bright, periodic comet; its average orbital speed is 76 years. The comet’s size, activity and favourably placed orbit makes it visible to the naked eye at each apparition. It is the only comet to be observed at close range by as many as three space crafts. Giolto Space craft was launched on 2 July, 1985 to study the Halley’s comet. The space craft traveling at a speed of 68 kil metres per second, passed within 500 km of the comet’s nucleus.

Halley was a contemporary of Issac Newton. Infact he was responsible for the publication of Newton’s famous work ‘prinicipia mathematica’. Halley studied the comets with the help of Newton’s Laws of motion. The unfortunate thing is that Halley didn’t live to see the comet. The same comet made its appearance again in 1986. Halley also produced the first accurate map of the stars visible from the Southern HemiSphere. Halley died in the year 1742.

PRASANTHA CHANDRA MAHALANOBIS

2009-02-08T01:21:00.000-08:00

PRASANTHA CHANDRA
MAHALANOBIS
( 1893 - 1972)

Prasantha Chandra Mahalanobis was born in Calcutta, India on June 29, 1893. As a young boy, Mahalanobis received his education at the Brahmo Boys School in Calcutta. He then went on to the presidency College in Calcutta where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in the field of physics. He then went to England, where he originally intended to study in London, but became so impressed with Cambridge that he decided to join Cambridge University. There he studied mathematics and physics. Because of World War I, his departure was delayed, leading to the meeting that began Mahalanobis' interest in statistics. Mahalanobis was looking around the library at King's College when he was approached by a fellow named Macaulay for his opinion on some volumes of Biometrika, edited by Karl Pearson. Mahalanobis' interest was peaked so much that he bought the entire set of Biometrika that was then published and brought them along with him to India. This was the beginning of a wonderful interest in statistics.
Mahalanobis was the founder of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) in 1931, which was actually started in a room of the Baker Laboratory of the physics department at the Presidency College. He also started a new journal in statistics called Sankhya. He established a division within the ISI called the National Sample Survey (NSS). The NSS grew quickly into an agency noted for its use of continuing sample surveys for the collection of socioeconomic and demographic data that covered the whole country. This division, along with Mahalanobis, played such an incredibly vital role in the creation of the second five-year economic plan in India that the government took over NSS and now it functions as a necessary part of the Ministry of Planning.
Mahalanobis' contributions to statistics are quite numerous. His work could always be associated with some field of application. The Mahalanobis distance, called the D statistic, which is used extensively in classification problems, rose out of his work on anthropometric problems. The Mahalanobis distance is used not to find the physical distance from one object to another, but to find the distance in terms of related characteristics and likelihood of occurrence of the two objects. The Mahalanobis in multivariate analysis, along with the interpenetrating network of samples (IPNS) in sample surveys and fractile graphical analysis have now become part of standard statistical methodology.
Mahalanobis received many awards for his work in India and his work on statistics, but some say that his most prized awards would be the Fellowship of the Royal Society and one of the highest civilian awards in India, the Padma Vibhushan. Mahalanobis was always a very active man and he held many positions of importance throughout his life, many of them simultaneously. Yet he never grew tired of his work.
Mahalanobis had many other interests besides statistics and physical science. He enjoyed studying ancient Indian philosophy and he loved to read Bengali literature. Professor Mahalanobis had over 200 published scientific articles along with many non-technical articles in Bengali and English. P.C. Mahalanobis died on June 28, 1972, on the eve of his seventy-ninth birthday.

JOSEPH NICEPHORE NIEPCE

2009-02-08T01:14:00.000-08:00

JOSEPH NICEPHORE NIEPCE
( 1765 - 1833)

French multi-talented inventor. In 1826, (after trying since 1814), invented the “heliogram” and became the first man ever to fix a print. The “heliogram” as a method was extremely time consuming, since it required long time exposures (his first photgraph needed eight hours of exposure time). In 1829 he sighed a contractual agreement with Daquerre in spite of the fact that the latter developed a photographic method of his own after Niepce died in 1833.

SATYENDRA NATH BOSE

2009-02-08T01:04:00.000-08:00

SATYENDRA NATH BOSE

A renowned Indian scientist. He developed a new branch of physics. He worked with Albert Einstein, Madame Curie and other scientists of world renown. He was a veteran teacher revered by his students for his affection, discipline and methodical work.Some students love mathematics. What are the maximum marks they score in it ? It would be a hundred per cent. We would be surprised to be told that some students have secured more than a hundred per cent, wouldn't we! One such student was Satyendranath Bose. As a student of the fourth standard he set up a new record by scoring 110 marks out of 100. This bright youngster later became a scientist and won worldwide fame. Once the great scientist, Niels Bohr, was delivering a lecture. Bose presided.
The fame of Satyendranath Bose as a brilliant student of physics and mathematics has spread the world over. In India, which is still a developing country, he strove hard for the dissemination of science. In addition, he did significant work in the fields of education, politics, music and literature, too. He has come to be popularly known Satyen Bose (S. N. Bose).
Satyendranath Bose was born on the first of January 1894 in Calcutta. Surendranath was his father. He was employed in the Engineering Department of the East India Railway. Satyendranath was the eldest of his seven children; the rest were all daughters. Though Surendranath Bose lost his wife at an early age, without losing heart, he brought up all his children well. It is said that, when Satyen was hardly three years old, a Bengali astrologer made this prediction: "This child will face many obstacles all through his life;
Satyendranath joined Presidency College of Calcutta for higher studies. The period of his stay in Presidency College may be called a Golden Age. The company of good friends and classmates and the guidance of ideal teachers shaped his future life. Some of the most renowned scientists - Meghnad Saha, Nikhilranjan Bose, J. C. Ghosh, J. N. Mukherjee and Girijapathi Bhattacharya - were his classmates. He came to be acquainted with Netaji Subashchandra Bose also. Sharatchandra Bose was his contemporary. These youths were fortunate in their teachers. Eminent scientists like Jagadishchandra Bose, Prafullachandra Ray and S. N. Maitra were their professors. J. C. Bose taught them physics while P. C. Ray taught chemistry. These great scientists were also great patriots. They inspired their students to understand the real values, of life and to set definite goals before themselves.
He joined Dacca University in 1921 as a reader in Physics. While serving in this post he wrote a short article of just six pages in English. It was an article relating to physics, on 'Max Planck's Law' and 'Light Quantum Hypothesis'. This article was sent to Albert Einstein. He had not only won the Nobel Prize but was one of the world's greatest scientists in the twentieth century. The learned professor read the article. This little article brought about a great change in the life of Satyendranath.
Bose first visited Paris in 1924. He stayed there for a year. He conducted research in the Madame Curie Laboratory, which had special facilities. Here he became acquainted with several physicists. The next year, he left Paris for Berlin to join Einstein and work with him. There he came into close contact with noted scientists like Schroedinger and Heisenberg. He participated in all the meetings and discussions held there. While Bose was in Berlin, the post of a professor fell vacant in Dacca University. J. C. Ghosh and other friends persuaded him to apply for the post. Bose had not yet got his doctorate. It was, therefore, difficult for him to secure the professorship. A recommendation from Albert Einstein to select him would have made things easy for him. So, with great hesitation, Bose approached Einstein. Einstein was surprised. He said, "You are so proficient in you’re subject; is their need for any other certificate or recommendation?"
His eightieth birthday was celebrated in 1974. At the Golden Jubilee celebrations of Quanta Statistics, which was held in the same month, he was felicitated. Within a few days after he completed 80, Bose suffered an unexpected and a severe heart attack. He lay ill for some time and breathed his last on the fourth of February 1974. The death of Bose was a great loss not only to India but also to the whole world and especially to the world of science. Bose left behind his wife, two sons five daughters.Einstein and Madame Curie are among the world's great scientists. Bose worked with them. This it self clearly means that India has definitely secured a high place in the world of science.

SIR HUMPHRY DAVY

2009-02-08T00:54:00.000-08:00

SIR HUMPHRY DAVY

( 1778 - 1829)

Chemistry genius, friend and assistant of Wedgwood in his experiments whose results were published at Royal Society, in 1802 by Davy. The problem of “fixing” the images remained in spite of Davy’s breakthroughs in chemistry

ROGER BACON

2009-02-08T00:37:00.000-08:00

ROGER BACON
( 1214 - 1292 )

Roger Bacon is called the father of modern science. His early studies were in the faculty of arts at Oxford and in early 1240 he went to Paris to teach at the Arts faculty of university of Paris. There he turned his attention to science through the influence of Aristotle.

Roger Bacon’s significant contribution to the philosophy of science was his explanation about the role of experience and experiment in conforming or refuting speculative hypothesis. He believed in the practical value of scientific speculation and insisted that the criterion for the use of scientific knowledge should be part of a unifying ethical system. Bacon discovered gun powder, eye glasses and few other equipments.

PRAFULLA CHANDRA ROY

2009-02-08T00:33:00.001-08:00

PRAFULLA CHANDRA ROY

The Bengal renaissance did not leave a single path unfolded. As literature and art reached the peak of realism, science did not lag behind. Along with a host of genius Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose and Acharya P.C Roy carried forth the quest to reveal the secret of nature. Born on 2nd August,1861 in
Senhati (Khulna) now Bangladesh, he was educated at Hare school, the Albert school, the metropolitan institution and Presidency college. In 1882 he left for England as a Gilchrist scholar and took the degree of Bsc. and Dsc. from Edinburgh University. He got the Hope scholarship in 1887-88. P.C. Roy returned to India in 1888 and joined the Presidency college as a lecturer in Chemistry on 1st July1889. As a professor he was the source of inspiration for the up coming generation. A scientific mind he devoted his spare time in his research in Ayurveda and published 'The History of Hindu Chemistry' in two volumes. Funds crunch, unavailability of necessary equipments and other problems could not cease him and soon he was able to synthesize chemically the compound Potassium Nitrate. He was single-handedly responsible for setting up the first Indian pharmaceutical institution " The Bengal Chemical & Pharmaceutical Works Ltd." in 1901In 1916 he joined the newly established college of science of the Calcutta University and attracted young scholars. He was elected the president of the Indian Science Congress in 1920 where he went on working relentlessly for the cause of the spread of scientific knowledge among the mass. He passed away on June 16th 1944. The emptiness that was created was never to be filled. P.C Roy was a patriot irrationalism and unscientific ideology. He fought against the tyrants of his fields and taught people the true cause behind nature's powers. The rationalist thinker, great scientist and teacher, remarkable entrepreneur and the father of modern Indian Chemical industry helped to build a new Bengal with a bright future

ANNA ATKINS

2009-02-08T00:22:00.000-08:00

ANNA ATKINS

( 1799 - 1871 )

We can consider her the first woman photographer. She studied botanology in a period when access to science and studies for women was almost impossible. In 1841 she came into contact with Talbot who was a friend of her father’s. immediately she became aware of the possibilities that photography could offer to scientific research. She worked with the procedure of cyanotype a technique which was just discovered by Herschel and seemed much easier to her. Because of the stability of cyanotype many of her pictures still exist to this very day. In October 1843 she published the first book containing photographs which was named “British Algae – Cyanotype impressions” which was completed in a period of 10 years and came before Talbot’s publication. “The pencil of nature”.

BLAISE PASCAL

2009-02-08T00:20:00.000-08:00

BLAISE PASCAL
( 1623 - 1662 )
Pascal was a famous mathematician, physicist and a philosopher. “When pressure is applied at any point in a fluid, it gets transmitted equally in all directions”. This is Pascala’s law. Any physics student can state this law. This has helped the inventions of Syringe, hydraulic press and brakes.

Pascal was born on June 19, 1623 in Clermont, France. His father was an accountant in an administrative office. Pascal was good in Mathematics. As 7 years old boy he could make geometrical figures on the ground. At the age of 12 he proved that the sum of the three angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles. At the age of 17 he published an essay relating to mathematics which attracted famous scientist Descartes.

Once Pascal found his father working late in the night doing some calculations with difficulty. To reduce the pressure on his father, Pascal devised a calculating machine in 1642. It was operated by gear wheel. He patented it later.

Pascal invented a triangle which consists of rows of numbers arranged in a specific manner as shown above. It has proved much useful in the study of probability. Pascal did much work on probability, hydrostatics and integral calculus. He was a religious writer having few books to his credit.

He died on August 19, 1662 in Paris.

ARYABHATA

2009-02-08T00:07:00.000-08:00

ARYABHATA

Aryabhata was an astronomer. He was born in Kerala. He studied at the University of Nalanda. He was honoured by the then Gupta ruler Buddhgupta and appointed the head of University.

Aryabhata gave the value of O (Pi) as 3.1416. He was the first to deduce that the earth is round and it rotates on its own axis creating day and nights. He also declared that moon is dark and shines only because sunlight. He believed that the earth is the centre of the universe.

Aryabata devised a method to express big numbers like 100,000,000 in words. He actually found a solution to the intermediate equations like ax-by=c.

Aryabhata’s legendary epic “Aryabahatiya” deals with the various aspects of mathematics and astronomical calculations. He wrote one more treatise “Aryabhata Siddhanta” which was a guide to determine auspicious times for various rituals. Indian’s first Satellite was name Aryabhata.

BIRBAL SAHNI

2009-02-08T00:04:00.001-08:00

BIRBAL SAHNI
( 1891 - 1949 )

Birbal Sahni was the greatest Palaeobotanist of Inida. Palaeobotany is the study of plants of past ages. Sahni was born in Bhera, now in Pakistan on 14 November 1891. He was the son of a chemistry teacher. Both father and son used to climb the mountains and collect rocks, plants and fossil bearing rocks. Birbal Sahni showed interest in botany and geology. His father wanted his son to become an ICS officer. After graduation from Punjab university Sahni went to Britain in 1911. he did research on ferus, Conifers and fossil plants. A.C. Steward, a noted botanist guided him. Sahni got D.Sc. in 1929 from Cambridge university. In 1936 he was elected fellow of the Royal Society.

In the days when no equipment was available to cut and grind rocks to enable to study the fossils of plants Sahni did them with his own skilled hands. He spent his money to buy tools. He studied extensively the flora of Indian Gondwana. He discovered new genus of plants at Mahal hills in Bihar. They helped in understanding the evolutionary relationship between certain species of plants of both the present and past ages. “Penloxyleae” a new group of fossil gymnosperms was his one more discovery. As a geologist, he estimated the age of old rocks. He declared the age of the salt range is 40 to 60 million years old. He found that the Deccan traps in M.P. were of the about 62 million years old., Sahni showed keen interest in archealogy also. He studied the technique of casting coins in ancient India. For this he received the Nelson wrights Medal of the numismatic society of India. Painting, clay modeling, Philately and Numismatics were his favourite hobbies. Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany has been established at Lucknow. He died in 1949.

ANGELO SALA

2009-02-07T23:42:00.000-08:00

ANGELO SALA
(1576 - 1637)

Self-educated chemist that experimented with silver salts. In 1614 published that the paper containing silver nitrate reacted with sunlight causing it to darken. Same observations were made by Robert Boyle, who unfortunately gave the wrong explanation by stating that the above reaction occurred due to air and not by sunlight.

MEGHNAD SAHA

2009-02-07T23:39:00.000-08:00

MEGHNAD SAHA

Meghnad Saha was born on the 6th of October, 1893 in a village named Shaoratoli near Dhaka in Bangladesh. His father Jagannath saha was a grocer in the village. Meghnad was acquainted with extreme poverty from his early days. He was admitted in the primary school of the village and had to attend the family shop and manage time to go to school. After primary education he got admitted into a middle school which was seven miles away from his village. He started staying in a doctor's house near the school and had to work in that house to maintain the cost of living. He stood first in the Dhaka middle school test. Got admitted into Dhaka Collegiate school. He got involved with the turbulent political situation of the country. During this time protests were going on against the British plan of dividing Bengal. Fuller was the Governor of East Bengal. One day he came to visit the Collegiate school. Along with other students Meghnad also went in the agitation and as a result he was suspended from the school and his scholarship was terminated. He got admitted into Kishorilal Jubili School. Meghnad passed Entrance exam from this school and stood first in Eastern Bengal region with highest marks in Mathematics, English, Sanskrit and Bengali. In 1909 he was admitted in Dhaka College and in 1911 he stood third in the ISc exam. In the same year the first position in ISc exam was taken by another famous personality , Satyendranath Bose. Both of them took admission in Presidency College with Mathematics honours. In those days Presidency college was a center of academic talents. Among his teachers were Jagadishchandra Bose, Prafulla Chandra Roy etc. His batch mates include S.N.Bose, Jnanchandra Ghosh and P.C.Mahalanbis was one year senior. In Presidency College Meghnad met Subhash Chandra Bose. In 1913 he graduated from Presidency College with Mathematics major and got the second rank in the University of Calcutta whereas the first one was taken by S.N. Bose. In 1915 , both S.N.Bose and Meghnad ranked first in M.Sc. exam, Meghnad in Applied mathematics and Bose in Pure Mathematics. During 1913 through 1915 , while studying in Presidency College, Meghnad got involved with Anushilan Samiti to take part in freedom fighting movement. Bagha Jatin, a famous freedom fighter, was used to visit his hostel for building student organization. Meghnad decided to do research in Physics and Applied Mathematics. But there was no proper infrastructure in Calcutta University for higher research. In 1916, Sir Asutosh Mukherjee requested Meghnad and Satyendranath to teach in the newly established Science College. There was pressure from students for including new sections in higher studies curriculum in science subjects. Most of the new development in Physics were being done in European countries like Germany. Meghnad's duty was to teach Quantum Mechanics. Within few days of starting teaching, Saha and Bose translated the papers published in German by Einstien and Minkowski on relativity into English versions. Later on this was published as a book from Calcutta University. Prasanta Chandra Mahalanbis wrote the preface for this book. In 1919 American Astrophysical Journal published - "On Selective Radiation Pressure and it's application" - a research paper by Meghnad. Slowly his expertise became astrophysics. And "Saha ions theory" was published. By 1920, Meghnad Saha established himself as one of the leading scientist in physics. Saha went abroad and stayed for two years. He spent time in research at Imperial College, London and at a research laboratory in Germany. In 1927, Meghnad was elected as a fellow of London's Royal Society. He wanted to set up a modern research laboratory in Calcutta University, but was not very successful. He moved to Allahabad University and in 1932 Uttarpradesh Academy of Science was established. He returned to Science College, Calcutta in 1938. During this time Saha got attracted to Nuclear Physics. In 1947, he established Institute of Nuclear Physics which later was named after him as Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics. He took the first effort to include Nuclear Physics in the curriculum of higher studies of science. For the sake of development of science he joined politics and in 1951 was elected as a member of the Parliament. This great scientist died in 1956.

ANDREAS VESALIUS

2009-02-07T23:34:00.001-08:00

ANDREAS VESALIUS

( 1514 - 1564)

Dr. Vesalius was a Flemish anatomist and physician. He was born into a family long associated with the medical care. He obtained his medical degree from the university of Padua. Then he worked there and teached surgery and anatomy. In 1559 he moved to Spain on an invitation to the Spanish court. He became physician at the court of Philip II. He had left Padua disgusted. He was condemned and people including his professor Jocobus Sylvius called him a madman who is poisoning Europe.

Vesalius’s surgical skills were extraordinary. He dissected. He dissected every sort of animal to improve his skill. He studied the anatomical structure of them. Once he wrote; “I could not even lay my hand upon a dried skull, much less take the chance of making a dissection. He overlooked every dissection he performed. He studied the bones perfectly.

After his enemy Sylirus died, Vesalius was invited back to Padua to take the chair of anatomy. But Vesalius decided to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and then go to Padua. On the return journey, in 1564, he was ship wrecked during violent storm, and died on a small island off the Greek coast. He was buried there only.

‘De human corporis fabrica’ is vesalins great work got published in 1543.

Antoine Laurent Lavoisier

2009-02-07T06:21:00.001-08:00

Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794)

Antoine Laurent Lavoisier is considered by many to be the "father of modern chemistry". He may not be remembered for grandiose experiments, but he is responsible for having forced the evolution of a world which was firmly ensconced in the doctrines of alchemists.
Another interesting fact is that Lavoisier's wife, Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze was also instrumental in bringing his experiments to fruition, and more importantly, to publication, being well educated and a talented artist herself, she translated documents and illustrated his scientific texts with incredible competence.
We hope this website, which contains a biography and important facts about Antoine Lavoisier will help you better understand the importance of his contribution to the field of chemistry, and the world of science in general.
It is only fitting that we conclude our introduction with the words of Justus von Liebig, who in Letters on Chemistry, No. 3, has this to say about Lavoisier:
“He discovered no new body, no new property, no natural phenomenon previously unknown; but all ‘the facts established by him were the necessary consequences of the labours of those who preceded him. His merit, his immortal glory, consists in this—that he infused into the body of the science a new spirit; but all the members of that body were already in existence, and rightly joined together.”

JAGADISH CHANDRA BOSE

2009-02-07T05:17:00.000-08:00

JAGADISH CHANDRA BOSE

Jagadishchandra Bose was born on the 30th of November 1858 in Faridpur in Dacca District. Faridpur was a part of India until 1947; now it is in Bangla Desh. His mother Abala Bose was a tenderhearted and affectionate woman. His father Bhagawanchandra Bose was a man of excellent qualities. Bhagavanchandra Boise was the Deputy Magistrate of Faridpur. He helped very generally the poor and the needy. He would comfort people in sorrow. There was a famine in Bengal in the year 1880.Bhagavanchandra Bose spent his own money to help the poor villagers. In the year 1874 hundreds of families suffered because of wide spread malaria. Thousands of children lost their parents and became orphans. Bhagawanchandra Bose helped these orphans. He spent money from his pocket to start a factory and provided had to spend a lot of money on these. By the never regretted doing so. In the days of Jagadishchandra Bose’s boyhood, the well educated and the well to do. ; People wee attracted by Western culture. A man was proud if he had learnt English. But Jagadishchandra Bose’s education was really remarkable; it was dye to his father. As long back as a hundred year ago, Bhagawanchandra Bose started schools in which children were taught in Bengali. Jagadishchandra also received his early education in this school. Jagadish mixed with the poor boys freely and played with them; so he gained first hand knowledge of the sufferings of poor people. He learnt much more. He learnt how the fisher folk moved on the broad rivers in their boats, how the fishing rod was cast in the flowing water, how ploughing the land and sowing seeds in it grew the crops and how the cattle were taken to graze on the distant hills. He was all ears when the fishermen and the farmers gave such accounts. He was thrilled by their adventurous life and it made him more courageous in life. There was another interesting person in his early life. This was a servant who used to take Jagadishchandra to school every day. He had been a dacoit in the past Bhagawanchandra Bose as a judge had sent him to prison. After some time the dacoit came out of prison. But how was he to live? Bhagawanchandra Bose was a very good-natured man. So he employed him as a servant. The dacoit used to tell little Jagadishchandra. events of his past life the robberies he had committed and his cruel deeds

Jagadishchandra began a new chapter in his life at the age of nine. He had to leave his hometown. He went to the big city of Calcutta for further education. He was admitted to Saint Xavier School there. There was a world of difference between the previous school and this one. . In Faridpur he had studied everything in his own language. But here in Calcutta his schoolmates knew only English. The city boys, especially the English boys, teased him. One of them even hurt Jagadish chandra in a bout of boxing. Jagadish was provoked and he taught the boy a well- deserved lesson. That was the end of any teasing. While he was studying at Saint Xavier's, Jagadishchandra was staying in a boarding house. He had no friends and was lonely here. But he was a born scientist. Even as a boy he had many hobbles which showed his scientific interest. He used to breed frogs and fishes in a pond nearby. He would pull out a germinating plant and observe its root system. He had also a number of pets like rabbits, squirrels and non-poisonous snakes. Even in Calcutta he continued these hobbies to get over his solitude. He grew flower-bearing plants and had animals and birds as pets. He did well in his studies and was in the forefront.

Jagadishchandra Bose was back in India. He joined the staff of the Presidency College, Calcutta. There was a peculiar practice in that college. The Indian teachers in the college were paid one third of what the British teachers were paid! So Jagadishchandra Bose refused his salary but worked for three years. He could not even get the scientific instruments he needed for research. He was not shown the respect due to him. This did not continue for long. His deep knowledge zest for work and cultured behavior won over those in charge of the college. They saw to it that he was given the full salary of the post and not one-third. Teaching the same lessons year in and year out was very tedious to Bose. His was an alert mind, always on the look out for new ideas. He wanted to do research, to widen his knowledge and discover new things. A laboratory is necessary for research. Many scientific instruments are required. Jagadishchandra Bose had no laboratory and he did not have the instruments. But he was not disheartened. For eight or ten years he spent as little out of his salary as possible, lived a very strict life, saved money and bought a laboratory! Generally Marconi's name is associated with the invention of wireless.

In Paris he gave a lecture on this similarity between the living and the non-living world. Have you heard of 'radar`? This is a very wonderful scientific device. Sailors on the sea use it; it is also used to get information about aeroplanes coming towards a place. So you see how useful it is during a war. If the aeroplanes of the enemy try to attack a city, the radar shows their movement. J.C. Bose worked out some details of very great importance; these are being used in the working of the radar. When Jagadish chandra Bose again visited England, Cambridge University honoured him as a Professor. Generally, when a man invents something new he declares that nobody can make use of it without his permission. If anybody desires to, make use of it, he will have to pay him money, Why? Because the inventor has worked hard and he has used his time and brains for his invention.

Jagadishchandra Bose did remarkable work, - and scientists outside India had honoured him. Yet there were people who opposed him. As a result even the Royal Society delayed publishing his valuable work in its publications, But nothing could make him give up his work. He was sure that years of research had led him to the truth. So he did not feel that it was very necessary to depend on scientific journals only. He wrote books and published them on his own. By this time Bose had made a name for himself as a great scientist. The instruments he had developed were being used in some Western countries too. He visited Europe and America in 1907 and 1914; scientific institutions invited him to explain his discoveries. He visited Japan also.
Jagadishchandra Bose was famous as a scientist. He brought laurels to his motherland. But his interests were many-sided. He was especially interested in literature and fine arts. The great poet Rabindranath Tagore and Jagadish chandra Bose were very good friends. The first time Tagore visited Bose, he was not at home. Tagore left a bunch of champak flowers. This was the beginning of their friendship. Tagore invited Bose to stay with him for some time. Bose agreed to do so on one condition. The condition was that Tagore should narrate a story to him every day. This is how a number of Tagore's stories came to be written. Have you read the story 'The Cabuliwallah'? It is very fine story; it narrates how a deep and strange friendship grew up between a rough pathan and a tine Bengali girl. This has been translated into several languages and is well known in a number of countries. Tagore wrote this story when Bose was staying with him. And Bose, the great scientist , was also President of the Bengali Sahitya Parishat. We have already seen how Bose honoured the Indian sages of the past. Scientists of other countries praised Bose's important dicoveries; Bose used to say, "The sages of India knew all this long ago".

Jagadishchandra Bose was not a proud man. He was simple, affectionate and warm. It is not surprising that many great persons of the day were his friends. Prafulla Chandra Ray, another famous scientist, was one of his close friends. Eminent men like Gopalakrishna Gokhale and Mahatma Gandhi knew and respected him. Sister Nivedita was another good friend. She was an Irish lady; her name was Margaret Nobel. She was the disciple of Swami Vivekananda. She settled down in India and spent her life in the service of the people of this country. She recognized the genius in Bose. Bose toiled hard to educate the people about the importance of science, and Sister Nivedita admired his efforts. So she was keenly looking forward to the birth of the Bose Research Institute. In memory of her, Bose placed in front of the Institute the statue of a woman stepping forward with a light in her hand. He had another good friend, one Mrs.Bull. While touring America he was her guest. She had taken care of him as a mother. When he fell ill in Paris, she traveled to Paris, made arrangements for his treatment and personally looked after him. There were two other friends of his, two giants of the literary world. They were George Bernard Shaw, the English dramatist and Romain Rolland, the French writer. Both of them dedicated one book each to Jagadishchandra Bose. Jagadishchandra Bose was very busy throughout his life. He had no time to think of the problems of the household.
Jagadishchandra Bose had to repay the debts. So Abala Bose was very, very careful in spending money, and saved as much as possible. Unfortunately the Bose couple had only one child, which did not live long. They looked after the students as-their children. Abala Bose started girls' school in Calcutta and took upon herself the responsibility of maintaining it. She went with her husband when he went to foreign countries, and even helped in his scientific work. Jagadishchandra Bose has a permanent place in the world of science, especially in Botany. He began the Age of Modem Science in India and deserves honour for this. He had all the qualities that research requires. He had keen powers of observation and he was patient. He was also a very good lecturer. His students loved his lectures. He did not teach only for the sake of the examination. Students should study books and study what the teacher teaches; but this is not enough; they should use their brains and think for themselves; they should be eager to discover new knowledge - this is what he taught his students. He encouraged them to observe, to experiment and to think, without depending only on books and teachers. Jagadishchandra Bose died in November 1937. To the very end he was busy with research.Wealth and power never attracted Jagadishchandra Bose. He toiled for science like a saint, selflessly. This great scientist is a great example to all.

ANTON VAN LEEVWEEN HOEK

2009-02-06T21:56:00.000-08:00

ANTON VAN LEEVWEEN HOEK
( 1632 - 1772 )

Microscope is an instrument through which we can see the small things which are otherwise cannot be seen with the naked eye. This instrument plays a important role today in science and industry. Simple Microscope was invented by Leevwen Hoek.

Earlier to him, Compound microscope was invented by Galileo. It was little difficult to see through it because magnification was taking place in two stages.

Leevwen Hoek was born on 24 October 1632. The family was living on basket and wine making. After his father’s death Leeven Hoek went to Amsterdam and worked as a clerk in a shop. He returned to his native Delf in Holland and started doing business.

Later he was nominated chamberlain. Leevwen Hoek showed interest in making Glass lenses. He made Lenses of lesser focal length. Few lenses he made were so small like the ball head of pins. He made about 400 lenses. Their microscopic power was from 50 to 300. He examined objects like hair, thread, head of insects etc., Through these lenses while Galileo had used his telescope to see stars and planets. People called Leevwen Hoek, a mad person.

It was a rainy day; he observed very small worms in water through microscope. They were invisible to naked eye. He stored rain water in a mug. While he examined the water he found microbes in it.

They were named animalcules. They spread though air. When he examined few model objects from the mouth and interstines. He could see microbes that caused diseases.

The Royal society honoured Leevwon Hoek in 1680 and he was given membership. The science institute of Paris also honored him. The Queen of Britain, the emperor of Russia, Peter the Great came to see him.

The microscope devised by Leevwen Hoek was very simple having only one lens and it was a good one. The compound microscope had group of two lenses.

Today we have electron microscopes to see virus and very minute particles. These microscopes magnifies them to 100,000 times.

Leevwen Hoek was the first to see the whole circulation of the blood with his own microscope. He was also the first to see the microscopic forms of life such as protozoa and bacteria. He also showed that Weevils, fleas and other tiny creatures come from eggs and are not spontaneously generated.

Leevwen Hoek was a healthy person to live till he was 91. He died in 1772. He was successful because of his remarkable patience.

ANDREAS VESALIUS

2009-02-06T21:53:00.000-08:00

ANDREAS VESALIUS
( 1514 - 1564)
Dr. Vesalius was a Flemish anatomist and physician. He was born into a family long associated with the medical care. He obtained his medical degree from the University of Padua. Then he worked there and teached surgery and anatomy. In 1559 he moved to Spain on an invitation to the Spanish court. He became physician at the court of Philip II. He had left Padua disgusted. He was condemned and people including his professor Jocobus Sylvius called him a madman who is poisoning Europe.

Vesalius’s surgical skills were extraordinary. He dissected. He dissected every sort of animal to improve his skill. He studied the anatomical structure of them. Once he wrote; “I could not even lay my hand upon a dried skull, much less take the chance of making a dissection. He overlooked every dissection he performed. He studied the bones perfectly.

After his enemy Sylirus died, Vesalius was invited back to Padua to take the chair of anatomy. But Vesalius decided to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and then go to Padua. On the return journey, in 1564, he was ship wrecked during violent storm, and died on a small island off the Greek coast. He was buried there only.

‘De human corporis fabrica’ is vesalins great work got published in 1543.

ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL

2009-02-06T21:49:00.000-08:00

ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL
(1847 – 1922 )

Today we see school going children having a mobile phone in their pockets. Using a telephone we can talk to our friends and relatives stationed thousands of miles away from us. Telephone was invented by Graham Bell in 1876. “Watson, Watson, come here, I need you” were the first words on telephone.

Graham Bell was born on March 3, 1847 in Scotland. He was brought up in Boston, Massachussets. Bell opened a school for dumb and deaf in Boston in 1862. Thomas Watson, a knowledgeable person in the field of telegraphy became his friend, with his help Bell developed the telephone. He was playing instruments earlier. They were used for the benefit of the deaf.

The first permanent telephone line was laid in 1877 after Bell palented telephone in 1876. by 1878 telephone exchanges were set up in USA. Telephone system advanced in course of time and 1915 nearly 3400 miles long Telephone line was laid under the sea. Bell was invited to inaugurate the system. Bell told the authorities at the time of inauguration that Watson should be on the other end of the time. The authorities agreed.

Bell said: “Watson, come here I need you.”
Watson replied in a laughing mood “Sir, at this time I cannot come to you. I am so far off from you that it will take me one week to reach you.”

When Bell died in 1922, all telephones in America remained silent for one minute. Thomas Alva Edison made many improvements in Telephony.

ALEXANDER FLEMING

2009-02-06T21:46:00.000-08:00

ALEXANDER FLEMING ( 1881 – 1955 )
Penicillin, an antibiotic saved thousands of lives in second world war. Actually it was accidentally discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928. It can be injected into the human blood for treating diseases live diphtheria, Pnuemonia and severe wounds.
Fleming was a bacteriologist from Scotland. He took his degree in 1906 at St. Mary’s Medical School, London. He joined Army Medical corps and did research. After the first world war he returned to London to work in Medical school. One day he observed some strange flecks of fungus that were grown up in an uncovered pantery dish which he was using for antibacterial experiments. To his surprise he found that wherever the fungus had grown, the bacteria had died. Fleming felt that it was caused by a spore which had flown in through a window and settled on the dish. That was a rare fungus in the mould family. He took the fluid from it and tried it on bacteria. Ultimately he concluded that the fungus had a deadly effect on the disease which cause microbes. The fluid which acted as a repellent to the growth of bacteria was obtained from the penicillium fungus, and was named penicillin. For this wonderful discovery, the Nobel Prize was awarded jointly to Fleming, Florey and chain in the field of medicine in 1945. American drug manufacturers gave Fleming support to isolate Penicillin. In course of time technique of extracting Penicillin in large quantities was evolved.
Fleming died on March 11, 1955 in London

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

2009-02-06T18:57:00.001-08:00

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1706 - 1790)

Benjamin Franklin was both a scientist and statesman. One of the most versatile American personalities. He was a printer, philosopher, Diplomat, scientist and inventor.

Franklin was born in Boston, USA on Jan 17, 1706. He was the son of a soap and candle maker. Franklin was the fifteenth child in the family. He could not study as he had to pay school ten. He worked in his father’s factory though he was not happy. He desired to become a sailor. His father allowed him to learn printing work from his eldest son James. James was publishing a weekly “The new England news paper”. Benjamin learnt composing and printing at the age 12, He used to read books. He was buying books with the money he saved. He intended to write articles to the news paper which James didn’t like. So he wrote in the name Mrs. Dogwood. James came to know it later and he was anguish at him Benjamin left for Philadelphia where he developed printing and people admired him. He was responsible for the establishment of American philosophical society. The society was helpful later in proclaiming the American independence. Franklin started a mobile library at 25. He opened a study centre at Pensylvania which became Pensylvania university later. Philadelphia was turned into an important city. This was due to Franklin’s efforts. He went to England in 1724. where he worked as master printer.

Franklin found static electricity. In 1752 he conducted an experiment in connection whth electrically charged clouds. While he flew a kite, a key was tied to the in of the metal string that was connected with the kite. The other end of the key was tied to a silk ribbon which franklin held. A bolt of light struck the kite wire and traveled down to the key causing a spark. Franklin proved that lightning is electricity. This showed that large electrically charged clouds can be frought to the earth. Franklin invented a device for the protection of tall buildings from lightning. The device was called the lightning. The device was called the lightning conductor.

Franklin invented pensylvania fire place later called the Franklin stove.

Franklin published his book ‘Experiments and observations on electricity that includes basic principles of electricity. The book was translated into German, French and Italian.

Franklin made significant contributions in the independence of the USA. He signed the declaration of independence on July 4, 1766. He also helped to draw up the constitution of the USA. He refused to patent any of his inventions. He was elected the member of the Royal society, London. He died on April 17, 1790.

SIR ISSAC NEWTON

2009-02-06T18:53:00.000-08:00

SIR ISSAC NEWTON (1642 - 1727)

Newton was born on 25 December 1642 at Lincolnshire. He became a world famous scientist. As a child he was good at drawing and mechanical inventions. He was not much attentive at school. One day his uncle saw him lying on the grass, completely engrossed in some mathematical problem. The old man told him gently: “Go back to your studies, Issac. Either you are a great loafer or a great genius – The Lord alone knows rich.”. Newton was brought up by his grandmother. His father was dead. His mother married again. Newton did not receive any love from his parents.

Newton did his graduation from Trinity college, Cambridge in 1665. His professor was Issac Barrow, a gaint in Mathematics. He recognized the talent in Newton. Newton occupied his chair at the age of 27. in 1672 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. Newton published his epic work “Principia Mathematiea” in 1687.

Newton showed that the Sunlight is composed of seven colour VIBGYOR or violet, indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red. These colours can be separated with the help of a prism and the mixture of these colours produces white light for which Newton made a disc.

Newton became famous by his three laws of motion. They are (1) Everybody contiues in a state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an external impressed force (2) The rate of change of momentum is proportional to the impressed force and takes place in the direction of force and (3) Action and reaction are equal and opposite. These laws were first stated by Newton in his prinipia (1687). Newton also invented calculus, a mathematical method. He wrote a book ‘optiks’ describing his studies of light.

It was in the year 1655. Newton was in his native woods Thorpe for holidays. One day he lying on the ground under an apple tree. Suddenly an apple fell to the ground. He wondered at this scene. Why the apple fell towards the ground? Why all the bodies fell toward the earth? Newton thought over the matter. He decided that it is earth’s pull. There is some force that attracts all things towards the earth. He concluded that all bodies attract each other by the same force. On the basis of the falling apple he gave his famous law of Universal gravitation which states that everybody in this universe attracts every other body with a force directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

In 1689 Newton was the member of Parliament. He had represented the university. He was made the President of the Royal Society in 1703 and continued till his death. He was knighted by Queen Anne in 1705. Even at his ripe age of 85 he presided over a meeting of the Royal Society. Newton was a simple man. His scientific achievements are unique. He died on 20 march 1727 at London.
There are few stories about him.
Newton had a pet dog named diamond. One day its movement caused a burning candle to fall on manuscripts. They were burnt into ashes. Newton had prepared them for the past twenty years out of his research. Newton entered his room and found diamond sitting calm. He exclaimed; “Oh, diamond, you do not know what mischief you have done to me!”
Newton was fond of a cat. He had cut a hole in one of the walls of his house to enable the cat to enter the house. One day he saw two kittens. Newton, absent minded cut a little hole for the kittens! Was it necessary?.

ARCHIMEDES

2009-02-06T18:49:00.000-08:00

ARCHIMEDES (287 - 212 B.C.)
Archimedes who was born in Syracuse was a great scientist, mathematician and inventor. He is most well known for the utterance ‘Eureka! Eureka’ which meant I have found it! I have found it!” He shouted so because he had discovered the king Hieron’s crown a fake. He found that the specific gravity of the material of the golden crown didn’t tally with that of pure gold. Actually he was lying in a bath tub. He observed that a body immersed in a fluid is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the displaced fluid. This is better known as Archimedes principle. The ratio of the weight of a substance to the weight of water it displaced when immersed in it is hence a constant and is called the specific gravity of the material. Archimedes detected the impurity in the golden crown without breaking. He just filled a vessel with water and dipped the crown in it. He measured the water displaced on account of it. Again he filled the vessel with water and dipped equal mass of pure gold in it. He measured the water displaced this time. The amount of water displaced in the two cases was different. By this he could estimate the impurity in the golden crown made by the Goldsmith which was doubted by the king who had asked Archimedes to test the same without damaging it.

Once Archimedes said to the king: ”Give me a rod of proper length and suitable place to hook one end of it, I shall lift the earth” with the help of levers and pulleys he lifted a loaded ship on to the bank.

Archimedes was a mathematician too. He wrote books like measurement of the circle; on the Sphere and cylinder; method and book of Lemmas. He calculated the value of Pi. He invented few simple machines and war machines.

After the war in 212 B.C. Syracuse came under the Romans. Archimedes was unhappy. One day he was making some geometrical figure, on the ground. An armed soldier threatened him while Archimedes said: “please do not disturb. Let me finish my circle.” But the soldier killed him.
The law of floating explained by Archimedes is Archimedes’ principle. It reasons that a body immersed in water or any liquid will displace a volume of fluid equal in weight to the weight of the immersed body.

GEORG SIMON OHM

2009-02-06T18:47:00.001-08:00

GEORG SIMON OHM (1789 - 1854)

Resistance is the property of a substance in an electrical circuit to oppose the flow of electric current. The SI unit of electrical resistance is named after Georg Simon Ohm. It is Ohm. Ohm is the resistance which allows a current of one ampere to flow under a potential difference of one volt. A law propounded by Ohm states that the current flowing through an electric circuit is equal to the ration of voltage to the resistance.

Voltage V
I = current = _________ = ___
Resistance R

Georg Simon Ohm was born on 16 March, 1787. His father was a Blacksmith. Ohm became a teacher at the age of 18. He obtained doctorate degree in mathematics in 1811. He wished to join army to fight against Napolean. But his father adviced him to continue teaching profession. He was the professor at the age 30 in Cologue. Ohm published his research paper on electricity in 1827. He also published a book titled mathematical measurements of electric currents. But he was ignored. The people who read his book criticized telling that Ohm’s contribution to science or mathematics is nothing. There were arguments. Ohm resigned his post. He had to live on private tuitions there after. It was only after six years he could enter university again. He was not recognized in Germany. Britain welcomed his theory. The Royal society of London honoured him giving kople medal.

Ohm died in 1854 in Munich. In 1881, the international conference of electrical engineers was held in Paris and it was decided there to call unit of electrical reistance in honour of the scientist as OHM. But it was only after his death. The relation V = IR has brought Italy, France and Germany together.

ROBERT BOYLE

2009-02-06T18:40:00.000-08:00

ROBERT BOYLE (1627 - 1691)

Boyle was born in Monster, Irland on Jan 26, 1627 into a rich family. He joined Eton college at the age of eight. Then after 3 years of study he toured Europe. In 1641 he was influenced by Galilio and studied science. After he returned to England he joined Oxford High school and worked as a teacher.

He stated a law related to gaseous pressure. Boyle’s law states that it constant temperature the volume of a given mass of gas is inversely proportional to the pressure that PV = Constant.

Boyle was a kind man and generous. He helped Issac Newton to publish his principia.

Boyle proved that elements cannot be divided. He died on 30 December 1691.

Charles law states that at constant pressure all gases expand by 1/273 of their volume at 0 C; that is the volume of a given mass of gas a constant pressure is directly proportional to the absolute temperature.

Boyle’s law and Charle’s law are called gas laws. These are not perfectly obeyed by ordinary gases being strictly true only for the ideal gases. Amedeo ayogadro law is also a gas law which states that equal volumes of different gases contain the same number of particles if they all have the same pressure and temperature.

ANDRE MARIE AMPERE

2009-02-06T18:35:00.001-08:00

ANDRE MARIE AMPERE (1775 - 1836)

Andre Marie Ampere was one of the founders of the science of electromagnetics. He propounded the laws of electromagnetism and showed that a magnetic field is associated with a current flowing through a conductor. Unit of electric current is Ampere, comes from his name. If one coloumb unit of electric charge flows in any part of an electrical conductor in one second then it is one ampere.

Ampere was born on 2 January, 1775 in France. His father was a Jute merchant and a well read man. He introduced Latin and Greek to his son. Ampere when he was child he was solving Arithmetic problems using small stone pebbles. At 11 he had a thorough knowledge in mathematics and calculus.

Those were the days of French revolution. His father was sentenced to death. Ampere was mentally shocked. He had lost his paternal property. He had to earn his livelihood by private tuitions. He married Julie. She gave birth to his son. Ampere got an appointment as teacher in a High school. He worked there for two years and then joined an engineering college in Paris.

In 1819 Johanne C. Oersted of Denmark performed an experiment in which he observed a magnetic needle moving near a wire carrying current. Ampere conducted an experiment to find out the effect of electricity on a magnetic needle. His discoveries helped electrodynamics. It was confirmed that magnets can be developed with the help of electricity. When electricity flows through a coil it gets magnetized and the current starts from its origination and returns through a circuit. Ampere published his book on magnetism and electricity in 1823. He said that molecular electricity causes magnetism. Later it was made known that the flow of electrons constitute current.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

2009-02-06T07:46:00.000-08:00

ALBERT EINSTEIN (1879 - 1955)

Once he climbed a ladder to change the picture on the wall. His foot slipped and he fell to the floor. Quickly recovering from the fall, he took out a paper and pen and began working to the causes of the fall. Like the fall of the apple in Newtons Garden, this incident led him to restructure the theory of gravitation. He was Albert Einstein.

Einstein was born at Ulm in Germany. He learnt piano from his mother. Right from his childhood he was interested in science. He was sharp in mathematics but a mediocre in other subjects. He completed his education in 1900 and became citizen of Switzerland where he had tried for admission in the Zurich University. He joined the Swiss Patent office as a clerk. He married science student Mileva Marec. In 1905 he got his doctorate degree from Zurich university. By that he had published five research papers which made him a famous scientist as he showed that when light falls on metals like tungsten etc., they emit electrons. These electrons he called photo electrons and the effect “ Photoelectric effect”. He was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for his discovery of the law of Photo electric effect.

His major contribution was the special theory of relativity. He showed that the physical quantities like mass, length and time are not constant, but vary with the velocity of the body. He established the equivalence of matter and energy. The interconnection of mass and energy was embedied in the formula E=mc2 where E is energy, m is the mass and c, a constant equal to the velocity of light. The atomic bomb was the result of this equation. He also explained in one of his papers the way the force of gravity works.

In 1933, in Germany the dictatorship of Hitler was found intolerable. Einstein opposed it. The condition of Jews were miserable. Einstein went to America on an invitation to deliver a lecture. He didn’t come back to Germany as he was likely to be punished. He held a high post in Princeton university till 1945. There he worked on the development of Atom bomb. When he found the harmful and disastrous effect of the bomb on the two cities of Japan he became very sad and decided to advocate only the peaceful users of atomic energy. Einstein died on April 18, 1955. An element Einsteinium has been named after him. He is sometimes called the father of modern physics.

FRANCIS BACON

2009-02-06T07:42:00.000-08:00

FRANCIS BACON (1561 - 1626)

Francis Bacon was a person of high ambition. He intended to develop science for the benefit of society. He wanted science to rule. He lived luxuriously. He used to spend more than his income. He was discontent. He never took rest.

Bacon was born in 1561. His father Nicolas Bacon was a security officer to Queen Elizabeth. His mother was Lady Anne Cooke. She knew several languages and helped Bacon to get educated. He went to Cambridge to study in Trinity College. He studied there for three years. But he did not like the teaching methods and left college. He felt that he has taken birth to serve human. He was a thinker. He was appointed English ambassador in France at the age of 16. his father died in 1579. Bacon didn’t get any property from his father. He returned to England and became unemployed. He fell in poverty. He worked hard to get success.

Francis bacon was elected to parliament in 1583. He was popular. In 1606 he was Solicitor general and Advocate general in 1613. He became the Lord Chancellor in 1618.

Francis Bacon was of he opinion that a scientist should rule a state. He felt that a Governor of a state should do jobs like seeing development of industries, inventing new gases and use them for treating diseases, improve surgery skills by doing experiments on animals etc.,

Bacon died on April 5, 1626 at the age 65.

GALILEO

2009-02-05T20:43:00.000-08:00

GALILEO (1564 - 1642)

Galileo said that earth is not the centre of the universe, but like other planets it also revolves round the sun. But when in 1616, he proved for the first time that the sun was the centre of the universe and the earth revolves round the sun. He was summoned before the officials of the church and was ordered to stop his view. He didn’t give any public speech till 1630. Due to pressure he discarded his scientific beliefs. But he said in a broken voice; It is the earth which moves around the Sun. He was imprisoned where he became blind and died. This is the tragic story of Galileo.

Galileo was an Italian astronomer, physician and mathematician. He was born on February 15, 1564 in Pisa. He worked as a lecturer in mathematics in Pisa university. Once he read in a religious book that if two bodies of different weights are allowed to fall simultaneously from the same height the heavy body will hit the ground first. He proved this Aristotle’s statement wrong. To prove his theory he went upto the seventh floor of Pisa tower and dropped two metal balls weighing 100 pounds and 1 pound respectively. Many people were gathered to witness the experiment. The two balls hit the ground at the same time.

Galileo was instrumental earlier in the invention of a pendulum clock. The instrument was then called pulse meter. For this he relied on the principle that beat of the human pulse is fairly regular. It so happened that one day Galileo saw in the church a candelabra hung from the roof by a chain. When it was left it started swinging to and fro. Galileo after keen observation found that the time taken in each wing was the same. The timing he decided was with respect to the beat of the human pulse. His son Vinsenji made a wall clock on this basis later.

Galileo fabricated telescope and explored the universe. He saw the satellites of Jupiter and he proved that milky way is composed of millions of stars.
He published in 1638 his “Discourses and mathematical demonstrations relating to two new sciences”. In this work he disproved the assumption made in the Aristotlean physics. He had developed contacts with kepler. He also published “ A dialogue on the two principle systems of the world” a book in which he has explained the astronomical facts given by Copernicus and has said that Sun is static and is centre of the universe and the earth and other planets revolve round the Sun.

EVANGELISTA TORRICELLI

2009-02-05T20:22:00.001-08:00

EVANGELISTA TORRICELLI ( 1608 - 1647)

WHO MADE THE FIRST BAROMETER IN 1644

Torricelli was born on 15 October, 1608 at Faenza in Italy. He studied science at 16 in Rome. His Professor Benedelti Costelli was a student of Galileo. Torricelli wrote a paper on “Missiles”. Benedelti sent this paper to Galileo who appreciated Torricelli’s thinking power. Torricelli met Galileo three months before his death. He nursed him.

Torricelli invented Barometer which is an instrument used for the measurement of atmospheric pressure. Grand Duke of Tuscamy told once the technicians to lift water to a height of forty feet. Galileo who was the mathematician to the Grand Duke hinted Toricelli to take up the work. He tried using a Pump. But the water did not rise in the pipe more than the height of thirty three feet. The pump was in order. Toricelli knew that a heavier liquid cannot be raised to the same is more than thirteen and half times heavier than water. He felt that the use of mercury would reduce the length of the experimental glass tube to only three feet, as the equivalent height to which mercury might rise would be about 30 inches. Toricelli took a glass tube of about three feet length with its one end closed. He filled it with mercury, closed the open end with his thumb and immersed it in a dish full of mercury there by the open end remained dipped in mercury. As he removed his thumb from the open end from below the mercury level the mercury in the tube came little down and stood at a column length of about 30 inches. Naturally the upper part of the tube became empty. This empty column is known as “Toricelli’s vaccum”. The apparatus used here was the basis for the barometer. Suppose you take the barometer to the peak of a mountain the height of the mercury column falls down. It meant that as we go above the surface of the earth, atmospheric pressure decreases. The mercury barometer is preferable if the highest accuracy of readings is important.

Toricelli’s other inventions are (i) Telescopes (ii) Microscopes (iii) Optical instruments (iv) Fundamental formula for integral calculus. His barometer has become an essential instrument for weather men. He also wrote a commentary on the work of Galileo. He was a professor of Rome University. Toricelli did not live long. He died at an early age of 39. He died on October 25, 1647.

ALFRED B.NOBEL

2009-02-05T19:55:00.001-08:00

ALFRED B.NOBEL (1833 - 1896)

SILVER MEDALLION SHOWING PROFILE OF ALFRED NOBEL

The shortest autobiography ever written is that of Alfred Nobel. It reads as below.

Description: Pitiable half creature, who should have been shifted by the doctor when he made his entry yelling into the world.

Merits: Keeps his nails clean and is never a burden to anybody.

Faults: Lacks family, cheerful nature, healthy stomach, Greatest and only petition, Not to be buried alive.

Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm in Sweden to Immanuel Nobel, a poor farmer later an engineer. Nobel was schooled at home. Young Nobel was a chemist at 16. He know English, French, German, Russian and Swedish. He worked in US for four years under John Ericsson, the builder of a warship. Then he worked in his father’s factory at Petersburg, Russia and the firm was closed in 1859. The family returned to Sweeden where Nobel began experimenting with explosives. He invented dynamite and earned huge money. Once an accident occurred in his workshop. A nitroglycerine explosion wrecked the plant. His younger brother and four employees were killed. He has to face a huge loss and rebuilding of the factory was a difficult task. There were some restrictions to make nitroglycerine. But after he discovered dynamite his factories at various locations grew well and he made his fortune. He sold dynamite. In 1887 he invented ballistite, a smokeless nitrogylycerine powder. Many countries used it as gun powder.

Noble when he died in 1896 left a substantial amount of nine million dollars, the interest on which, according to his will is awarded every year in the form of Nobel prizes persons for their outstanding works in Physics, Chemistry, Medical Sciences, Literature and peace. Later economics was also added. Albert Einstein, Ravindranath Tagore, Amartyasen, Alexander Fleming and many others are the receipients of Nobel Prize. An element has been named as Nobelium in his memory.

JOHN DALTON

2009-02-05T19:51:00.000-08:00

JOHN DALTON (1766 - 1844)

PROFILE OF ENGLISH MAN

JOHN DALTON ON COIN

Dalton was a British physicist and chemist who gave us the atomic theory which was later called Dalton’s atomic theory.

Dalton was almost self taught. He began his career as a teacher. But his earnings were very heagre. So he worked in farms to enhance his earnings. However in 1793 Dalton became a lecturer in mathematics and natural philosophy at new college in Manchester. With the publication of his atomic theory he became one of the most famous men in Europe. His atomic investigation appeared in a new system of chemical philosophy. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1822 and 1830. he was one of the eight foreign associates of the French Academy of Sciences.

Dalton earlier essays in science were published in the Centleman’s dairy and the Ladies diary. He was also the author of a series of essays on his meteorological investigations.

Dalton resigned from Manchester college. As a source of earning money he wrote a book on grammar which was interesting and original. He spent rest of his life studying chemical processes.

The basic postulates of the atomic theory are that matter consists of small individual units called atoms. Atoms can neither be created nor he destroyed. All atoms of the same element are identical and different elements have different types of atoms, and that chemical reactions take place by rearrangement of atoms. Using this theory Dalton rationalized the various laws of chemical combination namely law of conservation of mass, law of definite proportions and law of multiple proportions.

Law of multiple proportions or Dalton’s law states that when two elements combine to form more than one compound, the amounts of one of them which combine with a fixed amount of the other exhibit a simple multiple relations.

JAMES CLARK MAXWELL

2009-02-05T07:23:00.000-08:00

JAMES CLARK MAXWELL (1831 - 1879)

Maxwell’s discovery was the electro magnetic theory of light.

Maxwell was born on June 13, 1831 at Edinburgh. Even as a child he was fond of nature. He wished to be always amidst nature. Thus he developed curiosity. At the age of 15, he devised a method to make Cartesian oval. It is just a curvature in geometry. He wrote a paper on his method and this was published by the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Maxwell was educated at Edinburg university and Trinity college, Cambridge. He became a professor of physics and astronomy at King’s college, London. He was given the Chair of experimental physics at Cambridge. He guided men to build Cavendish Laboratory. At the age of 18 he did research related to the equilibrium between rolling curves and elastic solids.

Maxwell’s electrical theory titled “Treatise on electricity and magnetism” appeared in 1873. “Theory of heat” and “Matter and motion” are his other writings.

Maxwell’s sleeping habits were special. He was sleeping from 5 pm to 9.30 pm., study from 10 p.m. to 2 am, exercise from 2 am to 2.30 am and sleep again unit1l 7 am. It was an uncommon routine. Kelvin, a scientist was his friend. He was showing his experiments to him now and them.

The inspiration for Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory of light was Faraday. Maxwell gave mathematical base for his theory which Faraday could not. He published his paper “Dynamical theory of electromagnetic field” and after eight years he wrote a book. Maxwell worked on kinetic theory of gases. He was the first Cavendish professor of physics at Cambridge in 1871.

Maxwell wrote few poems. His hobby was swimming, gymnastics and horse riding. He had sense of humour. Maxwell proved that time is essential for the movement of electricity and magnetic effects and they travel in the speed of light.
Maxwell calculated the rings surrounding the planet Saturn mathematically and through the gaseous motion. He studied different colour and said that all other colours can be developed from the major three colours red, green and blue. This discovery is made use of to produce colours in colour T.V. Maxwell received Rumford Medal for this discovery. Maxwell died of cancer in November 1879. His mathematical equations enabled to discover radio colour network, existence of X-ray and Gamma rays.

JOSEPH PRIESTLEY

2009-02-05T07:21:00.001-08:00

JOSEPH PRIESTLEY (1733-1854)

Priestly was born on 3rd March 1733 in a village near Leeds in England. His father was a weaver, whose earnings were meager. When he was just seven years, he lost his father and became an orphan. His aunt brought him up. Priestley was trained to become a Bishop Priestley showed keen interest in learning different languages. He leant Arabic, French, Italian, German and Armeic. He was appointed a Bishop of a small Church. His earning was even less than a pound per week. So to increase his own earnings he worked as a teacher and held private tuitions. He wrote a grammar book in the mean time. He was soon taken as a language teacher. He studied chemistry there and did experiments. Few scientists noticed him.

Priestley met Benjamin Franklin and discussed with him. Then he wrote a book on the status of electricity and its history. He was chosen a member of the Royal Society.

Priestley’s house was near a factory that produced wine. Priestley got permission to examine the gas coming out to vessels in which wine was made. He kept a candle in the gas. It blew off. The gas was produced by different methods. It was named fixed air. It was carbon dioxide. The gas was dissoleved in water. Priestley was successful. He named the solution sodawater. For this he was given Gold medal. Priestley became a member of France education institute. He was conducting always experiments and so he was not giving justice to his Bishop job. He was made the Librarian of the Library belonged to Lord Shell Barne, a politician. Priestley went with him to France where he met Antoine Lavoiser.

Priestley was a peaceful man. He participated in French revolution and publicized freedom and equality, brotherhood. He said that churches should be separated from politics. People aroused against him. All his property was destroyed.

Priestley went to Newyork in 1794. There leaders and scientists welcomed him . He joined his sons who were living in pensylvania. He was made Bishop of Unitarian church and professor of chemistry. Priestley continued his experiments in Northambarland. He discovered oxygen. This gas was helping human beings and animals for respiration. Plants were giving out oxygen.

Priestley found ceral, oil and gasoline when burnt in oxygen produced carbon monoxide. It was poisonous gas. He discovered nitrous acid. It was called laughing gas as it was entertaining men.

Priestley died in 1854

HENRY CAVENDISH

2009-02-05T07:20:00.001-08:00

HENRY CAVENDISH (1731 – 1810)

Cavendish was born in the month of October, 1731. His father was Lord Charles, Mother Lady Anne Cavendish. Lord Charles made maximum and minimum thermometers and was the recipient of Kople medal.

Cavendish went to Cambridge at 18 and studied for four years. But he had to study religion. It was a difficult task for him. So he left. Cavendish and his brother fredrich studied mathematics and physics in London and Paris. Both of them elected members of the Royal Society.

Cavendish began his career as an assistant in his father’s laboratory. He was the pioneer to discover the separate existence of nitrogen and synthesise water from hydrogen and oxygen. He attempted to produce nitric acid from a mixture of hydrogen, oxygen and water vapour. He discovered that nitrogen was a constituent of nitric acid. He said that every charged body was surrounded by an electric atmosphere. This helped scientists to formulate the electric field theory. He added iron, zinc and tin separately into sulphuric acid and stored that produced gas in separate balloons. When these were burnt they found burning with light blue flame. He did the same experiment with hydrochloric acid also. The result was same. He weighed them and found the weight being same.

The quantity of gas produced depended on the quantity of metal used. But Cavendish decided wrongly that the gas comes out because of metal and not from acid. Cavendish felt that he had separated phlogiston and he submitted a report to the Royal Society.

The torsion balance that is widely used bears his name. He determined that value of the gravitational constant using it.

Cavendish was always shy. He was rich but he did not marry. He never liked to have contact with others. He used to be alone always. He never spoke to women. To him all men were strangers.

Cavendish died in 1810. he was buried in Durby, England. A cathedral was built in his memory. He had left a lot of wealth which was distributed to establish Cavendish laboratories.

ALESSANDRO VOLTA

2009-02-05T07:09:00.000-08:00

ALESSANDRO VOLTA (1745-1827)

The first electric battery was invented by the Italian Scientist Allessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio count Volta, who built a simple battery which was called a Voltaic Pile in 1800. The Volt a standard measure of electric force, comes from his name.

Volta was born in “Como” a beautiful city in Italy in a poor family. He could study with the help of his relatives who were in high post in the church. Volta was appointed a teacher in a high school after his education. While he was in high school he invented the electrophorus a device to generate static electricity. He was invited to establish physics department in Pavia university. There he had the opportunity to conduct experiments. He studied how Galvani, an Italian anatomist. Pioneered the study of the relationship between living organisms and electricity. Galvani had discovered that a muscle could be made to contract even without subjecting it to electric charge. This he had named animal electricity. Volta didn’t believe it. He made his own experiments and sent a report to the Royal society. This was named Voltaic Pile.

Volta’s battery worked on the principle that, if a plate of copper and a plate of Zinc are placed in a bath of sulphuric acid, an electric current will be created and will flow from the copper to the Zinc. Many scientists conducted experiments using Voltaic cell. The results were (a) Water was divided electrolytically into hydrogen and oxygen (b) Invention of metals sodium and potassium and (c) Experiments on magnets.

Volta received several honours. He was invited to give a lecture at Paris institute. Napoleon, the King presided.

He was selected as senator. The king of Austria nominated him the Director, studies in philosophy, Padua. Volta died in his native como. A statue of him was erected at Como.