Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)

Modern astronomy begins with Copernicus (1473-1543) declaring (1530) the

Earth rotates on its axis once daily and travels around the Sun once yearly. Next
Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) made important contributions by devising
instruments to observe motion of planets. In particular, Brahe compiled
extensive data on the planet Mars. However, Johannes Kepler made the
monumental discovery of the time. Brahe, fearing his bright assistant might
eclipse him as the premiere astronomer of the day, assigned Kepler the
perplexing orbit of the planet Mars (Mars has the most elliptical orbit of all the
planets). Ironically it was precisely the Mars data that allowed Kepler to
develop his three laws describing the orbit of planets around the Sun.

Kepler's Three Laws of Planetary Motion:

1. Planets revolve around the Sun in an elliptical path, with the Sun occupying one of the foci of the
ellipse.
2. Straight line joining sun and planet sweeps out equal areas in equal intervals of time.
3. Squares of planets' orbital periods are proportional to the cubes of the semimajor axes of their orbits.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

Mathematician/astronomer/physicist who made numerous contributions to
modern science. Galileo was first to use telescope to gather evidence proving
the earth revolves around the sun. His position represented such a radical
departure from accepted thought that he was tried by the Inquisition in Rome,
ordered to recant, and forced to spend the last eight years of his life under
house arrest. But most of Galileo's projects didn't conflict with the church's
interests falling bodies, magnets, floating objects, the tides, compasses, arc
of a cannonball, and rolling objects. He informally stated the principles later
embodied in Newton's first two laws of motion. He also invented the
mechanical pendulum clock, improved the telescope, and developed the first
thermometer. Because of his pioneering work in gravitation/motion and in
combining mathematical analysis with experimentation, Galileo is credited
with ushering in the new age of science.

Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727)

There can be no outstanding scientist list without Sir Isaac Newton; he made
revolutionary advances in mathematics, optics, physics, and astronomy. In
1687 Newton published the Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica.
Principia, as it has become known, is recognized as the greatest scientific book
ever written! Newton analyzed motion of bodies under the action of
centripetal forces. The results were applied to orbiting bodies, projectiles,
pendulums, and free-fall near the Earth. He further demonstrated planets were
attracted toward the Sun by a force varying as the inverse square of the distance
and generalized that all heavenly bodies mutually attract one another. In order
to perform his calculations, Newton invented calculus.
Newton also explained a wide range of previously unrelated phenomena such as
eccentric orbits of comets, tides and their variation, precession of the Earth's
axis, and motion of Moon as perturbed by gravity of Sun. Newton was deeply
interested in light and published optics in 1704. Although he believed a wave
theory more probable, he relied on a corpuscular theory to account for phenomena such as reflexion,
refraction, colors, and diffraction.
Newton's Three Laws of Motion:
1. A body continues in a state of rest, or motion with a constant velocity, unless compelled to change by an
unbalanced force.
2. The acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the net force acting upon it and inversely
proportional to its mass.
3. For every action force, there is an equal and opposite reaction force.
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
Darwin studied medicine at Edinburgh University but was repelled by the
sight of surgery performed without anesthesia and entered Cambridge
University to become a clergyman. In 1831 after receiving his degree,
Darwin served as an unpaid naturalist on the H.M.S. Beagle for a five-year
scientific expedition to the Pacific coast of South America. The research
resulting from this voyage formed the basis of Darwin's famous book, On
the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Published in 1859,
Darwin concluded:
1. Evolutionary change was gradual and required thousands to millions of
years.
2. Primary mechanism for evolution was process called natural selection.
3. Millions of species alive today arose from single original life form
through branching process called "specialization."
Variation within species occurs randomly and survival/extinction
determined by organism's ability to adapt to its environment. Darwin's work
had a tremendous impact on society since the theory challenged beliefs
about the creation of life on earth. After publication of Origin of Species,
Darwin continued to write on botany, geology, and zoology until his death in 1882. He is buried in
Westminster Abbey.

Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)

French chemist/biologist who made numerous contributions to science
including:
1. Separated mirror image molecules and studied effect of polarized light.
2. Demonstrated handedness of molecules from plant mold using one isomer
of racemic acid.
3. Yeast is an organism and does not require oxygen for fermentation.
4. Pasteurization (mild heating) after fermentation kills microorganisms and
prevents souring.
5. Identified parasite responsible for killing silkworms and saved French silk
industry.
6. Proposed germ theory of disease urging doctors to use clean instruments,
wash hands, and disinfect bandages in The Germ Theory and its Application
to Medicine and Surgery.
7. Developed treatment to prevent anthrax. Named technique "vaccination"'
and applied it to chicken cholera and rabies.
James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)
Maxwell is considered the scientist of the 19th century who had the greatest
influence on 20th century physics. In 1931 Einstein described Maxwell's
work as "the most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced
since the time of Newton." Maxwell calculated the speed of propagation of
an electromagnetic field as approximately that of the speed of light. He
proposed the phenomenon of light is an electromagnetic phenomenon. In
1873 Maxwell published his Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism which
contains his famous Maxwell equations; the four partial differential equations
are one of the great achievements of 19th-century mathematics.
Maxwell also formulated, independently of Ludwig Boltzmann, the Maxwell-
Boltzmann kinetic theory of gases. This theory showed that molecules at high
temperature have only a high probability of moving toward those at low
temperature. Maxwell's approach did not reject the earlier studies of
thermodynamics but used a better theory of the basis to explain the
observations and experiments.

Emil Fisher (1852-1919)

No one made greater contributions to chemistry than Fisher. In his early
years developed new dyes and identified the active ingredients in
tea/coffee/cocoa. Between 1882-1906 Fisher performed perhaps the most
outstanding work in the history of chemistry. He established structures for
the 16 stereoisomers of the aldohexoses (C6H12O6) glucose being the
most prominent member. In the process he synthesized glucose, fructose
and mannose starting with glycerol. In other work he showed substances
such as adenine, xanthine, caffeine, uric acid, and guanine all belonged to
the family he called purines. Fisher advanced our knowledge of protein
by developing methods to separate/identify individual amino acids. He
also synthesized proteins and identified the peptide bond holding them
together in chains. Fisher devised cross representations (today called
Fisher projections) and proposed the often used lock & key model to
explain the fit of a drug onto a receptor site.

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Einstein is probably the most famous scientist of all time. He
burst on the scene in 1905 when he managed to solve three of
the outstanding problems of physics: photoelectric effect,
Brownian motion, and special theory of relativity. These three
publications have become known as the "Einstein trilogy."
Einstein's greatest work occurred in 1915 when at the
"advanced age" of 36, he published the general theory of
relativity showing that gravity and acceleration are the same.
Edwin Hubble (1889-1953)
In 1924 Hubble measured the distance to the Andromeda nebula and
showed it was about a hundred thousand times as far away as the nearest
stars. It had to be a separate galaxy, comparable in size to our own Milky
Way but much further away. Hubble began to classify galaxies according
to their content, distance, shape, and brightness patterns. By observing
redshifts in the light wavelengths emitted, Hubble concluded that galaxies
move away from each other at a rate dependent to the distance between
them (Hubble's Law). The further away they were the faster they receded.
Hubble calculated the point where the expansion began and estimated the
age of the universe at about 2 billion years (more recent estimates put it at
20 billion years). No person had a greater impact in determining the extent
of our universe than Edwin Hubble. From proving that other galaxies
existed to proving that galaxies move apart from one another, Hubble's
work defined our place in the cosmos. In honor of Hubble's achievements,
the Orbiting Space Telescope was named after him.

Paul Dirac (1902-1984)

Considered the second outstanding scientist of the 20th century,
Dirac was one of the pioneers of quantum mechanics and developed
the first theory of the electron that took into account special
relativity. The theory described many observed attributes of the
electron that previous theories had been unable to anticipate. But the
most remarkable prediction of the theory was that the electron
should have an anti-particle associated with it, having the same
mass, but with a positive instead of negative charge. In 1932 this
particle later called the positron was discovered, and since then
many other anti-particles have been predicted and observed. Dirac
developed a version of the Schrödinger Equation, known as the
Dirac Equation, which is relativistically correct. For his work on
anti-particles and wave mechanics, he received the Nobel Prize in
physics in 1933. Dirac was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at
Cambridge from 1932 to 1969 and professor of physics at Florida State University from 1971 until his death.