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Albert Abraham Michelson and the Famous Experiment that lead to Einstein’s Special Relativity Theory

Albert Abraham Michelson and the Famous Experiment that lead to Einstein’s Special Relativity Theory

Harald Sack
On December 19, 1859, US-american physicist Albert Abraham Michelson was born. Together with his colleague Edward Williams Morley he conducted an experiment that proved the by the time famous ether theory to be wrong and is considered to be one of the pilars of the theory of relativity. “While it is never safe to affirm that the future of Physical Science has no marvels in store even more astonishing than those of the…
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physics
Werner Heisenberg and the Uncertainty Principle

Werner Heisenberg and the Uncertainty Principle

Harald Sack
On December 5, 1901, German theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize laureate Werner Heisenberg was born, who along with Max Born and Pascual Jordan laid the foundations of quantum mechanics. He is probably best known for his Uncertainty Principle, asserting a fundamental limit to the precision with which certain physical properties can be known. “The more precise the measurement of position, the more imprecise the measurement of momentum, and vice versa.” — Werner Heisenberg,…
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physics
The First Self-Sustained Nuclear Chain Reaction

The First Self-Sustained Nuclear Chain Reaction

Tabea Tietz
On December 2, 1942, during the Manhattan Project, a team led by Italian born physicist Enrico Fermi initiated the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in the Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1), the world‘s first human-made nuclear reactor, and initiated the so-called atomic age. CP-1 was built on a rackets court, under the abandoned west stands of the original Alonzo Stagg Field stadium, at the University of Chicago. Nuclear Chain Reaction and the Atomic Bomb…
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physics
Christian Doppler and the Doppler Effect

Christian Doppler and the Doppler Effect

Harald Sack
On November 29, 1803, Christian Johann Doppler, Austrian Physicist and mathematician was born in Salzburg. Doppler is widely known for his principle, the Doppler effect, that the observed frequency of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer. He used this concept to explain the color of binary stars. “There have been applied sciences throughout the ages. … However this so-called practice was not much more than paper…
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astronomy
Jocelyn Bell Burnell and the Discovery of Pulsars

Jocelyn Bell Burnell and the Discovery of Pulsars

Harald Sack
On November 28, 1967, Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Anthony Hewish discovered the first Pulsar, a fast rotating neutron star that emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation. The radiation of a pulsar can only be observed when the beam of emission is pointing toward the Earth, much the way a lighthouse can only be seen when the light is pointed in the direction of an observer, and is responsible for the pulsed appearance…
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astronomy
Sir Arthur Eddington – The Man who Proved Einstein’s General Relativity

Sir Arthur Eddington – The Man who Proved Einstein’s General Relativity

Tabea Tietz
On November 22, 1944, British astrophysicist and philosopher Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington passed away. He became famous for his 1919 solar eclipse expedition to Principe, where he conducted astrophysical experiments to give proof for Albert Einstein‘s seminal theory of general relativity. “At terrestrial temperatures matter has complex properties which are likely to prove most difficult to unravel; but it is reasonable to hope that in the not too distant future we shall be…
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physics
Konrad Lorenz and the Study of Instinctive Behavior of Animals

Konrad Lorenz and the Study of Instinctive Behavior of Animals

Harald Sack
On November 7, 1903, Austrian zoologist, ethologist, and ornithologist Konrad Lorenz was born. Lorenz is regarded as one of the main representatives of classical comparative behavioral research (ethology). He himself called this field of research “animal psychology” until 1949. “The competition between human beings destroys with cold and diabolic brutality…. Under the pressure of this competitive fury we have not only forgotten what is useful to humanity as a whole, but even…
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physics
Lise Meitner – The Misjudged Genius

Lise Meitner – The Misjudged Genius

Tabea Tietz
On October 27, 1968, Austrian-Swedish physicist Lise Meitner passed away. She is known today for her passionate and extraordinary work on radioactivity and nuclear physics along with her colleague Otto Hahn,[1] who was honored with the Nobel Prize while Meitner stayed unrecognized. Family Background and Early Life Lise Meitner was born on November 7, 1878 in Vienna Leopoldstadt (2nd district of Vienna), Austria. She was the third daughter of the Jewish lawyer Philipp Meitner and…
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physics
The Leyden Jar Introducing the Age of Electricity

The Leyden Jar Introducing the Age of Electricity

Harald Sack
On October 11, 1745, German cleric Ewald Georg von Kleist (and independently of him Dutch scientist Pieter van Musschenbroek from the city of Leiden, Netherlands) invented a predecessor of today’s battery, the Leyden Jar. The jar worked in principle like a capacitor for the storage of electrical energy and was used to conduct many early experiments in electricity. Its discovery was of fundamental importance in the study of electricity. In the times before its invention, researchers…
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physics
Windscale – the World’s First Major Nuclear Accident

Windscale – the World’s First Major Nuclear Accident

Tabea Tietz
On October 10, 1957, the world’s first major nuclear accident took place. The Windscale fire happened in Cumbria, U.K. and was Great Britain‘s worst nuclear accident in history. Great Britain and the Bomb After World War II, the British refused to just look at how the United States and the Soviet Union raced each other in who can work with nuclear power at first and most important, who is able to launch…
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