The importance of biological science in our lives is difficult to overestimate. Without the research and knowledge carried out by scientists in this field, medicine and pharmaceuticals would not have developed, humanity would not be armed with antibiotics and vaccinations and would be powerless against viruses. Therefore, it is so important to know the names of the great biologists who, at the cost of their health, and sometimes even their lives, made such significant scientific discoveries.
Great Scientists in Biology
The term “biology” itself appeared at the end of the nineteenth century, therefore world scientists Those who previously worked in this field were called doctors or naturalists.
Discoverers
Below is a list of famous biologists and their discoveries.
Anthony van Leeuwenhoek
Leeuwenhoek was engaged in research in the field of biology in the seventeenth century. During this period, science did not have basic knowledge; the available data was very primitive. In addition to natural sciences, Leeuwenhoek was interested in physics and was an excellent designer.
The scientist is the inventor of the world's first perfect microscope, which allowed him to make discoveries in the field of biology: Leeuwenhoek was the first to describe sperm and the process of fertilization of an egg. The scientist also has the honor of discovering microbes.
Charles Darwin
The English naturalist Darwin was the first to conclude that a living organism can evolve. He is the author of a theory about the origin of man, which is still one of the most popular in the world. Darwin traveled a lot and observed various living organisms. Many observations helped the scientist in creating his scientific theories.
Robert Brown
The English scientist Robert Brown is best known as the discoverer of the possibility of molecular motion, which is named after him. However, he also made a most valuable discovery in the field of biology: while studying plant cells under a microscope in 1832, he discovered identical round elements in each cell. Later, this cellular organelle was called the cell nucleus, and Brown proved the existence of a nucleus not only in plant cells, but also in animal cells.
Carl Woese
American scientist Carl Woese is the man who first identified a new domain of living organisms - archaea. In 1990, Woese created a classification that was fundamentally different from the previously existing ones: he divided living organisms into 23 subgroups.
They are located within three independent domains:
- eukaryotes;
- bacteria;
- archaea.
According to Woese, archaea are a separate independent branch of living beings. The scientist’s views were not accepted in the scientific community for a long time, but at present this classification is fundamental.
Hans Krebs
In 1932, German researcher Han Krebs first discovered the stages of chemical reactions during which urea is formed from ammonia in animal cells. These reactions are called the “Krebs cycle”; currently this term refers to the process of oxidation of nutrients in animals.
William Baylis and Ernest Starling
In 1905, two English scientists-partners described and gave a name to substances unknown at that time - hormones. As an example, they described secretin, a hormone that regulates the release of pancreatic juice into the intestines. Scientists have also described in detail the role of hormones as chemical messengers.
Jan Ingenhouse
In 1770, the German scientist Jan Ingenhaus described the process of plants converting sunlight into energy. Currently, this process is called photosynthesis. The scientist made this discovery thanks to his observations, during which he established that plants react to light differently than to shadow. The enormous significance of this discovery was later recognized, as it was established that all life on Earth ultimately depends on photosynthesis.
Russian explorers
Famous Russian biologists worked and made discoveries in our country. Their contribution to science is very significant.
Koltsov Nikolai Konstantinovich
Founder of Russian experimental biology. In 1928, he presented and proved a hypothesis about the molecular structure of chromosomes. This hypothesis subsequently became the basis of modern molecular biology and genetics.
Mechnikov Ilya Ilyich
Pavlov Ivan Petrovich
The great Russian physiologist, author of the doctrine of higher nervous activity. He is the author of the chronic experiment as a method aimed at studying a healthy organism, and the method of conditioned reflexes. Provided evidence that the basis of all mental processes is the physiological activity of the cerebral cortex.
Timiryazev Kliment Arkadevich
Russian biologist-naturalist. Described the laws of photosynthesis as the process of plants converting light into energy.
Chetverikov Sergey Sergeevich
He is the founder of popular and evolutionary genetics. He was one of the first to describe the patterns of selection in actively evolving populations.
Founders of Science
Biology as a science originated many centuries ago. Many ancient thinkers laid the foundation of the natural sciences.
Avicenna
Persian scientist, doctor and philosopher. He lived and carried out his activities in the Middle Ages. The author of more than 450 works, he is the founder of modern psychophysiology: he described four types of temperament that a person can have depending on the predominance of a certain type of fluid in his body.
Aristotle
Ancient Greek scientist encyclopedist. He gave a detailed description of many animals living in Greece and areas close to it. He suggested that plants and animals are transformed into more perfect forms, climbing the ladder of nature, that is, he described the basics of the theory of evolution.
Galen
An ancient Roman physician, author of a work on the parts of the human body, in which he gave the first detailed description of human anatomy and physiology in the history of medicine. He was the first to use vivisection experiments on animals in scientific activities. He summarized all the available knowledge of ancient medicine, creating a separate branch of science.
Rene Descartes
English physicist, naturalist, biologist. For the first time he introduced the concept of reflex.
Dioscorides Pedanius
Ancient Greek naturalist, physician and pharmacologist. He was one of the first in the world history of biology to begin research in the field of pharmacy and botany, which is why he is considered the father of these sciences.
Pliny the Elder
An ancient Greek writer whose stories were about animals and plants. He created the multi-volume work “Natural History”, which is one of the oldest encyclopedias about living organisms.
Theophrastus
Ancient Greek scientist, one of the first botanists. Theophrastus's contribution to biology lies in the systematization of existing observations about the places of growth and beneficial properties plants, and he also created their classification.
Popular biologists and their discoveries
Below is a list of scientists who have made other valuable discoveries in the field of biology.
Alexander Fleming
Scottish bacteriologist. He discovered the substance lysozyme, which is an enzyme that kills bacteria in the body, but does not harm healthy tissues.
Wilhelm Roux
Claude Bernard
Discovered the phenomenon of homeostasis human body and proved its importance. According to the scientist, a living body is relatively independent of the environment, although it needs it. The tissues of the human body are protected and are a perfect environment in themselves. True, this theory received scientific recognition after Bernard’s death.
James Sumner
For the first time in 1926, a scientist managed to isolate the ureaplasma enzyme in its pure form. This is a substance that breaks down urea into chemical elements. It took the scientist 26 years to achieve this goal, while the entire scientific community of that time was confident that this was impossible, and even after receiving the result, most of the scientist’s colleagues doubted this success. However, Sumner's achievement earned him the Nobel Prize in 1946.
Frederick Sanger
Sanger is the only person in history to receive two Nobel Prizes in chemistry. He received the second award together with his colleague and comrade Walter Gilbert. In 1977, scientists published a method that allows them to determine the sequence of building blocks in the DNA network. This method became a real breakthrough in the field of medicine, evolutionary biology, has become indispensable in criminal law.
List of biologists
Biology - ancient science, which has several industries. At different periods, many inventors were involved in its study and development. A short list of famous biology researchers is in the table.
| Hippocrates | 470-360 BC e. |
| Claudius Galen | 130-200 n. e. |
| Avicenna | 980-1048 |
| Leonardo da Vinci | 1452-1519 |
| Andreas Vesalius | 1514-1564 |
| William Harvey | 1578-1657 |
| Carl Linnaeus | 1707-1778 |
| Charles Darwin | 1809-1882 |
| Gerhard Mendel | 1822-1884 |
| Robert Koch | 1843-1910 |
| Dmitry Ivanovsky | 1864-1920 |
| Ilya Mechnikov | 1845-1916 |
| Louis Pasteur | 1822-1895 |
| Ivan Sechenov | 1829-1905 |
| Hugo de Vries | 1848–1935 |
| Thomas Morgan | 1866-1943 |
| Vladimir Vernadsky | 1863-1945 |
| Ivan Shmalgauzen | 1884-1963 |
Timeline of discoveries
Many scientists, being and working in different parts of the world, helped their colleagues working in the same field.
Many discoveries were made based on a knowledge base formed years and even centuries earlier:
- In 1831, Robert Brown, while studying plant cells he obtained in Australia under a microscope, noticed that each of them had a round opaque element. The scientist called it the cell nucleus. The German naturalist Theodor Schwann, having learned about his colleague’s discovery, began to look for something similar in animal cells: the cells of tadpoles were studied. Schwann's hypothesis was confirmed; the nucleus was also found in animal cells. At that time, this discovery was revolutionary: it proved the connection of all life on the planet.
- Almost a century after the discovery of the cell nucleus, the German scientist Carl Woese made the following discovery that shocked the scientific world. Until that moment, it was believed that the animal world consisted of two large classes: bacteria (protozoa) and eukaryotes (all others). They differed only in the location of the DNA - in protozoa it was located near the cell walls, in eukaryotes it was located in the nucleus. Carl Woese, while studying methane-producing bacteria, discovered a feature unknown at that time: the cell wall was unique and secreted unusual enzymes. The scientist discovered that this form of life is different from those already known. Representatives of this species are able to survive even in the most aggressive environment, on the ocean floor or several kilometers deep in the earth. This type was called archaea.
- About 30 years later, the German zoologist Walter Flemming published a work in which he describes the process of cell division, and although scientists had previously known about this fact regarding a living cell, Flemming is considered the pioneer in this matter. In the process of working on this issue, the scientist used a powerful microscope, with which he was able to detect certain structures, which he called chromosomes. The picture of cell division became clear to the scientist, and he was able to describe cell division in detail, calling this process mitosis.
- The chain of discoveries in the field of cell reproduction and division was continued by the German biologist August Weismann. The biologist has the idea that at a certain point, a developing organism gives a signal to the cells responsible for reproduction to split the chromosomes in half. This process is called meiosis.
Of course, this is only a tiny part of all human discoveries in the field of biology. For many centuries in a row, biologists, biochemists, and natural scientists from all over the world have directed the forces of their minds to develop the field of knowledge related to biology. Many of their thoughts, actions and conclusions overlapped, giving the opportunity for the development of science, and this development continues to this day. study at the link.
Test
Based on the materials in the presented article, it is proposed to take a test, the purpose of which is to identify the degree of assimilation of information.
Test conditions: you must choose the correct answer from those proposed. There can only be one correct answer.
A. Pliny the Elder.
b. Aristotle.
V. Avicenna.
2. First discovered the nucleus of cells:
A. Pavlov.
b. Vernadsky.
V. Mechnikov.
4. The only scientist in the world to receive two Nobel Prizes in chemistry is:
A. Sanger.
b. Schmalhausen.
V. Flemming.
5. First introduced the concept of reflex:
A. Hippocrates.
b. Descartes.
V. Avicenna.
6. For the first time he described the types of human temperament:
A. Avicenna.
V. Aristotle.
7. The concept of “homeostasis” was first introduced by:
A. Bernard.
A. Descartes.
V. Avicenna.
9. For the first time he described the stages of chemical reactions of energy conversion in living cells:
b. Darwin.
V. Mendel.
10. A new type of living organisms was discovered:
b. Mechnikov.
V. Sechenov.
Right answers:
Video
Watch an interesting video about great discoveries in biology.
Over the past few centuries, we have made countless discoveries that have helped to significantly improve the quality of our Everyday life and understand how the world around us works. Assessing the full importance of these discoveries is very difficult, if not almost impossible. But one thing is for sure - some of them literally changed our lives once and for all. From penicillin and the screw pump to x-rays and electricity, here is a list of 25 of mankind's greatest discoveries and inventions.
25. Penicillin
If Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming had not discovered penicillin, the first antibiotic, in 1928, we would still be dying from diseases such as stomach ulcers, abscesses, streptococcal infections, scarlet fever, leptospirosis, Lyme disease and many others.
24. Mechanical watch
Photo: pixabay
There are conflicting theories about what the first mechanical watch actually looked like, but most often researchers adhere to the version that they were created in 723 AD by the Chinese monk and mathematician Ai Xing (I-Hsing). It was this seminal invention that allowed us to measure time.
23. Copernican heliocentrism
Photo: WP/wikimedia
In 1543, almost on his deathbed, Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus unveiled his landmark theory. According to the works of Copernicus, it became known that the Sun is our planetary system, and all its planets revolve around our star, each in its own orbit. Until 1543, astronomers believed that the Earth was the center of the Universe.
22. Blood circulation
Photo: Bryan Brandenburg
One of the most important discoveries in medicine was the discovery of the circulatory system, which was announced in 1628 by the English physician William Harvey. He became the first person to describe the entire circulatory system and properties of the blood that the heart pumps throughout our body from the brain to the tips of the fingers.
21. Screw pump
Photo: David Hawgood / geographic.org.uk
One of the most famous ancient Greek scientists, Archimedes, is considered the author of one of the world's first water pumps. His device was a rotating corkscrew that pushed water up a pipe. This invention took irrigation systems to the next level and is still used in many wastewater treatment plants today.
20. Gravity
Photo: wikimedia
Everyone knows this story - Isaac Newton, the famous English mathematician and physicist, discovered gravity after an apple fell on his head in 1664. Thanks to this event, we learned for the first time why objects fall down and why planets revolve around the Sun.
19. Pasteurization
Photo: wikimedia
Pasteurization was discovered in the 1860s by French scientist Louis Pasteur. It is a heat treatment process during which pathogenic microorganisms are destroyed in certain foods and drinks (wine, milk, beer). This discovery had a significant impact on public health and the development of the food industry around the world.
18. Steam engine
Photo: pixabay
Everyone knows that modern civilization was forged in factories built during the Industrial Revolution, and that it all happened using steam engines. The steam engine was created a long time ago, but over the last century it has been significantly improved by three British inventors: Thomas Savery, Thomas Newcomen and the most famous of them, James Watt.
17. Air conditioning
Photo: Ildar Sagdejev / wikimedia
Primitive climate control systems have existed since ancient times, but they changed significantly when the first modern electric air conditioner was introduced in 1902. It was invented by a young engineer named Willis Carrier, a native of Buffalo, New York.
16. Electricity
Photo: pixabay
The fateful discovery of electricity is attributed to the English scientist Michael Faraday. Among his key discoveries, it is worth noting the principles of electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis. Faraday's experiments also led to the creation of the first generator, which became the forerunner of the huge generators that today produce the electricity we are familiar with in everyday life.
15. DNA
Photo: pixabay
Many believe that it was the American biologist James Watson and the English physicist Francis Crick who discovered it in the 1950s, but in fact this macromolecule was first identified in the late 1860s by the Swiss chemist Friedrich Maischer Miescher). Then, several decades after Maischer's discovery, other scientists conducted a series of studies that finally helped us clarify how an organism passes its genes to the next generation and how the work of its cells is coordinated.
14. Anesthesia
Photo: Wikimedia
Simple forms of anesthesia, such as opium, mandrake and alcohol, have been used by people for a long time, and the first mention of them dates back to 70 AD. But pain management moved to a new level in 1847, when American surgeon Henry Bigelow first introduced ether and chloroform into his practice, making extremely painful invasive procedures much more tolerable.
13. Theory of relativity
Photo: Wikimedia
Including two related theories of Albert Einstein, special and general theory relativity, the theory of relativity, published in 1905, transformed the entire theoretical physics and astronomy of the 20th century and eclipsed the 200-year-old theory of mechanics proposed by Newton. Einstein's theory of relativity became the basis for much of scientific works modernity.
12. X-rays
Photo: Nevit Dilmen / wikimedia
German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen accidentally discovered X-rays in 1895 when he observed fluorescence produced by a cathode ray tube. For this pivotal discovery, the scientist was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1901, the first of its kind in the physical sciences.
11. Telegraph
Photo: wikipedia
Since 1753, many researchers have experimented with establishing long-distance communication using electricity, but a significant breakthrough did not come until several decades later, when Joseph Henry and Edward Davy invented the electrical relay in 1835. Using this device they created the first telegraph 2 years later.
10. Periodic table of chemical elements
Photo: sandbh/wikimedia
In 1869, Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev noticed that if chemical elements are ordered by their atomic mass, they tend to form groups with similar properties. Based on this information, he created the first periodic table, one of the greatest discoveries in chemistry, which was later nicknamed the periodic table in his honor.
9. Infrared rays
Photo: AIRS/flickr
Infrared radiation was discovered by British astronomer William Herschel in 1800 when he studied the heating effect of different colors of light by using a prism to separate the light into a spectrum and measuring the changes with thermometers. Today infrared radiation used in many areas of our lives, including meteorology, heating systems, astronomy, tracking heat-intensive objects and many other areas.
8. Nuclear magnetic resonance
Photo: Mj-bird / wikimedia
Today, nuclear magnetic resonance is continually used as an extremely accurate and effective diagnostic tool in the medical field. This phenomenon was first described and calculated by American physicist Isidor Rabi in 1938 while observing molecular beams. In 1944, the American scientist was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for this discovery.
7. Moldboard plow
Photo: wikimedia
Invented in the 18th century, the moldboard plow was the first plow that not only dug up the soil, but also stirred it, making it possible to cultivate even very stubborn and rocky soil for agricultural purposes. Without this weapon Agriculture, as we know it today, would not have existed in northern Europe or central America.
6. Camera obscura
Photo: wikimedia
The forerunner of modern cameras and video cameras was the camera obscura (translated as dark room), which was an optical device used by artists to create quick sketches while traveling outside their studios. A hole in one of the walls of the device served to create an inverted image of what was happening outside the chamber. The picture was displayed on the screen (on the wall of the dark box opposite the hole). These principles have been known for centuries, but in 1568 the Venetian Daniel Barbaro modified the camera obscura by adding converging lenses.
5. Paper
Photo: pixabay
The first examples of modern paper are often considered to be papyrus and amate, which were used by ancient Mediterranean peoples and pre-Columbian Americans. But it would not be entirely correct to consider them real paper. References to the first production of writing paper date back to China during the reign of the Eastern Han Empire (25-220 AD). The first paper is mentioned in chronicles dedicated to the activities of the judicial dignitary Cai Lun.
4. Teflon
Photo: pixabay
The material that keeps your pan from burning was actually invented completely by accident by American chemist Roy Plunkett when he was looking for a replacement refrigerant to make household life safer. During one of his experiments, the scientist discovered a strange, slippery resin, which later became better known as Teflon.
3. Theory of evolution and natural selection
Photo: wikimedia
Inspired by his observations during his second voyage of exploration in 1831-1836, Charles Darwin began writing his famous theory of evolution and natural selection, which, according to scientists around the world, became a key description of the mechanism of development of all life on Earth
2. Liquid crystals
Photo: William Hook / flickr
If the Austrian botanist and physiologist Friedrich Reinitzer had not discovered liquid crystals during testing physical and chemical properties various cholesterol derivatives in 1888, today you would not know what LCD televisions or flat panel LCD monitors are.
1. Polio vaccine
Photo: GDC Global / flickr
On March 26, 1953, American medical researcher Jonas Salk announced that he had successfully tested a vaccine against polio, a virus that causes a severe chronic disease. In 1952, an epidemic of the disease diagnosed 58,000 people in the United States and claimed 3,000 innocent lives. This spurred Salk on a quest for salvation, and now the civilized world is safe at least from this disaster.
There have been many smart people in Russian history. Brilliant mathematicians, chemists, physicists, geologists, philosophers - they made a contribution to both Russian and world science.
1 Mikhail Lomonosov
The first Russian natural scientist of world significance, encyclopedist, chemist, physicist, astronomer, instrument maker, geographer, metallurgist, geologist, poet, artist, historian. A man under two meters, possessing enormous strength, not shy about using it, and ready to punch him in the eye - if justice demanded it. Mikhail Lomonosov is practically a superman.
2 Dmitry Mendeleev
Russian Da Vinci, the brilliant father of the periodic table of elements, Mendeleev was a versatile scientist and public figure. Thus, he made a significant and invaluable contribution to oil activities.
Mendeleev said: “Oil is not fuel! You can also drown with banknotes!” At his instigation, the barbaric four-year buyout of oil fields was abolished. Then Mendeleev proposed transporting oil through pipes and developed oils based on oil refining waste, which were several times cheaper than kerosene. Thus, Russia was able not only to refuse to export kerosene from America, but also to import petroleum products to Europe.
Mendeleev was nominated for the Nobel Prize three times, but he never received it. Which is not surprising.
3 Nikolai Lobachevsky
A six-time rector of Kazan University, a professor, the first textbooks he published were condemned for using and promoting the metric system of measures. Lobachevsky refuted Euclid's fifth postulate, calling the axiom of parallelism an “arbitrary restriction.”
Lobachevsky developed completely new trigonometry of non-Euclidean space and differential geometry with the calculation of lengths, volumes, and areas.
Recognition came to the scientist after his death; his ideas were continued in the works of such mathematicians as Klein, Beltrami and Poincaré. The realization that Lobachevsky's geometry is not an antagonism, but an alternative to Euclid's geometry gave impetus to new powerful discoveries and research in mathematics and physics.
4 Sofya Kovalevskaya
“Professor Sonya” is the first woman professor in the world and the first woman in Russia to be a corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Kovalevskaya was not only a brilliant mathematician and mechanic, but also distinguished herself in the literary field. Kovalevskaya’s path in science was not easy, which was associated, first of all, with gender prejudices.
5 Vladimir Vernadsky
Famous mineralogist, researcher earth's crust, the “father” of the Soviet nuclear program. Vernadsky was one of the first people who paid attention to eugenics; he studied geology, biochemistry, geochemistry, and meteorology. and many others. But, perhaps, his main contribution is the description of the laws of the Earth's biosphere and the noosphere as its integral part. Here the scientific insight of the Russian scientist is simply unique.
6 Zhores Alferov
Today, everyone benefits from the discoveries of Zhores Alferov, the Russian Nobel Prize laureate in 2000. All mobile phones contain heterostructure semiconductors created by Alferov. All fiber optic communications operate on its semiconductors and the Alferov laser.
Without the Alferov laser, CD players and disk drives of modern computers would not be possible. Zhores Ivanovich's discoveries are used in car headlights, traffic lights, and supermarket equipment - product label decoders. At the same time, Alferov made the scientist’s insights, which led to qualitative changes in the development of all electronic technology, back in 1962-1974.
7 Kirik Novgorodets
Kirik Novgorodian - mathematician, writer, chronicler and musician of the 12th century; author of the first Russian mathematical and astronomical treatise “The Doctrine of Numbers”; calculated the smallest perceptible period of time. Kirik was a deacon and domestic of the Anthony Monastery in Novgorod. He is also considered the alleged author of “Kirikov’s Questioning”.
8 Kliment Smolyatich
Kliment Smolyatich was one of the most prominent Russian medieval thinkers. Metropolitan of Kiev and All Rus' (1147-1155), church writer, first Russian theologian, second metropolitan of Russian origin.
Smolyatich was considered the most highly educated person of his time. In the chronicle he is mentioned as such a “scribe and philosopher, the likes of which have never happened in the Russian land.”
9 Lev Landau
Lev Landau is a completely unique phenomenon. He was a child prodigy who did not lose his talent in adulthood. At the age of 13 he graduated from 10 classes, and at 14 he entered two faculties at once: chemistry and physics and mathematics.
For special merits, Landau was transferred from Baku University to Leningrad University. Landau received 3 State Prizes of the USSR, the title of Hero of Socialist Labor and was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Denmark, the Netherlands and the USA.
In 1962, the Royal Swedish Academy awarded Landau the Nobel Prize "for his fundamental theories of condensed matter, especially liquid helium."
For the first time in history, the award took place in a Moscow hospital, since shortly before the presentation, Landau was involved in a car accident.
10 Ivan Pavlov
A brilliant Russian scientist, Ivan Pavlov received his well-deserved Nobel Prize in 1904 “for his work on the physiology of digestion.” Pavlov is a unique scientist on a global scale, who managed to form his own school in the difficult conditions of a state under construction, to which the scientist made considerable claims. In addition, Pavlov collected paintings, plants, butterflies, stamps, and books. Scientific research led him to abandon meat food.
11 Andrey Kolmogorov
Andrei Kolmogorov was one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century, the founder of a large scientific school. Hero of Socialist Labor, laureate of the Lenin and Stalin Prizes, member of many scientific academies around the world, honorary doctor of universities from Paris to Calcutta. Kolmogorov - author of the axioms of probability theory and many theorems, author of the equation, inequality, mean, space and complexity of Kolmogorov
12 Nikolai Danilevsky
A global thinker who laid the foundations for a civilizational approach to history. Without his works there would have been neither Spengler nor Toynbee. Nikolai Danilevsky saw “Europeanism,” looking at the world through “European glasses,” as one of the main diseases of Russia.
He believed that Russia had a special path, which should be rooted in Orthodox culture and monarchy, dreamed of creating an All-Slavic Union and was sure that Russia should under no circumstances follow the path of America.
13 Georgy Gamov
The father of the “hot Universe” theory, at the age of 24 Gamow performed Nobel-level work, developing the theory of alpha decay, and at 28 he became the youngest corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences in the entire history of its existence. He was also a half-speaker - he spoke six languages fluently.
Gamow became one of the brightest stars in astrophysics and cosmology. He was the first to calculate models of stars with thermonuclear reactions, proposed a model of the shell of a red giant, and studied the role of neutrinos in outbursts of novae and supernovae.
In 1954, Gamow was the first to pose the problem genetic code. After Gamow's death, the Americans received the Nobel for deciphering it.
14 Sergey Averintsev
Sergei Averintsev, a student of Alexei Losev, was one of the most prominent philologists, cultural scholars, biblical scholars and translators of the twentieth century. He explored various layers of European, including Christian, culture - from antiquity to modernity.
Literary critic, philosopher and cultural critic Nikita Struve wrote about Averintsev: “A great scientist, biblical scholar, patrolologist, subtle literary critic, poet who revived the tradition of spiritual poetry, Averintsev stands before my eyes no less than a humble disciple and a bright witness of Christ. The rays of faith illuminated all his work.”
15 Mikhail Bakhtin
One of the few Russian thinkers and literary scholars canonized in the West. His books about the works of Dostoevsky and Rabelais “blew up” the literary establishment, his work “Towards a Philosophy of Action” became a reference book for intellectuals around the world.
Bakhtin was brought from exile in Kazakhstan to Moscow in 1969 by Andropov. He also provided the “great lame man” with protection. Bakhtin was published and translated en masse. In England, at the University of Sheffield, there is the Bakhtin Center, leading scientific and academic work. Bakhtin's work gained particular popularity in France and Japan, where the world's first collection of his works was published, as well as a large number of monographs and works about him.
16 Vladimir Bekhterev
The great Russian psychiatrist and neuropathologist, Vladimir Bekhterev, was nominated for the Nobel Prize several times, treated drunkards en masse with hypnosis, studied parapsychology and crowd psychology, child psychology and telepathy. Bekhterev paved the way for the creation of so-called “brain atlases”. One of the creators of such atlases, the German professor Kopsch, said: “Only two people know perfectly the structure of the brain - God and Bekhterev.”
17 Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
Tsiolkovsky was a genius. He made many of his discoveries intuitively. A theorist of cosmism, he worked a lot and fruitfully on applied things, on the creation of the theory of flight of jet aircraft, and invented his own gas turbine engine design. Tsiolkovsky’s merits were highly appreciated not only by domestic scientists, but also by the creator of the first rockets, Wernher Von Braun.
Tsiolkovsky was quirky. Thus, he defended eugenics, believed in the catastrophic structure of society and believed that criminals should be split into atoms.
Lev Vygotsky is an outstanding Russian psychologist, creator of cultural-historical theory. Vygotsky made a real revolution in defectology and gave hope for a full life to people with disabilities. When Western society got tired of “life according to Freud,” it switched to “life according to Vygodsky.”
After the translation of Vygotsky’s work “Thinking and Speech” into English and Japanese, the Russian psychologist became a truly iconic figure. Stephen Toulmin of the University of Chicago even titled his article on Vygotsky, published in the New York Review, “Mozart in Psychology.”
20 Peter Kropotkin
The “Father of Anarchism” and eternal rebel Peter Kropotkin, who on his deathbed refused the special rations and special treatment conditions offered by Lenin, was one of the most enlightened people of his time.
Kropotkin considered his main contribution to science to be his work on the study of Asian mountain ranges. For them he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Russian Geographical Society. Kropotkin also contributed a great treasure to the study of the Ice Age.
Russian scientists invented television, and Russian directors taught theater to the whole world. Which Russian made the greatest achievement?
Great Russian scientists
The whole world knows them. They did something that was beyond the control of the powers that be. They discovered “Russian science”, which the whole world started talking about.Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov, who worked all his life as an ordinary electrical engineer in Paris. It was he, an inconspicuous-looking “hard worker,” who invented the world’s first electric light bulb. It did not burn for long and had a light of dazzling power. It was unsuitable for small rooms, but was widely used in lighting streets and large rooms. But thanks to Yablochkov, enthusiasts appeared who were able to create the light bulb that illuminates our houses and apartments.
Alexander Popov in 1895 created a unique device that works wirelessly using electromagnetic waves. This radio is the greatest achievement of the Russian people, an indispensable assistant for any inhabitant of the planet. The Americans and British offered fabulous sums for Popov to sell them his invention. He firmly answered that everything he came up with belongs not to him, but to his Motherland.
Fate has always been favorable to the Russians. All the first world inventions belong to Russian people.
V.K. Zvorykin created the world's first electron microscope and the first television. Thanks to his invention, on March 10, 1939, the happy owners of televisions began to watch the first regular television programs broadcast from the television center on Shabolovka.
And the first airplane in the world was invented by a Russian - A.F. Mozhaisky. Complex design The device was able to lift a person into the sky for the first time.
Russian scientists invented the world's first satellite, ballistic missile and spacecraft. It was our compatriots who managed to create the first quantum generator, a caterpillar tractor and an electric tram. They always walked ahead - Russian scientists who managed to glorify our country.
The Russians were not only able to conquer the world. They discovered new lands, giving the whole world the opportunity to look into unexplored corners of the planet.
Famous Russian travelers
Two brothers, two village boys: Khariton and Dmitry Laptev. They devoted their lives to travel and exploration of the North. Having organized the Great Northern Expedition in 1739, they reached the shores of the Arctic Ocean, opening new lands to the whole world. The Laptev Sea is known throughout the world thanks to their courage and perseverance in exploring the wild North.Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangel led an expedition to explore Eastern Siberia. He discovered areas little known to science to the world and compiled a detailed geographical map of the northern coast of Eastern Siberia.
Nikolai Mikhailovich Przhevalsky explored the Ussuri region, discovering previously unknown geographical objects. He became the discoverer of the Altyntag Mountains in Central Asia. The whole world learned about the famous Przewalski's horse.
Miklouho-Maclay went to New Guinea in 1870, where he spent 2 years studying these lands, getting acquainted with the culture of wild tribes, their customs and religious rituals. In 1996, on the 150th anniversary of the traveler, UNESCO awarded him the title of “Citizen of the World.”
Our contemporary, Yuri Senkevich, conducted more than 100 studies of human survival in extreme conditions. He took part in an Antarctic expedition and visited the North Pole more than once. His famous program “Travelers Club” had an audience of millions.
Perhaps not everyone has read their books and is not familiar with their work. But despite this, their names are familiar to every person, because they are the geniuses of our era.
World-famous Russian writers
Leo Tolstoy - count, thinker, honorary academician, outstanding writer of the world. He had amazing abilities to learning foreign languages. Looking at the people, he learned to endure all the difficulties of life. Warming his hands by the stove, he immediately stuck them out the window into the cold to learn not only to bask in the warmth, but also not to be afraid of the cold. He made himself a canvas dressing gown, which he wore around the house, and at night it replaced his sheet. He wanted to be like Diogenes. 
He was not interested in social life. At the balls he was distracted, thinking about his own things. The young ladies considered him boring because he did not try to carry on small talk, which for him was empty talk. He wrote many books that the whole world reads. His Anna Karenina and War and Peace became global bestsellers.
Fyodor Dostoevsky was the second child of 6 children in the family. My father was a priest and a doctor in a hospital for the poor. Mother belonged to a merchant family. He learned to read from the books of the Old and New Testaments. He knew the Gospel from childhood.
He spent 4 years in hard labor, then became a soldier. He was against the government, which renounced Christian morality and allowed the blood of the Russian people to be shed. His books are full of bitterness. Many consider him the most “depressive” writer of our era. But he created works whose influence greatly affected not only the culture of Russia, but also the West.
Bulgakov had a carefree youth, which he spent in the beautiful city of Kyiv. He dreamed of a carefree and free life, but the strong character of his mother and the hard work of his professor father instilled in him authority for knowledge and contempt for ignorance.
After receiving his education, he worked in military hospitals and was a rural doctor. He saved lives by fighting diseases. He lay in a typhoid fever, thinking every morning that this was his last day. It was the disease that radically changed his life. He left medicine and began to write.
"The Turbine Brothers", " dog's heart", "The Master and Margarita" - brought the writer posthumous world fame. A triumphant procession of Bulgakov’s works began, which were translated into many languages of the world.
The Russians have conquered the world in all directions. They read our books. Songs and films have become part of foreign culture.
World-famous Russian singers and actors
Fyodor Chaliapin - Russian bass, People's Artist since 1918. For three years he sang at the Bolshoi and Mariinsky theaters, performing only the first roles. An opera singer whose voice cannot be confused with anyone else. He loved folk songs and romances, filling the space around him with a powerful voice with rich timbre shades.As fate would have it, he had to leave Russia. Since 1922, he sang only abroad. But despite this, the world considers him an outstanding Russian singer.
Her voice is known all over the world. This woman is a legend. Out of five thousand people, she became the only girl who was chosen at the competition to join Pyatnitsky’s choir. Lyudmila Zykina is an idol of the 60s and an ideal to follow at all times. Her “Orenburg Shawl” and “The Volga River Flows” are sung all over the world. She did not like to be “gray mediocrity.” She wore colorful outfits and had a weakness for jewelry.
She was an important person and had friendships with government officials. Everyone loved her: from the peasant and worker to the Kremlin minister. She was the embodiment of a Russian woman, a Russian soul. She is an outstanding singer, whose voice has become a symbol of Russia.
Mark Bernes is a handsome man, conqueror of women's hearts, singer, actor, sex symbol of his time. At the age of 15, he was able to visit the theater for the first time and fell in love with it for the rest of his life. He dreamed of the stage. He was a poster putter and worked as a barker for evening performances. He strove to be as close as possible to this temple of art.
He played his first, small episodic role in the film “The Man with a Gun.” In the film he sang “Clouds have risen over the city.” After the premiere of the film, the whole country started talking about it.
Playing in the film “Two Fighters,” he was sure that this was his last role in his life. The director was unhappy with him; the role “didn’t suit him.” They tortured him for almost two months, trying to create an image. And perhaps he would have had to say goodbye to cinema, but an inexperienced hairdresser saved him. Going in to get a haircut, Bernes fell into her hands. She cut his beautiful hair down to zero. Seeing this, the director's face lit up with a smile. This was the image he had been looking for for so long. For his role in this film, the government awarded Bernes the Order of the Red Star. In 1965 he became People's Artist of Russia.
Innokenty Smoktunovsky is a provincial actor who, having arrived in Moscow, was unable to enter the theater school. This failure “gave” the world this outstanding actor. Having settled in the studio theater at Mosfilm, he immediately gets a cameo role in the film “Soldiers”. And this became a boost in his career. After filming ended, he played in “The Idiot,” amazing with his acting, transitions and nuances from one state to another. Worldwide fame was prophesied for him, and this prophecy came true. Smoktunovsky’s extraordinary, multifaceted talent has cemented his reputation as the best actor of our time.
Modern Russian actors deserve special attention. .
Subscribe to our channel in Yandex.Zen
A virtual review of the literature on the history of scientific and technical inventions of mankind in the 18th and 19th centuries. on the pages of publications from the fund of rare and valuable books.
For people of our time, it is obvious that science and technology play a very important, decisive role in modern society. However, this was not always the case. The ancient Greeks, for example, looked at the craft of mechanics as an occupation of commoners, not worthy of a true scientist. The world religions that emerged later initially rejected science altogether. One of the fathers of the Christian church, Tertullian, argued that after the Gospel there is no need for any other knowledge. Muslims reasoned in a similar way. When the Arabs captured Alexandria, they burned the famous Library of Alexandria - Caliph Omar declared that since there was a Koran, there was no need for other books. This dogma prevailed until the beginning of the New Age. Dissidents were persecuted by the Inquisition, threatening to be burned at the stake. Inventors of new mechanisms were persecuted. For example, in 1579, a mechanic who created a ribbon loom was executed in Danzig. The reason for the reprisal was the municipality's fear that this invention would cause unemployment among weavers. Understanding of the role of science came only during the Enlightenment, in the 17th century, when the first Academies in Europe were created. The first achievement of the new science was the discovery of the laws of mechanics - including the law of universal gravitation. These discoveries caused delight in society. The Industrial Revolution dramatically changed people's lives; the traditional way of rural life was replaced by a new, industrial society. Amazing discoveries and inventions followed one after another, the world was rapidly changing before the eyes of one generation.
Yakov Vasilyevich Abramov talks about two inventors - Stephenson and Fulton, whose great creations forever changed the way of life of mankind.
Stephenson and Fulton: (inventors of the steam locomotive and steamship): their lives and scientific and practical activity: biographical sketches with portraits of Stephenson and Fulton, engraved in Leipzig by Gedan / Y. V. Abramov. - St. Petersburg: Typo-lithography and phototype by V. I. Stein, 1893. - 78 p., 2 sheets. portrait ; 18 cm - (Life of remarkable people: (ZhZL). Biographical library of F. Pavlenkov). (6(09I) A16 34977M-RF)
George Stephenson is undoubtedly one of the heroic men of strong will. In the preface to the book, the author writes about him: “A worker by origin, without receiving any school education“Even being illiterate until adulthood, Stephenson not only managed to overcome all the unfavorable conditions of his life, acquire significant diverse knowledge, and achieve a high social position, but also became one of the outstanding geniuses of mankind.” The inventor and mechanical engineer gained worldwide fame thanks to the steam locomotive he designed. Stephenson is also considered one of the "fathers" of railroads. The gauge of the rail track he chose was called Stephenson gauge and is still the standard in many countries around the world. The author notes that there are few other biographies that can arouse the same interest as the biography of George Stephenson.
George (George) Stephenson was born in a small poor coal mining village near the city of Newcastle. Four families were crowded into the house where the Stephensons lived. From the age of 6, George sorted coal at the mine, then helped his father, a fireman. At the age of 17, young George Stephenson, who had thoroughly studied the structure of the steam engine operating in the mine and was able to fix any malfunction, was appointed its driver. George was one of those people who, having set themselves a goal, stubbornly strive to achieve it. At the age of 18, despite the ridicule of his comrades, he learned to read and write. Through persistent self-education, Stephenson acquired the specialty of a steam engine mechanic.
Over the next years he studied steam engines. The first steam locomotive designed by Stephenson was intended to pull coal cars. This locomotive did no more than a kilometer per hour and after a month of operation it shook so much that it stopped working. His second locomotive seemed like a real miracle back then. He could drive a train with a total weight of up to 30 tons. The car was named "Blücher" in honor of the Prussian field marshal, famous for his victory in the battle with Napoleon.
Over the next five years, Stephenson built 16 more cars.
George founded the world's first steam locomotive works in Newcastle, where in September 1825 he built the Active locomotive, later renamed Locomotive. Stephenson himself drove a train loaded with 80 tons of coal and flour, which in some sections accelerated to 39 km/h. In addition to the cargo, the train included an open passenger carriage called “Experiment”. This was the first case in world practice of using a steam-powered railway to transport passengers.
In 1829, competitions of several locomotives took place, which went down in history as the “Reinhill Trials”. Stephenson entered his steam locomotive "Rocket" into the competition. He had 4 opponents. Stephenson's locomotive was the only one to successfully complete all tests. Its maximum speed reached 48 km/h. Brilliant victory"Rockets" made it perhaps the most famous mechanism in the history of technology.
Gradually, Stephenson practically retired, focusing only on the construction of tunnels for the railway and the development of new coal seams. His son Robert also became a talented engineer and helped his father in everything. Steam locomotives began to be built in other countries based on George Stephenson's designs. He belonged to those lucky inventors who had the opportunity to see their ideas realized during their lifetime.
The second character in the book, whose name is also associated with steam engines, is the no less famous inventor Robert Fulton. Robert was born in Pennsylvania, USA. His parents, bankrupt farmers, were forced to emigrate to America. The family had five children. His father was engaged mainly in hard day labor and died when Robert was only three years old. The family finally found itself in dire straits. Fulton always remembered with reverence his mother, who managed not only to raise her children, but also to give them the opportunity to get at least elementary education at a local school and pay for their education. From an early age, Robert showed a penchant for two pursuits: painting and mechanics. While studying mathematics and theoretical mechanics, Robert Fulton became interested in the idea of using steam in shipping. He constantly had to find funds for his inventions and periodically fail. He began experimenting with torpedoes and even presented Napoleon with a practical model of the Nautilus submarine. Fulton submitted plans for the construction of the steamship to the governments of the United States and Great Britain, but, despite all his efforts, could not find funds for their implementation. At that time he was already 31 years old.
At the request of US Ambassador Robert Livingston, Fulton began experimenting with steam engines. In 1803, a steam ship 20 m long and 2.4 m wide was tested on the Seine River. But, despite the successful experience, there was not a single capitalist who would invest money in the implementation and operation of the invention.
Robert goes to America, where he was given a twenty-year privilege to sail on steamships on the Hudson, on the condition that within two years he would build a steamship capable of sailing against the current at a speed of at least 6 knots per hour. Encouraged by his success, Fulton ordered a new, more powerful steam engine and got to work.
In 1807, Fulton's steamboat set sail. The length of the vessel was 45 m, its engine had one cylinder, and oak and pine wood was used as fuel. When tested, it swam a distance of 240 km at an average speed of 4.7 mph, while Monopoly required only 4 mph. After installing cabins on the ship, Robert Fulton began commercial voyages, carrying passengers and light cargo. He patented his steamboat and built several more steam ships in subsequent years. In 1814, construction began on the 44-gun warship Demologos for the US Navy, but this project was completed after his death.
“The Republic of Scientists is not a monastery with one charter: it consists of individuals who have in common only an interest in science and extraordinary talents,” writes the author of the next book, starting a story about the outstanding European scientists of the 18th century - Laplace and Euler.
Laplace and Euler: their lives and scientific activity: biographical sketches: with portraits of Laplace and Euler, engraved in Leipzig by Gedan / E. F. Litvinova. - St. Petersburg: Printing house of the Partnership for Public Benefit", 1892. - 79 pp., 2 sheets of portrait. (51(09I) L64 27165M-RF).
Elizaveta Fedorovna believes that the main feature scientific works Pierre Simon Laplace is their greater accessibility to non-specialists. For example, his essay “The World System” can be read by every educated person, because it is distinguished by its simplicity and clarity. A French mathematician and astronomer, famous for his work in the field of differential equations, one of the creators of probability theory, Laplace was the chairman of the Chamber of Weights and Measures and headed the Bureau of Longitudes. The Paris Academy published his treatises on probability theory in 13 volumes. But the greatest amount of research by Pierre Laplace relates to celestial mechanics, which he studied throughout his life. Laplace worked on the five-volume work “Treatise on Celestial Mechanics” for 26 years. He compiled more accurate tables of the Moon, which was important in determining longitudes at sea and, therefore, played big role in navigation. The ancients despairingly called the phenomenon of ebb and flow the grave of human curiosity. Laplace was the first to recognize with confidence the connection between these phenomena and the attractive power of the Moon and the Sun. Undoubtedly, Pierre Laplace was a great scientist and a widely educated person: he knew languages, history, chemistry and biology, and loved poetry, music, and painting. He had an excellent memory and until a very old age he recited entire pages from the French poet and playwright Jean Racine by heart. There were many talented young scientists around him, whom he patronized.
During his life, Pierre Laplace was a member of six academies of sciences and royal societies. His name is included in the list of the greatest scientists of France, placed on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower. A crater on the Moon, an asteroid, and numerous concepts and theorems in mathematics are named after Laplace.
The hero of the second essay by E. F. Litvinova is Leonhard Euler, an outstanding German scientist who made a significant contribution to the development of mechanics, physics, astronomy and a number of applied sciences. Euler is recognized as the most productive mathematician in history. He spent almost half his life in Russia, was an academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, knew the Russian language well, and published some of his works (especially textbooks) in Russian.
At this time, the St. Petersburg Academy was one of the main centers of mathematics in the world. Here were the most favorable conditions for the flowering of the genius of Leonhard Euler. One day the Academy needed to do a very difficult job of calculating the trajectory of a comet. According to academics, this required several months of work. L. Euler undertook to complete this in three days and completed the work, but due to overexertion he became seriously ill with inflammation of his right eye, which he subsequently lost. Soon two volumes of his analytical mechanics appeared, then two parts of an introduction to arithmetic in German and a new theory of music. For his essay on the ebb and flow of the seas, Leonhard Euler received the French Academy Prize.
Enviable health and easy character helped Euler “withstand the blows of fate that befell him. Always an even mood, cheerfulness, good-natured mockery and the ability to tell funny stories made conversation with him pleasant and desirable...” Euler was constantly surrounded by numerous grandchildren, often a child sat in his arms, and a cat lay on his neck. He himself taught mathematics to the children. And all this did not stop him from working. During his life, Leonhard Euler wrote about 900 scientific papers.
Thomas Edison said: “Discontent is the first condition of progress.” The degree of “dissatisfaction” of the great scientist is evidenced by his 1093 patents for inventions. To make the world more convenient, he invented the phonograph, built the world's first public power station, improved the telegraph and telephone, and the incandescent lamp.
Edison and Morse: their lives and scientific and practical activities: two biographical sketches / A. V. Kamensky. - St. Petersburg: Printing house Yu. N. Erlikh, 1891. - 80 p., front. (portrait) ; 19 cm - (Life of remarkable people: (ZhZL). Biographical library of F. Pavlenkov). (6(09I) K18 35638M-RF)
Thomas Edison registered his first patent at the age of 22. Later, he was so productive that he created on average one minor invention every 10 days and one major invention every six months. Under what circumstances were these technical achievements of the American engineer made, says the author of his biography A.V. Kamensky.
When Thomas was 7 years old, his father went bankrupt, and the future inventor, not wanting to accept the fall of his family, plunged headlong into his studies. True, I soon had to say goodbye to the school. His mother, a former school teacher, continued his education at home. At the age of 10, Thomas plunged into chemical experiments and created his first laboratory in the basement of his house. Money was needed to conduct experiments, and at the age of 12 Edison began working. He sold newspapers, fruits and candy on trains. In order not to waste time, he moved the chemical laboratory to the baggage car at his disposal, where one day he almost started a fire. At the age of 15, using the money he saved, Thomas purchased a printing press and began publishing his own newspaper right in the baggage car of the train in which he worked, and selling it to passengers.
Edison was attracted by everything innovative, so he soon exchanged the railroad for the telegraph. From the very first days of working as a telegraph operator, he thought about improving the telegraph apparatus. Edison invents an electrical recorder of the number of votes, but there were no buyers for this patent. Then Thomas decided for himself that he would only work on inventions with guaranteed demand. Subsequently, he expanded the capabilities of the telegraph apparatus: now it could transmit not only SOS signals, but also information about stock exchange rates. Edison earned 40 thousand dollars from this invention and soon organized a workshop where he manufactured automatic telegraph devices and other electrical equipment.
In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, which he would consider his favorite creation for the rest of his life. The press called the phonograph “the greatest discovery of the century,” and Edison himself proposed many ways to use it: dictating letters and documents without the help of a stenographer, playing music, recording conversations. Edison's new invention, which shocked the world, was a device for displaying sequential photographs - a kinescope. In April 1896, Edison held the first public screening of a film in New York, and in 1913 he demonstrated a film with synchronized sound.
Until the end of his life, Thomas Edison was engaged in improving this world. At the age of 85, dying, he told his wife: “If there is anything after death, it is good. If not, that's fine too. I lived my life and did the best I could...”
The next hero, Samuel Finley Morse, is known throughout the world as the inventor of the electromagnetic writing telegraph - the “Morse apparatus” and the transmission code - “Morse code”.
Samuel (Samuel) Morse was born in Massachusetts into a wealthy American family and graduated from Yale College. He was indifferent to science, although he was attracted by lectures on electricity. Samuel also loved to draw miniature portraits of acquaintances. He was so fascinated by painting that his parents sent him to England to study art at the Royal Academy of Arts. In 1813, Morse presented his painting “The Dying Hercules” to the Royal Academy of Arts in London, for which he received a gold medal.
After returning home, he lived the life of a traveling painter for ten years, painting portraits. It must be said that Samuel was very sociable and charming, he was eagerly received in noble houses. Even US President Lincoln was among his friends. In New York he creates some very interesting portraits and founded the National Academy of Design. During his second trip to Europe, S. Morse met the famous scientist L. Daguerre and became interested in the latest discoveries in the field of electricity. And after at the university he was shown a description of the model of an electromagnetic telegraph proposed by the German physicist W. Weber, he completely devoted himself to invention. The scientist knew that electricity runs almost instantly along the longest wire and that when an obstacle is encountered, a spark appears. Why can’t this spark represent a word, a letter, a number? Why not come up with an alphabet for transmitting words by electricity? This thought haunted Morse. It took years of work and study to get his telegraph working. In 1837, he developed a system of representing letters with dots and dashes, which became known throughout the world as Morse code. However, he did not find support for introducing the idea either at home, or in England, or in France, or in Russia, meeting with refusal everywhere. From a trip to Europe, Samuel returned home with dashed hopes and almost in poverty.
In another attempt to interest the US Congress in the creation of telegraph lines, he brought in a congressman as a partner, and in 1843 Morse received a subsidy of $30,000 for the construction of the first telegraph line from Baltimore to Washington. Having received the necessary funds, Morse immediately began constructing a trial telegraph line, which was completed a little over a year later, although the public was still outraged for a long time that Congress was wasting public money on such an insane enterprise. A few years later, the telegraph spread to America, and then to Europe and was recognized as one of the most amazing discoveries of our century. Newspapers, railroads and banks quickly found use for it. Telegraph lines instantly intertwined the whole world, Morse's fortune and fame increased. A man who often had to go hungry now did not know how to get rid of the lavish dinners and celebrations held in his honor. Representatives of ten governments European countries at a special congress they jointly decided to give Morse 400,000 francs. In 1858, he bought an estate near New York, and spent the rest of his life there with a large family of children and grandchildren. In his old age, Morse became a philanthropist. He patronized schools, universities, churches, missionaries and poor artists.
After his death, Morse's fame as an inventor began to fade, as the telegraph was replaced by telephone, radio and television. But, oddly enough, his reputation as an artist grew. He did not consider himself a portrait painter, but many people know his paintings of Lafayette and other prominent people. His 1837 telegraph is kept in the US National Museum, and his country house is recognized as a historical monument.
Throughout the history of mankind, no less interest than the conquest of the water ocean has been caused by the conquest of the air ocean. The idea of rising into the sky has excited human minds since ancient times. The first mentions of attempts of this kind date back to the 4th-5th centuries BC. The book “Conquest of the Air” is just about this. The authors of the articles included in this collection are German writers, scientists, engineers and aeronauts: G. Dominic, F. M. Feldgauz, O. Neischler, A. Stolberg, O. Steffens, N. Stern.
Conquest of the air: a reference book on aeronautics and flying technology: compiled on the basis of the latest discoveries and inventions: with 162 fig. in the text / trans. with him. M. Kadish; auto preface gr. Zeppelin. - Moscow: publishing house "Titan": Printing house of the trading house M. V. Baldin and Co., . - , 400 s. : ill. (6T5(09I) Z-13 27861 - RF)
It contains materials on the first experiences of flight: from folk tales and legends to the appearance of hot air balloons and controlled balloons, as well as on the use of air vehicles for scientific, sports and cultural purposes.
The first chapters of the book, authored by F. M. Feldgauz, describe many flying attempts of the past - sometimes curious, sometimes funny and curious. In addition to wings, which were attached to the arms or body, there were also various types of flying machines and ships.
A sad page in the history of aeronautics is the expedition led by the Swedish engineer-naturalist Salomon Andre, carried out in 1897 with the goal of reaching the North Pole in a hot air balloon, during which all three of its participants died. This is how Dr. A. Stolberg describes this expedition: Salomon Andre, the first Swedish balloonist, proposed organizing an expedition in a hydrogen-filled balloon from Spitsbergen to Russia or Canada, and its path would, if lucky, go straight through North Pole. The patriotic masses greeted this idea with enthusiasm. Unfortunately, Andre ignored the potential dangers. There was a lot of evidence that the technology he invented to control the ball using fastening ropes turned out to be ineffective, but he still jeopardized the fate of the expedition. To make matters worse, the Eagle balloon was delivered directly to Svalbard by its manufacturer in Paris and was not pre-inspected. When measurements showed that there were more hydrogen leaks than expected, Andre did not consider this a serious problem. Most contemporary scientists, seeing Andre's optimism, were also dismissive of the forces of nature, which in fact led to the death of Salomon Andre and his two young associates, Nils Strindberg and Ernst Frenkel. After launching from Spitsbergen in July 1897, the balloon very quickly lost hydrogen and crashed in the ice within two days. The researchers were not injured during its fall, but died during a grueling journey south through the drifting polar ice. Lacking sufficiently warm clothing, equipment and training, and overwhelmed by the difficulty of traversing the terrain, they had little chance of a successful outcome. When the Arctic winter closed their further path in October, the group found itself sandwiched on the deserted White Island in the Spitsbergen archipelago and died there. True, in 1909 they did not yet know about this. The author of the essay assumed that the heroes of the expedition died immediately as soon as the balloon finally lost air somewhere over the ocean. He writes: “...probably all three drowned immediately; in any case, this would be a better fate...” For 33 years, the fate of Andre's expedition remained one of the mysteries of the Arctic. The accidental discovery of the expedition's last camp in 1930 created a sensation.
The book describes many more stories about successful and not so successful attempts to conquer airspace. It contains descriptions of various types of aircraft: gliders, airplanes, monoplanes, airships... Many drawings and photographs that depict fantastic and real designs of air vehicles and their creators will help you clearly understand and appreciate the structural features of each.
The history of the invention and use of flying devices in Russia contains many interesting, sometimes funny moments. It is known that rulers at all times loved to patronize the inventors of flying cars. Alexander I also favored aeronautics.
A very interesting and little-known story is told by Alexander Alekseevich Rodnykh, a Russian popularizer and historian of science, a specialist in the history of aeronautics, a science journalist, and a science fiction writer. One of the first propagandists of the ideas of K. Tsiolkovsky, a graduate of the Faculty of Mathematics of St. Petersburg University.
Secret preparation for the destruction of Napoleon's army in the twelfth year with the help of aeronautics: from the "History of Aeronautics and Flying in Russia": with 19 photographs from ancient drawings / A. Rodnykh. - [St. Petersburg]: [Type. T-va Literacy], . - 61, 124 p. : ill. (9(C)15 R60 36628-RF)
In his book, he talks about a very special event in the history of aeronautics and flying in Russia. It turns out that in the spring of 1812, at the behest of Alexander I, preparations were made in complete secrecy for the destruction of Napoleon’s army with the help of the “flying machine” of the German inventor Leppich. Leppich volunteered to build a controlled machine capable of rising into the air and dropping huge quantities of explosive shells to exterminate Napoleon's army. A. Rodnykh says that Leppich’s air enterprise cost the Russian treasury, not counting the timber for the construction of the premises, heating, dressing of the skins and others, a total of about 185,000 rubles. ABOUT appearance machines can be judged from a surviving drawing, which indicates that the idea of a controlled airship Leppich was associated with ideas about fishing, that is, with the help of fins and a tail. Despite repeated design changes, experiments and attempts by the inventor to make the device fly, the enterprise was not successful. The author writes that Leppich’s failure is difficult to determine because, without technical data on the building itself, it is impossible to understand whether the error lies in the idea itself or in its execution. There are different data regarding the end of the unfortunate designer’s stay in Russia: according to some, he was deported abroad in 1814, according to others, he fled on his own. A. Rodnykh describes in detail the history of this entertaining, adventurous, sometimes full of drama enterprise. Considering that the facts and information from the history of Russian aeronautics presented in the book are little known, this work definitely deserves attention.
We have already said that many things that are something ordinary for modern man at one time made a serious revolution in the history of mankind, forcing him to take a huge step towards progress. The work of the English researcher and publicist Frederick Morel Holmes (Holmes) “Great Men and Their Great Works” is a kind of generalization, an artistic and historical study of the most famous inventions and technical achievements of mankind of the 18th and early 19th centuries.
Great people and their great works: stories about the buildings of famous engineers / F. M. Holms; lane from English M. A. Zhebeleva. - 2nd ed. - St. Petersburg: Publishing house O. N. Popova: Typo-lithography by I. Usmanov, 1903. - VIII, 272 p. : ill. (30G G63 488195-RF)
The book tells about such inventions as the steam locomotive and the steamboat, whose appearance changed the world beyond recognition. world economy; a lighthouse that can withstand waves and send signals to ships around the clock; artificial canals that often run above sea level; a lathe, with the invention of which it became possible to produce parts with precisely specified dimensions.
This is how the author of the book describes the construction of Marc Brunel’s tunnel under the Thames: “If at that time you had been on the Rothergate Shoal near the Thames, you would have been very surprised to see that instead of digging a well, they began to erect a tower there... The masons began laying a round tower with walls 3 feet thick and 42 feet high... The soil was dug out and lifted up by a machine... And as the hole got deeper, this pipe of masonry sank into it... 65 feet high. Little by little, it all sank into the ground.”
And when building a bridge across the Menai Strait, new ideas were needed, since the width from one bank to the other is more than 335 meters. The bridge had to be strong enough to carry heavy trains at high speed and high enough above the water so as not to interfere with shipping. The task was very difficult, but the famous engineer Robert Stephenson, the son of George Stephenson, the inventor of the steam locomotive, which was already discussed above, took on its implementation. How exactly, using what technologies, was the first tubular bridge “Britannia” built, and why was the construction of a tower necessary when digging a tunnel? Who is Marc Isambard Brunel? The author of the book gives answers to all these questions.
F. M. Holmes introduces readers to realistic images of great inventors, the difficult fate of them and their creations, many of which still serve humanity. It helps to see the surrounding reality through the prism of objects and technical means used in everyday life, revealing the secret of their birth. A special advantage of the book is a special section devoted to the history of technical innovations in our country.
This concludes our excursion into the history of scientific and technical inventions of mankind on the pages of publications of the 19th and early 20th centuries. We hope that our virtual exhibition will arouse interest among all lovers of popular science literature.
