IEEE Workshop held on 18-07-2014

SCIENTISTS

George Gamow

In the world of physics, there are tons of notable names that helped shaped theories and question discoveries all in the quest to better understand the world and the universe. One man that deserves attention is Russian cosmologist and theoretical physicist named George Gamow. George Gamow worked on radioactive decay affecting the nucleus of atoms and on stellar nucleosynthesis, as well as star formation. He discovered a theoretical explanation concerning alpha decay by way of quantum tunneling and was one of the earliest advocates of the Big Bang Theory (Lemaitres), and he even conducted some studies on Big Bang nucleosynthesis. He was also known for his work on molecular genetics.

He might have devoted most of his time to science in his early years but during the middle and latter parts of his career, he spent more time teaching and even authored several popular science books including Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland and Mr. Tompkins Explores the Atom (1939-1967). In fact, he did so well as a writer that some of his books are still in print up until today. That is more than 50 years after they were first published but this is only a testament of how relevant his books are when presenting the fundamental principles of science and math.

His Early Life

It was In Odessa, Russian Empire (now Ukraine) where George Gamow was born on 4 March 1904. He had a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian blood since his parents were Russian-Ukrainian as well. His mother worked as a teacher and taught history and geography at an all-girls school in Odessa while his father taught literature and the Russian language in a local high school. Of course, it is a given that young George Gamow knew how to speak Russian but he learned how to speak French with the help of his mother and learned German from a tutor. Gamow did not learn how to speak English until he was in college but he did become fluent after that. In fact, nearly all of his first publications were written in Russian or German and only later on did he switch to writing in English for his lay audience and his technical papers.

George Gamow went to school at Novorossiya University in Odessa from 1922-1923 then moved on to the University of Leningrad in 1923-1929. He was mentored by Alexander Friedman when he was in Leningrad though later on he had to go to other advisors for his dissertation. While at Leningrad, he made friends with other theoretical physics students: Dmitri Ivanenko, Lev Landau, and Matvey Bronshtein (Matvey was a victim of the Soviet regime; he was arrested in 1937 and a year later, was executed). The three students became close and formed a group they called “The Three Musketeers.” The group met to analyse and talk more about important discoveries on quantum mechanics.

Once he graduated, he moved on to work at Gottingen where he conducted studies on quantum theory. He got his doctorate by way of his work with the atomic nucleus. After he got his Ph.D., he moved on to the University of Copenhagen and worked at the Theoretical Physics Institute from 1928 to 1931. He took a break to move to the Cambridge Cavendish Laboratory where he did some work with the notable Ernest Rutherford. While all this was happening, he still worked with the atomic nucleus and even proposed his “liquid drop” model and made some time to work with Fritz Houtermans and Robert Atkinson on stellar physics.

George Gamow was elected as a member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1931; he was just 28 years old at the time. This made him the youngest ever member in the organization’s long history. From 1931-33, Gamow got a job at the Radium Institute in Leningrad where he worked at the Physical Department headed by Vitaly Khlopin. It was during this time when Gamow, together with Lev Mysovskii and Igor Kurchatov, designed the first ever cyclotron in Europe. Gamow and Mysovskii submitted the draft of their design to the Academic Council of the Radium Institute for consideration which the council approved. It was in 1937 that the cyclotron was completed.

Work on Radioactive Decay

During the early parts of the 20th century, radioactive metals were known to have half-lives and at the same time, characteristic energies were known to come from radioactive emissions. Gamow, in 1928, was already able to solve the theory of alpha decay of an atom nucleus by way of tunneling. Of course, he didn’t do it on his own and had some help from Nikolai Cochin who handled the mathematical side. At the same time, Robert Gurney and Edward U. Condon were also able to solve the problem but the results they achieved were nowhere near as quantitative as the ones by Gamow. Some years later, the name Gamow-Sommerfeld factor was given to the probability of incoming nuclear particles tunneling their way through the Coulomb barrier and going through nuclear reactions. Aside from his work with radioactive decay, he also wrote a paper with a certain Ralph Alpher (a student of his) on Cosmogony. With his work in cosmogony and the Big Bang nucleosynthesis, he got introduced to DNA. The structure was discovered by Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin, and James D. Watson in 1953 and Gamow attempted to solve the problem of how the four different bases found in chains of DNA could control protein synthesis from amino synthesis.

Defection to the US

George Gamow worked for several Soviet establishments but due to increased oppression, he decided to leave Russia. He was denied permission in 1931 to attend a conference in Italy but it was also the year he married Lyubov Vokhmintseva (a Russian physicist). The first two years together as a married couple were spent trying to leave Russia whether they had permission or not.

He and his wife finally managed to move to America in 1934. He worked as a professor at George Washington University. He was also involved in several high profile projects such as presenting the chemical elements’ periodic table as a continuous tape. He also spent his last teaching years at the University of Colorado Boulder. He died in Colorado on 19 August 1968 due to liver failure.

Ramazan Mubaarak

SCIENTISTS

 

Alfred Nobel

 

The foundation of the Nobel Prize-that has been honoring people from all around the world for their great accomplishments in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and for work in peace-was laid by none other than Alfred Nobel. He was a Swedish scientist, inventor, entrepreneur, author and pacifist. He was a great genius who invented dynamite and many other explosives. He also constructed companies and laboratories in more than 20 countries all over the world.

Early Life:

Alfred Nobel was born on 21 October, 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden. He was the third out of the four sons to the Swedish family. His father, Immanuel Nobel, an engineer and a prosperous arms manufacturer, encouraged his four sons to pursue mechanical fields. When Alfred was just nine years old, his family moved to Saint Petersburg in 1842, where his father started a “torpedo” works. Here young Alfred received his early education by private tutors. He studied chemistry with Professor Nikolay Nikolaevich Zinin.

At the age of 18 he traveled to United States where he spent four years studying chemistry and also worked for sometime under John Ericsson. During this time he also went to Paris where he was first introduced to nitroglycerin, a volatile, explosive liquid first made by an Italian scientist, Ascanio Sobrero in 1847. With the end of the war his father’s weapon’s business collapsed leaving the family poor. As a result the family had to rely on the earnings of his mother, Andriette Ahlsell Nobel who worked at the grocery store.

Contributions and Achievements:

After the family business got bankrupt, Alfred devoted himself to the study of explosives and sought a way to make the aggressive explosion of liquid nitroglycerin somehow more controllable. In 1863 he succeeded in exploding nitroglycerin from a distance with a gunpowder charge, and two years later he patented the mercury fulminate detonator which is a critical component for the development of high explosives. Nobel then built up factories in Hamburg and Stockholm, and soon New York and California.

Unfortunately his name became controversial after many serious accidents in the transit and use of his intrinsically unstable product, including an 1864 explosion at their factory in Heleneborg in Stockholm that killed Nobel’s younger brother Emil, among other casualties.

In order to improve the image of his business, Nobel put all his efforts to produce a safer explosive. In 1866 he discovered that when nitroglycerin was incorporated in an absorbent still substance like kieselguhr (porous clay) it became safer and more convenient to handle. He called this mixture dynamite and received a patent in 1867. The same year he demonstrated his explosive for the first time at a quarry in Redhill, Surrey, England. After a few months he also developed a more powerful explosive by the name of ‘Gelignite’, (also called blasting gelatin). He made this by absorbing nitroglycerin into wood pulp and sodium or potassium nitrate.

Later Life:

During November 1895, at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Nobel signed his last will and testament and established the Nobel Prizes, to be awarded annually without distinction of nationality. The executors of his will formed the Nobel Foundation to fulfill his wishes. The statutes of the foundation were formally adopted on June 29, 1900 and the first prize was awarded in 1901.

This great man died of a stroke on 10 December 1896 at Sanremo, Italy and was buried in Norra begravningsplatsen in Stockholm.

SCIENTISTS

       Benjamin Franklin

The American author, politician, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, soldier, and diplomat, Benjamin Franklin was indeed a man of multiple talents. He was also one of the significant Founding Fathers of the United States who for later generations served as both a spokesman and a model for the national character. As a scientist, he was one of the prominent figures in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his findings and theories regarding electricity. His inventions include: the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, a carriage odometer, and the glass ‘armonica’. He devoted most of his life towards the development of his people and left an ineffaceable mark on the emerging nation.

Early Years of Life:

Franklin was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 17, 1706. He was the fifteenth child of Josiah Franklin, candlemaker and a skillful mechanic and Abiah Folger (Josiah’s second wife). He received his primary education from Boston Latin School. At the age of ten he left school because of the poor financial conditions of his family and continued his education through voracious reading. When he was twelve was apprenticed to his older brother James, a printer who taught him the printing trade. Franklin always wanted to be independent and hated being ordered about so he ran away to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania when he was seventeen. There he established his own printing office in partnership with Hugh Meredith in 1728.

Life as a Scientist:

Benjamin Franklin was an extraordinary scientist and inventor. His creations that received a lot of recognition include: lightning rod, glass armonica (a glass instrument, not to be confused with the metal harmonica), Franklin stove, bifocal glasses and the flexible urinary catheter. His inventions also comprised of social innovations, such as paying forward. All his efforts towards science were directed towards enhancing competence and bringing human improvement. One such improvement was his effort to expedite news services through his printing presses.

Electricity
Franklin began his investigations on electricity and was the first person to discover he principle of conservation of charge. He also conducted his famous kite experiment, in which he flew a kite with the wire attached to a key during a thunderstorm. From this experiment he further established that laboratory-produced static electricity was similar to a previously unexplained and frightening natural phenomenon.

Wave Theory of Light
Franklin was among the very few scientists who greatly supported the Christiaan Huygens’ wave theory of light. This theory was later proved to be true after experiments performed by other scientists in the 18th century.

Meteorology
Franklin also noted the behavior of winds and he found out storms do not always travel in the direction of the prevailing wind. This concept gained a great significance in meteorology.

Heat Conductivity
Franklin also conducted his experiments on the non-conduction of ice which received a great acceptance by other popular scientists such as Michael Faraday.

DEATH:

At the age of eighty-four this famous personality died on April 17, 1790 and was buried at Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia.

Franklin was a true philosopher who was interested in all facets of the natural world. He learned through his own experimentation and his conversation with those who shared his interests.

Rosalind Elsie Franklin

Rosalind Elsie Franklin (25 July 1920 – 16 April 1958) was a British biophysicist and X-ray crystallographer who made critical contributions to the understanding of the fine molecular structures of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite. Her DNA work achieved the most fame because DNA plays an essential role in cell metabolism and genetics, and the discovery of its structure helped her co-workers understand how genetic information is passed from parents to their offspring.

Franklin is best known for her work on the X-ray diffraction images of DNA which led to the discovery of the DNA double helix. According to Francis Crick, her data was key to determining the structure to formulate Crick and Watson's 1953 model regarding the structure of DNA. Franklin's images of X-ray diffraction confirming the helical structure of DNA were shown to Watson without her approval or knowledge. This image provided valuable insight into the DNA structure, but Franklin's scientific contributions to the discovery of the double helix are often overlooked.

Unpublished drafts of her papers (written just as she was arranging to leave King's College London) show that she had independently determined the overall B-form of the DNA helix and the location of the phosphate groups on the outside of the structure. Moreover, it was a report of Franklin's that convinced Crick and Watson that the backbones had to be on the outside, which was crucial since before this both they and Linus Pauling had independently generated non-illuminating models with the chains inside and the bases pointing outwards. However, her work was published third, in the series of three DNA Nature articles, led by the paper of Watson and Crick which only hinted at her contribution to their hypothesis. Watson has suggested that ideally Franklin would have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, along with Maurice Wilkins.

After finishing her portion of the work on DNA, Franklin led pioneering work on the tobacco mosaic virus and the polio virus. She died in 1958 at the age of 37 of ovarian cancer.