The Gambler
A gifted mathematician, Ada Lovelace is considered to have written instructions for the first computer program in the mid-1800s.
Ada was asked to translate an article on Babbage's analytical engine that had been written by Italian engineer Luigi Federico Menabrea for a Swiss journal. She not only translated the original French text in English, but also added her own thoughts and ideas on the machine. Her notes ended up being three times longer than the original article. Her work was published in 1843, in an English science journal.
Ada's article attracted little attention when she was alive. In her later years, she tried to develop mathematical schemes for winning at gambling. Unfortunately, her schemes failed and put her in financial peril. Much like Tsunade-sama from the Naruto series!
The Ladies Man
Albert Einstein was a German-born physicist who developed the theory of relativity. He is considered the most influential physicist of the 20th century.
Einstein was popular with the ladies. In letters that he wrote to his second wife Elsa, Einstein readily acknowledged many extramarital affairs. He wrote that his girlfriends showered him with "unwanted" affection.
The Honourable Man
Alexander Graham Bell was one of the primary inventors of the telephone, did important work in communication for the deaf and held more than 18 patents.
Alexander Graham Bell, who was unable to complete the university program of his youth, received numerous Honorary Degrees from academic institutions.
Eureka!
Archimedes of Syracuse was an Ancient Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer.
One of the most famous stories about Archimedes involves one of his famous principles and his most famous quote. According to legend, king Hieron came to Archimedes when he suspected a crown maker had used some silver in a crown that was supposed to be pure gold. Archimedes was troubled for a while but One day when Archimedes took a bath, he realized that there was a direct correlation to the water overflowing from the tub with his immersed body. He allegedly ran through the streets naked yelling, "Eureka" after discovering this. This phrase has become commonplace when finally discovering the answer, since Archimedes.
Whether or not he actually discovered this while in the bath, he did create a principle of hydrostatics described in "On Floating Bodies". The principle states that a body immersed in a fluid is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the body. With this principle, Archimedes could help the king. He could decide how much gold was actually in the crown by comparing the weights of silver and gold in the water and compare that data with the crown. Using this principle, Archimedes could prove the crown was not pure gold and the crown maker had in fact tried to cheat the King.
Benjamin Franklin
Franklin invented the rocking chair.
A world-renowned polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat.
Next time you're sitting in a rocking chair and thinking, "This is the life!" , remember our good pal Benjamin Franklin. He fitted the legs of his armchair with curved pieces of wood and made an invention that is still widely used today.
Darwin's Hilarious Take On Marriage.
Darwin was a British scientist who laid the foundations of the theory of evolution and transformed the way we think about the natural world.
While the fact that Darwin married his own cousin, Emma Wedgewood, is very well-known, the events prior to their union aren’t as fairly revealed. In the months before his marriage, Darwin wasn’t very thrilled about tying the knot. He wrote an amusing list of pros and cons on the facets of marriage.
One upside Darwin saw to getting married was children:
“Children — (if it Please God) — Constant companion, (& friend in old age) who will feel interested in one, — object to be beloved & played with. — better than a dog anyhow”.
Darwin also liked the idea of a female companion:
“My God, it is intolerable to think of spending one’s whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, & nothing after all. — No, no won’t do. — Imagine living all one’s day solitarily in smoky dirty London House. — Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music perhaps — Compare this vision with the dingy reality of Grt. Marlbro’ St.”
On the other hand, Darwin felt that taking the celibate path also had its benefits:
“Freedom to go where one liked — choice of Society & little of it. — Conversation of clever men at clubs — Not forced to visit relatives, & to bend in every trifle. — to have the expense & anxiety of children — perhaps quarelling — Loss of time. — cannot read in the Evenings — fatness & idleness…”
These are but a few of the items Darwin included on his list that prove Darwin was just like every other guy. Eventually, he would decide to marry Wedgewood and even call the day of his proposal the “Day of days.” The couple would be happily married for 43 years until Darwin’s death in 1882 and have 10 children.
Eratosthenes
The First
Eratosthenes was a Greek mathematician who is famous for his work on prime numbers and for measuring the diameter of the earth.
The First
Eratosthenes was a Greek mathematician who is famous for his work on prime numbers and for measuring the diameter of the earth.
Many people called him "beta" which is the second letter in the greek Alphabet, he was called this because he was never first.
The Shoplifter
Although better known for her Silver Screen exploits, Austrian actress Hedy Lamarr also became a pioneer in the field of wireless communications following her emigration to the United States.
In 1942, during the heyday of her career, Lamarr earned recognition in a field quite different from entertainment. She and her friend, the composer George Antheil, received a patent for an idea of a radio signaling device, or "Secret Communications System," which was a means of changing radiofrequencies to keep enemies from decoding messages. Originally designed to defeat the German Nazis, the system became an important step in the development of technology to maintain the security of both military communications and cellular phones.
She was arrested twice for shoplifting, once in 1966 and once in 1991, but neither arrest resulted in a conviction.
He stuck a needle in his eye socket -- on purpose.
English physicist and mathematician Sir Isaac Newton, most famous for his law of gravitation, was instrumental in the scientific revolution of the 17th century.
In Newton's time little was known about the properties of light. In fact, people weren't even sure whether the eye created light or collected it. Curious, Newton embarked on his own detailed study of optics -- and he wasn't above acting as his own guinea pig, probing his eye with a blunt needle known as a bodkin.
As he wrote in his journal:
Sometimes he could be such a dick.
Leonardo da Vinci was a leading artist and intellectual of the Italian Renaissance who's known for his enduring works "The Last Supper" and "Mona Lisa."
He was a big fan of puns and word games, and Folio 44 of his Codex Arundel contains a long list of playful synonyms for penis.
The Incredible Woman
Mary Anning lived through a life of privation and hardship to be called "the greatest fossilist the world ever knew."
Mary had an incredible understanding of fossils and dinosaur skeletons. It was said that she could just glance at a fossil and immediately work out what it was and which dinosaur it came from.
He practiced medicine. Without a medical degree.
Astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus identified the concept of a heliocentric solar system, in which the sun, rather than the earth, is the center of the solar system.
Copernicus's father died when he was about 11, so his uncle, a bishop, took him and his three siblings under his protection. When the uncle became elderly and fell ill, Copernicus acted as his physician. Copernicus was also a physician for the bishop who succeeded his uncle and for members of his church chapter. He never received a medical degree.
HE WAS REALLY FUNNY
Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla developed the alternating-current electrical system that's widely used today, and discovered the rotating magnetic field (the basis of most AC machinery).
Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla developed the alternating-current electrical system that's widely used today, and discovered the rotating magnetic field (the basis of most AC machinery).
Most people don’t know that Tesla had a terrific sense of humor. For example, after dining with writer and poet Rudyard Kipling, he wrote this in a correspondence to a close friend:
April 1, 1901
My dear Mrs. Johnson,
What is the matter with inkspiller Kipling? He actually dared to invite me to dine in an obscure hotel where I would be sure to get hair and cockroaches in the soup.
Yours truly,
N. Tesla
During the war of the currents, alternating current (AC) -- favored by Tesla -- battled for wide acceptance with direct current (DC), favored by Edison. At stake was the basis for the entire nation’s electrical system. Edison launched a campaign against AC, claiming it was dangerous and could kill people; Tesla countered by publicly subjecting himself to 250,000-volt shocks to demonstrate AC’s safety. Ultimately, alternating current won the fight.
Freud Became a Doctor In Order to Marry the Woman He Loved
Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist best known for developing the theories and techniques of psychoanalysis.
When Freud was 26, he fell madly in love with a 21-year-old woman names Martha Bernays and they became engaged two months later. As a poor student still living with his parents, Freud's science lab job did not pay enough to support a family. "My sweet girl, it only pains me to think I should be so powerless to prove my love for you," Freud wrote to Martha.
Six months after they met, Freud gave up his scientific career and become a doctor. He spent three years training at the Vienna General Hospital and was rarely able to see his fiance who had moved to Germany. After four years of waiting, Freud and Bernays were married on September 14, 1886. The two went on to have six children.
Six months after they met, Freud gave up his scientific career and become a doctor. He spent three years training at the Vienna General Hospital and was rarely able to see his fiance who had moved to Germany. After four years of waiting, Freud and Bernays were married on September 14, 1886. The two went on to have six children.
TAXICAB NUMBER
Srinivasa Ramanujan was one of India's greatest mathematical geniuses. He made substantial contributions to the analytical theory of numbers and worked on elliptic functions, continued fractions, and infinite series.
G. H. Hardy told about Ramanujan. I remember once going to see him when he was ill. I had ridden in taxi cab number 1729 and remarked that the number seemed to me rather dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavorable omen. "No," he replied, "it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways."
1729 is the second taxicab number (the first is 2= 1^3 + 1^3). The number was also found in one of Ramanujan's notebooks dated years before the incident.
"Every positive integer is one of Ramanujan's personal friends"
- John Littlewood, on hearing of the taxicab incident
Fear of parrots
Steve Irwin was a famous Australian wildlife enthusiast who was at the helm of the popular Crocodile Hunter series.
Despite working with dangerous animal like crocodiles and snakes, Steve’s greatest fear was of parrots.
The "second string" substitute
Steven Chu is an American physicist best known for his research at Bell Labs in cooling and trapping of atoms with laser light, which won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997. He also served as the 12th United States Secretary of Energy from 2009 to 2013.
Chu took an interest in sports, teaching himself how to pole vault using only bamboo poles.
Edison Proposed Marriage ... by Morse Code!
Inventor Thomas Edison created such great innovations as the electric light bulb and the phonograph. A savvy businessman, he held more than a 1,000 patents for his inventions.
On Christmas Day in 1871, at the age of 24, Edison married his 16-year old employee Mary Stilwell, after meeting her just two months earlier. By February, Edison was exasperated at his wife's inability to invent that he wrote in his diary "Mrs Mary Edison My wife Dearly Beloved Cannot invent worth a Damn!!" and "My Wife Popsy Wopsy Can't Invent." Mary gave birth to three children, the first two Edison nicknamed "Dot" and "Dash."
Two years after Mary died, Edison met and married 20-year-old Mina Miller. The story of how the two met is quite interesting: After Mary's death, Edison regularly went to Boston and stayed with his friends Mr. and Mrs. Gilliard. The Gilliards made sure that some eligible young lady was "visiting" at the same time. Edison, who was half-deaf, bug-eyed, plagued with halitosis and bad dandruff, would stick his face very close to the girl's in order to hear her words. This naturally creeped them all out!
One day, the Gilliards introduced Edison to Mina Miller, to whom Edison was immediately smitten:
Edison found his own version of paradise in Fort Myers, then a small village, and apparently decided that he must do three things: build a winter home in Florida, marry Mina, and bring her to his tropical Eden. Once back in New York, Edison--normally a workaholic--was obsessed with his new love. He wrote in his diary at this time: "Saw a lady who looked like Mina. Got thinking about Mina and came near being run over by a streetcar. If Mina interferes much more will have to take out an accident policy."
Edison taught Mina Morse code so they could communicate in secret by tapping into each other's hands when her family was around. One day, Edison asked .-- --- ..- .-.. -.. -.-- --- ..- -- .- .-. .-. -.-- -- . and Mina replied -.-- . ...
Thanks to a coin toss, Orville was the first brother airborne.
The Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, were two American brothers, inventors, and aviation pioneers who are credited with inventing and building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight, on December 17, 1903.
The brothers tossed a coin to see who would first test the Wright Flyer on the sands of Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. Older brother Wilbur won the toss, but his first attempt on December 14, 1903, was unsuccessful and caused minor damage to the aircraft. Three days later, Orville, in coat and tie, lay flat on his stomach on the plane’s lower wing and took the controls. At 10:35 a.m., the Wright Flyer moved down the guiding rail with Wilbur running alongside to balance the delicate machine. For 12 seconds, the aircraft left the ground before touching down 120 feet away in the soft sands. The brothers exchanged turns at the controls three more times that day, and each flight covered an increasing distance with Wilbur’s final flight lasting nearly a minute and covering a distance of 852 feet.
No comments:
Post a Comment