MASTERS 1- Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was born in Ulm (Germany) on 14 March 1879, but his family soon moved to Munich, where he spent his school years. The young Einstein was not a particularly good student, and in 1894 he dropped out of school entirely when his family moved to Italy. After failing the entrance examination once, he was eventually admitted to the Swiss Institute of Technology in Zurich in 1896. Although he did fairly well as a student in Zurich, he was unable to get a job in any Swiss university, as he was held to be extremely lazy. He left academia to work in the Patent Office at Bern in 1902. This gave him a good wage and, since the tasks given to a junior patent clerk were not exactly onerous, it also gave him plenty of spare time to think about physics.

Einstein's special theory of relativity was published in 1905. It stands as one of the greatest intellectual achievements in the history of human thought. It is made even more remarkable by the fact that Einstein was still working as a patent clerk at the time, and was only doing physics as a kind of hobby. What's more, he also published seminal works that year on the photoelectric effect (which was to inspire many developments in quantum theory) and on the phenomenon of Brownian motion (the jiggling of microscopic particles as they are buffeted by atomic collisions).

But it is the special theory of relativity that was the great achievement because it managed to break way completely from the concept of time as an absolute property that marches on at the same rate for everyone and everything.

Special Relativity also spawned the most famous equation in all of physics: E=mc2, expressing the equivalence between matter and energy. This has also been tested experimentally, rather too often, because it id the principle behind the explosion of atomic bombs.

In 1916, Einstein published the general theory of relativity. Even ona conceptual level, the theory is difficult to grasp. The relativity of time embodied in the special theory is present in the general theory, but there are additional effects of time dilation and length contraction due to gravitational effects. And the problems don't end with time! In the special theory, space at least is well-behaved. In the general theory, even this goes out of the window. Space is curved.

An eclipse in 1919 led to the eventual acceptance of Einstein's general theory of relativity in the scientific community. This established Einstein as one of the century's greatest intellects but it also propelled him into the domain of popular culture. The London Times of 7 November 1919 carried the headline 'REVOLUTION IN SCIENCE. NEW THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE' and two days later the New York Times appeared with the headline 'LIGHTS ALL ASKEW IN THE HEAVENS' His fame expanded further. He was invited to appear in Variety at the London Palladium and he featured in popular songs, films and advertisements. He was now a cultural phenomenon.

Einstein continued to make other fundamental contributions to physics. He was a central figure in the debates raging round quantum theory that led to his famous phrase 'I can't believe God plays dice!'. He died in 1955.

Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell was born on March 3, 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Bell is best known for his invention of the telephone. Many inventors had been working on the idea of sending human speech by wire, but Bell was the first to succeed.

The invention of the telephone grew out of improvements Bell had made to the telegraph. He had developed the "harmonic telegraph" which could send more than one message at a time over a single telegraph wire. Bell reasoned that it would be possible to pick up all the sounds of the human voice using an adaptation of the "harmonic telegraph." In 1875, along with his assistant Thomas A. Watson, Bell constructed instruments that transmitted recognizable voice-like sounds.

Bell's first telephone patent was granted on March 7, 1876. Three days later he and Watson, located in different rooms, were about to test the new type of transmitter described in his patent. Watson heard Bell's voice saying, "Mr. Watson, come here. I want you." Bell had upset a battery, spilling acid on his clothing. He soon forgot the accident in his excitement over the success of the telephone transmitter. The first telephone company, Bell Telephone Company, was founded on July 9, 1877.

After inventing the telephone, Bell continued his experiments in communication. He invented the photophone-transmission of sound on a beam of light, the precursor of fiber-optics. He also invented techniques for teaching speech to the deaf. Bell was granted 18 patents in his name, and 12 he shared with collaborators. Alexander Graham Bell died in Baddek, Nova Scotia, on August 2, 1922.

Article Copyright 2000 http://www.lucidcafe.com and Robin Chew

Alfred Nobel

Alfred (Bernhard) Nobel was born October 21, 1833 in Stockholm Sweden. Nobel, who invented dynamite, endowed a $9 million fund in his will. The interest on this endowment was to be used as awards for people whose work most benefited humanity. He wanted the profit from his invention to be used to reward human ingenuity. First awarded in 1901, the Nobel Prize is still the most honored in the world.

In 1842 Nobel's family moved to St. Petersburg, Russia where he obtained his education. He traveled widely as a young man, becoming fluent in five languages. Nobel was interested in literature and wrote novels, poetry and plays in his spare time. In the 1860s he began experiments with nitroglycerin in his father's factory. He tried many ways to stabilize this highly volatile material. Nobel discovered that a mix of nitroglycerin and a fine porous powder called kieselguhr was most effective. He named this mixture dynamite, and received a patent in 1867.

He set up factories around the world to manufacture dynamite and other explosives. Construction and mining companies, and the military ordered large quantities of this relatively safe explosive. Sales of dynamite brought Nobel great wealth. His other chemical research provided valuable information on the development of artificial rubber, leather, silk and precious stones.

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol (Andrew Warhola) was born on August 6, 1928 in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. He is considered by many as the most influential American artist of the second half of the 20th century. Warhol's signature style used commercial silkscreening techniques to create identical, mass produced images on canvas, then variations in color to give each print of an edition a different look.

Warhol first applied his silkscreen techniques as a commercial artist in the 1950s. Window displays of a Fifth Avenue department store featured his comicbook superhero images. His initial forays into the POP ART came in the early 1960s with his Coca-Cola Bottles (1962) and sculptures of Brillo Boxes (1964), which brought worldwide recognition. Condemned as consumerism by many critics, his work was enthusiastically accepted in Europe, Australia and Japan. Later in the 1960s, Warhol produced a series of motion pictures dealing with such concepts as time, boredom and repetition.

Warhol's generally sunny and upbeat artwork turned to more serious subjects in his images of Jacqueline Kennedy mourning the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, and his "Birmingham Race Riot" (1964). His "Endangered Species" prints (1983) including "Pine Barrens Tree Frog," the "Orangutan" and the "Bald Eagle," inspired concern, not at the subjects themselves, but at their possible absence.

Warhol died in New York on February 27, 1987 after a gallbladder operation. He had set, and then stretched the boundaries of POP ART. Warhol's depictions of everything from Campbell Soup Cans to the faces of celebrities provide an often revealing commentary on contemporary American society.

Carl Gustav Jung

Carl Gustav Jung was the most enigmatic and controversial disciple of Sigmund Freud. He introduced to psychoanalysis crucial questions about religion and the soul which Freud neglected.

Born 26 July 1875 in Kesswil, Switzerland, Jung was the only son of a Swiss Reformed Church Evangelical minister. He was a strange melancholic child who had no brothers or sisters until he was nine, so he played his own imaginary games.

The family were steeped in religion. Jung had eight uncles in the clergy, as well as his maternal grandfather. His earliest playgrounds were churches and graveyards. There were other religious influences on Jung, stemming from his mother and maternal grandfather, Samuel Preiswerk, a respected pastor in Basel, who had contact with a different worlds altogether - the spirit world. Every day he conversed with his deceased first wife, while his second wife (Jung’s grandmother) and his daughter (Jung’s mother) listened in. Contact with the spirits was not unusual amongst Swiss rural folk.

These dual religious influences of Swiss Protestantism and pagan spirituality reflected a dualism in Jung himself. He believed he had two different personalities which he named "Number 1" and "Number 2". Number 1 was involved in the ordinary, everyday world. He could burst into emotions and seemed childish and undisciplined. Yet he was also ambitious for academic success, studying science and aiming to achieve a civilized, prestigious life style. The Number 2 personality was much more troublesome, the "Other", identified with the stone and the secret of God’s grace. Number 2 carried meaning and seemed to stretch back into history in a mysterious manner.

Jung gravitated towards science and philosophy, winning a scholarship to Basel University to study medicine. In his second year, when he was twenty, his father died.

Jung loved his student days, and alongside medical textbooks he devoured works on philosophy, especially those of Kant and Nietzsche. He also read Swedenborg and studied spiritualism and the paranormal. He also became a member of the university debating society, the Zofingia Club, formerly an 18th century duelling society.

In what was a "flash of illumination", Jung realised that what he really wanted to do was psychiatry after reading a textbook by Krafft-Ebing. Jung’s apprenticeship in psychiatry began in December 1900 when he became an assistant at the Burgholzli Mental Hospital, a clinic attached to the University of Zurich. Jung now encountered at first hand the world of the insane, seeing inmates as dead souls in the underworld of Hades.

Outside psychiatry, Jung married Emma Ruaschenbach on 14 February 1903, seven years after first laying eyes on her and they had five children. From about 1911, Antonio Wolff became Jung’s mistress, a relationship that lasted until her death in 1952. This triangular arrangement, difficult for both women, was tolerated by them and was known to the members of the Zurich analytic circle. Emma Antonia both worked with Jung and practised as analysts.

Jung’s work with word association tests confirmed observations on the Unconscious already made by Sigmund Freud. Jung sent him a copy of his results, and in 1906 the two men began a correspondence and friendship which lasted until 1913. Their initial rapport was immense and Jung’s visit to Freud in Vienna in 1907 they talked non-stop for 13 hours.

Jung soon became a leading light in Freud’s project. He was elected the first president of the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) and became the editor of its Jahrbuch, the first psychoanalytical journal.

In 1909 Jung was designated "heir apparent of psychoanalysis", yet only four years later he became for Freud ‘that brutal and Sanctimonious Jung’. The split was dramatic and final.

After his split with Freud, Jung embarked on a perilous journey: the passage through mid-life crisis. Jung was 39 and he’d reached a dead-end. Friends and colleagues deserted him. He lost interest in scientific textbooks and he gave up his post at the university. Between 1914-1919, he withdrew from the world to explore his own unconscious.

Early in 1944, in his 69th year, Jung fell and broke his foot. Following this, he had a heart attack. In a drugged state and close to death, he fell into an unconscious delirium and had an out-of-body experience. Jung was disappointed and resented coming back to life. When Jung was allowed to sit up for the first time, he was struck by the date 4th April 1944.

After this illness and near-death experience, Jung’s principal works were written. During his seventies, that strange "something" called the soul was proving stronger than ever, and Jung was now prepared to give it voice.

To the end, Jung went on seeking for "an answer to Job": a reply to the spiritual dilemma facing modern man. Due to the wide range of his thought, Jung’s influence extends far wider than the theory and practice of analytical psychology (Jung named his method Analytical Psychology to distinguish it from psychoanalysis). He bridges the world of science (the testing of theories through empirical, clinical observation) and that of divination (the realm of spirits, omens and mythopoeic imagination).

Jung’s critics portray him as a darker figure, a tyrannical, ambitious man who wasted his wife’s fortune, someone who transgressed analytical boundaries and encouraged a court of adoring acolytes, an intellectually arrogant man, submerging everything in his own theories and that he was anti-semitic.

Jung’s wife Emma died on 27th November 1955. Ruth Bailey, an Englishwoman whom he first met on a trip to East Africa in 1925, became his housekeeper, companion and nurse until his death in 1961.

Jung continued a vast correspondence about his work and was frequently honoured throughout his old age. At the age of 85, on the last evening of his life, Jung opened and drank one of the best wines in his cellar. He died peacefully the following day, 6 June 1961, in his house on the lake.

A great storm broke across the lake in the hour following his death. The myth of Jung has only just begun.

Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin was born in 1809, the second son of a successful and wealthy physician, Robert Waring Darwin. His grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, also a physician, was internationally known for his poetic descriptions of the natural world. In Zoonomia; or The Laws of Organic Life, his verse epic, Erasmus Darwin introduced the idea of evolution. Charles' mother was a daughter of Josiah Wedgwood, founder of the famous pottery, an active supporter of the intellectual life of his times that linked him not only to Erasmus Darwin but also to Joseph Priestly, the famous chemist. Throughout his adult career Darwin lived on the income from investments while he pursued his career in natural science.

Young Charles Darwin disliked his medical studies in Edinburgh. He took a greater interest in geology. After leaving Edinburgh he enrolled at Cambridge to prepare for the life of a cleric. He studied classics, divinity and maths at Christ's College and attended lectures on biology. He was an ardent bug collector. After going down from Cambridge he accompanied Adam Sedgwick, Professor of Geology at the university, on a momentous summer expedition to study the geology of North Wales. In 1831 Darwin, through the recommendation of friends, got the position of naturalist on HMS Beagle's voyage to chart the coasts of South America and the South Sea Islands. On this five year mission Darwin assiduously collected specimens of natural fauna, noted geological formations and fossils and visited the Galapagos Islands.

On his return to England in 1836 he began to work on establishing his scientific credentials. Ill health led him to retreat from a public life in science. He removed to the quiet of Down House in Kent in 1841 from were he patiently continued his researches. Darwin opened his first notebook on the transmutation of species in 1837. His first reasonably comprehensive outline of the theory of natural selection was written just before the move to Down House. In 1844 he wrote a 230 page essay covering the topics dealt with in Origin, leaving instructions with his wife that it was to be published in event of his untimely death.

By 1856 Darwin was being encouraged by his closest associates to publish his ideas. He had completed 10 chapters when in 1858 he received a paper written by Alfred Russell Wallace, a young naturalist working in Borneo, containing his independently conceived idea of natural selection. Joint papers were read at a hastily assembled meeting of the Linnean Society, including an extract from a letter by Darwin to the American botanist Asa Gray, as proof of Darwin's claim to chronological priority on the idea. Darwin then completed Origin of the Species, it was published on November 24 1859 and sold out on the first day.

Darwin's career is a subject of heated debate about ways of understanding science and scientists. Is the scientist is a lonely seeker after Truth, observing measuring, testing, experimenting and driven to conclusion only by facts. Or is the scientist, while observing, measuring and testing, involved in and a product of the social construction of knowledge, influenced by the society in which he or she lives and its ideas, ideas that shape the questions asked and answers given to problems in science. In which case the scientist is in an active sense an inventor rather than a passive discoverer, imposing a pattern informed by many strands of cultural influence on phenomenon they study. The growth of the Darwin industry, the study of the enormous volumes of his correspondence and writings, mean it is possible to see how he worked, what he read, what influences he acknowledged.

Darwin pursued meticulous researches on corals, barnacles, domesticated animals, corresponded with animal breeders, pigeons were of particular interest. There was a great deal of biological investigation. From the quiet life of seclusion in Kent Darwin was in active correspondence with all the leading names in science and gradually began cultivating those who would be influential in the acceptance and success of his ideas. He was, in contemporary terms, a superb networker. He followed a systematic programme of reading that made him well versed in the intellectual currents of his time.

Darwin himself acknowledges his debt to Malthus in conceiving the idea of natural selection. In his D notebook of September 1838, Darwin first refers to political philosopher and parson, T.R.Malthus and his Essay on the Principle of Population. As Bowler has observed "There can be little doubt that in the end the concept of the 'struggle for existence' described by Malthus played a major role in switching his thoughts onto the path that led towards natural selection." [6]. Or as Darwin himself wrote: "Towards the close I first thought of selection owing to struggle." [7] Malthus' book was preoccupied with the Poor Law and the burden on society of a growing population of the poor, whose numbers increase geometrically while the food supply increases only arithmetically.

Malthus refers to the struggle for existence when discussing competition among primitive tribes, harking back to the old Hobbesian ideas of the 'nasty, brutish and short' life of the savage. Wallace also credited this same source with sparking his own ideas on natural selection. In 1855 Darwin notes that he considered his ideas on natural selection as analogous to the 'division of labour', we know that he also read Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Influence does not mean lack of originality or creative thinking. Darwin took the metaphor of the struggle for life from Malthus and made of it something that was not in Malthus at all, struggle as a creative process by weeding out the unfit in every generation.

The creative aspects of Darwin's thought were, however, impelled by ideas about human society in a context where social thought was and had long been developmental, adaptive and deeply wedded to the concept of arising from primitive form. There was also much detailed criticism of whether Darwin had in fact made a cogent and acceptable scientific theory, whether or not that drew Christian belief into question. Perhaps the most telling antidote to hagiography and the mythic view of Darwin is to consider his end.

Darwin died in 1882, 23 years after the publication of Origin, and a mere nine years after the publication of the Descent of Man. A campaign was immediately started, with support from 19 Members of Parliament, and quickly succeeded in gaining permission from the Dean of Westminster for Charles Darwin to be buried in Westminster Abbey, close to Newton and Faraday. Not usually the fate of a scurrilous controversialist who had overthrown established religion.

Copernicus

Nicolaus Copernicus (Mikolai Kopernik) was born February 19, 1473 in Torun, Poland. Copernicus was a proponent of the theory that the Sun, and not the Earth, is at rest in the center of the Universe.

Copernicus received his education, first at the University of Krakow, and then at various universities in Italy. While attending Padua University in Italy, Copernicus studied medicine, Greek, and mathematical sciences. He eventually received a degree in Canon Law at the University of Ferrara. When Copernicus returned to Poland he practiced medicine, though his official employment was as a canon in the cathedral chapter run by his uncle, the Bishop of Olsztyn.

Copernicus was never a professional Astronomer. The great work that made him famous was written in his spare time. It was for friends he met in Rome while pursuing his education that, in about 1513, Copernicus first wrote a short account his heliocentric (sun centered) cosmology. His heliocentric system states that the Sun (not the Earth) is at rest in the center of the Universe, with the other heavenly bodies (planets and stars) revolving around it in circular orbits. A full account of the theory titled, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium) was published in 1543, very near the end of Copernicus's life. He is said to have received a copy of the printed book on his deathbed.

Copernicus' heliocentric system was considered implausible by the vast majority of his contemporaries, and by most astronomers and natural philosophers until the middle of the seventeenth century. Its notable defenders included Johannes Kepler (1571 -1630) and Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642). Strong theoretical underpinning for the Copernican theory was finally provided by Sir Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation (1687).

Da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci was born in April 15, 1452 in Vinci, Italy. Leonardo's mastery in art, science and engineering have earned him a place among the most prolific geniuses of history.

At age 17, Leonardo and his father moved to Florence, where he apprenticed to Verrocchio. His brilliance soon eclipsed that of his master. In 1472 Leonardo became a member of the painter's guild of Florence, where he had contact with other great Florentine artists including Michelangelo Buonarroti.

In 1481 Leonardo left Florence for Milan to offer his service to the local Duke. During this period he painted the "Madonna of the Rocks" and the "Last Supper." In 1499 Leonardo left Milan, traveling through Mantua, to the court of Isabella d'Este; to Venice, where he consulted on architecture from 1495 to 1499; and in 1502 and 1503 was military engineer for Cesare Borgia. After his service to the Borgias, Leonardo returned to Florence. It was during the period between 1503 and 1506, while working primarily in Florence, that he had his greatest following and painted such classics as the "Mona Lisa."

Leonardo left Florence for Milan in 1506, although he returned in 1507-8 to fight for his inheritance from his Uncle. In 1509 he returned to Milan and devoted much of his time to scientific studies, and to engineering projects such as channeling the course of the Adda river. In 1512 Leonardo left Milan again, and from 1513 to 1516 was in Rome under the protection of Giuliano de Medici, the brother of Pope Leo X. Here Leonardo came into contact with Michelangelo, and another young rival, Raphael.

After the death of Giuliano dei Medici, Leonardo accepted an invitation from French friends and moved to the castle of Cloux near Amboise, where he stayed with his faithful pupil Melzi until the end of his life. Leonardo died on May 2, 1519, and was buried in the cloister of San Fiorentino in Amboise.

Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams was born in Cambridge in March 1952, educated at Brentwood School, Essex and St John's College, Cambridge where, in 1974 he gained a BA (and later an MA) in English literature.

He was the creator of all the various manifestations of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which started life as a BBC Radio 4 series in March 1978. Since then it has been transformed into a series of best-selling novels, a TV series, a record album, a computer game and several stage adaptations. It is currently under development as a major motion picture with Disney.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's phenomenal success sent the book straight to Number One in the UK Bestseller List and in 1984 Douglas Adams became the youngest author to be awarded a Golden Pan. He won a further two (a rare feat), and was nominated - though not selected - for the first Best of Young British Novelists awards.

He followed this success with The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980); Life, The Universe and Everything (1982); So Long and Thanks for all the Fish (1984); and Mostly Harmless (1992). The first two books in the Hitchhiker series were adapted into a 6 part television series, which was an immediate success when first aired in 1982. Other publications include Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987) and Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul (1988). In 1984 Douglas teamed up with John Lloyd and wrote The Meaning of Liff and after a huge success The Deeper Meaning of Liff followed this in 1990). One of Douglas’s personal favourites was written in 1990 when he teamed up with zoologist Mark Carwardine and wrote Last Chance to See an account of a world-wide search for rare and endangered species of animals.

Douglas sold over 15 million books in the UK, the US and Australia. He was also a best seller in German, Swedish and many other languages

Douglas was a founder-director Chief Fantasist of The Digital Village, a digital media and Internet company with which he created the 1998 CD-ROM Starship Titanic, a Codie Award-winning (1999 ) and BAFTA-nominated (1998) adventure game.

Douglas Adams died at age 49 on Friday, May 11, 2001, in Santa Barbara, CA. He will be greatly missed by fans worldwide.

Enrico Fermi

Enrico Fermi was born in Rome on September 29, 1901. He is best known for his contributions to nuclear physics and the development quantum theory.

In 1934, while professor of physics at the University of Rome, Fermi began experiments where he bombarded a variety of elements with neutrons. He discovered that slow moving neutrons were especially effective in producing radioactive atoms. Not realizing he had split the atom, Fermi announced what he thought were elements beyond uranium. He won the 1938 Nobel Prize for physics for his work on nuclear processes. Also in 1938 two German physicists, Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch performed a similar experiment where they split a uranium atom. They named the process of splitting atoms "nuclear fission."

In 1938 Fermi was forced to flee Italy to escape the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. He was one of a large group of intellectuals who fled other countries of Europe due to the rise of National Socialism (the Nazi Party) in Germany and Fascism in Italy. Fermi settled in the United States, and became professor of physics at Columbia University in 1939. He moved to the University of Chicago in 1942 where he developed the first atomic pile, and produced the first nuclear chain reaction. During World War II he became part of the team that developed the atomic bomb at Los Alamos, New Mexico. After the war he pioneered research on high energy particles.