Name the Scientist
Previous pre-shows designed for MAPS
included exercises on Face
Recognition, Optical Illusions, Modesto
People and Landmarks. You have
heard of attitude tests, these pre shows
are tests with an attitude. This preshow is about scientists who deserve
recognition. Because of limited
time, the list has been narrowed from
thousands (for instance, there have
been 863 Nobel prize winners) to some
of the most recognizable.
Think about it; you can probably name many entertainers and athletes even
though for the most part, their impact and influence is fleeting at most. How
many Nobel prize winners can you name? Scientists leave a lasting legacy that
impacts society forever.
It is hoped that by taking this test, your recognition of the names of a few
scientists will be increased and your respect and interest in science and its
endeavors and accomplishments will result in further study.
It is surely harmful to
souls to make it a
heresy to believe
what is proved.
Galileo quotations
Doubt is the father
of invention.
After developing the first telescope useful for astronomical research,
this ground breaking scientist discovered the four moons of Jupiter.
Galilei Galileo (1564- 1642) was an Italian physicist, mathematician,
astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific
Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and
consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism.
Because of his criticism of an earth centered universe, Galileo was placed
under house arrest. In 1992, the Catholic church apologized for their
censure-ship of Galileo. Until the time of Galileo, European scientists relied
largely on Aristotle's approach of philosophical analysis to explain
physical phenomena. Galileo demonstrated the advantages of
experimentation, and argued that physics should be a mathematics-based.
Who deserves credit
for formulating the
three laws of motion?
Among his many
accomplishments were
the description of gravity
and the development of
calculus.
Isaac
? Newton
Sir Isaac Newton (1642 – 1726)
PRS MP was an English physicist,
mathematician, astronomer,
natural philosopher, alchemist and
theologian who has been
considered by many to be the
greatest and most influential
scientist who ever lived.
What 18th century French
chemist was considered the
father of modern chemistry
but lost his life in the French
revolution?
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier (1743 -1794), the "father of modern
chemistry," was a French nobleman prominent in the histories of
chemistry and biology. He named both oxygen and hydrogen and
predicted silicon, proved the law of conservation of mass and disproved
the four element concept that everything could be made from earth, air,
fire and water. Considered an aristocrat by the French people, he was
guillotined.
Matter, though divisible in an extreme degree,
is nevertheless not infinitely divisible. That is,
there must be some point beyond which we
cannot go in the division of matter. ... I have
chosen the word “atom” to signify these
ultimate particles. John Dalton
While parts of Dalton’s atomic theory were correct,
today’s model of the atom with electrons, protons and
neutrons did not emerge until the middle of the 20th
century.
John Dalton (1776 – 1844) was an English chemist,
meteorologist and physicist. Later, Thompson,
Rutherford Bohr, Schrodinger and many others
contributed to our present model of the atom.
In the modern era, who revived and
formalized the concept of atoms originally
proposed in ancient Greece by Democritus?
For 2000 years prior to this revival, the
commonly accepted concept that matter is
continuous has been attributed to Plato and
Aristotle.
Who was the British scientist who laid the foundations of the theory of
evolution and transformed the way we think about the natural world?
Charles Robert Darwin, (1809 – 1882) was an English naturalist. He
established that all species of life have descended over time from
common ancestors, and proposed the scientific theory that this
branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called
natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar
effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding.
“Science knows no country, because
knowledge belongs to humanity, and is
the torch which illuminates the world.”
Who discovered the
germ theory of disease?
Louis Pasteur (1822 – 1895) French
microbiologist and chemist, made
remarkable breakthroughs in the causes
and prevention of diseases and invented
the process of Pasteurization.
In the fields of
observation chance
favors only the
prepared mind.
Pasteur
James Clerk Maxwell (1831 – 1879) was a Scottish theoretical physicist.
His theory of electromagnetism united all previously unrelated
observations, experiments, and equations of electricity, magnetism, and
optics into a consistent theory. Maxwell's equations demonstrate that
electricity, magnetism and light are all manifestations of the
electromagnetic field. Maxwell's achievements have been called the
"second great unification in physics", after the first one realized by Isaac
Newton. Who in the 19 century developed the theory of electromagnetic
fields earning him a place among the greatest physicists ever?
In Science, it is when we take some interest in the great
discoverers and their lives that it becomes endurable,
and only when we begin to trace the development of
ideas that it becomes fascinating. James Maxwell
Maxwell's Demon refers to
the hypothetical creature
that James Clerk Maxwell
postulated, who could
bend the Second Law of
Thermodynamics.
2013
Many transuranium elements were
discovered by Nobel winner Glen
Seaborg (UCB) and co-workers.
“The elements, if arranged according to their atomic weights,
exhibit an apparent periodicity of properties. “ Dmitri
Mendeleev (1834 - 1907) was a Russian chemist . He created
the first version of the periodic table of elements, and used it
to predict the properties of elements yet to be discovered.
Who
developed
the periodic
table in 1869?
Technically, he
incorrectly used
atomic weights
instead of the
atomic numbers.
Who won a Nobel prize for
developing quantum theory?
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (1858 – 1947),
was a German theoretical physicist who
originated quantum theory, which won him the
Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918. This was not
only Planck's most important work but also
marked a turning point in the history of physics.
A constant (Planck’s constant) and an institute
bear his name.
E = hn h = Planck’s constant
It is not the possession of truth, but the
success which attends the seeking after
it, that enriches the seeker and brings
happiness to him. Max Planck
Svante Arrhenius (18591927) was a Swedish scientist
who was the first to claim that
fossil fuel combustion might
result in enhanced global
warming. Despite primitive
data, his calculations about
temperature magnitudes but
not timing were consistent with
present day predictions. One
of the founders of the science
of physical chemistry
(developed the concept of
ionization in solution), he
received the Nobel Prize for
Chemistry in 1903.
Humanity stands ... before a great
problem of finding new raw
materials and new sources of
Who as early as 1896 energy that shall never become
was the first person exhausted. In the meantime we
to predict
must not waste what we have, but
anthropomorphic
must leave as much as possible
global warming?
for coming generations. Arrhenius
Education is the key
to unlock the golden
door of freedom. Carver
Who was born as a slave in approximately 1864 and later devoted his life
to research projects connected primarily with Southern agriculture. The
products he derived from the peanut and the soybean revolutionized the
economy of the South by liberating it from an excessive dependence on
cotton.
It is rare to find a man of the caliber of George
Washington Carver (~1864 – 1943) . A man
I wanted to know the name
of every stone and flower
and insect and bird and
beast. I wanted to know
where it got its color, where
it got its life - but there was
no one to tell me.
Carver quotation
who would decline an invitation to work for a salary
of more than $100,000 a year (almost a million
today) to continue his research on behalf of his
countrymen. As an agricultural chemist, Carver
discovered three hundred uses for peanuts and
hundreds more uses for soybeans, pecans and
sweet potatoes.
Who was the first
person to win two
Nobel prizes?
Marie Skłodowska-Curie (1867 -1934) was a
Polish-born physicist and chemist, working
mainly in France, who is famous for her
pioneering research on radioactivity. Not only
was she the first person to win 2 Nobel prizes,
she was the first woman to win a Noble prize.
Her husband, Pierre and later, her daughter
and son-in-law also won Nobel prizes.
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only
to be understood. Now is the time to
understand more, so that we may fear
less.
I have no dress [for her wedding] except
the one I wear every day. If you are
going to be kind enough to give me one,
please let it be practical and dark so that
I can put it on afterwards to go to the
laboratory.
Who made a very significant contribution to the
discovery of nuclear fission but did not share
(though deserved) in the Nobel prize awarded for
its discovery?
Lise Meitner (1878 - 1968) Austrian-born Swedish
nuclear physicist. Born in Vienna, she worked with
radiochemist, Otto Hahn. They discovered the element
protactinium and studied the effects of neutron
bombardment on uranium. After leaving Nazi Germany
in 1938, she continued her work at the Nobel Physical
Institute in Stockholm. Lise and her nephew Otto
Frisch, realized that the the uranium nucleus had been
split. They called the process "fission." During the
war, she refused to work on the atomic bomb.
Science makes people reach
selflessly for truth and objectivity; it
teaches people to accept reality,
with wonder and admiration, not to
mention the deep awe and joy that
the natural order of things brings to
the true scientist. Lise Meitner
E = mc2
Who is this?
Who developed the special and general
theories of relativity, effecting a revolution
in physics?
Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955) was
Any man who can drive safely while
one of the greatest minds in world
kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving history. His theories on relativity
the kiss the attention it deserves.
paved the way for how science
Einstein quotations
currently views time, space, energy,
The most beautiful thing we can
and gravity and made predictions
experience is the mysterious. It is the
that were later verified by
source of all true art and all science.
experimentation.
Anyone who has never made a mistake
has never tried anything new.
Pangea
Who was the scientist
that developed the theory
of continental drift, plate
tectonics, and Pangea.
Alfred Wegener (1880 -1930) was a German meteorologist and
geophysicist who developed the first theory of continental drift and
formulated the idea that a supercontinent known as Pangea existed on
the Earth millions of years ago. His ideas were largely ignored at the time
they were developed but today they are very well accepted by the
scientific community.
Who serendipitously
discovered penicillin
in 1928?
I have been trying to point out
that in our lives chance may
have an astonishing influence
and, if I may offer advice to the
young laboratory worker, it
would be this - never to neglect
an extraordinary appearance or
happening. Fleming
Sir Alexander Fleming, 1881 – 1955) was a Scottish biologist, pharmacologist
and botanist. He wrote many articles on bacteriology, immunology, and
chemotherapy. His best-known discoveries are the enzyme lysozyme in 1923
and the antibiotic substance penicillin from the mold Penicillium notatum in
1928, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945
with Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain. Florey and Chain developed the
delivery methods for penicillin.
Who led the
research group that
Wallace Hume Carothers (1896 – 1937) was an
American chemist, inventor and the leader of organic discovered nylon?
chemistry at DuPont and was credited with the invention
of nylon and helped lay the groundwork for Neoprene.
Carothers had been troubled by periods of mental
depression since his youth. Despite his success with
nylon, he felt that he had not accomplished much and
had run out of ideas. His unhappiness was
compounded by the death of his sister, Isobel, and in
1937 he committed suicide. As Nobel prizes are not
granted posthumously, the suicide eliminated the high
probability of a Nobel prize for Carothers.
Who is the only person to have won two
unshared Nobel prizes (chemistry and peace)?
The best way to have a good
idea is to have a lot of ideas.
Pauling quotations
The danger is not from peace or from the
workers for peace, or from the circulators
of petitions urging international law and
international agreements. It is from the
stockpiles of nuclear weapons that exist
in the world."
Satisfaction of one's curiosity is one of
the greatest sources of happiness in life.
Linus Carl Pauling (1901 -1994)
was an American chemist,
biochemist, peace activist,
author, and educator. He was one
of the most influential chemists in
history and ranks among the
most important scientists of the
20th century.
If atomic bombs are to be added as new
weapons to the arsenals of a warring world,
or to the arsenals of the nations preparing for
war, then the time will come when mankind
will curse the names of Los Alamos and
Hiroshima. The people of this world must
unite or they will perish. Oppenheimer
Which brilliant physicist administered
the Los Alamos laboratory atomic
bomb project?
J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904 - 1967) was an American physicist. A few of
Oppenheimer's notable achievements in physics include the Born–
Oppenheimer approximation and a theory of neutron stars. After the 1939
invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, he was selected to administer the
Los Alamos laboratory to carry out the Manhattan project. After resigning
from his post in 1945, he became the chairman of the General Advisory
Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission, which in October of 1949
opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb. The shocking
opposition led to accusations that he was a Communist supporter, and he
was suspended from secret nuclear research. In 1963 he was reinstated
and awarded the Enrico Fermi Award by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Rachel Louise Carson (1907 – 1964) was an
American marine biologist and conservationist
whose book Silent Spring (1962) and other
writings are credited with launching and
advancing the global environmental movement.
Who wrote the book, “Silent Spring” that significantly contributed
to the launching of the environmental movement?
Only within the moment of time represented by the present century
has one species -- man -- acquired significant power to alter the
nature of his world. Rachel Carson
Who developed the first vaccine
for polio? Before the vaccine,
polio was feared as it reeked
havoc around the world.
Hope lies in dreams, in imagination,
and in the courage of those who
dare to make dreams into reality.
Intuition will tell the thinking
mind where to look next. Salk
Jonas Edward Salk (1914 -1995) was
an American medical researcher
and virologist, best known for his
discovery and development of the
first polio vaccine.
Who got credit and received the Nobel prize
for determining the structure of DNA?
In 1962 James Watson (b. 1928), Francis Crick
(1916–2004), and Maurice Wilkins (1916–2004)
jointly received the Nobel Prize in physiology or
medicine for their 1953 determination of the
structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).
We've discovered the secret
of life. Francis Crick
Science moves with
the spirit of an
adventure
characterized both
by youthful
arrogance and by the
belief that the truth,
once found, would be
simple as well as
pretty.
James D. Watson
Two famous scientists shared the same name. One
received the Nobel prize for his work in immunology.
The other with middle name Ralph is known for his dire
predictions of overpopulation consequences.
Paul Ehrlich (1854 - 1915) won the Noble Prize in 1908
for his contributions to understanding immunology. His
co-recipient was Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov. He went on to
achieve even greater fame for synthesizing a drug to
treat syphilis
Paul Ralph Ehrlich (1932 -) is an American biologist and
educator who is at Stanford University. By training he is
an entomologist but he is also a prominent ecologist and
demographer. Ehrlich is best known for his dire warnings
about population growth and limited resources. Ehrlich
became well-known after publication of his controversial
1968 book The Population Bomb. In the years since, some
of Ehrlich's predictions have proven incorrect, but he
stands by his general thesis that the human population is
too large and is a direct threat to human survival and the
environment of the planet.
Few problems are less recognized, but more important than, the accelerating
disappearance of the earth's biological resources. In pushing other species to
extinction, humanity is busy sawing off the limb on which it is perched.
P.R. Ehrlich
In sharp contrast: While
not scientists,
one of these people
claimed to know nothing
and the other implies that
he knows everything.
Who are they?
Stephen Colbert
“Sometimes it takes a crazy person to
see the truth. If so, I'm a freaking
lunatic.”
“If I had a dime for every time that I
was wrong, I'd be broke.”
Who has taught the world
“What you do makes a difference, and
you have to decide what kind of
more about chimpanzees
difference you want to make.”
than anyone else in the
“The greatest danger to our future is apathy.”
world?
Dame Jane Morris Goodall, is a British primatologist, ethologist,
anthropologist, and UN Messenger of Peace. Born in 1934 in
London, Jane Goodall set out to Tanzania to study wild
chimpanzees by sitting amongst them, bypassing more rigid
procedures and uncovering discoveries about primate behavior
that have continued to shape scientific discourse. She is a highly
respected member of the world scientific community and is a
staunch advocate of ecological preservation.
Stephen Hawking (1942 – present),
one of the most brilliant theoretical
physicists in history, wrote the modern
classic A Brief History of Time to help
non-scientists understand fundamental
questions of physics and our existence:
where did the universe come from? How
and why did it begin? Will it come to an
end, and if so, how? In 1963, Hawking
contracted motor neurone disease and
was given two years to live but he
continues to this day to contribute to
scientific progress.
My goal is simple. It is a complete
understanding of the universe, why
it is as it is and why it exists at all.
What very brilliant physicist wrote
“A Brief History of Time?”
We are just an advanced breed of
monkeys on a minor planet of a
very average star. But we can
understand the Universe. That
makes us something very special.
Who is primarily responsible for
popularizing the Big Bang Theory?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
Albert Einstein
Isaac Newton
Galilei Galileo
Stephen Hawking
Edwin Hubble
None of the above
Edwin Hubble did contribute but Georges
Lemaitre probably deserves credit for the
original theory that was later supported by
George Gamow. Although Carl Sagan certainly
helped popularize the theory, the answer
according to this writer is None of the Above.
The best answer will appear in the lower left
hand corner.
Who is the current
Secretary of Energy
and co-winner of the
1997 Nobel Physics
prize?
Dr. Steven Chu (1948 - ) is a distinguished
scientist and co-winner of the Nobel Prize
for Physics (1997) for his research on
interplay of light and atoms. He has
devoted his recent scientific career to the
search for new solutions to our energy
challenges and stopping global climate
change - a mission he continues with even
greater urgency as Secretary of Energy.
So imagine a world 6
degrees warmer. It's not
going to recognize
geographical boundaries.
It's not going to recognize
anything. So agriculture
regions today will be wiped
out. Steven Chu
Despite our considerable dependence on computer related devices, probably very
few of us can name any of the people who have contributed to the development
of the computer.
Charles Babbage 1837 a fully programmable mechanical computer
Alan Turing 1936 blueprint for the electronic digital computer
John Atanasoff, Clifford Berry 1937 first electronic digital but not programmable
computer
George Stibitz 1937, Stibitz invented and built a relay-based calculator he dubbed
the "Model K" (for "kitchen table", on which he had assembled it), which was the
first to use binary circuits to perform an arithmetic operation.
Konrad Zuse 1941 The first program-controlled electromechanical computer Tommy
Flowers 1943 first programmable electronic computer
Extremely important for the development of the modern computer were the
discovery of the transistor and the integrated circuit (chip). Can you name any of
the people responsible for their discovery?
John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley
for the discovery of the transistor. John Kilby and
Robert Noyce independently (and shared a Nobel
prize with controversy) developed the integrated
circuit .
While this test is over, it is hoped that you will try to learn more about the
scientists that have affected our lives. Although some students perceive that
the main goal of testing is for grading, the primary goal of testing is actually to
provide a learning experience. Hopefully, you have learned from this
experience.