Fall.2008.MMA.Kvilhaug.Timeline



__**Eratosthenes of Cryene**__

276 B.C.-194 B.C.

Born in Cryene, Greece

Erotosthenes was a Greek philosopher who did most of his work in the city of Alexandria. He was famous at the time for being the chief librarian in Alexandria, a position of very high standing. It was considered the center of learning for the ancient world. One of Eratosthenes' biggest contributions to science was the calculation of the circumference of the earth. He studied Math and Science in great depth and was surprisingly very accurate in his calculations. he made his calculations by marking and nothing teh position of the sun over the city of Swenet in Egypt [|during the summer solstice], and basing all of his calculations on this fact.




 * __Aristotle__**

384 B.C.-322 B.C.

Born in Stageira, Chalcidice

Aristotle is one of the most famous greek philosophers. He was the personal teacher of Alexander The Great. He spent most of his life educaing people at his school, Lyceum, in Athens. Here he wrote many of his findings and thoughts down for people to study and build off of. Aristotle is credited with contributions to nearly every subject. And he was considered to be the authority on them at the time. One of Aristotles' biggest contributions to modern science is something we often take for granted today. That is the belief in the existence in the four elements: earth, water, fire, wind. This was the precedent to the periodic table of elements and is the basis of nearly all of modern chemistry.



1766-1844 Born in Cumberland, England Dalton was born into a strict Quaker family and raised as such. He spent much of his professional life as a teacher, teaching many different types of sciences at many different levels of education. This included teaching in a Quaker school. He met many of his peers at the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, where he was a member from 1799-1801. Many of Dalton’s professional studies were in the field of Meteorology. He was noted to take daily records of the weather, even up until his death. One of his biggest finds in the field was coming to the conclusion that the air in the earth’s atmosphere are made up like a machine with individual gasses pressures building and working off of each other.
 * __John Dalton__**


 * __ Joseph Black __**

1728-1799

Born in France

Joseph Black was the French son of an Irish father and a Scottish mother. Though he was born in France he considered himself to be a Scott. He had twelve brothers and sisters. Both his mother and father were wine makers. Joseph himself was in the wine business for a while. He studied Medicine at the University of Glasgow, and again at Edinburgh. Joseph Black is often most notably credited with discovering Carbon Dioxide. He is also the one who discovered latent heat and specific heat.


 * __ Henry Cavendish __**

1731-1810

Born in Nice, France

Henry Cavendish was born in France into a family of royalty. He was the Grandson of the Duke of Kent, and the Second Duke of Devonshire. As a result, he was the son of Lad Anne Gray, and Lord Charles Cavendish. The family had many connections to royalty in France and England.

Most of Cavendish’s studies were in the field of Inflammable Air. This work was originally started by Robert Boyle. Cavendish’s experiments involving specific gravity established the gas, Hydrogen, as an individual substance.




 * __ Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen __**

1845-1923

Born in Lennep, Germany

Rontgen was born into a wealthy German family, whose mosey came from trading and dealing in various goods. He spent much of his life with his family in the small village in the German country. He eventually moved to Zurich to study sciences there. His primary educational focus was originally engineering, but later he used his base of knowledge to move on to studies in physics. In 1869, he received his doctorate in the field and began teaching at various colleges.

As a professor, and later Manager of The Institute of Physics at the University of Wurzburg, he began his study into Cathode Rays, which is where he made his discovery of X-Rays that are commonly used today. This discovery allowed him and others to see inside objects, specifically the human body, without damaging the object.



**__ Sir William Crookes __**

1832-1919

Born in London, England

Sir William Crookes was born and Raised in the city of London, and spent all his youth and many of his adult years in the city. Crookes spent much of his early career study under August Wilhelm von Hofmann working in both the fields of Physics and Chemistry. He spent a lot of time studying Meteorology, and was at one point employed at the Radcliffe Observatory in Oxford England.

Sir William Crookes is best known for his work with, and creation of, the Crookes tube. Use of this tube helped him form his theory of “Radiant Matter” or what he called the “fourth state.” He was able to split up and remove impurities from yttrium. One of his biggest credits is the discovery of the element Thallium.




 * __ Henri Becquerel __**

1852-1908

Henri Becquerel was born in Paris France. He came from a family of scientists. He was the third in the line of men in his family to become a well known Physicist. His father and grandfather, Alexander-Edmond Becquerel, and Antoine Cesar Becquerel, respectively, were successful scientists. Both were professors of physics and members of the Academy of Sciences. Henri was following in the family tradition.

His early work deals mostly with the plane polarization of light and with phosphorescence. However, Henri Becquerel is best known for his work in, and discovery of, Radioactivity. He worked on this alongside Marie and Pierre Curie. The three of them together are often credited with the work. His discovery in part showed that uranium caused gases to ionize and were visibly different from X-Rays.



Marie Curie

1867-1934

Born in Warsaw, Poland Marie Curie is famous for many things. Outside of her actual scientific discoveries, she is one of the first widely published female scientists, and is considered the one of the best known. She is also the first person to win two Nobel Prizes. She is usually associated with her husband Pierre Curie, for their joint efforts on many topics.

One of her best known achievements was the discovery of the elements Polonium and Radium. This was the gateway to a whole new style of medical research and treatment. Her work is the foundation of modern cancer study and radiotherapy. These elemental discoveries were made while studying uranium ores.




 * __Joseph John (J.J.) Thompson__**

1856-1940

Born in Manchester, England

J.J. Thompson became the head of his household at a young age when his father unexpectedly died. He was well educated his whole life and started the main body of his educational career at Owens College in Manchester. From there he studied mathematics at Trinity College, Part of Cambridge University. Most of his educational training was in Math, to help him further his studies of atoms and electromagnetic forces.

J.J. Thompson is mostly recognized for his discovery of electrons and isotopes. His studies in electrons provide a base and background for the majority of modern scientific studies into elements and atoms. He was lead to this discovery by three specific and famous experiments using cathode rays. This work led to his receiving the Nobel Prize.




 * __Robert Millikan__**

1868-1953

Born in Morrison, Illinois, USA

He was the son of Reverend and Mrs. Millikan. He was raised in a very religious, small town home. Before going to college he spent a short career as a reporter in a court. From there he went to Oberlin College in Ohio. He started his studies in Greek and mathematics. But for his graduate studies, he began to study, and later teach, physics.

Many of Millikan’s most important studies and discoveries were in the field of molecular physics. It is here that he made one of his most important discoveries in understanding how to tell the charge of an electron. He did this with the “falling drop method.”




 * __Niels Bohr__**

1885-1962

Born in Copenhagen, Denmark

Niels Henrik David Bohr was raised and spent most of his life in Copenhagen. His father was a well known physiologist, and his mother came from a wealthy Jewish family. His brother was a very talented soccer player who played for the Danish team in the Olympics. Bohr himself spent time studying at Copenhagen University, Trinity College, and Manchester University.

Bohr’s professional career was spent studying and understanding atomic structure. It was in this field that he made his biggest and most important discoveries that he is best known for today. He also worked on “The Manhattan Project.” While there he was given a different name for both the safety of the project and himself.


 * __James Chadwick__**

1891-1974

Born in Bollington, Cheshire, England James Chadwick was a British Public School student who ended up studying at Manchester and Cambridge Universities. He spent a lot of time studying nuclear sciences. He was even able to do so while being held in a German P.O.W. camp during the First World War.

James Chadwick is most famous for being the person who discovered the neutron. It is a small particle in the center of a nucleus. It is called a neutron because it has no electrical charge, and therefore is neutral: neutron.




 * __ Werner Heisenberg __**

1901-1976

Born in Wurzburg, Germany

Werner Heisenberg ran into trouble early in his career with the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. The SS were not fans of his work and were opposed to the attempt to appoint him to a position in the University of Munich. He was not shown favorably in the news papers that were very biased and favored the Nazi’s at the time. Eventually, Heinrich Himmler, a high ranking Nazi, got Heisenberg out of trouble and had his position restored

Heisenberg is most famous for his theory on quantum mechanics. It was particularly impressive because he published this work when he was only twenty three years old. He formed matrices to represent the incalculable mechanical qualities, such as velocity and position, of electrons.




 * __ Erwin Schrodinger __**

1887-1961

Born in Edberg, Vienna, Austria-Hungary

Erwin Schrodinger was born and raised in Austria. He served in the Austrian military for a while as an officer in the Artillery. He studied physics for a while in Germany. But he fled when the Nazis came to power. He later apologized for doing this saying that he should have stayed and not run away. He was still under scrutiny from the third Reich occupied over Austria. After the war he went to Ireland to teach, and later became a citizen of the country.

Erwin Schrodinger is usually associated with his published works on wave mechanics and quantum theory. His wave equation became famous and formed a foundation for a lot of work that came after it.



I had some problems editing the text on this site, which is why the set up is different at different points in the project.