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Isaac Newton once wrote , " If I have seen further , it is by standing on the shoulders of giants . " ( That ’s sometimes been represent as a sarcastic input take at his rival Robert Hooke , who may have had a marked curvature of the thorn , although many historians challenge this . ) But Newton was expressing the truth that all science proceeds from premature achievements — and even the most famous scientist relied on the diligent and sometimes thankless work of their little - know confrere . In celebration of these unvalued loyalist of science , here are 32 important scientist you ’ve ( probably ) never hear of .
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
In her 1925 doctoral thesis , the uranologist Cecilia Payne - Gaposchkin proposed that stars are compose primarily of H and helium — an thought that revolutionize science but was initially met with scepticism . grant to the American Museum of Natural story in New York City , Payne - Gaposchkin was celebrated for her body of work on variable star , and wrote several book . She was born in England in 1900 , immigrate to the United States to study uranology at Harvard College Observatory , and perish in 1979 .
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Ellen Swallow Richards
In 1868 , the pioneer American engineer and chemist Ellen Swallow Richards ( 1842 - 1911 ) became the first cleaning woman accommodate to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , where she earned a degree in chemical science . consort to Cornell University , she is regarded as the founder of the bailiwick of home economics , which apply scientific principle to domestic life , and she is considered one of the first environmental locomotive engineer thanks to her groundbreaking ceremony enquiry on pee quality and sanitisation .
Oliver Heaviside
Born in London in 1850 , mathematician and physicistOliver Heavisidemade growth in electromagnetic hypothesis . These include work on transmitting lines that get ahead long - distance telephony and his prediction of a layer of Earth ’s ionosphere — sometimes call theHeaviside layer , or the Kennelly - Heaviside layer — that reflected some wireless waves and earmark receiving set broadcasts around Earth ’s curvature . Heaviside die after falling from a ladder in 1925 .
Dorothy Hodgkin
British chemist Dorothy Hodgkin is renowned for her pioneering work inX - ray crystallographyand her development of methods for fix molecular structures using X - ray diffraction . Among other compound , she research the structures of drug such as penicillin and insulin , which had significant implications for medical specialty and biochemistry . Hodgkin was bear in Cairo , Egypt , in 1910 ; won theNobel Prizeinchemistry in 1964 ; and died in the U.K. in 1994 .
Matilda Moldenhauer Brooks
conduct in 1890,Matilda Moldenhauer Brookswas an American cellular biologist who made important contribution to toxicology . They admit her 1932 discovery that the dyestuff methylene group blue , which is commonly used to tarnish organic samples in biology , can also act as anantidote to toxic condition by atomic number 6 monoxide and nitril . She was also an advocate for the role of women in scientific discipline and face challenges in securing a research position at the University of California because her husband , Sumner Cushing Brooks , was also a researcher there and anti - nepotism policies prevented her fitting . She died in 1981 .
Nettie Stevens
The American geneticistNettie Stevenswas one of the first scientists to describe gender chromosomes . Her studies of mealworm showed that male produce two distinctive types of sperm cell , which always ensue in either manlike or female offspring ; and her meticulous research showed the bearing of X or Y sex chromosome in the sperm . Her work laid the foundation for the forward-looking understanding of the X - Y sexual activity determination system , which is now a fundament of genetic science . Stevens was born in Cavendish , Vermont in 1861 and died in Baltimore in 1912 .
Ashoke Sen
Indian theoretical physicistAshoke Senis a pioneer of string possibility and noted for his part to quantum field possibility and blackened hole S . Sen was bear in Kolkata in 1956 and has studied in the United States and the United Kingdom ; his research has lay the foundations for explorations into the fundamental nature of the universe . He now lives and learn in Bangalore , where he is a leading vocalisation in the pursuit of aunified possibility of everything .
Hermann Minkowski
MathematicianHermann Minkowskiis most famous for develop a geometrical version of Einstein’stheory of special relativity . Among his other innovations , he declare oneself the melodic theme of space - fourth dimension , which combines the three strong-arm dimension of space with the fourth property of time into a incorporated mathematical framework . He also made important contributions to number theory and the geometry of numbers . Minkowski was born in Lithuania in 1864 , when it was still part of the Russian Empire , and died in Germany in 1909 at the age of 44 .
Prahalad Chunnilal Vaidya
Amerindic physicist and mathematicianPrahalad Chunnilal Vaidya(1918 - 2010 ) made important contribution togeneral theory of relativity , including a solvent to Einstein ’s field equivalence that discover the gravitative field of operations of a radiating hotshot ; early solutions had assumed only a nonradiating mass . He also contributed to the professional promotion of science in India after its independence from Britain in 1947 , which included work the Indian Association for General Relativity and Gravitation and leading the Indian Mathematical Society .
Maurice Hilleman
American microbiologistMaurice Hilleman(1919 - 2005 ) was a pioneer of vaccinology and is thought to have saved billion of liveliness . In the 1950s , while working for the U.S. Army , he identify the mechanism by whichinfluenzaviruses mutate , which allowed the creation of better vaccine and keep the potential outbreak of flu pandemics . He also get vaccines for hepatitis B and meningitis , and his vaccines for measles , mumps and rubella were combine into a single injection , known as the MMR vaccinum , to simplify puerility immunisation .
Emmy Noether
German mathematicianAmalie " Emmy " Noether(1882 - 1935 ) made important contribution toabstract algebra , particularly in what are known as ring , field and radical theories , which laid the foundations for modern algebra . Her " Noether ’s theorem " linked symmetries in physical systems with the principles of energy conservation and is now a cornerstone of natural philosophy . Noether was bear in Germany but emigrated to the United States in 1933 , after her university professorship , along with those of other Jews , was revoked by the Nazis .
Abdus Salam
Abdus Salam(1926 - 1996 ) was a Pakistani theoretical physicist who contributed to the scientific reason of key forces . One of his key achievement was the theory of theelectroweak force , which combined the electromagnetic force and the weakly atomic force — a step toward a incorporated theory of everything . With his colleagues , Salam was grant the1979 Nobel Prize in physicsfor this work . Salam also championed scientific coaction between state and co - founded the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste , Italy , in 1964 .
Saharon Shelah
MathematicianSaharon Shelahis a lead figure in good example theory , which explores the relationships between logical structures and their interpretations , and go under theory , which read sets of numerical objects and their properties . Shelah ’s work examines the substructure of maths — in particular the structure and properties of numerical objects . He was born in Jerusalem in 1945 ; in 2001 , he won theWolf Prize , one of the most honored awards in mathematics .
Jagadish Chandra Bose
Indian polymathJagadish Chandra Bose(1858 - 1937 ) is know for his contributions to the fields of physical science , botany and biology . He invented an instrument telephone thecrescograph , which can detect minute change in plant life tissue paper in response to fluctuations in brightness , temperature and other factors . His experiments in this sphere challenged the prevailing view of flora as passive entity and register they were raw to their environment . He also conducted research into radio waves and severally achieved wireless transmission in 1895 .
Aristarchus of Samos
Aristarchus of Samoswas an ancient Greek mathematician and uranologist who subsist from roughly 310 to 230 B.C. in the city - state of Samos . He is think to be the first to develop the heliocentric model of thesolar arrangement , in which the planet revolve the sun . A few centuries after Aristarchus , however , most astronomers preferred the geocentric good example , in which the sun and planet orbited the Earth ; and that was the prevailing theory until it was challenge in the 16th century A.D. by the Polish mathematician and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus . Copernicus had produce his own heliocentric modeling , and seems not to have be intimate about Aristarchus .
John Michell
No portrayal survives of the early English scientistJohn Michell(1724 - 1793 ) but he made important contributions to several scientific field , include uranology and geology . Michell was a friend of theastronomer William Herscheland was the first to determine that double or " binary " stars were in fact orbiting each other . Before this , Herschel and other astronomers believed the many double stars they had seen were just tricks of alinement , and that one of the whizz was much further behind the other . But Mitchel show there were far too many observations of double genius than could occur at random . He also showed that star clustering like the Pleiades could not have occur at random , which designate the wiz in such clusters shared a common descent . Michell was the first scientist to apply statistics to astronomy ; statistical techniques are now a cornerstone of the field .
Daniel Hale Williams
Daniel Hale Williams(1858 - 1931 ) was a pioneer in modern medicine and an important pitch-dark American scientist . He execute the world’sfirst successful center operating room in 1893 , by control the bleeding of a man who had been stabbed in a fight . Williams co - founded Provident Hospital in Chicago , which was the first Black - owned and -operated aesculapian psychiatric hospital in the United States . He was a outspoken critic of racial disparities in wellness fear and co - plant the National Medical Association , a professional organization for Black doctors facing limitation in the aesculapian biotic community .
Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky
Mikhail Dolivo - Dobrovolskywas born in 1862 in Russia . He was an important electrical engineer and make up thefirst practical alternating - current ( AC ) inductive reasoning motorthat could easily convert electricity into mechanically skillful power . in the beginning AC motor were complex and undependable , but Dolivo - Dobrovolsky ’s excogitation pave the means for the all-embracing - scale acceptation of internal AC grid . He also designed transformer to vary AC potential drop , which allowed it to be transmitted over prospicient space . In the 1890s , he helped build the public ’s first long - distance AC tycoon transmission organisation between Frankfurt and Offenbach , Germany . He died in 1919 .
Marguerite Perey
French nuclear chemistMarguerite Perey , born in 1909 , was a student of the Polish - French physicist and chemist Marie Curie . She work for many years as Curie ’s personal assistant at Curie ’s Radium Institute in Paris , where she learned how to isolate and sanctify radioactive elements . In 1935 , while studying the radioactive element actinium , Perey discovered the 87th chemical element of the periodic table , which she call " francium " after her home country . She ’d hop the radioactivity of atomic number 87 would help diagnose cancer in patients , but in fact it was carcinogenic ; Perey break bone Crab and died in 1975 .
Sofya Kovalevskaya
Sofya Kovalevskaya , born in 1850 , was a Russian mathematician who made of import contributions to numerical methods of analysis , partial differential equations and auto-mechanic . She was the first woman to receive a modern doctor’s degree and the first woman in Northern Europe to be appoint to a full professorship . Her most noteworthy contribution was the development of the " Kovalevskaya top " — equivalence that describe a virtual spinning top within a gravitational athletic field — thereby solving what was one of the most complex problems in classical mechanism . She live in Sweden after the 1870s and died in 1891 at the age of 41 .
Émilie du Châtelet
Émilie du Châteletwas an 18th - century French born philosopher and mathematician who is best known for her translation of andcommentary on Isaac Newton ’s 1687 book " Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica , " often call the " Principia . " Her commentary made several contributions to Newtonian mechanism , including an additional conservation natural law for the kinetic vigor of motion , and she developed novel thought about the relationship between energy and the mass and speed of an object . Du Châtelet was turn out in 1706 and died in 1749 from complication during childbirth .
Hero of Alexandria
Hero ( or Heron ) of Alexandriawas an railroad engineer and mathematician who lived in Alexandria , Egypt , when it was govern by the Romans in the first century A.D. He is credited with the innovation of a steam - power equipment hollo the aeolipile , or " Hero ’s engine , " which featured a primitive steam turbine . He also develop the technology behind wind generator — an important contribution to culture . In maths , he is well remember for Heron ’s expression , which is a elbow room of calculating the area of a Triangulum using only the lengths of its sides .
Johann Rudolf Glauber
have a bun in the oven in 1604 in Karlstadt , Bavaria ( which in 1871 became part of the German Empire),Johann Rudolf Glauberis consider one of the first chemical substance engineers , and his invention often had commercial uses . He was the first to describe " chemical garden , " in which inorganic chemical immersed in a atomic number 11 silicate answer look to " maturate " into complex structures . In 1625 , Glauber pick up sodium sulfate , also known as " Glauber ’s salt , " which is now a major chemical commodity used to make detergent and paper . He die in about 1670 , peradventure from poisoning by the chemical substance he used in his work .
Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham
Ḥasan Ibn al - Haytham , also known as Alhazen , was born in Basra , now in southern Iraq , in about A.D. 965 . He live chiefly in Cairo , Egypt , until 1040 , during the Islamic Golden Age . He is sometimes called " the sire of modern oculus " and madeimportant discoveriesin the field , including a possibility of sight that argued , right , that it pass in the wit . ( Earlier theory had hint faint rays were emit from the eyes . ) He also studied reflections , refraction , and the nature of images organise from ray of light .
Norman Borlaug
American agrarian scientist Norman Borlaug ( 1914 - 2009 ) is known as " the Church Father of the Green Revolution . " His inquiry contributed to global nutrient product , and he expend decade rise disease - repellent strains of wheat that are now planted around the man . Borlaug also championed the transferee of farming technologies to develop nations , for which he was awarded theNobel Peace Prize in 1970 , and accentuate the importance of universe control to accomplish retentive - term food security measures .
Annie Jump Cannon
Annie Jump Cannon(1863 - 1941 ) was a pioneering American stargazer nickname " the nose count taker of the sky " for her punctilious employment classifying stars . She learn cathartic and uranology at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and work at Harvard College Observatory from the previous nineties , where she develop aclassification method based on the spectra of starsthat was first used by uranologist Edward Pickering . Cannon had exceptional eyesight and separate over 350,000 stars in her lifespan , sometimes at a charge per unit of more than 5,000 stars a month . Her classification system play a crucial role in the development of the modern leading sorting organization , which is base on a whizz ’s temperature and surface conditions .
Fritz Zwicky
Born in 1898 in Bulgaria to a Swiss father and a Czech female parent , Fritz Zwickyemigrated to the United States in 1925 and contemplate astronomy at the California Institute of Technology . Zwicky developed many astronomical conception , and with astronomerWalter Baadedescribedneutron starsand supernova — the powerful explosions of monumental star . His majuscule part to science , however , was suggesting that galaxy - exfoliation assiduousness of what ’s now calleddark thing — he called it " dunkle materie " in German — may be the movement of anomalies in the conduct of galaxies within astronomical clump and the orbital speed of stars at the edge of galaxies . He died in 1974 .
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar ( 1910 - 1995 ) was an Indian - American astrophysicist who studied the evolution of wiz . His most famed enquiry leave in his conclusion of what ’s now known as the Chandrasekhar limitation , which is the item at which a star that has run out of fuel will founder into awhite dwarf . Each of these incredibly dense starring remainder can be little than Earth but have a mass great than that of the sunshine . His research flesh out into the cogitation ofblack holes , which initially were not widely accepted but now are regarded as both an significant feature of astronomy and possible clues to the nature of the world . Chandrasekhar shared the1983 Nobel Prizeinphysicsfor his work on star evolution .
Ida Noddack
German chemistIda Noddack(1896 - 1978 ) was the first woman to hold a professional spatial relation in Germany ’s chemical industry . Her most famous discovery , which she made with her husband Walter Noddack and collaborator Otto Berg , was their isolation in 1925 of the 75th element on the periodic mesa , a rare metallic element they named " rhenium " after the river Rhine . The element had been predicted decade sooner , and the find confirmed the theoretic construction of the periodic tabular array . Noddack was also one of the first scientists to advise that the nucleus of some elements bombard with neutron could split — a phenomenon now know asnuclear fission .
Eunice Foote
The nineteenth hundred American scientist and inventorEunice Foote(1819 - 1888 ) gestate out other inquiry on thegreenhouse effect , in which some atmospherical gases trap heat from the sun near Earth ’s airfoil . In 1856 , she present a paper at the yearly get together of the American Association for the Advancement of Science demonstrate the essence of the Lord’s Day ’s rays on different gases and paint a picture this had take billet in Earth ’s atmospheric state and affected its clime . But Foote , as a cleaning lady in the 19th century , was not permit to read her own newspaper at the meeting , so a male professor register it on her behalf .
Kary Mullis
American biochemist Kary Mullis inspire molecular biology with his invention of thepolymerase chain reaction(PCR ) technique . He conceived the theme in the eighties while puzzle out for an other biotechnology company . It provide the rapid gain of specificDNAsequences within a assure environment , sharply reduce the amount of starting DNA required and cutting the time necessitate for analysis . PCR can observe DNA from virus , bacterium and genic mutant , and it is now a cornerstone of medical diagnostics , genetics , forensics and archeology . Along with Michael Smith , Mullis was awarded the1993 Nobel Prize in chemistryfor the invention . He was tolerate in 1944 and died in 2019 .
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