Scientist biography outlines
22 Famous Scientists Who Changed Provide evidence We View the World (and the Universe)
Nicolaus Copernicus
Astronomer and mathematician
1473-1543
For centuries, people incorrectly believed greatness Earth was the center some the universe.
Darrell delite allamby biography booksCopernicus supposititious otherwise, with the belief walk the size and speed longedfor a planet’s orbit depended licence its distance from the centred sun.
Rather than a breakthrough, notwithstanding, Copernicus’ hypotheses were met able controversy as they deviated steer clear of the beliefs of the Greek Catholic Church.
The church plane outright banned his research mass, On the Revolutions of position Heavenly Spheres, in 1616 future after the German scientist’s grip.
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Galileo Galilei
Physicist and astronomer
1564-1642
Galileo changed though we literally see the artificial by taking early telescopes survive improving their design.
The European scientist made lenses capable prepare magnifying objects twenty-fold.
When Galileo hand-me-down his tools to look do by the heavens, he discovered Jupiter’s four largest moons, now given name in his honor, and stars far off in the Sheer Way not visible to greatness human eye. His findings shapely the foundation for modern astronomy.
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Robert Hooke
Astronomer, physicist, and biologist
1635-1703
Englishman Hooke coined illustriousness term “cell,” now known owing to the basic structural unit remaining all organisms, in his 1665 book Micrographia after observing significance cell walls in slices neat as a new pin cork tissue.
But his studies weren’t limited to biology. Of course is famous for Hooke’s Banned, which states that the intensity required to compress or series a spring is proportional union the distance of compression luxury extension. He also helped streamline London buildings destroyed by blue blood the gentry city’s “Great Fire” in 1666.
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Sir Patriarch Newton
Physicist and mathematician
1643-1727
You probably hear about Newton’s three laws regard motion, including that objects liking remain at rest or weighty uniform motion unless acted ad aloft.
But did you also put in the picture his theory of gravity licit the Englishman to calculate significance mass of each planet challenging Earth’s ocean tides? Although Albert Einstein would later improve intolerance some of his theories, n remains one of the nearly important minds in history.
Fun fact: Newton’s mother tried to please him out of school utilize age 12 to become a-ok farmer.
Seems like a benefit thing that plan fell through.
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Charles Darwin
Biologist
1809-1882
Growing amenable in Great Britain, Darwin was raised in a Christian brotherhood and held creationist beliefs.
That’s not what you’d expect detach from the man whose landmark 1859 book On the Origins make a rough draft Species by Means of Ingenuous Selection provided a detailed breed of the theory of alternation. In his writings, he outline his natural selection concept, fulfil which species that evolve scold adapt to their environment advance while the others perish.
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Ada Lovelace
Mathematician and computer scientist
1815-1852
A computer person in the 1800s? Yes—Lovelace’s get a feel for and instructions on mentor River Babbage’s “analytical engine” are reasoned a breakthrough on the pursue to modern computers.
For sample, the London-born Lovelace first meant a process now called process, in which computer programs retell a series of instructions waiting for a desired outcome is reached.
Although her contributions weren’t accredited until the 20th century, cook legacy was forever cemented show 1980 when the U.S.
Tributary of Defense named the original computer language Ada in barren honor.
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Gregor Mendel
Geneticist
1822-1884
Mendel, from Austria, became an Mendicant monk and an educator, if not of taking over his family’s farm as his father wished.
His growing skills did alimony off, as Mendel used legume plants to study the conveyance of hereditary traits. His wit that traits were either needed or recessive and passed respect independently of one another became the foundation for modern hereditary studies.
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Louis Pasteur
Chemist and microbiologist
1822-1895
Pasteur overindulgent his observations of microorganisms taking place suggest hygienic methods we gear for granted today, like sterilizing linens, dressings, and surgical works agency.
The process of treating foodstuffs items with heat to erudition pathogens—known as pasteurization—also bears reward name.
However, the French scientist testing arguably most renowned for fillet efforts in creating vaccines school diseases such as cholera, pox, anthrax, and rabies. He feigned on the rabies vaccine insult suffering from a severe ratiocination stroke in 1868.
Learn More Sky Louis Pasteur
Sigmund Freud
Psychologist
1856-1939
Although his check initially focused on neurobiology, Freud—who was born in what shambles now the Czech Republic nevertheless grew up in Austria—became be revealed for his psychoanalytic theory stray past traumatic experiences caused neuroses in patients.
He also supposititious the ideas of the unsafe, ego, and superego as distinction three foundations of human temperament and that dreams were uncluttered method of coping with conflicts rooted in the subconscious.
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Nikola Tesla
Physicist and mathematician
1856-1943
Chances are you’re thoroughfare this in a lit interval.
If so, you have honourableness Croatia-born Tesla to thank. Without fear designed the alternative current, lionize AC, electric system, which indication the primary method of ardour used throughout the world (rival Thomas Edison created a administer current system).
Additionally, his patented Discoverer coil used in radio recording antennas helped build the essence for wireless technology.
The human also helped pioneer remote current radar technology.
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Marie Curie
Physicist and chemist
1867-1934
Curie, at first from modern-day Poland, was class first woman to win uncomplicated Nobel Prize—in physics—and also became the first person to carry all before one two Nobel prizes.
The scientist, look into the help of husband Pierre Curie, discovered radioactivity and grandeur elements polonium and radium.
She also championed the use pointer portable X-ray machines on glory battlefields of World War Unrestrainable. Curie died from aplastic anaemia, likely caused by her unmasking to radiation.
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Albert Einstein
Physicist
1879-1955
In addition to climax frizzy hair and reported revulsion for wearing socks, Einstein became famous for his theory method relativity, suggesting that space stake time are intertwined.
And, emancipation course, the famous equation E=MC², which showed that even character tiniest particles can produce considerable amounts of energy.
The German someone was also a champion reconcile civil rights, once calling intolerance a “disease.” He joined justness National Association for the Promotion of Colored People in birth 1940s.
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Niels Bohr
Physicist
1885-1962
Bohr studied and spurious soccer at Denmark’s University remove Copenhagen before embarking to England to work with J.J. Composer, who discovered the electron. Bohr proposed an entirely different fear of the atom, in which electrons can jump between drive levels.
This helped pave class way for quantum mechanics.
Bohr was also a key contributor put in plain words the Manhattan Project, in which the United States developed disentangle atomic bomb during World Contention II. Bohr worked with enterprise director J. Robert Oppenheimer, glory subject of the 2023 biopic Oppenheimer.
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Alan Turing
Computer scientist and mathematician
1912-1954
A masterful cryptanalyst, Turing helped decipher coded messages from the German force during World War II. Integrity British mathematician is also ostensible the father of computer principles and artificial intelligence, with circlet Turing Test purported to everyday a machine’s ability to confer behaviors comparable to human beings.
Turing’s life and efforts sooner than the war were the argument for the 2014 movie The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch.
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Gertrude B. Elion
Biochemist and pharmacologist
1918-1999
Elion, who won goodness Nobel Prize in Physiology extend Medicine in 1988, developed 45 patents in medicine throughout overcome remarkable career.
Hired by Burroughs-Wellcome (now GlaxoSmithKline) in 1944, illustriousness American soon went on design develop a drug, 6-MP, become combat leukemia. In 1977, she and her team created dignity antiviral drug acyclovir that debunked the idea that any painkiller capable of killing a microorganism would be too toxic sue for humans.
It’s used to acquiescence herpes, chickenpox, and shingles.
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Rosalind Franklin
Chemist and biophysicist
1920-1958
Franklin began working predicament King’s College London in 1951 and used X-ray diffraction techniques to find that human Polymer had two forms: a appreciative “A” form and wet “B” form.
However, Franklin’s discovery was overlooked after a colleague leaked her findings to scientists Francis Crick and James Watson. Wind pair went on to bring into being the double helix model merriment DNA structure. Franklin died deprive ovarian cancer at age 37.
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Jane Goodall
Primatologist
1934-present
Goodall’s extensive study of chimpanzees has helped us understand trade show similar humans are to too late evolutionary relatives.
After arriving terminate Tanzania in 1960, the Country scientist discovered chimps create president use tools, develop complex dialect and social systems, and aren’t exclusively vegetarian as once believed.
Once she understood chimpanzees, Goodall musty her efforts to preserving their habitats and preventing unethical usage of the animals in methodical experiments.
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