Archimedes to Hawkings, Clifford Pickover

Archimedes to Hawkings, Clifford Pickover

This dense volume examines = “Laws of Science and the great minds behind them.”  It gives the mathematically formulas and descriptions of the laws then a short bio and perspective on the author.  It is an excellent review of science.

“French physicist Jean-Baptiste Biot (1774- 1862) made advances in applied mathematics, astronomy, elasticity, electricity, magnetism, optics and mineralogy.  Not only is the law of magnetic force named after him, but so is the shiny mineral biotite.”

“Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) was a childhood prodigy and learned to calculate before he could talk.”

Galileo Galilei  (1564-1642) – “Nature’s great book is written in mathematical symbols.”

Michael Guillen wrote – “Long before Christians had come to believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, natural philosophers had stumbled on their own trinity: electricity, magnetism and gravitational force.”

Olm’s Law was so poorly received and his emotions scraped so raw that he resigned his post at Jesuit’s College of Cologne, where he was a professor of mathematics.  His work was ignored and he lived in poverty for much of his life.”  “The German minister of education sait that Ohm was “a professor who preached such heresies was unworthy to teach science.”

Newton was so distressed by criticism from his colleague British physicist Robert Hooke (1635-1703) that Newton decided to withhold publication of one of his greatest works Opticks, until after Hooke died.  Newton also went almost mad in another argument about his theory of colors with several English Jesuits who criticized Newton’s experiments.”

Ludwig Boltzman who saw the concept of atoms explained how heat could be explained by their motion was attacked by contemporaries in science and “Boltzmann’s depression worsened and he killed himself in 1906.”

“It is the most persistent and greatest adventure in human history, this search to understand the universe, how it works and where it comes from. It is difficult to imagine that a handful of residents of a small planet circling an insignificant star in a small galaxy have as their aim a complete understanding of the entire universe, a small speck of creation truly believing it is capable of comprehending the whole.”  Murray Gell-Mann