You are here: Home › Post Tagged with: "physics"

physics

physics
Chien-Shiung Wu and the Conservation of Parity

Chien-Shiung Wu and the Conservation of Parity

Harald Sack
On May 31, 1912, Chinese-American experimental physicist Chien-Shiung Wu was born. Wu is best known for conducting the Wu experiment, which contradicted the hypothetical law of conservation of parity. This discovery resulted in her colleagues Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang winning the 1957 Nobel Prize in physics, and also earned Wu the inaugural Wolf Prize in Physics in 1978. Her expertise in experimental physics evoked comparisons to Marie Curie. “… it is…
Read more
physics
John Bardeen and his two Nobel Prizes in Physics

John Bardeen and his two Nobel Prizes in Physics

Tabea Tietz
On May 23, 1908, American physicist and electrical engineer John Bardeen was born. Bardeen is the only person to have won the Nobel Prize in Physics twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for the invention of the transistor;[6] and again in 1972 with Leon N Cooper and John Robert Schrieffer for a fundamental theory of conventional superconductivity known as the BCS theory theory. “Science is a field which grows continuously…
Read more
physics
Oliver Heaviside changed the Face of Telecommunications

Oliver Heaviside changed the Face of Telecommunications

Tabea Tietz
On May 18, 1850, English self-taught electrical engineer, mathematician, and physicist Oliver Heaviside was born. Heaviside adapted complex numbers to the study of electrical circuits, invented mathematical techniques for the solution of differential equations, reformulated Maxwell’s field equations in terms of electric and magnetic forces and energy flux, and independently co-formulated vector analysis. “However absurd it may seem, I do in all seriousness hereby declare that I am animated mainly by philanthropic motives.…
Read more
mathematics
Alexis Claude Clairaut and the True Figure of the Earth

Alexis Claude Clairaut and the True Figure of the Earth

Harald Sack
On May 13, 1713, French mathematician, astronomer, and geophysicist Alexis Claude Clairaut was born. Clairaut was one of the key figures in the expedition to Lapland that helped to confirm Newton’s theory for the figure of the Earth.[3] In that context, Clairaut worked out a mathematical result now known as “Clairaut’s theorem“. He also tackled the gravitational three-body problem, being the first to obtain a satisfactory result for the apsidal precession of…
Read more
engineering
The Instruments of Jean-Charles de Borda

The Instruments of Jean-Charles de Borda

Tabea Tietz
On May 4, 1733, French mathematician, physicist, political scientist, and sailor Jean-Charles de Borda was born. De Borda is noted for his studies of fluid mechanics and his development of instruments for navigation and geodesy, the study of the size and shape of the Earth. He is one of 72 scientists commemorated by plaques on the Eiffel tower. From Latin and Greek to Mathematics and Physics Jean-Charles de Borda grew up in Dax, France,…
Read more
physics
Charles Francis Richter and the Richter Scale

Charles Francis Richter and the Richter Scale

Harald Sack
On April 26, 1900, American seismologist and physicist Charles Francis Richter was born. Richter is most famous as the creator of the Richter magnitude scale, which, until the development of the moment magnitude scale in 1979, quantified the size of earthquakes. Inspired by Kiyoo Wadati‘s 1928 paper on shallow and deep earthquakes, Richter first used the scale in 1935 after developing it in collaboration with Beno Gutenberg; both worked at the California Institute of…
Read more
engineering
John Leslie’s Research in Heat and Capillary Action

John Leslie’s Research in Heat and Capillary Action

Tabea Tietz
On April 10, 1766, Scottish mathematician and physicist Sir John Leslie was born. Leslie is best remembered for his research into heat. He gave the first modern account of capillary action in 1802 and froze water using an air-pump in 1810, the first artificial production of ice. “The true business of the philosopher, though not flattering to his vanity, is merely to ascertain, arrange and condense the facts. “ — Sir John…
Read more
chemistry
Peter Debye – Dipole Moments, X Rays, and Light Scattering

Peter Debye – Dipole Moments, X Rays, and Light Scattering

Tabea Tietz
On March 24, 1884, Dutch-American physicist and physical chemist Peter Joseph William Debye was born. Debye’s investigations of dipole moments, X rays, and light scattering in gases brought him the 1936 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Most of his work was in chemical-physics with special interest in electrolytes and dipolar momentum analysis. He established a theory of specific heat with some improvements on that proposed by Einstein.[5] “If a problem is clearly stated,…
Read more
physics
Vilhelm Bjerknes – A Pioneer of Modern Weatherforecast

Vilhelm Bjerknes – A Pioneer of Modern Weatherforecast

Harald Sack
On March 14, 1862, Norwegian physicist and meteorologist Vilhelm Bjerknes was born, Bjerknes is best known for being one of the founders of the modern science of weather forecasting with his 1921 published work “On the Dynamics of the Circular Vortex with Applications to the Atmosphere and to Atmospheric Vortex and Wave Motion“. Youth and Education Vilhelm Frimann Koren Bjerknes was born in Kristiania (later renamed Oslo), Norway, and enjoyed an early exposure…
Read more
computer science

Rolf Landauer and the Landauer Principle

Harald Sack
On February 4, 1927, German-American physicist Rolf William Landauer was born. Landauer made important contributions in diverse areas of the thermodynamics of information processing, condensed matter physics, and the conductivity of disordered media. He is probably best known for the formulation of the eponymous Landauer Principle concerning the energy used during a computer‘s operation. “We shall call a device logically irreversible if the output of a device does not uniquely define the…
Read more
Relation Browser
Timeline
0 Recommended Articles:
0 Recommended Articles: