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GIANTS OF HUMAN CIVILIZATION 13

Dr sci. SIMO JELAČA

CHANDRA SEKHARA RAMAN (1888-1970), Indian physicist

Chandra Sekara Raman studied the diffraction of sound and light at the University of Madras, with very modest means. From 1917 to 1933 he was a professor at Calcutta University. Raman was the first to confirm that light is scattered by molecules, changing the frequency, which he called the Raman effect. These findings were confirmed by quantum theory, which led to the development of a method for identifying the shape of molecules, called Raman spectroscopy. In 1930, he became the first Asian to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.

EDWIN HUBBLE (1889-1953), American astronomer

Today it is known that the Hubble telescope is located in space, with the help of which knowledge about the cosmos was developed in a revolutionary way. Launched in 1990, it has been continuously sending images from space since then. She confirmed that the universe is expanding, on the basis of which the age of the universe was calculated and the theory of the Big Bang was established. Edwin Hubble worked at the Mount Wilson observatory from 1919, and in 1923 he published the first theory about the expansion of the universe, beyond our galaxy called the Milky Way. In 1925, he proposed a galaxy classification scheme.

There is a story that Albert Einstein, upon arriving in America, visited Hubble on Mount Wilson. As he had previously worked to determine the cosmic constant, the forces that naturally resist gravitational attraction in the cosmos, Hubble pointed out to Einstein the existence of millions of galaxies, so when Einstein personally looked through the largest telescope in the world, he admitted to Hubble that his cosmic constant was a big mistake. Einstein investigated it alone, without Mileva Marić, which is why he could look blindly at something that would be disproved rather than confirmed.

IGOR SIKORSKY (1889-1972), Russian helicopter designer.

He was born in Kiev, Ukraine. Even while he was studying, he fantasized about flying, so he first studied the airplanes of Leonardo da Vinci, then Louis Bleriot and Ferdinand Zeppelin. His first Sikorsky helicopter model was built in 1909-1910, when he was 20 years old, after which he focused on aircraft construction. So in 1913, he built the first four-engine airplane, Le Grand. Before World War I, he became the leading aircraft designer in Russia, and after the Russian Revolution he emigrated to France, and then to the United States, where in 1923 he founded the Sikorsky Aero Engineering Company. There he built several planes, including the famous American Clipper, and the VS-300 helicopter, which he personally tested on September 14, 1939. He patented the basics of flying a helicopter. The construction of the rotor on the helicopter's tail, for its horizontal movement, is considered the biggest contribution to helicopter flying. At the end of World War II, over 400 helicopters designed by Igor Sikorsky rolled off the assembly lines in the United States.

LADISLAV RUŽIČKA (1887-1976), Swiss chemist

Ladislav Ružička was born in Vukovar, to a Czech father and a Croatian mother. He lived and worked in Switzerland, engaged in polymethylene and terpene research. He won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1939.

VLADIMIR ZVORIKIN (1889-1982), Russian inventor

Vladimir Zvorykin made the first electric television. From 1923, he used a cathode ray tube, which he called the Kinescope. In 1938, he created the first practical TV camera, which he patented, calling it the Iconoscope.

JAMES CHADWICK (1891-1974), English physicist

James Cadwick completed his studies at the University of Manchester and worked with Ernest Redeford for the first two years. He then went to Berlin, where he worked with Hans Geiger. From 1920 he worked again with Redeford in Cavendish's laboratory in Cambridge. In 1932, Kadwick discovered the neutron in the atomic nucleus, and in 1935 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics. He noticed that the number of protons in an atom corresponds to approximately half of its weight and that they also correspond to the number of negative charges on the electrons. The weight of an electron is only about one-thousandth of the weight of a proton, and the weight of a proton is about half the weight of an atom. Consequently, Kadwick suggested that the missing mass of the atom was contained in the protons, their charge hidden within the nucleus. The problem seemed to be that the nucleus of the atom was made up of parts, for which there was no evidence yet. And finally, Kadvik solved the puzzle in 1932 after interpreting the results of Irene Curie and Pavle Savić (Irene Curie is the daughter of Maria and Pierre Curie). In 1932, Irena Curie, Frederik Juliot-Crie and Pavle Savić discovered that when the element barium is exposed to alpha radiation, the result is that due to the radiation, protons leave the given substance. They concluded that this emission caused gamma radiation. After that, Kadwick made the conclusion that neutral particles, which he called neutrons, of the same weight as protons, cause the given reaction and this is in fact radiation. A similar phenomenon was predicted by Radeford in 1920, and now the same has been confirmed. Kadwick, in other words, confirmed that the number of neutrons and protons in an atom of an element is 50% each (half of the previously missing mass). Kadvik spent four years in

FREDERICK BANTING (1891-1941), Canadian scientist

Frederick Banting graduated from the University of Toronto in 1916, where he worked with Charles Best to study the role of the pancreas in diabetes. In 1923, they patented the production of insulin, and the Eli Lilly company began its production. For these achievements he received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1923, which he shared with John James Richard McLeod. The discovery of insulin made life easier for millions of diabetics, and many lives were saved. Benting died a little later in a plane crash en route from Newfoundland to London.

ARTHUR COMPTON (1892-1962), American physicist

Arthur Compton studied the transfer of energy from photons to electrons, the "Compton effect". He received the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1927, along with Charles Wilson, for his work on the wavelengths of scattered photons. Compton became a leading physicist in the fields of nuclear energy, X-ray radiation and plutonium production. In 1941, he was asked by the US government to produce plutonium for the atomic bomb, making him one of the main executors of the Manhattan Project. In 1942, he built the first nuclear reactor in Chicago together with nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi.

LOUIS De BROGLIE (1892-1987), French physicist

Louis de Broglie spent the entire First World War in the army, and after the war he received his doctorate at the University of Paris in the field of quantum theory in 1924. In 1927 he demonstrated the wave properties of electrons and other subatomic particles, and in 1929 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics. At the beginning of his career he studied history, during the war he worked in a radio station located on the Eiffel Tower, and after the war he got a job at the Sorbonne. It is based on Mileva and Albert Einstein's 1905 paper on the photoelectric effect, which Louis de Broglie explained in terms of electromagnetic waves, which behaved like particles. And indeed, the waves consisted of a stream of particles, called quanta or photons. De Broglie simply reasoned "If waves can behave like particles, why shouldn't particles also behave like waves".

IVO ANDRIĆ (1892-1975), Yugoslav writer

Andrić was born in Travnik, he attended high school in Sarajevo and as a young man he belonged to the revolutionary movement Mlada Bosna. He was a great supporter of Yugoslavia. He studied in Zagreb, Vienna and Krakow. After the assassination of Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, he returned to the country, but the Austrian authorities persecuted him and imprisoned him in Šibenik and Maribor. He had a sickly nature. From 1919 he lived in Belgrade, and from 1920 he started working in the diplomatic service. He received his first appointment in the Vatican, and from 1921 in the Consulate in Bucharest. From 1922 he was in Trieste, from 1923 he was vice-consul in Graz, where he received his doctorate in 1924. During those years he wrote a lot and published his works. Returning to Belgrade in 1926, he was accepted as a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU), and shortly thereafter he was appointed vice consul in Marseille, and three years later he was transferred to the consulate general in Paris. From 1928 he was vice consul in Madrid, and soon after that in Brussels. Since 1930, he has been working in Geneva as the secretary of the Permanent Delegation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia to the League of Nations. From 1933, he was back in Belgrade, where he worked as an advisor in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and then as head of the same ministry from 1935. From 1937, he was an assistant to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and in that year he received the orders of Poland and France (the Legion of Honor ). From April 1, 1939, he was appointed as plenipotentiary minister of foreign affairs in Berlin, where he presented his credentials to Hitler, who was then in power in Germany. When Belgrade was bombed on April 6, 1941, Andrić returned to Belgrade on April 7. He was offered a safe haven in Switzerland, but he decided on occupied Belgrade. Soon he will retire and live as a tenant. He wrote a lot, but during the war he would not publish anything until his people had something to eat. In those years, he wrote Travnička hronika and Na Drini Cuprija, and both books were published for the first time after the liberation. In addition to the mentioned significant works by Andrić, there are: Cursed Avlija; El Ponto; Riots; Bridge on Žepa; Anika's time; Thirst; Jelena, the missing woman; Conversation with Goya; Njegoš as a tragic hero of Kosovar thought and many others. After liberation, Andrić was the president of the Association of Writers of Yugoslavia, and since 1946 a regular member of SANU. He traveled a lot in his life and spoke many languages. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961 and is considered the greatest Yugoslav creator, a writer of myth-making power.

J.B.S. HALDANE (1892-1964), Scottish scientist

In 1924, Haldane was the first to prove that enzymes work on the principles of thermodynamics, according to which he believed that natural selection is the true process of evolution. In 1932 he was also the first to determine the rate of mutation or gene change, and in 1936 he proved the genetic link between hemophilia and color blindness. In 1957, he went to India, as a sign of protest against the Anglo-French invasion of Suez, and received Indian citizenship in 1961.

PYOTR LEONIDOVICH KAPICA 91894-1984), Russian physicist

Kapica was born in Kronstadt, and worked for more than 10 years at the University of Cambridge. Together with John Allen, he discovered superfluidity in 1937. When he went on an official visit to the Soviet Union, the Soviet authorities did not allow him to return to Cambridge, but he was given permission to form the Institute of Physics, which he did. He explored the field of low temperatures and received the Nobel Prize in Physics, together with Arno Alain Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson, in 1978.

NIKOLAJ NIKOLAJEVIĆ SEJMONOV (1896-1986), Russian chemist and physicist

He was born in Saratov, and graduated from the University of Petrovgrad in 1917. His scientific contributions are: Quantitative theory of chemical chain reactions, theory of thermal explosion and combustion of gas mixtures. Together with Cyril Norman Hinshelwood, he received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1956.

JOHN COCKROFT (1897-1967), English physicist

Cockroft's work on the development of the hydrogen bomb (H-bomb) and the application of nuclear fusion are the greatest contributions to the development of English nuclear science. He was in charge of the construction of nuclear power plants in Canada during the Second World War, and then returned to England, where he was appointed director of the Atomic Center in Harwell. Working under the direction of Ernest Redeford at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, he created a device for accelerating particles (Accelerator), together with Ernest Walton, and in 1932, with the help of this device, they performed the first splitting of an atom. John Cockroft and Ernest Walton were awarded the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physics.

HOWARD FLOREY (1898-1968), Australian scientist

Together with Ernst Chain and Alexandra Fleming, Howard Florey received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1935 for the production of penicillin, which was used as an antibiotic. As such, penicillin was used during World War II and saved countless lives, both on and off the front lines.

TROFIM LYSENKO (1898-1976), Russian biologist

Lysenko became a famous and recognized Russian scientist, that he was even able to reject Gregor Mandel's theory about hereditary traits. Lysenko emphasized his theory, according to which the characteristics of individuals change during the lifetime of individuals. This theory was later rejected in science, but it still remained famous and successful in genetics. He also introduced his method of rapid seed germination in the spring, which significantly contributed to the increase in agricultural yields. He had the power to silence any of his opponents, until Nikita Khrushchev removed him from that position in 1965.

FREDERIC and IRENE JOLIOT-CURIE and Irene Joliot-Curie (Frédéric 1900-1958; Irene 1897-1956), French physicists

Frédéric Zoliot was born in Paris, after graduating he worked at the Radium Institute from 1925 and became professor of nuclear physics at the Sorbonne in 1937. Irene Curie, daughter of Marie and Pierre Curie, was also born in Paris and started working. at her mother's Institute for Radium, from 1921. She married Frédéric Joly in 1926, who was her mother's student. Both worked on radioactivity and transmutation of elements. In 1934, they discovered that when certain elements are bombarded with alpha particles, the radiation continues even after the initial bombardment. Alpha particles produce isotopes of phosphorus, which is not found in nature. For this discovery, Irene and Frédéric Joliot received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935. Irena was exposed to radiation during her work and died of leukemia, as did her mother Marie Curie. Pavle Savić worked with Irena Žolio-Kiri in the field of nuclear fission (splitting of atoms), for which they narrowly missed the Nobel Prize, which would have been the second after Irene and her mother and Pavle Savić, a Serbian physicist. , certainly the world's greatest recognition for his contribution to science.

Frédéric and Irene Joliot-Curie (Frédéric 1900-1958; Irene 1897-1956), French physicists

Frédéric Zoliot was born in Paris, after graduating he worked at the Radium Institute from 1925 and became professor of nuclear physics at the Sorbonne in 1937. Irene Curie, daughter of Marie and Pierre Curie, was also born in Paris and started working. at her mother's Institute for Radium, from 1921. She married Frédéric Joly in 1926, who was her mother's student. Both worked on radioactivity and transmutation of elements. In 1934, they discovered that when certain elements are bombarded with alpha particles, the radiation continues even after the initial bombardment. Alpha particles produce isotopes of phosphorus, which is not found in nature. For this discovery, Irene and Frédéric Joliot received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935. Irena was exposed to radiation during her work and died of leukemia, as did her mother Marie Curie. Pavle Savić worked with Irena Žolio-Kiri in the field of nuclear fission (splitting of atoms), for which they narrowly missed the Nobel Prize, which would have been the second after Irene and her mother and Pavle Savić, a Serbian physicist. , certainly the world's greatest recognition for his contribution to science.

ENRICO FERMI (1901-1954), American physicist

Enrico Fermi, an Italian by birth, worked with Max Born in Göttingen. In 1934 he discovered the so-called Slow Neutrons, and in 1938 he received the Nobel Prize for Physics. In 1939 he immigrated to America and in 1942 he carried out the first nuclear reaction. From 1949, he began to agitate against the creation of the H-bomb. Fermi discovered the reaction technique of bombarding elements with neutrons. Then the German scientists Otto Hahn, Fritz Strassmann and Lise Meitner confirmed that the uranium nucleus splits into a large number of smaller elements during the bombardment. With this reaction of nuclear fission (Fission) it was shown that the mass of elements is translated into enormous energy, for the first time according to the formula of Mileva Marić and Albert Einstein E = m c2 This knowledge was discovered by Lise Meitner and her sister Otto Fisch when they escaped from the Nazis. Fermi soon saw the importance of this invention and began to experiment based on the work of Niels Bohr. They first defined the best and worst characteristics of a reaction with the isotope uranium 235, achieving a nuclear reaction and confirming that building an atomic bomb was possible. Fermi was immediately included in the Manhattan Project team, with which the Americans tried to build the bomb before the Germans. Fermi led the team in Chicago and his team completed the task on December 2, 1942. After three years, the technology was perfected and the first atomic bomb showed its terrifying results over Hiroshima.

Based on the results of the work of Joliot - Curie (Frederic & Irene Joliot - Curie) from 1934, according to which it is possible to bombard radioactive isotopes with alpha particles, Fermi concluded that the reaction with neutrons would be even stronger, so slow neutrons were discovered. In doing so, he discovered several new radioactive isotopes, which earned him the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1938.

  To be continued...

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