Dead Scientist of the Week
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Henry Gellibrand

Henry Gellibrand was born on November 17, 1597 in Aldersgate, London, England. He was the first of five sons of Henry Gellibrand, a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. The year after the death of his father he began studying at Trinity College, Oxford, where he earned two arts degrees, a BA in 1619 and a MA in 1623. Gellibrand took holy orders and served as a curate in Chiddingstone, Kent. In 1626 he became professor of astronomy at Gresham College, London upon the recommendation of Henry Briggs. When Briggs died in 1630 he left his unfinished Trigometria Britanica to Gellibrand. Gellibrand finished the manuscript and published in 1633.

Taking compass readings in Deptford, Gellibrand compared his readings to those taken 12 years early he determined that declination (the angle between true, geographic north and magnetic north) had changed. Declination varies at different places, but Gellibrand was the first to observe its variation with time. He published his results in 1635. The change in declination is due to changes in the earth's magnetic field. Gellilbrand also studied ways to improve navigation and find ways to determine longitude from celestial observations.

Although only 39 years of age Gellibrand retired in 1836 moving to Mayfield in Sussex. He died not long after, suffering a fever.

References:

Goodwin, Gorodon; "Henry Gellibrand" in Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 21; Smith, Elder, and Co.

O'Connor, JJ and Robertson, EF; "Henry Gellibrand"; MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive at www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk

Henry Gellibrand Wikipedia Entry

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Martin Rodbell

Martin Rodbell was born on December 1, 1925 in Baltimore, Maryland. He was the son of a grocer and attended public schools including an accelerated program and Baltimore City College. In 1943 he went to John Hopkins University where he studied biology and French existential literature. His studies at John Hopkins where interrupted by World War II, when he served in the U.S. Navy as a radio operator in the South Pacific. He graduated with his bachelors in 1949, spending his last year taking all the advanced chemistry courses offed by Hopkins. In 1950 he went to the University of Washington where he earned his doctorate under Donald Hanahan, completing a thesis on the metabolism of lecithin in the liver. Lecithin is a mixture of phospholipids that acts as a surfactant and lubricant.

Rodbell did his postdoctoral work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he worked for two years as a research assistant. In 1956 he took a position as a research biochemist in the laboratory of in the laboratory of Christian Anfinsen at the National Heart Institute where he studied the composition of lipid proteins and the role of glucose in adipose tissue. In 1961 Rodbell transferred to the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Disease (now part of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases). The move also coincided with a change in the focus of his research moved away from studying phospholipids and began researching cellular second messenger systems.

Second messengers are chemicals that are let into or produced inside a cell in response to an outside signal. The production or ingress of second messengers is stimulated by the reception of a chemical signal at a receptor protein embedded in the cellular membrane. Rodbell was researching the effects of glucagon on rat liver cells and discovered g-proteins, a series of inter-cellular proteins that are linked to cellular membrane embedded receptors which can activate transcription and protein production. These proteins are used throughout the endocrine system as a means of coupling the extra-cellular signal with internal cell activity. For his discoveries the g-proteins Rodbell shared the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Alfred G. G. Gilman.

Rodbell retired in 1994 and died on December 7, 1998 of multiple organ failure.

References:

Rodbell, Martin; Nobel Autobiography at nobelprize.org

Biographical Matter at The Martin Rodbell papers at nlm.nih.gov

Martin Rodbell Wikipedia Entry

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Jan Ingenhousz

Jan Ingenhousz was born on December 8, 1730 in Breda, Netherlands. His mother died when he was young, but not much else is known about his parents, but they did have enough resources to provide Ingenhousz with a good education, including the Latin School in Breda, which he finished at sixteen and went on to study medicine at the University of Leuven, where he earned his medical doctorate in 1753. After finishing his doctorate he spent two more years attending lectures at the University of Leiden and returned to Breda to open a practice.

In addition to his practice Ingenhousz studied physics in his own laboratory, with his first successful publication at age 28. Because he was a Catholic there was no possibility of him getting a university position in the Netherlands and he remained there until his father died in 1764. Intending to travel Europe and study he started in England where he learned about smallpox vaccination. He became a master inocculator and successfully combated an epidemic in Hertfordshire. Upon the recommendation of John Pringle, a family friend, Ingenhousz traveled to Vienna where he inoculated the Empress Mary Theresa and her family. As a reward for his services Ingenhousz was appointed court physician.

In 1779 Ingenhousz returned to England and began research on photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is the process by which plants take up carbon dioxide out of the air and use it to make sugar. The process requires sunlight and produces oxygen gas. Ingenhousz experimented by placing plants under water and exposing them to sunlight. He noticed that they produce gas bubbles on the underside of their leaves. He collected this gas and identified it as oxygen, which Joseph Priestly had described only a few years earlier. In addition to the discovery of photosynthesis Ingenhousz is also the discovery of brownian motion from his observation to coal dust on the surface of alcohol. For his discoveries Ingenhousz was made a member of the Royal Society that same year, 1779.

Ingenhousz died on September 7, 1799 in Claine, England, where he is buried.

References:

Harvey, R.B. and Harvey, Helen M. Whittier; "Brief Paper on Jan Ingenhousz"; Plant Physiology (1930)5:282-287

McCarthy, Eugene M.; "Jan Ingenhousz"; Macroevolution.net

Jan Ingenhousz Wikipedia Entry

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Henri Becquerel

Henri Becquerel was born on December 15, 1852 in Paris, France. He was born into a family of scientists. His grandfather, Antoine Cesar Becquerel, invented an electrolytic method for extracting metals from their ores and his father, Alexander Edmund Becquerel, a professor of applied physics was known for his work on solar radiation and phosphorescence. Becquerel attended the Ecole Polytechnique in 1872 and the Ecole des Pontes at Chaussees from 1874 to 1877 where he studied engineering. After graduation he worked as a engineer for the Department of Bridges and Highways. In 1876 he became an assistant teacher at the Ecole Polytechnique. In 1895 he became the chair of physics. He also worked as an assistant naturalist at the Museum of Natural History. When his father died in 1891 he assumed his position as the professor of physics at Museum of Natural History.

Becquerel's research covered a number of physics topics. His first work was the rotation of polarized light rays using magnets. Next he began researching phosphorescent materials following in the footsteps of his father. He studied phosphorescent materials by exposing them to sunlight and then exposing them to photographic plates. He was conducting an experiment with uranium. First he would expose it to sunlight and them place it in with a photographic plate. He noticed that the uranium fogged the picture produced. He found he could block the fogging by inserting coins between the uranium and the photographic plate. An experiment run on February 27 and 28, 1896. The weather was overcast when he exposed his uranium salts and so he expected only a faint fogging on the developed photographic plate. Instead he was surprised to find the fogging as severe as it would be from uranium exposed to the sun. This radiation produced by the uranium did not need to be illuminated with sunlight to be produced. The new rays that were produced by the uranium were named Becquerel rays.

Becquerel determined that the rays ionized gasses and could be bent by a magnetic field, unlike x-rays which had recently been discovered by Wilhelm Rontgen. Becquerel determined that the particles emitted by the uranium salts were identical to the electrons discovered by Joseph John Thomson. Becquerel named the particles beta particles. For his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity Becquerel shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in physics with Marie and Pierre Curie. Becquerel had given the breakdown products of his uranium salts to the Curies, who discovered polonium and radium in them. Other honors won by Becquerel include election to French Academy of Sciences in 1889. He was made an officer in the Legion of Honor in 1900.

Becquerel died on August 25, 1908.

References:

Steinman, Rebecca; "Henri Bequerel"; in Biographies of Atomic Scientists

Henri Becquerel Nobel Biography

Henri Becquerel Wikipedia Entry

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Grote Reber

Grote Reber was born on December 22, 1911 in the Chicago suburb of Wheaton, Illinois. His father was a lawyer and the part owner of a canning factory. He died when Reber was 21. His mother was an middle school teacher and had among her students Edwin Hubble, who her son would later discuss cosmology with. Reber earned a degree in electrical engineering from the Armour Institute of Technology (now the Illinois Institute of Technology) in 1933. Reber excelled at mathematics and electronics and after graduation he worked a series of jobs at Chicago area radio manufacturers.

In his spare time Reber was an amateur radio enthusiast and after contacting 150 countries with his radio he was looking for a new challenge. He read about Karl Jansky who had discovered cosmic radio emissions coming from the region of the constellation Sagittarius. Reber took the summer of from his engineering job and used $2000 of his own money (the equivalent of his annual salary) to build a 32 foot parabolic radio radio antenna in the vacant lot next to his mother's house. After series of failures in 1939 Reber was able to detect galactic radio emissions and used his antenna to make maps of the radio emissions from the sky. Reber was forced to make his observations during the night and early morning hours due to interference from automotive starters. In 1943 Reber detected radio emissions from the sun.

After his mother died in 1945 Reber accepted a position working for the National Institute of Standards in Washington D.C., but he soon grew frustrated with the growing atmosphere of McCarthyism in the nation's capital. In 1951 he moved to Hawaii, where he researched astronomy and atmospheric physics at an observatory at the top of Haleakala, a volcanic peak on Maui. In 1954 Reber moved to Tasmania, where he could exploit the ionospheric transparency for his studies.

Initially Reber had trouble getting his articles published. Reber was a pioneer in the field of radio astronomy and it took a while for his findings to be accepted. Today radio astronomy is a major field of study. Awards won by Reber include the Cresson Medal given by the Franklin Society and the Bruce Medal awarded by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. He was also awarded an honorary doctorate by Ohio State University.

Reber died on December 20, 2002 in Tasmania, Australia, two days before his 91st birthday.

References:

Kellermann, Kenneth; "Grote Reber, 1911-2002"; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society(2003)35:1472-3

Tyson, Anthony J., "Grote Reber"; Physics Today; August 2003

Grate Reber Wikipedia Entry

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Carl Ludwig

Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig was born on December 29, 1816 in Gottingen, Germany. His father had been on officer in the Napoleonic Wars. Ludwig graduated high school in 1834 and started his medical studies at the University of Marburg. He was relegated from the university because of his political activities and he continued his medical studies at the University of Erlangen and at the School of Surgery at Bamberg. He returned to Marburg in 1839 and finished his medical doctorate in 1840. After graduation he worked in the laboratory of Robert Bunsen and as a prosector in the school of anatomy at the University of Marburg. In 1846 he was appointed professor extrordinary in anatomy at Marburg and in 1849 he was appointed professor of anatomy at the University of Zurich. Six years later he went to Vienna and and an appointment teaching at the Josephinium, a school for military surgeons. In 1865 he took a position at the newly created department of physiology at the University of Leipzig. In 1869 he was called to develop and be the director of the newly created physiological institute at Leipzig that would eventually be named after him. He remained there until his death.

Ludwig's research dealt with the circulation of fluids in the body. His first paper, published in 1842, described the circulation of blood in the kidney and was the first to describe the function of the glomerulus. He also investigated blood pressure and designed an instrument to measure and record it. His investigations also included secretory glands and lymph circulation. More important than any of his research results it was his methods that had a lasting impact on the study of physiology. Up until the time of Ludwig physiological research involved the belief in vital forces, forces generated by the body that sometimes went against physical law. Ludwig's insight was that the forces of physics and chemistry played a important role in physiological processes and his methods sought to show how these natural processes affected physiological systems. For his insights and use of methods he is often called the father of modern physiology.

Honors won by Ludwig include the Copley Medal in 1884, given by the Royal Society of London and foreign membership in the Royal Swedish Academy of Science in 1869.

Ludwig died on April 23, 1895.

References:

Zimmer, Heinz-Gerd; "Carl Ludwig"; retrieved from feps.org

"Carl Ludwig" in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

Carl Ludwig Wikipedia Entry

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Anselme Payen

Anselme Payen was born on January 6, 1795 in Paris France. His father was an entrepreneur who had started several chemical production plants. Payen studied chemistry with his father starting when he was 13. Wanting to keep him out of the Napoleonic army Payen's father sent him to the Ecole Polytechnique where he studied under Louis Nicolas Vaquelin and Michel Eugene Chevreul. At age 23 he took over management over a borax factory owned by his father. At the time the Dutch had a monopoly on the borax market importing it from the East Indies. Payen developed a method to neutralize boric acid with sodium bicarbonate that produced borax at a third of the cost of the Dutch import, effectively ending their monopoly.

Five years later Payen was investigating the refining of sugar from sugar beets and he developed a process to whiten the sugar using charcoal. Charcoal is sometimes used in gas masks because it absorbs organic gasses. In 1883 he discovered a chemical, extracted from malt extract, that catalyzed the conversion of starch to sugar. He called this chemical diastase (its now called amylase) and it was the first time an enzyme had been isolated. Peyen coined the -ase ending used to name enzymes and the -ose ending used to name carbohydrates.

Payen went on to study different plants and discovered that they all were composed of a substance, similar to starch in that it was made of carbohydrates, which he named cellulose. Payen wrote a series of papers on cellulose which were published by the French Academie. Payen also studied plant anatomy and the distribution of nitrogen in plant material. He found that that nitrogen accumulates in regions where growth is occurring.

Payen was awarded a prize by the Academie Des Sciences in experimental physiology in 1839 for his work on starch. The Anselme Payen Award is given annually by the cellulose and renewable materials division of the American Chemical Society.

During the siege of Paris of the Franco-Prussian war Payen defiantly remained in Paris. He tried various chemical means of producing food from excess materials. He died on May 12, 1871,

References:

Anon.; "Ansleme Payen Biography (1795-1871)"; retrieved from madehow.com

Wisniak, Jaime; "Anselem Payen"; Educacion Quimica (2005)16:568-580

Anselem Payen Wikipedia Entry

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Edward Condon

Edward Uhler Condon was born in Alomogordo, New Mexico on March 2, 1902. His father built railroads and the family moved about the western United States as his work required. Because of his family's movements young Condon attended many different schools. Condon developed an early interest in astronomy, sparked by the 1910 appearance of Haley's Comet and read everything he could on the subject. Later, in high school, he developed an interest in electronics and with the help of his high school physics teacher, William H. Williams, was able to make a number of electrical instruments. After graduating from high school he took a job working as a reporter for the Oakland Enquirer where he reported on labor unions. When his journalism was used to falsely convict labor activists he gave up journalism and went to the University of California at Berkeley to study physical science.

Initially Condon studied chemistry at Berkeley, but when his old high school teacher W. H. Williams took a job in the physics department at Berkeley, Condon switched to physics. Condon excelled in physics, earning his bachelors in three years and then going directly to graduate work, earning his PhD in 1926. For his thesis he outlined what has come to be known as the Franck-Condon Principle. When the elctrons of a molecule are excited the nucleus remains in the same position. The electron will jump up energy levels and then fall back, emitting electromagnetic radiation, but he nuclei of the molecule or atom remains relatively stationary.

At the time an doctorate in physics was not complete without a trip to Germany to study quantum mechanics, which at the time was quickly being discovered. Condon received a National Research Council fellowship and made the trip to Germany in the fall of 1926. While there he studied under Max Born and was soon overwhelmed by the unprecedented pace at which new developments in quantum mechanics were being published. In 1927 he took a job writing popular science for Bell Laboratories. In 1928 he took a position as a lecturer at Columbia University, where he taught graduate level classes on quantum mechanics and electromagnetic radiation. In 1927 Condon took a position as an associate professor of physics at Princeton University. During the years at Princeton Condon co-wrote with Philip M. Morse the first English language treatment of quantum mechanics, published in 1929, and with G.H. Shortly he wrote Theory of Atomic Spectra, a primary text on the subject, published in 1935.

In 1937 Condon became associate research director at the Westinghouse Electric Company, where he brought the company into the nuclear age. He briefly worked on the Manhattan project, but resigned because he disagreed with the reading and censorship of personal letters. Afterward Condon worked at Berkeley on the problem of separating uranium-235 from uranium-238. In 1945 Condon was appointed director of the National Bureau of Standards (now known as the NIST). During his time at the NIST Condon was dogged by questions about his loyalty to his country. In 1951 Condon was forced to testify before the United States House Un-American Activities Committee. The scientific community widely supported Condon and during his troubles with the HUAC Condon was elected president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Condon also served as the president of the American Physical Society. Condon worked as a professor of physics at Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri from 1956 to 1963 and at the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1963 to 1970. Condon retired in 1970.

Condon died on March 26, 1974.

References:

Branscomb, Lewis; "Edward U. Condon: 1902-1974"; retrieved from library.wustl.ed

Edward U. Condon interviewed by Charles Weiner; retrieved from aip.org

Morse, Philip M.: "Edward Uhler Condon: 1902-1974"; from Biorgraphical Memoirs; National Academy Press;

Edward Condon Wikipedia Entry

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David Fabricius

David Fabricius (the Latinization of David Farber or David Goldschmidt) was born on March 8, 1564 in Essens, Frisia, which now is part of Germany. Fabricius attended Latin school in Braunschweig and attended the University of Helmstedt where he studied theology. Fabricius was a Lutheran minister and served as a pastor in towns in Frisia (now northeast Netherlands and northwest Germany). In addition to being a pastor Fabricus was an astronomer.

Fabricius is most remembered for being the first to observe a variable star, the variable star later named Mira. A variable star is a star whose brightness, as observed from earth, changes over time. Fabricus first observed the variable star in 1596 and watched it first brighten and then disappear over the course of three weeks. At first Fabricus believed he had observed a nova (a dying star, which shines brightly then disappears) but when the star reappeared he realized that it was a star that changed it's brightness over time. This observation was largely forgotten until the mid 1600s when it was rediscovered by Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius and French astronomer Ismail Bouillaud. It was Bouillaud who determined that the star had a period of 333 days. The fact that there was an star that changed it's brightness over time was revolutionary and contradicted the Aristotelian idea that the heavens are unchanging that was church doctrine at the time.

Fabricius' oldest son, Johannes, was also an astronomer and the pair used a camera obscura so that they could observe the sun and were the first to publish the existence of sunspots. From his observations Fabricus correctly predicted the axial rotation of the sun. Fabricus corresponded with Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler. Kepler used some of Fabricius observations of Mars in constructing his model of the solar system with the sun at the center and the planets orbiting it in elliptical orbits. Fabricius never believed in this model and instead he believed in the Tychoean model with the planets orbiting the sun and the sun, as well as all the stars, orbiting the Earth.

Fabricius was killed on May 7, 1617, by a shovel-wielding parishioner whom he had accused of stealing a goose.

References:

Boner, Patrick J.; "David Fabricius"; in Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers; Springer; 2007

Granada, Miguel A.; "Johannes Kepler and David Fabricius: Their Discussion of the Nova of 1604"; in Change and Continuity in Early Modern Cosmology; Patrick J. Boner, Editor; Springer; 2011

Shiga, David; "Astrophile: The Rebel Star that Broke the Medieval Sky"; New Scientist; October 14, 2011

David Fabricius Wikipedia Entry

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Martinus Beijernick

Martinus Willem Beijernick was born on March 16, 1851 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Beijernick's father's tobacco business also failed that year and the family moved to Naarden, where he found work as a clerk working for the Holland Railway Company. Due to the family's financial situation Beijernick was educated by his father until he was 12 when he went to elementary school and then secondary school in Haarlem. With the encouragement of his science teacher Beijernick developed an interest in botany and at 15 he won a prize for his collection of plant samples that included 150 different species.

With the help of his family, Beijernick entered Delft Polytechnical Academy and although he studied chemistry his main interest remained botany. While there he met J. H. Van Hoft who he remained friendly throughout his career and served as an adviser to Beijernick. Beijernick earned a bachelors in chemical engineering in 1872 and then when to the University of Leiden where he earned his doctorate in 1877. While working on his doctorate Beijernick taught, but he was a poor teacher who berated his students for wrong answers and he did not remain in one teaching position for long. In 1885 Beijernick became a microbiologist at the Netherlands Yeast and Alcohol Manufactory in Delft. In 1895 he established the School of Microbiology at Delft Polytechnical.

Beijernick was unique among microbiologists at the time in that he researched the microorganisms that affected plants rather than those that affect humans. He was the first to discover that viruses were smaller than bacteria when he found that he was unable to filter the tobacco mosaic virus unlike bacteria. He was the first to isolate a sulfate reducing bacteria, the first microorganism that did not use carbon as a source of nutrition. He was also the first to isolate bacteria that complete nitrogen fixation. Nitrogen gas makes up 78% of the atmosphere but because the nitrogen-nitrogen bond is so stable nitrogen gas does not react with other atoms. Nitrogen fixating bacteria reduce nitrogen gas to become ammonia, which can react with other atoms and is used by plants as a nitrogen source. This is an important source of nitrogen, that is used to make amino acids, which are used to synthesize proteins by living organisms.

Beijernick retired in 1921 and died on January 1, 1931.

References:

Chung, King-Thom and Ferris, Dean Hunter; "Martinus Willem Beijernick (1851-1931) Pioneer of General Microbiology"; ASM News (1996)62:539-543

Johnson, James; "Martinus Willem Beijernick: 1851-1931"; retrieved from apsnet.org.

Martinus Beijernick Wikipedia Entry

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Feodor Lynen

Feodor Felix Konrad Lynen was born on April 6, 1911 in Munich, Germany. His father, Wilhelm Lynen, was a professor of mechanical engineering and his mother, Frieda, was the daughter of an industrialist. Lynen completed his primary and secondary education in Munich and attended Munich University studying chemistry. He completed his Ph.D. in 1937 with a dissertation identifying the toxic substance in amanita mushrooms. After graduation Lynen remained at Munich University becoming a chemistry lecturer in 1942, an assistant professor in 1947, and biochemistry professor in 1953. When World War II broke out Lynen was exempt because of injuries he sustained in a skiing accident. In 1956 he became director of the Max Plank institute for Cellular Chemistry.

Lynen's research dealt with determining the biochemical pathways by which cells produce fatty acids and sterols. Working with Konrad Bloch, he discovered the pathway by which cholesterol is synthesized. Later he determined the structure of acytel-coenzyme A. Acetyl-CoA is an important biochemical intermediate. It feeds two carbon acetic acid fragments from glycolysis (the initial steps by which cells break down glucose) into the citric acid cycle to generate cellular energy. It also is the basis of fatty acid and cholesterol synthesis using the two carbon acetate to build longer carbon chains to store energy or produce bigger carbon molecules. For their work Lynen and Bloch were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1964.

Other awards won by Lynen include the Grand Cross of Merit with Star and Sash of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1965, Norman Medal of the German Society for Fat Research in 1967, the Pour le mérite für Wissenschaften und Künste in 1971, and the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art in 1972.

Lynen died on August 6, 1979.

References:

Kresge, Nichole, Simoni, Robert D., and Hill, Robert L.; "Biotin Dependent Enzymes: the Work of Feodor Lynen"; Journal of Biological Chemistry (2009)284:e6-e7

Feodor Lynen Nobel Biography

Feodor Lynen Wikipedia Entry

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Bruno Rossi

Bruno Benedetto Rossi was born on April 13, 1905 in Venice, Italy. His father, Rino, was an electrical engineer and had taken part in the electrification of Venice. Rossi was educated at home until he was 14, after which he attended ginasio (gymnasium) and liceo (high school) in Venice. He began his university studies at the University of Padua and finished his laurea (doctorate) at the University of Bologna in 1927. In 1928 Rossi took a job as an assistant at the Physics Institute of the University of Florence. Initially Rossi was at a loss to find a project to work on with the limited resources of the institute, but after reading a paper on cosmic rays, Rossi began studying them and developed an improved instrument, called a coincidence circuit, allowing him to study them. The instrument consisted of two Geiger counters, one mounted above the other, where metal plates could be inserted in between. By varying the type and thickness of the metal plates Bruno could determine the penetrating power of the cosmic rays.

Cosmic rays are charged atomic particles that bombard the Earth originating from the supernovas of large stars and in smaller amounts from active galactic centers. The surface of the Earth is protected from these charged particles by the Earth's atmosphere and magnetic field, although some reach the Earth's surface. Life on Earth would not survive were it not for this protection. Initially these particles were believed to be a form of electromagnetic radiation, but in 1927 Jacob Clay measured the amount of rays detected as he voyaged from Netherlands to Java and reported that the amount of rays hitting the Earth's surface changed with latitude with a minimum at the equator. This demonstrated that the "rays" were not photons and must be charged particles that were deflected by the Earth's magnetic field.

In 1932 Rossi became a professor of experimental physics at the University of Padua. In 1938 he was dismissed from his professorship because he was Jewish. After a brief stays at the Bohr Institute in Copenhagen and University of Manchester, Rossi emigrated to the United States where he took a position at Cornell University in 1940. In 1943 Rossie joined the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico where he was co-chair, with Hans Straub, of the "detector group", which was responsible for designing detectors used by the scientists developing the atomic bomb.

In 1946 Rossi took a professorship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the new Laboratory of Nuclear Science. At MIT Rossi focused on studying newly discovered subatomic particles. Rossi focused on developing detectors that could be launched into space to study cosmic rays that are not affected by the Earth's atmosphere and magnetic field. Rossi retired in 1970, but continued teaching. Awards won by Rossi include the Rumford Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1976), the Elliot Cresson Medal from the Franklin Institute (1974) and the National Medal of Science (1985). Rossi was also awarded honorary doctorates from the Universities of Palermo, Durham, and Chicago.

Rossi died on November 21, 1993, suffering a cardiac arrest.

References:

Clark, George W.; "Bruno Benedetto Rossi: 1905-1993"; in Biographical Memoirs Vol. 75 (1997) National Academy Press

Clark, George W.; "The Contributions of Bruno B. Rossi to Particle Physics and Astrophysics"; Retrieved from: http://www.brera.unimi.it

Bruno Rossi Wikipedia Entry

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Thomas H. Weller

Thomas Huckle Weller was born on June 15th 1915 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Born into a family of physicians, his father served as chair of pathology at the University of Michigan Medical School.Weller attended the University of Michigan where he studied biology earning his BA in 1936. He completed his masters a year later and then went to Harvard Medical School where he studied tropical medicine, graduating in 1940. Weller began his residency at Children's Hospital in Boston in 1941, but his training was interrupted by World War II and three years of service in the United States Army where he earned the rank of major and he headed the departments of bacteriology, virology and parisitology at the Army research station in Puerto Rico. After the war Weller returned to Harvard and the Department of Comparative Pathology and Tropical Medicine where he worked under John Franklin Enders.

Enders was working on growing viruses in culture. Viruses, unlike bacteria, are unable to reproduce on their own, so strictly speaking they are not living organisms. Viruses require a host cell in order to reproduce. Each cell has a mechanism by which it reproduces itself. Viruses take over this mechanism and use it to produce more viruses. Viruses grown in the laboratory must be grown in a cell culture. Different viruses infect and use different types of cells to reproduce. Enders and Weller were studying which types of cultured cells could be used to grow different types of viruses. Working with Enders, Weller was the first to be able to grow poliovirus in culture. Poliovirus enters humans via the the cells of the alimentary canal and migrates to other cells. It can infect motor neuron cells causing paralysis. For their development of the ability to cultivate the poliovirus Weller, Enders, and Frederick C. Robbins were awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine. With the ability to grow poliovirus in culture Jonas Salk was able to create a vaccine for polio and the disease has virtually been eliminated.

In 1954 Weller was appointed the Richard Pearson Strong Professor of Tropical Public Health, which he remained until 1983. In addition to his work growing polio virus, Weller also isolated and grew varicella virus (the virus that causes chicken pox and shingles). He was also able to grow rubella and cytomeglovirus. Weller was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1964. Weller was made professor emeritus in 1984.

Weller died on August 23, 2008.

References:

McIntosh, Kenneth; "Thomas H. Weller:1915-2008"; National Academy Press; 2011

Roache, Christina; "Thomas H. Weller, Nobel Laureate, Professor Emeritus, Dies"; Harvard School of Public Health press releases; August 26, 2008

Thomas Weller Nobel Biography

Thomas Weller Wikipedia Entry

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Hermann Minkowski

Hermann Minkowski was born on June 22, 1864 in Aleksotas, Lithuania, then part of Poland and the Russian Empire. He was the third son of Lewin Minkowski, a Jewish merchant and his German wife Rachel. When Minkowski was 8 the family moved to Konigsberg, Germany (now Kaliningrad, Russia) to escape persecution and where he attended gymnasium school and showed an ability for mathematics. Minkowski attended the University of Kongisberg starting in 1880. He went to the University of Berlin for a three terms and shared a the Grand Prix des Sciences Mathematiques from the Paris Academy of Sciences with English mathematician Henry J.S. Smith in 1881, when he was 18. Minkowski earned his doctorate in 1885.

After two years of obligatory military service in 1887 Minkowski was appointed privatdozent at the University of Bonn. In 1892 Minkowski became an asOsociate professor at Bonn. In 1894 Minkowski joined the faculty of Zurich Polytechnic, where one of his students was Albert Einstein. In 1902 Minkowski took a chair in mathematics which had been created especially for him at Gottingen University. Minkowski remained in Gottingen util his death.

Minkowski is most remembered for his work on geometry and space-time. In Euclidean geometry there are three dimensions, representing the three dimensions of space. Minkowski incorporated a fourth dimension representing time to the Euclidean system where time and space are interlinked together forming a whole four dimensional system. This four dimensional space is called Minkowski space-time and arises naturally when consequences of relativity are considered.

Minkowski died suddenly of appendicitis on January 12, 1909.

References:

O'Connor, J.J. and Robertson, E.F.; "Hermann Minkowski"; MacTuror; Retrieved from: http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/

Manhanti, Subodh; "Hermann Minkowski: Founder of Geometry of Numbers"; Dream 2047 Vol.14 (May 2012) p40-42

Hermann Mikowski Wikipedia Entry

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Peter Waage

Peter Waage was born on June 29, 1832 on the island Hidra, near Flekkefjord in Norway. His father, also named Peter, was a ship-master and owner so he was often away from home and Waage was raised and taught by his mother, Regine. Waage learned to read by age for and spent his youth collecting minerals, plants, and insects. He graduated high school in Christiana and began studying medicine at the university. After his first division he switched to chemistry. in 1858 Waage won the Crown Prince's Gold Medal for a paper he wrote about oxygen containing organic acids and he earned his doctorate in 1859. After graduating Waage won a scholarship to study in France and Germany, Waage as appointed as a lecturer in 1861 and professor of chemistry in 1866 at the University of Kristiana.

Waage is most remembered for his discovery, with his brother-in-law Otto Guldberg, the law of mass action. The law of mass action says that the rate of a chemical reaction is proportional to the concentration of the chemical reacting. For the chemical reaction A + B --> AB the rate of the reaction is =k[A][B], where [A] and [B] are the concentrations of A and B and k is the the rate constant. The rate constant, k, varies depending on what the reaction is. Waage and Guldberg also studied the effects of temperature on chemical reactions. Because their paper was published in Norwegian it was largely unnoticed. The paper was later published in French and German and gained wide acceptance when the results were repeated by William Esson and Vernon Harcourt of Oxford University.

Waage and Guldberg were brother-in-laws twice over. Waage and Guldberg married sisters and after Waage's first wife died he married Guldberg's sister. Waage also discovered ways of preparing unsweetened condensed milk and sterile canned milk. Waage developed a condensed fish meal used as rations by the Norwegian Navy.

Waage died on January 13, 1900.

References:

Albe, Joseph and Smith, Michelle; "Otto Guldberg and Peter Wage";

Ringnes, Vivi; "Peter Wage"; Retrived from vitten.no

Peter Wage Wikipedia Entry

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Stanislao Cannizzaro

Stanislao Cannizzaro was born on July 13, 1826 in Palermo, Sicily, the fourth and youngest son of Mariano Cannizzaro and his wife Anna. Mariano was a magistrate in Palermo and the Director-General of the Sicilian Police. Cannizzaro was educated at home and in church schools and went to the University of Palermo to study medicine in 1841. Cannizzaro found the study of medicine to be tedious as he was more interested in chemistry. Unfortunately the university did not have facilities to study chemistry so Cannizzaro went to Naples where he met the physicist Macedonio Melloni, with whom he became friends and upon Melloni's recommendation he got a job working in the chemical laboratories of the University of Pisa working for Raffeal Piria.

Cannizzaro returned to Palermo in 1847 and served as an artillery officer in the 1848 rebellion. Also in 1848 he was elected to the Sicilian Parliament and served as its youngest member. After the fall of Messina on September 7, 1848 Cannizzaro was sent to Taorminna to organize resistance. When the rebellion collapsed Cannizzaro lived a life on the run eventually escaping to Marseilles, France in 1849. Cannizzaro toured France getting access to laboratories where he could and eventually he settled in Alessandria, Italy where he got a position as a professor of physical chemistry and mechanics at the National University in Alessandria. In 1855 Cannizzaro was called to the Chair of Chemistry at the University of Genoa. In 1861 he took a professorship at the University of Palermo where he remained for ten years. In 1871 Cannizaro was called to the professorship at the University of Rome.

Cannizzaro is most remembered for his work popularizing the ideas of another Italian chemist Amedeo Avagadro. Avagadro had proposed that equal volumes of two gasses at the same temperature and pressure would contain the same number of molecules and that the molecular mass of the molecules would be the sum of the atomic masses of the atoms of which the gasses are composed. Using this principal Cannizzaro developed a method for determining the molecular masses of gasses. At the time chemists were still trying to work out the uses of the words atomic and molecular. Cannizzaro's outline, prepared for his students at the University of Genoa, helped chemists understand that gasses are molecules composed of multiple atoms and have the molecular mass of the sum of the atomic masses of the atoms of which they are composed. For example, oxygen gas, composed of two oxygen atoms each having the atomic mass of 16, has the molecular mass of 32. For his work contributing to the understanding of the concepts of atom and molecule Cannizzaro was awarded the Copley Medal by the Royal Society of London in 1891,

Cannizzaro is also remembered for his work in organic chemistry, where he studied amines and aromatic compounds. Aromatic compounds are compounds that contain a benzene ring. The Cannizzaro reaction is the reaction where an aldehyde is reacted with a base and the reaction produces the alcohol and carboxylic acid that correspond to the aldehyde.

Cannizaro died on May 10, 1910.

References:

Anon.; "Stanislao Cannizaro"; retrieved from chemheritage.org

Thorpe, Sir Thomas Edward; "Stanislao Canniaro" in Essays in Historical Chemistry; MacMillian and Co.; 1902

Stanislao Cannizaro Wikipedia Entry

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William Budd

William Budd was born on September 14, 1811 in North Tawton, Devonshire. Budd was born into a family of physicians. His father and seven of his ten brothers were medical professionals, Budd was initially apprenticed to his father and then went to Paris, France where he studied for four years. In 1838 he graduated with an MD from Edinburgh University where he shared a gold medal for an essay he wrote on rheumatism. Budd briefly served aboard the hospital ship HMS Dreadnought in Greenwich, where he nearly died from a bout of typhoid fever. Forced to resign due to his illness Budd went home to North Tawton, where he assisted his father in his country practice. There Budd began to study typhoid fever, a subject which was to become his life's work. In 1842 Budd emigrated to Bristol where he served as a physician at St. Peter's Hospital and the Bristol Royal Infirmary.

In 1847 Budd visited a patient suffering a fever in the Bristol suburb of Richmond Terrace. Budd diagnosed typhoid fever and his investigation revealed that of the 34 households of Richmond Terrace 13 had experienced cases of typhoid fever. Subsequent investigation revealed that those 13 households all shared the same well as a water supply and the rest of Richmond Terrace used different water sources. With this information Budd hypothesized that the well was the source of the infection. In 1849 when Budd took charge of the water supply for Bristol he concluded that it was responsible for the spread of cholera. Before Budd took control of the water supply a cholera epidemic had killed 2000 in Bristol. In 1866 an outbreak killed only 29. Budd was slow to publish his findings regarding the transmission of cholera waiting for microscopical results which eventually proved inconclusive, but before he published John Snow, a London physician, published his findings concerning the source of cholera spread. Budd honestly gave Snow credit for priority for the discovery that cholera was spread through contaminated water supplies.

In the days before the discovery of the organisms responsible for typhoid fever and cholera Budd's conclusions were greeted with skepticism. Today we know that typhoid fever is caused by the organism Salmonella typhi and cholera is caused by Vibrio cholerae. Both organisms are spread by fecal contamination of water supplies in conditions of poor sanitation. Vibrio cholerae was disovered by Italian microbiologist Filippo Pacini who published in 1854, but it was not until after Budd's death that the causative organism for typhoid fever was discovered.

Budd died on January 9, 1880.

References:

Bettany, George Thomas; "Budd, William" in Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 7; Elder Smith and Co.; 1886; retrieved from en.wikisource.org

Dunnill, Michael S.; "Commentary: William Budd on Cholera"; International Journal of Epidemiology (2013) 42:1576-7

Moorhead, Robert; "William Budd and Typhoid Fever"; Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine; (2002) 95:561-4

William Budd Wikipedia Entry

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Martin Swarzchild

Martin Swarzchild was born on May 31, 1912 in Potsdam, Germany to a German-Jewish family. His father, Karl, was the director of the Postdam observatory, which having been visited by Albert Einstein in 1913, was being outfitted to make oberservations to verify his general theory of relativity when World War I broke out. Karl enlisted in the German army and while he served in the German trenches on the eastern front he solved Einstein's equations for a point mass, we now call a black hole, and the distance of the event horizon above a non-rotating black hole is called the Swarzchild Radius. The even horizon of a black hole is the distance away from which nothing, not even light can escape. Karl died in 1916 of pemphigus an autoimmune skin disease.

After his father's death his mother took Schwarzchild to Gottingen, Germany where he attended gymnasium school. Swarzchild attended Gottingen University first studying mathematics for a year, after which he went to Berlin University where he studied astronomy, after which he returned to Gottingen University where he finished his doctorate in astronomy in 1835. Because of Hitler's rise to power in Germany, Swarzchild took a fellowship in Oslo, Norway and after a month in England he emigrated to the united states in 1937, becoming a citizen in 1942. Swarzchild served in the United States Army Intelligence, earning the Legion of Merit and a Bronze Star. After fellowship at Harvard University and a lectureship at Columbia University, Swarzchild was appointed to a full professorship at Princeton University in 1947. He became the Higgins Professor of Astronomy in 1951.

Swarzchild's early research dealt with calibrating the size of the universe and determining its rate of expansion. He observed variable stars that were used as distance markers in determining the rate of the universe's expansion. He also researched stellar evolution (the life cycles of stars) and his text Structure and Evolution of Stars (1958) was a classic text on the subject. He used early computers to work on astronomical problems. Using a balloon borne telescope Swarzchild was the first to observe the photoshphere (the outer layer) of the sun and the Andromeda Galaxy without atmospheric interference, demonstrating the potential for this type of observations now done by the Hubble Telescope.

Swarzchild retired in 1979 although he continued to work on galactic classification. In his life Swarzchild received numerous awards, including the Bruce Medal (1965), Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1969), and the National Medal of Science (1997).

Swarzchild died on April 10, 1997.

References

Ostriker, Jeramiah; "Martin Swarzchild: April 31, 1912 - April 10, 1997": in Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Science; 2013; National Academy Press

"Martin Swarzchild"; Physics Today (1997)35:12:90-91\

Martin Swarzchild Wikipedia Entry

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Alexis Carrel

Alexis Carrel was born on June 28, 1873 in Lyons, France. His father, also named Alexis, was a businessman who died when Carrel was still young. Carrel was educated by his mother, Anne Richard, and he attended St. Joseph School in Lyons. Carrel attended the University of Lyons, earning a bachelor of letters in 1889, a bachelor of science in 1890, and a medical doctorate in 1900. While working on his doctorate using experimental animals Carrel developed methods for repairing small blood vessels using sewing techniques and tools taken from haberdashers. Carrel was also interested in organ transplantation and in 1902 he removed a dog's kidney and reattached it to a blood vessel and vein in the dog's neck. Although the kidney immediately began producing urine the dog died days later of an infection. After finishing his doctorate Carrel worked at Lyons Hospital and taught anatomy and surgery at the University of Lyons.

In 1903 Carrel traveled by train to Lourdes, France and while on the way he examined a young woman suffering from tuberculosis peritonitis. The unconscious woman had a fever with a rapid pulse and respiration and a distended abdomen. Carrel believed the woman was on the verge of death. Her companions poured water from the spring in Lourdes, which is reputed to have miraculous properties, on her abdomen and she appeared to recover. When he examined her later her abdomen was flat and she seemed to have recovered. Later when Carrel returned to Lyons he reported the apparent miracle to his colleagues for which he was criticized and told that he would not be able to pass the examinations required to join the faculty. In 1904 Carrel left France first stopping in French speaking Montreal. He later moved to Chicago where in 1905 where he began working at the University of Chicago with Charles Guthrie.

In 1906 Carrel took a research position at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research,where he would remain until his retirement in 1939. Although he lived the rest of his life in the United States, Carrel never became a citizen and during World War I he served as a major in the French Medical Corps. In 1912 Carrel began an experiment where he took embryonic chicken heart cells and kept them alive in a Pyrex container of his own design. The cells lived for over twenty years with changing of the nutrient broth they lived in, living longer than the normal lifespan of a chicken. Carrel believed that cells could be kept alive and would divide indefinitely if they were given proper nutrients. Later it was found somatic (non-embryonic) cells have a limited number of divisions before they will stop dividing. Carrel's cell culture techniques were later used by others to do viral research and develop vaccines.

In 1935 Carrel published a book called Man, the Unknown, which argued in part that humanity should be governed by an elite group of intellectuals and that a program of eugenic breeding would benefit humanity. In a 1936 German edition he added a preface that praised the eugenic program advocated by the Nazi regime.

Carrel was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1912, "In recognition for his work on vascular structure and the transplantation of blood vessels and organs." Other honors won by Carrel include a Swedish stamp honoring Nobel Prize winners in 1972 and a crater on the moon was named after him in 1979.

Carrel died on November 5, 1945 in Paris, France.

References:

McMurray, Emily J., Editor, "Alexis Carrel" in Notable Scientists of the Twentieth Century; Gale Group; 1995; Retrieved from pbs.org

Sade, Robert M.; "Transplantation at 100 Years; Alexis Carrel, Pioneer Surgeon"; Annals of Thoracic Surgery (2005)80:2415-8

Alexis Carrel Nobel Biography

Alexis Carrel Wikipedia Entry

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