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| Carl Friedrich Gauss was a true prodigy since elementary school, making a significant contribution to mathematics and physics with his seminal breakthroughs. |
Carl Friedrich Gauss, one of the most distinguished mathematicians that ever lived, made numerous great contributions to several fields of mathematics and physics, and the basic unit for magnetic flux density is named after him. The Gauss' flux theorem, related to electromagnetism, is one of the fundamental equations of modern electrodynamics, and is similar to many other laws in physics. He also devised an ingenious method for adding sequential integer numbers while he was still in primary school, and completed his work on Disquisitiones Arithmeticae (Arithmetical Investigations), a collection of mathematical breakthroughs at the incredible age of 21. Gauss also possessed extraordinary abilities of calculating both simple and complex operations (such as logarithms) in his head, which he used to great effect since it was a big time-saver. He was a man very much immersed in his own work, and had little time for others, including his younger students. As a dedicated perfectionist, Gauss never published any of his findings until he was satisfied with the proofs, and made a great deal of breakthroughs which he never shared with his contemporaries, but which were in turn discovered by later mathematicians. All of his findings would be impossible to list within a short article, but even a brief overview testifies about the scientific genius. Carl Friedrich Gauss died in 1855 in the city of Göttingen, famous for its university (where Gauss himself studied and taught), and numerous institutions hold his name, honoring one of the greatest scientific minds in human history.
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| Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was well versed in a vast array of scientific disciplines, with a particular contribution to mathematics and philosophy. |
Another great German mathematician, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, made a significant contribution to philosophy and many other sciences. He lived in the shadow of one of his contemporaries, Sir Isaac Newton, since it was believed that Newton was the first to devise infinitesimal calculus, and that Leibniz merely copied it, but posthumous research had shown that they developed it independently of one another. G. W. Leibniz also invented Boolean algebra and the binary system, the fundamental principles on which every computer is based on. Although early calculus did not have the proofs required by modern science, it laid a significant foundation for its later development. As far as physics is concerned, Leibniz's theories about the relativity of time, space and movement were quite advanced for his time, but they were proved only with the discovery of quantum mechanics. Being a true Renaissance man, Leibniz contributed to many other areas of expertise, such as philology, ecumenism, law practice, psychology and engineering, and even foresaw the forming of the European Union. The numerous and long disputes with Newton and Descartes didn't distract him too much, which is apparent in his many breakthroughs although he was often neglected during his lifetime since other established scientists favored his rivals. Leibniz was an optimist, a fact proven by his philosophical ideas, since he claimed that this universe is the best one that could exist, and his metaphysical theories were based on monads, ultimate particles of the cosmos. He was a man well ahead of his time, a true polymath and genius in every sense of those words. Many of his writings were published after his death in 1716, revealing even more of his concepts and ways of thinking.
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| The renowned Einstein's equation which correlates energy and mass. Nuclear fission theory was derived from this basic principle. |
Albert Einstein is certainly one of the most famous scientists in the history of mankind, as well as an icon for an absent-minded genius. He was born in 1879 in Ulm, but soon moved to Munich with the rest of his family, where he finished primary school. After young Albert got his degree in physics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich at the age of 21, he attained Swiss citizenship and was eventually employed at a patent office in Bern. During that time, Einstein published several works in a renowned German journal for physics, including papers on the photoelectric effect (for which he received a Nobel Prize in 1921), conversion of mass into energy, and special relativity, which were revolutionary within the scientific community. In 1905 he received a PhD from the University of Zurich, and started teaching at the University of Bern, while retaining his position at the Swiss patent office. His most famous work, the theory of relativity, was made public in 1915, earning him tremendous respect among his peers and entire subsequent generations. He was wise enough to leave Germany and settle in the United States a year before Adolf Hitler rose to power, and he helped other European Jews to emigrate to safety, indirectly helping to found the International Rescue Committee. The world-famous formula E=mc2, which can be described as "all matter can be converted into energy and vice versa", eventually led to the discovery of nuclear fission and the infamous atomic bomb, used by the Allies on Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Einstein, an ardent pacifist, originally suggested that such a weapon should be created, a fact which he later regretted and lobbied to prevent development of future nuclear weapons. After his death in 1955, Albert Einstein's brain was extracted and preserved for future neural scientists, an act that was not supported by his family. Although he was a remarkable genius, he attained such worldwide popularity mainly because of the American media who glorified him for his efforts against the Nazis, turning him into something more than a scientific icon - he became a part of the cultural heritage of the world.
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| Max Planck discovered quantum physics, a discipline that cannot be understood within the scope of conventional physics. |
Max Planck was a renowned physicist best known for his breakthroughs in the field of quantum theory, for which he received a Nobel Prize. In Munich, he finished high school and developed an interest in physics. After several years of studies at the in 1918. He was born in Kiel but soon moved to University of Munich and the University of Berlin, Planck was almost disregarded by the scientific community, and was forced to teach without payment, hoping that he would eventually manage to get into the academic circle. His work on the theory of heat earned him the much wanted recognition, and he was admitted to the University of Kiel, where he continued his research, dealing with the issue of black body radiation. A few years later, Planck took a position at the University of Berlin which advanced his academic career and eventually led to his appointment as president of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft (German Society of Physicists) in 1905. After several unsuccessful theories, Max Planck took a new approach in solving the problem of black body radiation, and concluded that the energy of electromagnetic waves could only have quantized, discrete values (expressed by the formula E=h*ν, where h is Planck's constant and ν is the wave's frequency), which led to the development of quantum physics and Einstein's later breakthroughs. Although he didn't quite understand the significance of his discovery, since it contradicted conventional physics at the time, Planck is rightfully considered to be the father of quantum physics, while Einstein is regarded as the father of the theory of relativity. Being a committed man focused on science, he wasn't particularly bothered with the events of WWI, and continued his research for the betterment of mankind, inspiring his colleagues to do the same. Throughout his career, Planck never dealt with experiments, focusing solely on theoretical physics, completely disregarding the experimental approach of numerous other colleagues. After Hitler seized political power in Germany, the aged Nobel Prize winner tried to help his Jewish colleagues who were persecuted by the new regime, and was eventually forced to resign his academic memberships because of his lack of support for national socialism. A victim of numerous personal tragedies, Max Planck died in Göttingen in 1847, at the respectable age of 89. In honor of this great and committed scientist, the German Society of Physicists awards a Max Planck Medal for exceptional achievements in theoretical physics every year.
