The Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers: Alexander Graham Bell as Inventor and Scientist

Alexander Graham Bell's design sketch of the telephone. Sketches, undated; handwritten text top and bottom of page, 1876. Box 273, "Subject File: The Telephone--Drawing of the Telephone, Bell's Original" Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

In 1876, at the age of 29, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. In 1877, he formed the Bell Telephone Company, and in the same year married Mabel Hubbard and embarked on a yearlong honeymoon in Europe. Bell might easily have been content with the success of his invention. His many laboratory notebooks demonstrate, however, that he was driven by a genuine and rare intellectual curiosity that kept him regularly searching, striving, and wanting always to learn and to create. He would continue to test out new ideas through a long and productive life. He would explore the realm of communications as well as engage in a great variety of scientific activities involving kites, airplanes, tetrahedral structures, sheep-breeding, artificial respiration, desalinization and water distillation, and hydrofoils. With the enormous technical and later financial success of his telephone invention, Bell's future was secure, and he was able to arrange his life so that he could devote himself to his scientific interests. Toward this end, in 1881, he used the $10,000 award for winning France's Volta Prize to set up the Volta Laboratory in Washington, D.C. A believer in scientific teamwork, Bell worked with two associates, his cousin Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter, at the Volta Laboratory. Their experiments soon produced such major improvements in Thomas Edison's phonograph that it became commercially viable. After 1885, when he first visited Nova Scotia, Bell set up another laboratory there at his estate, Beinn Bhreagh (pronounced Ben Vreeah), near Baddeck, where he would assemble other teams of bright young engineers to pursue new and exciting ideas. Among one of his first innovations after the telephone was the "photophone," a device that enabled sound to be transmitted on a beam of light. Bell and his assistant, Charles Sumner Tainter, developed the photophone using a sensitive selenium crystal and a mirror that would vibrate in response to a sound. In 1881, they successfully sent a photophone message over 200 yards from one building to another. Bell regarded the photophone as "the greatest invention I have ever made; greater than the telephone." Bell's invention reveals the principle upon which today's laser and fiber optic communication systems are founded, though it would take the development of several modern technologies to realize it fully.

Over the years, Bell's curiosity would lead him to speculate on the nature of heredity, first among the deaf and later with sheep born with genetic irregularities. His sheep-breeding experiments at Beinn Bhreagh sought to increase the numbers of twin and triplet births. Bell was also willing to attempt inventing under the pressure of daily events, and in 1881 he hastily constructed an electromagnetic device called an induction balance to Alexander Graham Bell's Sketch try and locate a bullet lodged in President Garfield after of a vacuum jacket in use. an assassin had shot him. He later improved this and Box 273, "Subject File: Drawings by Alexander Graham Bell, 1881-1911" produced a device called a telephone probe, which would make a telephone receiver click when it touched Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers, Manuscript Division , metal. That same year, Bell's newborn son, Edward, Library of Congress. died from respiratory problems, and Bell responded to that tragedy by designing a metal vacuum jacket that would facilitate breathing. This apparatus was a forerunner of the iron lung used in the 1950s to aid polio victims. In addition to inventing the audiometer to detect minor hearing problems and conducting experiments with what today are called energy recycling and alternative fuels, Bell also worked on methods of removing salt from seawater. However, these interests may be considered minor activities compared to the time and effort he put into the challenge of flight. By the 1890s, Bell had begun experimenting with propellers and kites. His work led him to apply the concept of the tetrahedron (a solid figure with four triangular faces) to kite design as well as to create a new form of architecture. In 1907, four years after the Wright Brothers first flew at Kitty Hawk, Bell Photograph of the June Bug. Box 148, "Subject File: Aviation-formed the Aerial Experiment Association with Glenn The Silver Dart" Curtiss, William "Casey" Baldwin, Thomas Selfridge, Alexander Graham Bell Family and J.A.D. McCurdy, four young engineers whose Papers, Manuscript Division , common goal was to create airborne vehicles. By 1909, Library of Congress. the group had produced four powered aircraft, the best of which, the Silver Dart, made the first successful powered flight in Canada on February 23, 1909. Bell spent the last decade of his life improving hydrofoil designs, and in 1919 he and Casey Baldwin built a hydrofoil that set a world water-speed record that was not broken until 1963. Months before he died, Bell told a reporter, "There cannot be mental atrophy in any person who continues to observe, to remember what he observes, and to seek answers for his unceasing hows and whys about things."

Louis Pasteur 1822-1895

He was born on December 27, 1822 in Dole, a city of Eastern France. He is the founder of the fields of stereochemistry and microbiology; and achieved a series of very important discoveries of major value to medicine, agriculture, animal husbandry, and industry. From his initial observations in crystallography, to his invaluable discoveries on anaerobiosis, pasteurization, the bacillus of anthrax and the rabies virus, each and every one of his scientific discoveries brought significant benefits to mankind. With his work he set the principles for vaccinations, while microbiology, surgery and obstetrics owe him a great deal for their ensuing progress (discovery of the cause of puerperal fever, antirabic serum, etc.). Louis Pasteurs name has been connected with several of the greatest scientific theoretical concepts but as well of a number of practical applications of contemporary science as above mentioned. In all civilized languages, the word pasteurization is equally significant in everyday life for the housewife, the food technician and the microbiologist. Modern biochemists still refer to the metabolic reactions known as the "Pasteur effect" and medical doctors consider the experiments on vaccinations launched by Louis Pasteur as the turning point in the history of modern medicine. Besides being a great scientist, Louis Pasteur was also a "modern crusader" defending social welfare passionately along with his research for scientific truth. He was always ready to engage in public debates and difficult fights until he managed to convince his "rivals" and the public, and win their support for his work. Understanding Nature's secrets through scientific knowledge was for him a sacred mission to which he dedicated himself with religious devotion. We invite you to visit the website for Louis Pasteur et l'Institut Pasteur at find more information on:

www.pasteur.fr where you will

he life and work of Louis Pasteur Books and articles related to Louis Pasteur

Sir Humphry Davy

From LoveToKnow 1911
SIR HUMPHRY DAVY, Bart. (1778-1829), English chemist, was born on the 17th of December 1778 at or near Penzance in Cornwall. During his school days at the grammar schools of Penzance and Truro he showed few signs of a taste for scientific pursuits or indeed of any special zeal for knowledge or of ability beyond a certain skill in making verse translations from the classics and in story-telling. But when in 1794 his father, Robert Davy, died, leaving a widow and five children in embarrassed circumstances, he awoke to his responsibilities as the eldest son, and becoming apprentice to a surgeonapothecary at Penzance set to work on a systematic and remarkably wide course of self-instruction which he mapped out for himself in preparation for a career in medicine. Beginning with metaphysics and ethics and passing on to mathematics, he turned to chemistry at the end of 17 9 7, and within a few months of reading Nicholson's and Lavoisier's treatises on that science had produced a new theory of light and heat. About the same time he made the acquaintance of two men of scientific attainments - Gregory Watt (1777-1804), a son of James Watt, and Davies Giddy, afterwards Gilbert (1767-1839), who was president of the Royal Society from 1827 to 1831. By the latter he was recommended to Dr Thomas Beddoes, who was in 1798 establishing his Medical Pneumatic Institution at Bristol for investigating the medicinal properties of various gases.

This page is about the physicist, Homi J. Bhabha. For the critical theorist, see Homi K. Bhabha. Homi Jehangir Bhabha (October 30, 1909 January 24, 1966) was an Indian nuclear physicist of Parsi-Zoroastrian heritage who had a major role in the development of the Indian atomic energy program and is considered to be the father of India's nuclear program. Bhabha was born in Bombay to Jehangir Hormaji Bhabha, a barrister with the Tata company and Mehran F. Bhabha, nee' Pande. Through his mother, Bhabha was the greatgrandson of Sir Dinshaw Petit and therefore distantly related by marriage to Mohammed Ali Jinnah through his wife, Rattanbai Petit. He studied at the Elphinstone College and the Royal Institute of Science. He received his doctorate from Caius College at Cambridge University in 1934. Paul Dirac greatly influenced Bhabha during his study of Mechanical Engineering at Cambridge, to pursue an education in theoretical physics. A research scientist at the Cavendish Laboratories at Cambridge, he was stranded in India as a result of the Second World War, and set up the Cosmic Ray Research Unit at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore under C. V. Raman in 1939. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on March 20, 1941. With the help of J. R. D. Tata, he established the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research at Mumbai. With the end of the Second World War and Indian Independence, he received the blessings of Nehru for efforts in India, towards peaceful development of atomic energy. He established the Atomic Energy Commission of India in 1948. He represented India in International Atomic Energy Forums, and as President of the United Nations Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy

Blaise Pascal died 19 August 1662. He is remembered on 21 August. Blaise Pascal was born in Clermont-Ferrand (45:47 N 3:05 E), France, on 19 June 1623. His mother died when he was three, and he was home-schooled by his father, who had connections with Mersenne, Fermat, and Descartes. In his late teens (or possibly early twenties) Pascal invented a mechanical calculator, the first of its kind. Pascal As Physicist Pascal as a physicist was concerned chiefly with the pressures of liquids and gasses. In 1644 (aged 21) he first read the work of Torricelli (pupil of Galileo) on the barometer. He devoted the next seven years to experiments showing that the reason why water (or other fluid) rises in a tube closed at the upper end and with the air excluded from it is not (as Aristotle had supposed) because "nature abhors a vacuum," but because the atmospheric pressure pushes the fluid into the tube at the bottom. He showed that in a closed vessel, the pressure in pounds per square inch is uniform in all directions on all surfaces (allowing for greater pressure at greater depths added by the weight of the liquid). This is known today as Pascal's Principle. By applying it, he invented the modern syringe and the hydraulic press. He showed that barometric pressure varied with altitude by carefully and repeatedly reading the pressure off his instruments at various known altitudes under many climatic conditions. In presenting his results, he taunts his enemies the Jesuits with getting their methods backward, accusing them of relying on ancient authority (Aristotle) in physics, while ignoring ancient authority (the Scriptures and the Fathers, especially Augustine) in religion. Pascal and Mathematics When he was about 30, Pascal got into discussions with Fermat about the mathematics of gambling. As a result, he devised what is called Pascal's Triangle, an array of numbers which begins as shown here. 1 11 121 1331 14641 1 5 10 10 5 1
1

1 7

6 21

15 35

20 35

15 21

6 7

1 1

Each number is the sum of the two numbers immediately above it. In the row with n+1 numbers in it, the numbers add up to 2 to the power n, and represent the number of ways of getting various numbers of heads out of n coin tosses. Thus, with four coin tosses, we

see from the numbers 1 4 6 4 1 (which add up to 16) that when four coins are tossed there are 16 possible outcomes, 1 producing no head, 4 producing 1 head, 6 producing 2 heads, 4 producing 3 heads and 1 producing 4 heads. Lest this seem to be of interest only to gamblers, we note that many events in nature are the result of a number of causes whose presence or absence has the apparent randomness of a coin toss. Thus the formulas derived from Pascal's insights are important not only to gamblers but to insurance companies and statisticians.

Jagadish Chandra Bose

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Jagadish Chandra Bose in his lab 30 November 1858 Born Mymensingh, East Bengal (now Bangladesh), British India 23 November 1937 (aged 78) Died Giridih, Bengal Presidency, British India Residence Undivided India Nationality British Indian Physics, Biophysics, Biology, Botany, Archaeology, Field Bengali Literature, Bangla Science Fiction Institutions Presidency College Calcutta University Alma mater Christ's College, Cambridge University of London Academic advisor John Strutt (Lord Rayleigh) Millimetre waves Known for Radio Crescograph

Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose (Bengali: (IPA: [Jgodish Chndro Boshu]) (November 30, 1858 November 23, 1937) was a Bengali polymath: a physicist, biologist, botanist, archaeologist, and science fiction writer.[1] He pioneered the

investigation of radio and microwave optics, made extremely significant contributions to plant science, and laid the foundations of experimental science in the Indian subcontinent. [2] He is considered the father of radio science,[3] and is also considered the father of Bengali science fiction. He was the first from the Indian subcontinent to get a US patent, in 1904. Born in Bengal province of British India, Bose completed graduation from St. Xavier's College, Calcutta. Then he went to the University of London to study medicine, but couldn't complete his study due to health problems. He returned to India and joined the Presidency College as a Professor of Physics. There, in spite of racial discrimination, and lack of funding and equipment, Bose carried on his scientific research. He made remarkable progress in his research of remote wireless signaling and was the first to use semiconductor junction to detect radio signals. However, instead of trying to gain commercial benefit from this invention Bose made his inventions public in order to allow others to develop on his research. Subsequently he made some pioneering discoveries in plant physiology. He used his own invention crescograph to measure plant response to various stimuli, and thereby scientifically proved parallelism between animal and plant tissues. Although Bose filed for patent for one of his inventions due to peer pressure his reluctance to any form of patenting was well known. Now about 70 years of after his death he is being credited for many of his contributions to modern science.

Alfred Nobel
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Jump to: navigation, search Alfred Nobel

Born Died Resting place Occupation

October 21, 1833 Stockholm, Sweden December 10, 1896 (aged 63) Sanremo, Italy Norra begravningsplatsen, Stockholm 592124.52N 1819.43ECoordinates:
592124.52N 1819.43E

Chemist, engineer, innovator, armaments manufacturer and the inventor of dynamite.

Alfred Bernhard Nobel (helpinfo) (October 21, 1833, Stockholm, Sweden December 10, 1896, Sanremo, Italy) was a Swedish chemist, engineer, innovator, armaments manufacturer and the inventor of dynamite. He owned Bofors, a major armaments manufacturer, which he had redirected from its previous role as an iron and steel mill. In his last will, he used his enormous fortune to institute the Nobel Prizes. The synthetic element nobelium was named after him. hide]

1 Personal background 2 Dynamite 3 The Prizes 4 References 5 Notes 6 External links

Personal background
Nobel was the third son of Immanuel Nobel (1801-1872) and Andriette Ahlsell Nobel (1805-1889). Born in Stockholm on October 21, 1833, he went with his family in 1842 to St. Petersburg, where his father (who had invented modern plywood) started a "torpedo" works. Alfred studied chemistry with Professor Nikolay Nikolaevich Zinin. In 1859, the factory was left to the care of the second son, Ludvig Nobel (1831-1888), who greatly enlarged it. Alfred, returning to Sweden with his father after the bankruptcy of their family business, devoted himself to the study of explosives, and especially to the safe manufacture and use of nitroglycerine (discovered in 1847 by Ascanio Sobrero, one of his fellow students under Thophile-Jules Pelouze at the University of Torino). Several explosions occurred at their family-owned factory in Heleneborg; one disastrous one killed Alfred's younger brother Emil and several other workers in 1864. The foundations of the Nobel Prize were laid in 1895 when Alfred Nobel wrote his last will, leaving much of his wealth for its establishment. Since 1901, the prize has honored men and women for outstanding achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and for work in peace. In 1876 Bertha von Suttner became Alfred Nobel's secretary but after only a brief stay, left and married Baron Arthur Gundaccar von Suttner. Though her personal contact with Alfred Nobel had been brief, she corresponded with him until his death in 1896, and it is believed that she was a major influence in his decision to include a peace prize among those prizes provided in his will, which she won in 1905. Nobel also wrote Nemesis, a prose tragedy in four acts about Beatrice Cenci, partly inspired by Percy Bysshe Shelley's The Cenci, was printed while he was dying. The entire stock except for three copies was destroyed immediately after his death, being regarded as scandalous and blasphemous. The first surviving edition (bilingual SwedishEsperanto) was published in Sweden in 2003. The play has been translated to Slovenian via the Esperanto version. Alfred Nobel is buried in Norra begravningsplatsen in Stockholm

Encyclopedia of World Biography on Andr Marie Ampre

The French physicist Andr Marie Ampre (1775-1836), with his original and penetrating analysis of the magnetic effects of current-carrying wires, was the founder of electrodynamics. Born on Jan. 20, 1775, in Lyons, Andr Marie Ampre was the second child of Jean Jacques Ampre, a prosperous businessman, and Jeanne Antoinette Desutires-Sarcey Ampre. Once the boy had mastered the art of reading under his father's guidance, he showed a voracious appetite for everything in printed form. His principal love was mathematics and geometry. In these subjects his father's library soon failed to provide suitable material, so his father took him to the Lyons library, only to find that some of the best works in mathematics, such as most treatises by Leonhard Euler and Daniel Bernoulli, were in Latin. Young Ampre mastered Latin in a few weeks, as he had not only an uncommon talent for languages but also a consuming interest in the possibility of a universal language.

Sir CV Raman was one of the brilliant scientists of India who won the Nobel Prize in 1930 for his discovery of the 'Raman Effect.' (The discovery that monochromatic light ray in the incident beam can be split up into a number of components with wave length smaller or greater than that of the incident ray). In 1934, he founded the Indian Academy of Sciences and in 1948, the Raman Research Institute. In addition to being a great scientist, CV Raman was a superb speaker. The following speech delivered at the convocation ceremony of the Agra University is a good example of his eloquence.

CONVOCATION ADDRESS
18 November 1950 It is no small honour to be asked to address the Convocation of a University in India, and certainly it is a unique experience for me, at any rate, to be called upon to

address a University Convocation at one place a second time. I know poverty and misery and I quite appreciate by personal experience what it is to be poor, what it is to have no clothes, what it is to have no books, what it is to struggle through life, what it is to walk through the streets without an umbrella, without conveyance along miles in dusty wards, I have been through it all and I can understand the difficulties that most of you graduates have to face up today. I'm speaking from a long experience of 60 years. Please do not imagine that all the 60 years are milk and roses. To be able to accomplish something I want to tell you that you have to go through such experience.