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GIANTS OF HUMAN CIVILIZATION 4

Dr sci. SIMO JELAČA

MICHELANGELO BUONAROTTI (1475-1564), Italian artist

Italian painter known enough only by the name Michelangelo. From the age of 13, he helped the painter Domenico Ghilandi, and soon after he started school, with the help of the wealthy Medici family. In 1496, he went to Rome, where in 1497 he completed his Pieta sculpture. Returning to Florence, he created the famous statue of David (1501-1504), then went to Rome again to work with the Pope. He decorated the famous Sistine Chapel in the Vatican (1508-1512). In 1537, he finished painting the Last Supper above the altar, and after that he dedicated himself to architecture and built St. Peter's Church in Rome.

FERDINAND MAGELLAN (1480-1521), Portuguese navigator

In 1519, the navigator Magellan sailed around the world, exploring South America, during which he discovered a passage to the Pacific, later called the Passage of Magellan. He thought he was close to Asia, but it took him 90 days to reach the Philippines. Magellan personally died in the Philippines (he was killed by the natives there), and only one of his ships, out of five crew members, successfully returned to Portugal and thus sailed around the world for the first time.

GALILEO GALILEO (1564-1642), Italian scientist

Galileo was born in Pisa, Italy, where he studied medicine, which he never finished. In 1583 he noticed that the oscillation of the lamp in the cathedral lasts the same time regardless of the length of the amplitude. In 1586, he invented a hydrostatic scale for determining the relative density of bodies, and in 1610, he constructed a telescope based on refracting light. In 1632, he published a Dialogue in which he dealt with two systems of the world, which brought him into conflict with the church and required him to renounce the Copernican view. He was placed under house arrest.

Galileo was engaged in mathematical physics, and his most significant achievements are in the domain of the rules of motion. He rejected many of Aristotle's explanations, including that heavier bodies fall to the ground faster. Galileo threw objects from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, determining that all bodies fall with the same acceleration, and this led to the law that all bodies fall with the same speed in a vacuum. The same was later confirmed by other researchers. Galileo also established that the force of attraction of the earth's weight and the horizontal component act simultaneously on a thrown body, which was later more fully defined by Newton. Galileo also constructed the first pendulum clock, but it was not made until after his death.

And although different telescopes were made before Galileo, he made his own astronomical telescope, which was truly superior for its time. He was the first to discover the existence of craters and mountains on the Moon and Venus. He was also the first to discover the four moons around Jupiter.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616), English writer

William Shakespeare is considered the greatest playwright in the English language. He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon. He wrote 37 plays, among which the most important tragedies are: Romeo and Juliet (1595), Hamlet (1599-16010, Othello (1602-1604), King Lear (1604-1605), Macbeth (1606); comedies: Twelfth Night (1601 ), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595-1596); and historical works: Richard III (1591-1593) and Henry V (1599), as well as lighter works, love songs and sonatas.

JOHANNES KEPLER (1571-1630), German astronomer and mathematician

Kepler first worked as an assistant to the mathematician Tycho Brahe in Prague in 1600, and after Brahe's death in 1601, he inherited his position. In 1609, he published the New Astronomy, in which he elaborated his two laws of planetary motion. In 1611, he published Diopter, as the first work on geometrical optics. And he published his third law of planetary motion in Harmony of the World in 1619. Kepler accepted Copernicus' view of the universe and was a brilliant observer of the sky, recording his observations very precisely. Based on Breche's notes, he first mathematically calculated the motion of Mars. But, having received Copernicus's opinion about the rotation of the planets in regular circles, his calculations were not correct. Eight years later he established that the planets revolved around the Sun in elliptical paths, although the two centers of the ellipses were not very far apart, in cosmic terms of size. So in 1609, Kepler published his discoveries in "Astronomia Nova", with a crystal clear law of the universe. In his next work "Harmonices Mundi" (Sacred Harmony) he added a new law, which together made up "Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion".

According to the law of planetary motion in elliptical orbits, the Sun is located in one of the elliptical centers. His second law states that all planets traverse equal areas in equal time, regardless of the location of their orbits. This means that the planet moves faster approaching the Sun and slows down moving away from it. According to Kepler's third law, the time of a full revolution of a planet around the Sun represents its year. Expressed in astronomical units, that time squared is equal to the distance of a given planet from the Sun to the third degree: A≥/T″=K. K is a constant, the same for all planets.

PIERRE de FERMAT (1601-1665), French mathematician

The French mathematician De Fermet is considered the father of numerous theories. He was a lawyer by profession, and he studied mathematics as a hobby. He developed analytical geometry together with his colleague, also French, René Descartes (1596-1650).

BLAISE PASCAL (1623-1662), French scientist

Pascal built the first digital computer in 1642-1644, and in 1647 proved that air pressure in the atmosphere decreases with increasing altitude. Before him, the Italian Evangelist Torricelli (1608-1647) came to the same claim. Pascal established the law according to which pressure in liquids in a closed vessel is transmitted uniformly in all directions. The first hydrostatic press was built on this principle in 1650. Despite this, Pascal was also remembered as a mathematician, since he built the first calculating machine at the age of nineteen. In 1654, he made a mathematical discovery, which would have a huge impact on future generations, he began to calculate the probability of winning at the dice and with Pierre de Fermat derived the first theory of probability.

In the international measurement system, the unit of pressure Pascal was introduced, and in recent times, in computer terminology, the language Pascal, as a sign of Pascal's exceptional scientific merits. In his book "Pensees", about the theory of mathematical probability, he highlighted the perennial philosophical question of the existence of God. Pascal, to the same question, says: "A wise man will choose to believe, so if he is right, he will gain his recognition, and if he is wrong, he will lose nothing."

ROBERT BOYLE (1627-1691), Irish physicist and chemist

Robert Boyle began his studies in Geneva at the age of eleven. From 1654 he was at Oxford University, where he met Robert Hooke, with whom he did vacuum experiments. In 1662, he formulated his law, named after him "Boyle's Law", according to which gas pressure is inversely proportional to volume at constant temperature. Based on this law, Robert Hooke constructed the first vacuum pump, with the help of which he achieved a very high vacuum. Boyle also confirmed experimentally that sound does not travel through a vacuum and that all objects in a vacuum fall at the same speed. In the book "The Skeptic Chemist", he critically reviewed Aristotle's opinion on the composition of all objects in nature (from earth, water, air and fire). He proposed the idea that the elements were composed of corpuscles, although he did not know what kind, and this would become the basis of atomic theory much later.

CHRISTIAN HUYGENS (1629-1695), Dutch mathematician and physicist

Huygens was born in The Hague, studied law in Leiden and studied mathematics. He received his doctorate in Anzer in 1655. In 1655, together with his brother Constantine, he constructed a 10-foot telescope, with which he discovered Saturn's largest satellite, Titan, on March 25, 1655. A little later, he also explained Saturn's rings, as solid companions of the planet.

As a physicist, he believed that light behaves like a wave, which he published in 1690 in Traite de la Lumiere (Treatment with Light), which talks about the reflection and refraction of light. His opinion was ignored for a century, until it was reaffirmed by Thomas Young (1773-1829). Huygens is also remembered for a clock based on a pendulum, from 1657-1658, described in the Horologium (Clock). Huygens' clock became monumental for the advancement of research in the field of physics. The mathematical description of the pendulum was presented in the paper Horologium Oscillatorium (Clock Pendulum) in 1673. In that paper, Huygens first mentioned the concept of inertia. Huygens worked closely with Leibniz, whom he supported in the controversial conflict with Newton, in the domain of gravity. There are indications that Newton appropriated Huygens' findings in the field of light, as well as some of Robert Hooke's discoveries in the field of vacuum. Huygens is considered the founder of the French Academy of Sciences, to which he was elected a member in 1665 and whose reputation he raised with his works. Before that, he became a member of the English Royal Society in 1663.

ANTON Van LEVENHOEK (1632-1723), Dutch scientist

Leeuwenhoek is considered the first researcher of protozoa, human spermatozoa, bacteria and red blood cells (1674-1684). He studied protozoa in relation to tropical diseases, including malaria. He discovered that bacteria are the causative agents of cholera and tetanus. After his death, 247 microscopes remained in the world, seven of which are still in use today, one even with a resolution of 2 micrometers.

ROBERT HOOKE (1635-1703), English scientist

Robert Hooke met Robert Boyle in 1656 at Oxford University, where they did vacuum research together. Hooke discovered the law of elasticity and created the most perfect vacuum pump in 1659, with the help of which Boyle made many of his discoveries. In the domains of light testing, he accepted the conclusions of Christian Huygens, according to whom light behaves in the form of waves. Isaac Newton contradicted him on this point, and Robert Hooke later claimed to have made the discoveries that brought Newton his greatest fame, appropriating his results from personal correspondence (Quantum Loops, p. 65). Robert Hooke also claims to have proposed universal gravitation to Newton, which Newton later presented as his famous law of gravitation.

Hooke was the first to prove that all materials expand when heated, and only the Law of Elasticity was recognized for him in 1670. He proved that body deformations are directly proportional to the applied force. He was also the first to use the term cell in his work "Mikrographika". In this work, he also explained combustion, the crystal structure of snowflakes, and the study of fossils (long-extinct creatures). He came to conclusions that would later be explained by Charles Darwin. In the field of astronomy, Hooke located the Great Red Spot on Jupiter and was the first to claim that the great planet Jupiter rotates on its axis.

SEKI KOVA (1642-1708), Japanese mathematician

Seki Kova is considered the Japanese father of mathematics. As a child he proved to be a genius, developing a brilliant theory of determinants, which are used today to solve simultaneous equations.

ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727), English physicist and mathematician

Newton was born on Christmas Day, December 25 according to the Julian calendar. He was born at seven months, as Kepler. The works of Galileo, Kepler and Huygens were the steps through which astronomical science climbed to a magnificent knowledge. In 1672, Newton published his first scientific work, "A New Theory of Light and Colors", and in 1687, the work "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Matematika" (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), which today is known only as "Principia". . Early on, he got acquainted with the works of Euclid, Archimedes, Apollonius, Copernicus and other scientists, after which he felt his superiority.

Newton was not noticed as gifted at an early age. Nor did he excel at Cambridge University until the outbreak of the plague (1665-1666), when Trinity College was threatened with closure. In the domains of research, he first dealt with the consideration of the laws of nature and mathematics, when he formulated many scientific principles, which would later become the basis of his successes. He arrived at the universal law of gravitation through correspondence with Robert Hooke (Hooke claims that Newton appropriated the results of his research) in 1680. After convincing Edmond Halley in 1684 that he had observed that the planets moved in elliptical paths, according to Johann Kepler, Newton replied that it was based on the law of gravity. He then recalculated his proofs which he published in Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Matematika. This law of gravitation assumes that all bodies attract each other with forces proportional to their masses and inversely to the squares of their distances. With this, Newton was able to explain Kepler's elliptical orbits of the planets around the Sun. Based on Galileo's findings, Newton presented the laws of motion, according to which the Law of Inertia states: "that a body at rest or moving in a straight line at a constant speed tends to continue in that state until another force pulls it out of that state." According to the second law of motion, the force that causes motion is equal to the product of mass and acceleration, and the third law of motion states that the force of action is equal to the force of reaction. He made a prism that separated sunlight into red, yellow, green, blue and violet and called them the spectrum.

In 1660, Newton rebuilt Galileo's telescope, which eliminated the problem of aberration. Newton is accepted in science as one of the greatest minds of all time, although there is evidence that he did not really work hard for his achievements, but took a lot from others (Huygens, Hooke, Galileo). However, once an image is established, even without a real basis, it is difficult to change it. The same will be mentioned later in the accounts of Thomas Edison, Guglielmo Marconi and Albert Einstein.

Milutin Milanković has wonderful words of praise for all scientific greats. Here's what he says about Newton: "Newton's principles take first place in their content among all works of scientific literature." Due to the fact that the general law of nature to which the entire universe obeys is published in that work, and also because the movements of all heavenly bodies obey this law with absolute mathematical accuracy, so that we can follow them into the distant future and ancient past through calculations. That is why Newton's work represents even today the pinnacle of exact sciences, a model of positive philosophy and the pride of humanity as far as the power of the mind can reach. The creator of that work is considered the best example of human kindness.

To be continued...

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