Karl Ernst Ludwig Marx Planck, theoretical physicist, was born on this day in 1858. He had a distinguished career as an intellectual, founding the field of quantum theory, supporting Albert Einstein’s work on Theory of Relativity, and winning the Nobel Prize in 1918. He was first recipient of the newly organized Max Planck Medal which […]
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Born on this date in 1452 in Tuscany, Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (Wikipedia) is the original “Renaissance Man,” and thus near and dear to all our hearts here at MAKE. By the time he died in 1512, aged 67 years, his achievements had established him, arguably, as the most diversely talented human being who ever lived: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer. Oh, and namesake of a very famous turtle.
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Although best known today for the eponymous Bunsen burner, German chemist Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen (Wikipedia), born on this date in 1811, had a foundational role in many areas of modern chemistry. He discovered the use of iron oxide hydrate as a precipitating agent for arsenic, which even today has applications in treating contaminated groundwater. His experiments with arsenic cost him an eye (by an explosion of pyrophoric tetramethyldiarsine) and almost cost him his life, by poisoning. He invented the Bunsen cell, an early electrochemical “battery” that improved upon existing designs by replacing precious metallic platinum with common carbon in the cathode. He used his new cell, among other things, to isolate pure magnesium for the first time, by electrolysis. With Kirchoff, he was instrumental in the development of flame-emission spectroscopy, and used the technique, for which his famous burner was developed, to discover two then-unknown elements–cesium and rubidium. He was, even among the acerbic European academic chemists of his day, widely regarded for his kindness, even temperament, and good character. He died in 1899, aged 88.
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Yesterday, February 28, 2010, Linus Carl Pauling would’ve been 109 years old. And we’d all be better off he were still with us since, by all accounts, even a doddering Pauling could’ve run rings around most folks intellectually. One of four human beings ever to have been awarded multiple Nobel Prizes, and the only one ever to have won both the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1954) and the Nobel Peace Prize (1962). His 1939 Nature of the Chemical Bond remains one of the most influential chemistry texts ever published, and his 1947 General Chemistry, available in its classic 3rd edition through Dover Publications for a song, remains one of the best-written and most readable introductions to the subject. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for his instrumental role in scientific activism to end above-ground nuclear weapons testing. A complete list of Pauling’s accolades could, and has, filled several books, but I can’t resist mentioning, in closing, that geek ubermensch Linus Torvalds is reportedly named after him.
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Happy Birthday Gallileo Galilei! Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism.
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Born on this date in 1834 in the small village of Aremzyani, in what was then considered Siberia, Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev would go on, in 1869, to produce the first periodic table of the chemical elements. Mendeleev used the periodicity he’d observed in the properties of then-known elements to accurately predict many of the properties of germanium, gallium, and scandium, which had not yet been discovered. Mendeleev died in St. Petersburg in 1907, at the age of 72. Element number 101 is named mendelevium in his honor.
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French author Jules Verne was born on this day in 1828. His father wanted him to be a lawyer and circumstances forced him to work as a stock broker, but eventually he shook off these humdrum vocations and became the world’s first professional science fiction author. Verne quickly gained a reputation for combining ultramodern technology […]
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