In the year 1924, Satyendra Nath Bose, a brilliant young lecturer in physics, was teaching a class of postgraduate students at Dhaka University, now in Bangladesh. He was demonstrating the prevailing classical…
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Nikola Tesla and the gift of hyper-phantasia
How will you describe a scientist-inventor who possessed a rare natural gift that allowed him to build, test and run complex machinery entirely within his own mind. He was none other than…
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Accidental physicist, essential discovery: How James Chadwick unlocked the atom
He was sixteen years old and he had come to Manchester with one plan: study mathematics. But when he arrived at the university registration desk in 1908, a physicist was sitting there…
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Jules Verne: Father of science fiction
Did you know that Jules Verne— the legendary “father of science fiction”— was shaped by a childhood vow to travel “only in his imagination” ? According to family lore, an 11-year-old Verne, born in the…
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How ‘shunya’ shaped the modern world: A history of the number zero
The “story” of zero is more than just a lesson in mathematics; it’s a centuries-long evolution that transformed a place-holder into a powerful mathematical tool (In mathematics, a placeholder is a symbol,…
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Antoine Lavoisier: The father of modern chemistry and a victim of the Revolution
Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794) is widely celebrated as the “Father of Modern Chemistry.” He transformed chemistry from a field of qualitative speculation into a rigorous quantitative science. A famous anecdote about Lavoisier highlights the tragic…
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Albert Einstein’s Nobel Prize win might surprise you
While Albert Einstein is most famous for his theory of relativity, he actually received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 for his explanation of the photoelectric effect. This work, published in…
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Giving your life
Itzhak Perlman is one of the finest violinists alive today. Several years ago, Perlman agreed to attend a charity reception after one of his concerts in Vienna. Tickets for the champagne reception were…
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Émilie du Châtelet: Pioneer among women scientists
Émilie du Châtelet was a French mathematician, physicist and author during the Age of Enlightenment (1685-1815 AD). Born on December 17, 1706, in Paris, she was the only daughter of Louis Nicolas…
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The reluctant doctor who cracked the code of humanity’s deadliest disease
Discover how Sir Ronald Ross unlocked the secret of malaria in 1897, and see how his Nobel Prize-winning discovery shapes today’s modern vaccine rollout. How does a passionate poet, forced into medical…