| Tallinn Hiiu
School
Famous scientists
   
Liis Madik
Őp. Ester Kaidro
Tallinn, 2001
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Antoine Laurent Lavoisier was born in Paris,
in August 26th 1743.He educated at the Collage Mazarin. In 1768 he was elected a member of
the Academy of Sciences. His theories became known through his book Traité
Élementaire de Chimie what was published in 1789. Lavoisier completed the work of Priestley and
Cavendish. He developed the basis of modern thermodynamics. Lavoisier was secretary and
treasurer of a committee appointed in 1790 to determine the standard weights and measures
in France. He took part in several state committees on agriculture making him suspicious
to the authorities leading the French Revolution. |
Judged by a revolutionary court, Lavoisier was
convicted to death in the guillotine, in Paris. He also wrote Sur la combustion en
general (On Combustion, 1777) and Considerations sur la nature des acids
(Considerations on the Nature of Acids, 1778).
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Michael Faraday was born on 22nd September 1791. At
the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a London bookbinder. Reading many of the books
in the shop, Faraday became fascinated by science, and wrote to Sir Humphry Davy at the
Royal Institution asking for a job. Faraday built two devices to produce what he called
electromagnetic rotation: that is a continuous circular motion from the circular magnetic
force around a wire. In 1831, he began his great series of experiments in which he
discovered electromagnetic induction. These experiments form the basis of modern
electromagnetic technology. |
On 29th August 1831, Faraday made one of his
greatest discoveries - electromagnetic induction. In a second series of experiments in
September he discovered magneto-electric induction. In 1832 he proved that the electricity
induced from a magnet, voltaic electricity produced by a battery, and static electricity
were all the same. In 1865, Maxwell proved mathematically that electromagnetic phenomena
are propagated as waves through space with the velocity of light, thereby laying the
foundation of radio communication confirmed experimentally in 1888 by Hertz and developed
for practical use by Guglielmo Marconi at the turn of the century. Faraday ended his
connection with the Royal Institution after over 50 years of service. He died at his house
at Hampton Court on 25th August 1867.
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Descartes, René was born in La Haye near Tours in
France on March 31 in 1596. He was famous French philosopher, scientist, and
mathematician. At the age of eight he went in the Jesuit
school in Anjou, where he remained for eight years. Descartes
received instruction in mathematics and in Scholastic philosophy. Upon graduation from
school, he studied law at the University of Poitiers, graduating in 1616. He never
practiced law, however; in 1618 he entered the service of Prince Maurice of Nassau to make
a military career. In succeeding years Descartes served in other armies, but his attention
had already been attracted to the problems of mathematics and philosophy to which he was
to devote the rest of his life. |
Descartes's discovered the
fundamental law of reflection: that the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of
reflection. His essay on optics was the first published statement of this law.Descartes's
treatment of light as a type of pressure in a solid medium paved the way for the
undulatory theory of light. Descartes was the first to use the last letters of the
alphabet to designate unknown quantities and the first letters to designate known ones. He
also invented the method of 0indices (as in x2) to express the powers of numbers.
He died in winter 1650 in Sweden.
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Sir. Isaac Newton was born in 4th of January in
1643 at Woolsthorpe England. He was a famous mathematician and physicist, considered one
of the greatest scientists in history. His discoveries and theories laid the foundation
for much of the progress in science since his time. He solved the mysteries of light and optics, formulated the three
laws of motion, and derived from them the law of universal gravitation. He went to the
grammar school in Grantham. Later, in the summer of 1661, he was sent to Trinity College,
at the University of Cambridge. |
Newton received his bachelor's degree in 1665. In
mathematics, he generalized the methods how to draw tangents to curves. In autumn 1666 he
developed a kind of mathematics calculus, it carried modern mathematics above the
level on Greek geometry. He was also interested in optics he discovered light
dispersion. But surely his most important discovery was the gravitational law. He died in
the 31.st of March in 1727 in Kensington.
Used literature
http://nautilus.fis.uc.pt/st2.5/scenes-e/biog/b0002.html
encyclopedia Encarta
EE VI
http://dbhs.wvusd.k12.ca.us/Nomenclature/Binary-Comm-FormulatoName.html
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