Famous Chemists nd Physicists
...ron. Lewis made fundamental contributions to the acid-base theory, thermodynamics, and research on atomic structure and relativity. After 1941, he undertook studies of glaciation and early American civilization. Amedeo Avogadro, an Italian chemist who in 1811 proposed Avogadro's Hypothesis, which states that equal volumes of gases under equal conditions of temperature and pressure contain equal numbers of molecules. This assumption implied that the weights of molecules were proportional to the gas density. He also believed that certain elements in the free state existed as diatomic molecules. Avogadro's ideas were ignored until reintroduced by Cannizzaro during the 1950’s. Ernest Rutherford was physicist, considered a pioneer of subatomic physics, born near Nelson, New Zealand in 1871. Rutherford is best known for devising the names alpha, beta, and gamma rays to classify various forms of rays which were poorly understood at his time alpha and beta rays are particle beams, while gamma rays are a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. He also observed that the intensity of radioactivity fell off with time, and named the halving time the half-life. Rutherford also discovered the proton by suggesting that the simplest possible rays must be those obtained by hydrogen and that these must be the fundamental positively charged particle, which he dubbed the proton in 1914. He received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1908, was knighted in 1914, and made a peer in 1931. Henry Moseley was an English physicist who studied at Oxford, and then worked under Ernest Rutherford at Manchester University from1910-14. He determined the number of positive charges in the nucleus, which was the first concept of the atomic number. He was able to discover this by measuring the wavelength of the x-rays given off by certain metals. He also predicted the unknown element hafnium. He was killed in action in Turkey at the age of 27. Albert Einstein was a German-American physicist, Born March 14, 1879, in Ulm, Germany. In 1905 Einstein published three papers, each of which had a profound effect on the development of physics. In one paper, he proposed the theory of relativity, which provides a correct description for particles traveling at high speeds. The two assumptions of the special theory of relativity were that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant and that the laws of physics are the same for all inertial reference frames. In this paper Einstein produced the famous equation for the theory of relativity, E=mc². A recent study of Einstein's preserved brain has discovered that the inferior parietal region, which is the part thought to be related to mathematical reasoning was 15% wider than normal. However, it is unclear what the true significance of this anatomical anomaly are in connection with Einstein's scientific creativity. Marie Curie the renowned physicist was born Marie Sklodowska on November 7, 1867 in Warsaw, Poland. She gave the name radioactivity to the emission of radiation from atoms. Working with her husband, Pierre, she showed thorium, as well as uranium to be radioactive, and demonstrated that the radioactivity of a substance was proportional to the quantity of radioactive material present. Noticing that the radioactivity in some samples was too high to explain by any concentration of uranium, she set out to isolate the source of the radioactivity. Marie shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in physics with her husband Pierre and Henri Becquerel for the investigation of radioactivity. Linus Pauling was an American quantum chemist, biochemist, and peace advocate. As a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology, he studied X-ray diffraction of crystals with Rosco Dickinson. C...