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Democritus
Democritus was born in the city of Abdera in Thrace, an Ionian colony of Teos, although some called him a Milesian. He was born in the 80th Olympiad (460–457 BC) according to Apollodorus of Athens, and although Thrasyllus placed his birth in 470 BC, the later date is probably more likely. John Burnet has argued that the date of 460 is "too early" since, according to Diogenes Laërtius ix.41, Democritus said that he was a "young man (neos)" during Anaxagoras' old age (circa 440–4 -
Aristole
The basic notions of Aristotle's philosophy of nature can be understood from his analysis of change. When Aristotle undertook to explain how it is that things change, a fact apparent to anyone, he had first to confront the seemingly iron-clad logic of Parmenides. Bound by this logic, Parmenides had been forced to the position that there is in reality no change at all. All change is mere appearance; reality is One, and this One, which only is, is unchanging. He was forced to this position because -
Sir Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was one of the leading figures in natural philosophy and in the field of scientific methodology in the period of transition from the Renaissance to the early modern era. As a lawyer, member of Parliament, and Queen's Counsel, Bacon wrote on questions of law, state and religion, as well as on contemporary politics; but he also published texts in which he speculated on possible conceptions of society, and he pondered questions of ethics (Essays) even in his works on natur -
Antoine Lavoisier
The first breakthrough in the study of chemical reactions resulted from the work of the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier between 1772 and 1794. Lavoisier found that mass is conserved in a chemical reaction. The total mass of the products of a chemical reaction is always the same as the total mass of the starting materials consumed in the reaction. His results led to one of the fundamental laws of chemical behavior: the law of conservation of matter, which states that matter is conserved in a che -
John Newlands
Newlands was the first to recognize that the elements fall into a pattern in which their properties repeat at regular intervals when they are listed in order of increasing atomic weight. He was also the first to assign atomic numbers to the elements. Unfortunately, his work was not accepted by his peers, and the paper in which he described his table was rejected by the Journal of the Chemical Society. In retrospect there are obvious problems with Newlands' table of the elements. The first row, -
Dimitri Mendeleev
Mendeleev was born in the village of Verkhnie Aremzyani, near Tobolsk in Siberia, to Ivan Pavlovich Mendeleev and Maria Dmitrievna Mendeleeva (née Kornilieva). His grandfather was Pavel Maximovich Sokolov, a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church from the Tver region. Ivan, along with his brothers and sisters, obtained new family names while attending the theological seminary. Mendeleev was raised as an Orthodox Christian, his mother encouraging him to "patiently search divine and scientific. -
William Ramsay
The Scottish chemist William Ramsay (1852–1916) is known for work that established a whole new group in the periodic table, variously called over time the inert, rare, or noble gases. In the last decade of the 19th century, he and the famous physicist Lord Rayleigh (John William Strutt, 1842–1919)—already known for his work on sound, light, and other electromagnetic radiation—carried out separate investigations, for which they received Nobel Prizes in 1904, Ramsay in chemistry and Lord Rayleigh. -
Ernest Rutherford
A consummate experimentalist, Ernest Rutherford (1871–1937) was responsible for a remarkable series of discoveries in the fields of radioactivity and nuclear physics. He discovered alpha and beta rays, set forth the laws of radioactive decay, and identified alpha particles as helium nuclei. Most important, he postulated the nuclear structure of the atom: experiments done in Rutherford's laboratory showed that when alpha particles are fired into gas atoms, a few are violently deflected, which imp -
Henry Moseley
Henry Gwyn Jeffreys Moseley known as Harry Moseley (23 November 1887 – 10 August 1915) was an English physicist. Moseley's contribution to the science of physics was the justification from physical laws of the previous empirical and chemical concept of the atomic number. This stemmed from his development of Moseley's law in X-ray spectra. Moseley's Law justified many concepts in chemistry by sorting the chemical elements of the periodic table of the elements. -
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle FRS (25 January 1627 – 31 December 1691) was an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist and inventor born in Lismore, County Waterford, Ireland. Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the founders of modern chemistry, and one of the pioneers of modern experimental scientific method. He is best known for Boyle's law, which describes the inversely proportional relationship between the absolute pressure and volume of a gas. -
Henry Cavendish
Henry Cavendish FRS (10 October 1731 – 24 February 1810) was a British natural philosopher, scientist, and an important experimental and theoretical chemist and physicist. Cavendish is noted for his discovery of hydrogen or what he called "inflammable air".He described the density of inflammable air, which formed water on combustion, in a 1766 paper "On Factitious Airs". Antoine Lavoisier later reproduced Cavendish's experiment and gave the element its name. -
Marie Curie
Marie Curie, or rather Marya Sklodowska, was born in Warsaw on November 7, 1867. At the time, the Polish capital was occupied by the Russians, who were seeking to weaken the local élite but nonetheless tolerated the burgeoning of the positivist doctrine advocated by Auguste Comte. Based on the value of experience and scientific reality, and applied to society, it was for many intellectuals the path of progress; it was to leave an indelible mark on Marya. Born into a family of teachers and brough -
Jacob Berzelius
Jacob Berzelius, the son of a clergyman-school-master, was born on Aug. 20, 1779, at Väversunda, Sweden. He studied for 6 years at the medical school at Uppsala and then studied chemistry at the Stockholm School of Surgery. In 1808 he was elected to the Swedish Academy of Science and was appointed its secretary in 1818. He married Elisabeth Poppius in 1835 and on that occasion was made a baron by the Swedish king, Charles XIV. -
Lother Meyer
Lother Meyer was born in Varel,Germany (then part of the Duchy of Oldenburg). He was the son of Friedrich August Meyer, a physician, and Anna Biermann. After attending the Altes Gymnasium in Oldenburg, he studied medicine at the University of Zurich in 1851. Two years later, he studied at the University of Würzburg, where he studied pathology, as a student of Rudolf Virchow. He studied under Carl Ludwig in Zurich, which prompted him to devote his attention to physiological chemistry. After takin
