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biology
Comte de Buffon and his Histoire Naturelle

Comte de Buffon and his Histoire Naturelle

Harald Sack
On September 7, 1707, French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopedic author Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon was born. Buffon formulated a crude theory of evolution and was the first to suggest that the earth might be older than suggested by the Bible. His works influenced the next two generations of naturalists, including Jean-Baptiste Lamarck [2] and Georges Cuvier.[6] “Truly, Buffon was the father of all thought in natural history in the second half of…
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medical science
Hermann von Helmholtz – Physiologist and Physicist

Hermann von Helmholtz – Physiologist and Physicist

Tabea Tietz
On August 31, 1821, German physician and physicist Hermann von Helmholtz was born. In physiology and psychology, he is known for his mathematics of the eye, theories of vision, ideas on the visual perception of space, color vision research, and on the sensation of tone, perception of sound, and empiricism. In physics, he is known for his theories on the conservation of energy, work in electrodynamics, chemical thermodynamics, and on a mechanical foundation…
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physics
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and his Theory of Colours

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and his Theory of Colours

Tabea Tietz
On August 28, 1749, famous German writer and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born. Besides his merits in literature, poetry, and philosophy, that we already did acknowledge in previous articles [4,5,9], Goethe was also interested in natural sciences. He independently discovered the human intermaxillary bone in 1784, was one of the many precursors in the history of evolutionary thought, popularized the Goethe barometer using a principle established by Torricelli, and published his Theory of…
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physics
David Brewster and the Invention of the Kaleidoscope

David Brewster and the Invention of the Kaleidoscope

Harald Sack
On July 10, 1817, Scottish physicist, mathematician, astronomer, inventor and writer Sir David Brewster received a patent for his kaleidoscope. “kaleidoscope” is derived from Ancient Greek and denotes something like “observation of beautiful forms.” It consists of a cylinder with mirrors containing loose, colored objects such as beads or pebbles and bits of glass. As the viewer looks into one end, light entering the other creates a colorful pattern, due to the…
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physics
Charles Augustin de Coulomb and the Electrostatic Force

Charles Augustin de Coulomb and the Electrostatic Force

Tabea Tietz
On June 14, 1736, French physicist Charles Augustin de Coulomb was born. He is best known for developing Coulomb’s law, the definition of the electrostatic force of attraction and repulsion, but also did important work on friction. The SI unit of electric charge, the coulomb, was named after him. Charles Augustin de Coulomb – Early Years Charles Augustin de Coulomb received a good education in mathematics, astronomy, chemistry and botany since both sides of…
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physics
John Dollond – Improving the Telescope with Achromatic Lenses

John Dollond – Improving the Telescope with Achromatic Lenses

Tabea Tietz
On June 10, 1706 (10 June O.S. / 21 June N.S.), English optician John Dollond was born. He is known for his successful optics business and his patenting and commercialization of achromatic lenses. John Dollond – Biographical Background John Dollond came from a Huguenot emigrant family and initially worked as a silk weaver like everyone else in his family, but was also involved in astronomy and optics. He studied Latin, Greek, mathematics, physics,…
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mathematics
Abraham de Moivre and the Doctrine of Chances

Abraham de Moivre and the Doctrine of Chances

Harald Sack
On May 26, 1667, French mathematician Abraham de Moivre was born. De Moivre is best known for de Moivre‘s formula, one of those that link complex numbers and trigonometry, and for his work on the normal distribution and probability theory. He was a friend of Isaac Newton, Edmond Halley, and James Stirling. De Moivre wrote a book on probability theory, The Doctrine of Chances, said to have been prized by gamblers. He…
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meteorology
James Pollard Espy – the Storm King

James Pollard Espy – the Storm King

Harald Sack
On May 9, 1785, U.S. Meteorologist James Pollard Espy was born. Espy developed a convection theory of storms and developed the use of the telegraph in assembling weather observation data by which he studied the progress of storms and laid the basis for scientific weather forecasting. James Pollard Espy – Early Years The youngest of ten children, James Espy was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, USA. He had an ardent desire for…
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mathematics
John Arbuthnot and the Laws of Chance

John Arbuthnot and the Laws of Chance

Harald Sack
On April 29, 1667, Scottish physician, satirist and polymath John Arbuthnot was baptized. He is best remembered for his contributions to mathematics, his membership in the Scriblerus Club (where he inspired both Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels as well as Alexander Pope), and for inventing the figure of John Bull. He published Of the Laws of Chance (1692), the first work on probability published in English, being his translation of a work by…
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chemistry
Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus and the White Gold

Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus and the White Gold

Harald Sack
On April 10, 1719, German mathematician, physicist, physician, and philosopher Ehrenfried Walter von Tschirnhaus was born. Among others, he is credited being the first European to discover the secret of the creation of porcelain in 1708. Certainly, the Meissen factory, established 1710 with its director Johann Friedrich Böttger, was the first to produce porcelain in Europe in large quantities and since the recipe was kept a trade secret by Böttger for his company, experiments…
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