The Landscape of the Science in the History (6)

John Dalton discovered matter is composed of atoms that are indivisible and indestructible and have a weight. All atoms of any element are the same, but that every element has different atoms. Also, that hydrogen atoms are the lightest. Their weight is used to determine all atomic weights.

Lucretia Herschel’s greatest contributions to astronomy included discovering a number of comets like the comet 35P/Herschel-Rigollet, which is named after her. Her brother was William Herschel, who was a famous astronomer in his own right. They collaborated closely on their work. From 1786 to 1797 she discovered a total of 8 comets. She also played a great role in cataloguing nebulae and clusters of stars. Her work was recognized with various honors such as a Gold Medal from the Royal Astronomical Society, and another from the King of Prussia on her 96th birthday. One of the greatest female scientists of the 18th century.

Brave enough to take risks, in 1796 he inoculated a healthy 8-year-old boy with (cow) smallpox pathogens against smallpox and was successful. Edward Jennings is, therefore, considered the father of the smallpox vaccination.

Pierre Laplace lived through the French Revolution, Napoleon and the Bourbons all at close quarters. He still managed to focus on his probability theory (in games of chance), “celestial mechanics” (the calculation of planetary orbits, and the existence of black holes).

Alessandro Volta built on Luigi Galvani’s (1737-1798) discovery of the electric current to discover the electrolysis of water. Among others, Volta invented the battery (1800), an ampere meter and the “voltaic pile“.

Jean Lamarck developed the first “theory of evolution” before Charles Darwin! He introduced the term “invertebrates” and recognized, before Darwin, that species are not immutable.

Antoine Lavoisier is the father of modern chemistry. He proved water is a compound of hydrogen and oxygen and that air is a compound of oxygen and nitrogen. Lavoisier’s meticulous experiments with sulfur and phosphorus demonstrated a burnt substance gains as much weight as the oxygen added. Lavoisier provided a nomenclature for chemistry by counting and symbolizing elements. During the French Revolution, he was guillotined to death, ending the life of one of the most famous scientists of all time.

William Herschel was a dedicated astronomer who observed the night sky through his home-made telescope. Herschel discovered the planet Uranus, the Milky Way and concluded all stars are suns. Herschel was one of the most famous scientists of all time.

Joseph-Louis Lagrange was a maths professor at just 19 years old. He performed ground-breaking work in almost all areas of pure mathematics, he founded analytical mechanics (Lagrangian), solved the three-body problem in celestial mechanics (Lagrangian points), the calculus of variations and the theory of complex functions!

James Watt perfected the efficiency of steam engines by developing new capacitors and the use of connecting rods. James Watt invented “Watt’s parallelogram” and a land survey telescope among other things.

Joseph Priestley was a theologian who isolated gases by using mercury. This led to his discoveries of oxygen, hydrochloric acid and laughing gas (nitrous oxide). Priestley also mixed water with carbon dioxide and in the process accidentally invented mineral water which is very popular today.

Henry Cavendish was a wealthy, eccentric loner and misogynist. He was regarded as a pioneer of modern chemistry. He weighed and measured many gases and elements (before and after combustion) and discovered, among other things, the element hydrogen.

Frenchman Charles Messier discovered twenty comets, galaxies and distant stars along with other famous astronomers of his time, including William Herschel, Pierre Méchain, Jérome Lalande and Johann Encke. One of the most famous scientists of all time.

Leonard Euler was one of the most prolific scientists despite going blind later in life. Euler wrote 866 publications, established new symbols such as the summation sign Σ, founded the calculus of variations and, partly, analysis. In mechanics, Euler discovered equations for the motion of rigid bodies and fluids (hydrodynamics), and developed a wave theory to calculate lens in the field of optics. One of the most famous scientists of all time.

The Swedish naturalist, botanist and zoologist Carl Linnaeus was the first to document and classify minerals, plants and animals into phyla, classes, order, family, genus and species. His major works include “Species Plantarum” (1752) and “Systema Naturae” (1758).

Émilie du Châtelet translated and commented on Isaac Newton’s “Principia”, which detailed the basic laws of physics. With this she made a considerable contribution to Newtonian mechanics. She published her most famous work “Foundations of Physics” in 1740, which was republished in several languages and caused much debate.Châtelet lived and collaborated with Voltaire from 1733 and became the first woman to have a scientific paper published by the Academy.

Anders Celsius initially proposed determining the boiling point of water at 0 and the freezing point at 100 degrees. It wasn’t until a year after his death, in 1745, that this scale was turned on its head by Carl Linnaeus and freezing point became zero.

James Bradley discovered in 1725 the aberration of light (proof of the heliocentric worldview) and calculated from this the speed of light: 300,000 km a second.

Gabriel Fahrenheit was a German physicist who developed the mercury thermometer in 1714 with a three-point calibration. For the zero point of Fahrenheit’s scale he used the lowest temperature he could produce at the time: minus 17.8 F°. He defined the freezing point of water as +32 F° and water’s boiling point as +212 F°.

Maria Kirch, born Winkelmann, was one of the first famous astronomers due to her writings on the conjunction of the sun with Saturn, Venus, and Jupiter. She was educated by her father, a minister, who believed girls deserved the same education as boys. Her husband, Gottfried Kirch, was a famous German astronomer and mathematician and 30 years older. They worked together as a team and had 4 children, all of whom also studied astronomy. In 1702, she became the first woman to discover a new comet, now known as the “Comet of 1702“, and published widely on astronomy. When her husband died, she tried to take his place at the Royal Academy of Sciences but the Academy refused. One of the greatest female scientists of the 17th century.