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GIANTS OF HUMAN CIVILIZATION 14

Dr sci. SIMO JELAČA

WERNER HEISENBERG (1901-1954), German physicist

Werner Heisenberg worked with Max Born and in 1925 discovered a radical approach to quantum theory, which he formulated in 1927 as the uncertainty principle. In 1932, he received the Nobel Prize for Physics. He was not a supporter of either the wave or the corpuscular theory of particles. His simple solution consisted in finding factors that could mathematically predict the behavior of atoms and that could be measured or observed, namely the frequency and emission of light. Using algebraic calculations, he came up with a mathematical solution called Matrix Mechanics. With this, expected amounts of energy could be calculated, for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1932.

After Chadwick discovered the neutron in 1932, Heisenberg proposed a model of protons and neutrons held together in the nucleus of an atom. The Nazi government in Germany required Heisenberg to lead the team to create the atomic bomb, but they did not succeed in time. Even after the war, he never wanted the same project to come true. Even if the realization of the given project was close, Heisenberg was in such a position that he could always stop it.

LINUS CARL PAULING (1901-1994), American chemist

Linus Carl Poling received his doctorate at the California Institute of Technology, and he studied the complex molecules of living organisms, primarily protein molecules. In 1940, he became interested in cyclic anemia cells. He is the winner of two Nobel Prizes, so, after Marie Curie, he is the second person to receive such an honor. He received the first prize for chemistry in 1954, and the second for peace in 1962. When asked why he became a scientist, he answered that he wanted to understand the world. He was the first scientist in the world to understand the importance of bonds in molecules and crystals. In structural chemistry, he applied quantum theory, thus creating structural chemistry in the modern sense. He summarized all his ideas in the book "The Nature of the Chemical Bond and Structure of Molecules and Crystals" (The Nature of the Chemical Bond and Structure of Molecules and Crystals) in 1939.

After that, he moved into the field of biochemistry research, forming a new branch of molecular biology, with the discovery of the first molecular cell disease of cyclic anemia. He formulated the theory of the immune system and the structure of proteins, with an explanation of the action of anesthetics. He also participated in defining DNA, the structure of nucleic acid.

Pauling joined the fight against nuclear weapons and war in general. He refused to participate in the Manhattan Project for the production of an atomic bomb. As a result of his work, the two Nobel Prizes mentioned above.

CHARLES LINDBERG (1902-1974), American aviator

Charles Lindbergh became a famous name in 1927, when he became the first man to fly across the Atlantic, from New York to Paris, in a single-seater Ryan plane, in 33 hours and 30 minutes. In 1954, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his autobiography "The Spirit of St. Louis".

BARBARA McCLINTOCK (1902-1992), American geneticist

Barbara McClintock was involved in the genetics of corn, which led her to the idea that certain genes can control others and that they can be transmitted through chromosomes from one generation to the next. She explained how identical cells cause different functions in the skin, muscles, bones and nervous system. This also explains how new species are created. Her findings were ignored for a long time, but in 1983 she won the Nobel Prize in Physiology (medicine), and her theories were widely accepted in genetics.

JOVAN KARAMATA (1902-1967), Serbian mathematician

Jovan Karamata was a professor at universities in Belgrade, Göttingen and Geneva. He is a member of several science academies and scientific societies. Karamata is one of the biggest names in Serbian science, a world-renowned mathematician, and ten highly recognized mathematicians graduated from his school who established themselves in the country and the world. He was the first to introduce set theory in the 1930s. His book "Elementary theory of plurality" is known from this domain.

JOHN von NEUMANN (1903-1957), Hungarian-American mathematician

He is a stupid mathematician who first introduced the computer theory of memory and random access. He was born in Budapest, and since 1930 he has been living and working at Princeton University in the United States of America. From 1943 he was a consultant to the Manhattan Project for the production of an atomic bomb, and from 1954 a member of the Atomic Energy Commission. His most famous mathematical theory is the theory of linear operations.

ROBERT OPPENHEIMER (1904-1967), American physicist

Oppenheimer studied at the University of Cambridge with Redford and at the University of Göttingen with Nils Bohr and Max Born, where he received his doctorate. He was appointed director of the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico, for the production of the atomic bomb. After the use of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, he resigned from his post. During a Secret Service hearing, his contract with the Atomic Energy Commission was canceled in 1953. The US Secret Service attributed his loyalty to the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Fermi Prize (Enrico Fermi 1901-1954).

GRACE HOPPER (1906-1992), American computer expert

Grace Hopper was educated at Yale University, and in 1945 she came to Harvard University, where she built the first computer. She also created the first computer language. From 1959, she worked at the Pentagon, where she created the computer language Cobol, which is still in use.

VLADIMIR PRELOG (1906-1998), Croatian chemist

Vladimir Prelog, originally a Croat, studied stereochemical organic molecules and their reactions, for which he received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1975.

LEV DAVIDOVIĆ LANDAU (1908-1968), Russian physicist and mathematician

Lav Landau was born in Baku, Azerbaijan. He worked in the fields of superconductivity research, quantum electrodynamics, nuclear physics and particle physics. He developed the theory of secondary transmissions. From 1937, he was the head of the theoretical physics department at the Institute of Physics of the Soviet Union. He was a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. During the Great Purge, it was closed in 1938. In 1962, he survived a car accident that made it impossible for him to continue working in the laboratory. Today in Russia there is a Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, created by his team of scientists. Landau received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1962 for his pioneering work on condensed matter theory, which was applied to liquid helium. Special prizes were awarded to him for a book on theoretical physics. After his death, he was buried at the Novodevičan Cemetery in Moscow.

EDWARD TELLER (1908-), American physicist and chemist

A naturalized American of Hungarian origin, Edvard Teller received his doctorate in physical chemistry at the University of Leipzig in 1930. From 1931 he worked in Copenhagen with Nils Bohr, and in 1935 he emigrated to the United States and in 1939 joined Enrico Fermi's team. at the University of Chicago, where he did research in the field of nuclear physics. From 1943, he was involved in the atomic bomb production team of the Manhattan Project, under Robert Oppenheimer. Edvard Teller worked on the development of the hydrogen bomb (H-bomb), the first experiment of which was carried out in 1952. From 1982 to 1983, he was an adviser to President Ronald Reagan on the Star Wars project, as a strategic defense. system.

The physical effect of a hydrogen bomb is incomparably greater than the effect of an atomic bomb, potentially even a thousand times. Before the atomic bomb was made, Teller advocated the use of the Super Bomb (H-bomb), whose effect is based on fusion (a process opposite to the atomic bomb's nuclear reaction, fission, the splitting of atoms). Enrico Fermi first proposed this idea to Edward Teller in 1941, describing that an atomic bomb could be used as a primer, to create sufficient temperature and pressure to cause a thermonuclear reaction of hydrogen isotopes, with much greater effect. Teller immediately accepted the idea and although he worked on the atomic bomb team, he argued that he should go for the Super bomb. After the end of the Second World War, work on the H-bomb continued, as prestige over the Soviet Union. That is why Americans consider Edvard Teller the father of the H bomb. The US military still has hydrogen bombs in its arsenal today, which are claimed to be a thousand times more powerful than atomic bombs.

PAVLE SAVIĆ (1908-1994), Serbian physicist

Pavle Savić was born in Thessaloniki, Greece, and studied physical chemistry at the University of Belgrade. From 1935 to 1939, he worked at the French Institute for Radium (Institut de Radium), which at that time was considered the best in the world in the field of nuclear physics. He worked together with Inera Kiri, the daughter of Maria and Pierre Kiri, in the domain of atomic fission (splitting of atoms) and for the results achieved, they narrowly missed the Nobel Prize. Since 1945, Pavle Savić has been a professor at the University of Belgrade, and since 1946 a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts SANU and its president from 1971 to 1981. He is the founder of the Institute for Nuclear Research VINČA. and its director from 1960 to 1966. He left his post when he disagreed with Yugoslav politicians and returned to the university. He remained active in science until he died in 1994.

WILLIAM SHOCKLEY (1910-1989), American physicist

William Shockley was born in London, and studied in California and Massachusetts, where he received his doctorate in 1936. He worked in Bell's telephone laboratory from 1936, and during World War II as director of research in the anti-submarine division of the US Navy. . In 1947 he made the first transistor, and from 1960 he favored the Americans for race in espionage. Together with John Bardin (1908-1991) and Walter Hauser Braten (1902-1987), he received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1956.

From 1948, Sokli worked on the quantum theory of semiconductors, where he advanced his discoveries in the field of miniaturization technology. In 1955, he made the first silicon transistor, which proved to be better than germanium, and potentially cheaper. He located his company in San Francisco, where the famous Silicon Valley was born. Since 1965, Sokli has devoted himself to the research of hereditary intelligence. He concluded that the people from the Caucasus region are the most intelligent and publicly demanded that the people with the lowest level of intelligence (KI) be sterilized, in order to prevent the dilution of the intelligence of the human race. This caused the anger of the American public.

DOROTHY HODGKIN (1910-1994), English chemist

Dorothy Hodgkin is the third woman winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964. She was born in Cairo, Egypt, and studied at Oxford and Cambridge. She is the wife of Tomas Hodžkin. She studied the complexity of organic molecules using X-ray crystallography. Using this method, she determined the structures of penicillin, insulin and vitamin B12. She was the first in science to apply computer analysis of the structure of complex compounds, which enabled her to obtain two-dimensional models. She is one of only two women awarded the British Order of Merit.

ЈACQUES CUSTO (1910-1997), French explorer of the underwater world

Zak Kusto is a celebrated explorer of the underwater world. His television series The Underwater World of Jacques Cousteau was watched all over the world. He first worked in the navy as a researcher during the Nazi occupation of France, and from 1936 he tried various diving techniques and in 1943 created the "Underwater Lung", a device for deep diving and underwater recording. From 1951, he worked on his ship Calypso in expeditions on all the seas of the world

ALAN TURING (1912-1954), English mathematician

Turing studied at the University of Cambridge, and in 1937 he described the Turing machine as a hypothetical computer and in 1940 he created the so-called Bombu, a device for deciphering German codes. He was a visionary of the modern era and his name remains associated with the first computer. Its foundation was based on a digital system with the possibilities of reading, writing, erasing, memorizing and the like, all through mathematical instructions. The first production of this type of device began in 1950.

During the Second World War, Turing solved the algorithms of German encrypted codes, which he used to intercept the messages of German submarines in the Battle of the Atlantic. Turing did this on his computer of the time, which he called the bomb. By doing so, he saved the lives of thousands of sailors. After the war, he started to produce computers, and was also involved in the creation of the first programming language. He believed that computers will reach perfection only when they have memory like humans, i.e. through the realization of vestal intelligence.

WERNER von BRAUN (1912-1977), German scientist

Von Braun is a gifted physicist, who was interested in rocket technology from an early age. During the Second World War, he worked in the German rocket program. His first and very significant achievement was the V-2 rocket. After the end of the war, the Americans took him to America, where he worked with Robert Goddard, the American pioneer of rocket technology. He became an American citizen in 1955 and participated in the development of the American space program at NASA. There they developed the Saturn rocket, which was later used to launch the Apollo spacecraft and the first man on the moon.

JONAS SALK (1914-1995), American physicist

Dr. Salk worked in Michigan on the influenza immunization project, and in Pittsburgh on the development of the influenza vaccine. He discovered the vaccine against poliomyelitis, which was declared safe in 1955. He began researching a dead virus, which he obtained by immersing live viruses in formaldehyde. He determined that there are three types of poliovirus. He performed the first experiments on monkeys, and then on a small number of people in 1952. He came to the conclusion that antibodies are created without noticeable unwanted effects. He published his findings in 1953, and then organized testing on two million children with great success in 1954. The following year, the vaccine was approved for use.

After that, Albert Brus Sabin (1906-1993) created a vaccine against poliomyelitis with a live culture, which achieved even better success, and was taken orally. It was massively tested in Russia and has since been used worldwide, known as Sabin's polio vaccine.

FRANCIS CREEK (1916- ), English biologist

Francis Crick is one of the three winners of the Nobel Prize, for his work on the discovery of DNA, as the carrier of vital functions in 1962. After the Second World War, he worked at the University of Cambridge, examining the structure of organic molecules. In 1951, they were joined by the American James Watson, who suggested that it is worth examining nucleic acid (DNA), which plays a major role in the transmission of hereditary traits. Thus, by working together, they identified the structure of DNA and the process of cell reproduction, which explained the copying of genes, for which they were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1962.

RICHARD FEYNMAN (1918-1988), American physicist

Richard Feynman established the theorem of quantum electrodynamics, explaining the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and charged particles (protons and electrons). He finished his studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and after his studies, he worked on the Manhattan Project and taught theoretical physics at Cornell University, and then in California. He developed a system known as the Feynman diagram, v the transition from one "space-time" frame to another. He received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1965.

FREDERIK SANGER (1918-), English biochemist

Frederik Senger is the first scientist in the world to receive two Nobel Prizes in the same field, for chemistry in 1958 and 1980, and the third in the world to receive a total of two. He studied in Cambridge and defined the structure of insulin molecules. For this, he received the first Nobel Prize in 1958, and twenty years later he received the second in 1980 for his work on DNA. He determined the binding order (sequence) of molecules in DNA.

To be continued...

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