Health@Heart
They changed the world
(First of two parts)
The great inventors and discoverers of yesteryears made possible the chains of other inventions and discoveries that followed, which are the basic foundation of today's modern technologies and advances in the various sciences and art. Had it not been for these brilliant minds, we would still be in the dark ages, without electricity, refrigeration, motor vehicles, industrial machines, penicillin and other drugs, camera, television, computers, etc. Some of these trailblazers include:
Archimedes (287?-212 BC) – Born in Syracuse, Sicily, this Greek mathematician discovered the science of hydrostatics (fluid dynamics), the principle of water displacement (the weight is equal to the amount of fluid displaced), the basic theorems on the geometry of circles, planes, cones, spheres, parabolas and cylinders, which are the basics of mathematics. He was also did some work on physics and astronomy, and even invented long-range catapults and mirrors in 214 BC, which used the sun's rays to set the enemy ships on fire. Archimedes also introduced the basic concept of a machine like the lever, the pulley and screw, and said "Give me a place to stand on and I will move the earth (with a lever)."
Johannes Gutenberg (1395?-1468?) – A member of an aristocratic family, this gentleman, who was born in Mainz, invented the "type mould," one of the earliest precision "instruments." With this mould, he was able to create the various metal letters of the alphabet and the numerical digits, which made possible the printing of messages. This led to the invention of printing press.
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) – A son of a mathematician, Galileo was born in Pisa, Italy. He pursued a course in Aristotelian Philosophy and Medicine at the University of Pisa in 1581, but his interest in mathematics and astronomy supervened. In 1609, Galileo built his first telescope, which led to his most important discoveries: that the moon surface was mountainous and pitted, "the four moons circling Jupiter," that the earth and other planets revolve around the sun, and that the sun, and not the earth, was the center of the universe. For this last theory, which was against what the Catholic Church believed the, he was placed under house arrest. Galileo was also the first to theorize that "objects of different weights fall at the same speed when dropped at the same time.
William Harvey (1578-1657) – Born April 1st in Folkestone, England, William obtained his Doctor of Medicine degree from renowned University of Padua in Europe in 1602, and started practicing two years later. He was known as the Christopher Columbus of the circulation of blood, since he was the one who discovered that "blood travels through arteries from the heart (and not from the liver as taught by Galen earlier) to the various parts of the body, and returns through the veins back to the heart." In 1628, he published his book on "Exercise Concerning the Motion of the Heart and Blood." He was personal physician to King Charles I. His basic discovery led to today's knowledge of circulation.
Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) - Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England was his home. He invented the binomial theorem, functional calculus, and discovered the spectrum of light at age 24, and invented the reflector telescope. Newton discovered the law of gravity as he watched an apple fall from a tree, and authored the three famous laws of motion: Inertia, Motion and Reaction. He also wrote a book on the structure of the universe and the movement of the planets.
Edward Jenner (1749-1823) – Born in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, Jenner studied medicine in London under the famous British surgeon, John Hunter. In 1796, he injected the pus from a patient with cowpox into the arm wound of an 8-year-old boy, and 48 days later, obtained and injected smallpox fluid from a patient with the deadly disease, into the boy's arm. The lad did not develop smallpox. This was the first vaccination ever, and this discovery led to smallpox vaccine and a host of others we know today that had saved, and continue to save, countless lives globally.
Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) – Two days after Christmas, in 1822, Louis Pasteur was born in Dole, France. Twenty seven years later, he taught chemistry in Strasberg, France, and started his experiments on fermentation, a type of microbial chemical breakdown. He found samples of spoiled milk and wine to show rod-shaped creatures wriggling in clusters when examined under the microscope, and that heating the milk and wine to a certain temperature killed the germs, and the samples stayed fresh for a longer period. He was honored for this discovery by Emperor Napoleon III and his wife, who supported him in his research. The procedure is now known all over the world as Pasteurization, a simple and practical way of killing germs through heating. He was the one who proved that many diseases were caused by germs that multiply in the body, studied anthrax and rabies, among other diseases, and further the works on vaccination.
Next Week: More amazing trailblazers who changed the world.