John Dalton was born to a Quaker family who
worked in trades. He had 2 mentors, Elihu
Robinson and John Gough, who we learned
basic math, Greek, and Latin from. He started
teaching at the age of 12, and worked until he
died. Despite being rich and influential later in
life, he remained frugal. He maintained an
interest in meteorology.
Shortly after moving to
Manchester in 1793,
Dalton was elected as a
member of the
Manchester Literary and
Philosophical Society.
His first publication as
member was a paper
about colour blindless,
which was known as
Daltonism for a time.
Meteorological
observations and
essays (1793)
On the
Absorption of
Gases by Water
and Other
Liquids (1803)
Mendeleev’s father died when he was young,
and his mother ran a glass factory until it
burned down in 1848. He was taken to and
enrolled in the Main Pedagogical Institute in St.
Petersburg. He later taught general chemistry at
the University of St Petersburg. He was critical
of spiritualism, wrote a lot, and deeply invested
in Russia’s economy. He is most known for
being the mind behind the periodic law.
Mendeleev began
attracting attention
around the late 1870s
to the mid 1880s with
the discovery of
gallium, scandium, and
germanium, elements
whose properties he’s
predicted.
Chemical Analysis
of a Sample from
Finland (1854
The Principles of
Chemistry (18681871)
Thomson was born in Manchester, the son of a
bookseller. When he was 14, he enrolled in
Owens College. In 1876, he got a scholarship at
Trinity College (in the University of Cambridge),
where he stayed for the rest of his life. He
deeply valued teaching, but outside of science
he showed interest in politics, fiction, drama,
university sports, and especially in plants and
botany
Thomson was
recognized in 1884 by
way of appointment to
chair of physics at
Cavendish laboratory
and his election as a
fellow of the Royal
Society of London. He
received the Nobel
Prize for Physics in
1906, and was
knighted in 1908
A Treatise on the
Motion of Vortex
Rings (1883)
Conduction of
Electricity
Through Gases
(1906)
Until 1886, when he won a scholarship to
Nelson Collegiate school, Rutherford attended
free state schools. He was an excellent student,
particularly in math and science. Science
consumed most of his life, but he took interest
in golf and motoring. Rutherford was politically
liberal, though there weren’t many of them, he
welcomed women into his laboratory.
Rutherford became
famous during his time
at McGill University
(early 1900s). He’d
written the leading
textbook on radioactivity
and became a fellow in
the Royal Society of
London. He was
awarded the Nobel Prize
in Chemistry in 1908
Radioactive
Charge (1903)
Radioactive
Transformation
s (1906)
Bohr was born to an upper-middle class
Copenhagen family. He always knew he’d study
physics, enrolling in the University of
Copenhagen in 1903. He married Margrethe
Nørlund in 1912. During the Nazi regime, Bohr
did what he could to help physicists out of
Germany by having them spend time at his
institute before moving on.
Bohr was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Physics
in 1922 for his work on
the atom. He is
remembered for his
atomic model. In 1917,
he started an Institute
for Theoretical Physics,
which is still a leader in
theoretical physics
today.
A trilogy of
articles
published in The
Philosophical
Magazine
(1913)
This was also his
first publication.
Chadwick attended the University of
Manchester, where he worked under Ernest
Rutherford. During World War I, he was
imprisoned at Ruhleben and spent all of the war
there. After being released, he returned to
England and Gonville and Caius College in
Cambridge. He enjoyed gardening and fishing.
In1927, Chadwick was
elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society. He is
remembered for his
discovery of the
neutron, for which he
was awarded a Nobel
Prize in Physics in
1935.
How to measure
the absorption
of gamma rays
by various gases
and liquids
(1912)
Article published
in the journal
Nature (1932)
Planck attended the Universities of Munich and
Berlin. He was an excellent pianist and
considered becoming a musician, but ended up
choosing physics. He also enjoyed the outdoors,
staying active even in old age. In the late
1800s, he started working at the University of
Berlin where he ended up staying.
Planck won him the
Nobel Prize for Physics
in 1918 for his
development of
quantum theory. He was
secretary of math and
physics at the Prussian
Academy of Sciences
(1912-1938), and
president of the Kaiser
Wilhelm Society (19301937).
Treatise on
Thermodynamics
(1897)
Theory of Heat
Radiation
(1906)
Einstein grew up in Munich before moving to
Switzerland. At school in Zurich, he excellent in
math and physics but did poorly in French,
chemistry, and biology. He had several
professorships before settling into director of
Kaiser Wilhelm’s Institute for Physics (in Berlin)
in 1913. Einstein was a pacifist and enjoyed
music.
In 1905, Einstein
published 4 articles
about Brownian
motion, the
photoelectric effect,
and 2 on his theory of
relativity. In 1921, he
was awarded the Nobel
Prize for the
photoelectric effect.
Conclusions
Drawn from the
Phenomena of
Capillarity
(1901)
4 articles in 1905
De Broglie was born into French nobility, and in
choosing science as a profession, broke
tradition. At 18, he started studying theoretical
physics at the Sorbonne but was also studying
history as his family expected. He was more
interested in purely conceptual physics than
anything else, which formed the basis of his
research.
For de Broglie’s
research into quantum
theory and predicting
the wave properties of
electrons, he received
the 1929 Nobel Prize
for Physics. In 1952, he
was also awarded the
Kalinga Prize for his
scientific writing for the
public.
On the Theory of
Quanta (1924)
This was also de
Broglie’s first
publication.
Schrödinger studied at the University of Vienna
before moving on to the University of Zurich. In
1933, Schrödinger resigned from the University
of Berlin in protest of the Nazi takeover. He
eventually had to flee to Ireland until returning
to Vienna in 1956. After finishing with
chemistry, he took up painting, then later,
botany.
Schrödinger had written
a whole series of papers
on wave mechanics. The
first paper introduced
the Schrödinger
equation, a fundamental
part of quantum
mechanics. For this
findings, Schrödinger
was awarded the Nobel
Prize in 1933 (shared).
On the conduction
of electricity on
the surface of
insulators in moist
air (1910)
Quantization as
an Eigenvalue
Problem (1926)
In school, Heisenberg showed a aptitude for
math before going on to study physics. It was
during his professorship in Leipzig that he
developed his uncertainty principle. As a hobby,
Heisenberg was interested in classical music,
and was a pianist. In 1958, Heisenberg reached
his goal, an academic position in Munich where
he lived until he died.
Heisenberg is known
for his uncertainty
principle, published in
1927, and his theory of
quantum mechanics.
For these discoveries,
he received the 1932
Nobel Prize in Physics.
Quantum-Theoretical
Reinterpretation of
Kinematic and
Mechanical Relations
(1925)
On the Perceptual
Content of Quantum
Theoretical
Kinematics and
Mechanics (1927)