Mathematicians have done a lot for society. They allowed ordinary people to look at the world more deeply. In addition, we must not forget about the enormous contribution to the development of science and technology, which was made by the greatest mathematicians of the world. It's time to get to know them and find out their destinies, in order to be proud of such developed and intelligent people consciously!
Abel
Niels Henrik Abel is a Norwegian mathematician born in 1802. He is one of the greatest scientists of his time. He did not live long, like Lermontov - 27 years, but in the same way he managed to create a lot. It was he who found the necessary conditions to express the root of the equation in radicals in terms of the coefficients, providing examples of equations of the 5th degree, in which the roots cannot be expressed in radicals. Abel investigated the convergence of series, and in the theory of series the most important theorems bear his name.
He was a leader in the theory of functions, especially elliptic ones, so now there are abelian functions. Scientists-mathematicians use the definitions, which he extended for the general complex case, having investigated their properties in the deepest way. Abel's most important work was integrals of algebraic functions, but this theorem was published only posthumously.
Archimedes
Archimedes was born in the ancient Greek city of Syracuse in 287 BC. e., which did not prevent him from becoming a brilliant mathematician, physicist, engineer and mechanic, to make a huge number of discoveries in geometry, to lay the foundations of mechanics, as well as hydrostatics. His inventions are so important that they are still used to this day.
Plutarch eloquently described how Archimedes was obsessed with mathematics: he forgot to eat and did not care about himself at all. (This trait, perhaps, is possessed by all brilliant scientists-mathematicians, it is even possible not to carry out a special study.) Nothing could distract Archimedes from his work - neither bad weather, nor even war. The great scientist-mathematician researched and enriched practically all fields of science known at that time: geometry, arithmetic, algebra. And now no one can surpass the mathematical achievements of Archimedes, especially when it comes to mathematical analysis.
And how many legends have been written about him - one is more beautiful than the other! His famous "Eureka!" when the throwing machines designed by Archimedes did not allow the enemy to approach the city, and the cranes installed on the shore lifted ships into the air and threw them into the sea from a height. By the way, other enemy ships were set on fire by adjusting mirrors and polished shields like lenses from sunlight. And Archimedes loved geometry more than anything. And on his grave, the great scientist-mathematician asked to install a ball inscribed in a cylinder.
Jacob, Johann and Daniel Bernoulli
Jacob and Johann Bernoulli are siblings, Swiss mathematicians, and their discoveries relate to mathematical analysis and the foundations of the theory of probability. Jacob was born in 1655, and Johann in 1667. Together they invented the beginnings of the calculus of variations. In addition, Jacob is the author of the law of large numbers - Bernoulli's theorem. For many years he was a professor of mathematics at the University of Basel, a member of the Berlin and Paris Academies of Sciences.
The brothers were, among other things, theologians and polyglots - they were fluent in Greek, Latin, English, Italian and French (German - of course). Jacob was also a master of philosophy. He studied the ideas of Descartes, was friends with Huygens, Boyle and Hooke, and had a useful and lengthy correspondence with Leibniz. He independently mastered integral and differential calculus, "infected" his younger brother with this occupation.
Subsequently, a victorious triumvirate emerged: the brothers Bernoulli and Leibniz led all the mathematicians of Europe for 20 years. Thus, the foundations of mathematical analysis laid by the brothers were extremely enriched. Bernoulli - scientists-mathematicians, and their discoveries served as the opening of the school of analysis in Paris, helped to master the methods of integrating fractions, allowed to calculate the areas of plane figures. The brothers also developed a rule that discloses uncertainties. Jacob Bernoulli, like Archimedes, chose an image for his tombstone - a logarithmic spiral. He died slowly of tuberculosis in 1705. A crater on the moon is named after the Bernoulli brothers.
Johann was no less famous than his older brother. He solved many of the most difficult mathematical problems - about geodesic lines with their geometric properties and a special differential equation. He also investigated the brachistochrone, which allowed the calculus of variations to develop. His son Daniel was a universal physicist who created mathematical physics, mechanics, the foundations of hydrodynamics and the kinetic theory of gases.
Bernard Bolzano
B. Bolzano is the first mathematician who came close to the theory of infinite sets and the theory of real numbers. Bernard Placidus Johann Nepomuk Bolzano managed to effectively combine mathematics with theology and philosophy. Nevertheless, it was this famous mathematician who managed to establish the current concept of convergence of series, to prove a theorem named after him on bounded sets and a limit point, and to give examples of nowhere differentiable continuous functions.
Bernard Bolzano was born in Prague in 1781, graduated from Charles University in mathematics, physics and philosophy, then studied theology there. Later he was ordained. As a Catholic priest, he opposed the teachings of Kant, did not like psychologism in logic. However, free-thinking brought the priest to police surveillance, removal from all university posts and deprivation of titles.
Then the main thing happened in the life of this wonderful person. What do mathematicians value? Biography and their discoveries are not as important as the ability to devote all of your time to mathematics. Here it is - bliss! The disgraced Bolzano left the city and took up pure science in the wilderness. And even returning to Prague, he did not give up this occupation, thanks to which outstanding scientists-mathematicians still use his discoveries.
Victor Yakovlevich Bunyakovsky
He was an extremely talented inventor. Russian mathematicians rightfully consider him the founder of Russian mathematical thought. Viktor Bunyakovsky was a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and its vice-president. He left a huge beneficial trace in the theory of probability and theory of numbers. His inventions were a pantograph, a planimeter, a device for measuring squares, and, most importantly, a computing mechanism - Bunyakovsky's self-counting. In the last invention, he applied the principle by which the Russian accounts operated. On theoretical mechanics, mathematical physics, history of mathematics, probability theory, number theory, geometry, analysis, algebra - he wrote more than 150 unique works.
Viktor Bunyakovsky was born in 1804 near Mogilev. He was brought up by a colleague of his deceased father - General Tormasov. He studied at the Sorbonne and Lausanne, as well as in Germany, listened to lectures by the most famous scientists. He received his degree and returned to his homeland, where he took up scientific work. What mathematicians did not study according to his "Lexicon of Pure and Applied Mathematics"! After all, it was there that Bunyakovsky collected all the mathematical terminology, gave almost all astronomical, physical, and mathematical concepts.
In addition, he created several excellent textbooks ("Arithmetic", for example). This scientist was not content with one science. If you collect the statements of mathematicians in one book, then one of the most interesting sections will be devoted to Bunyakovsky. Comprehensively educated and exceptionally talented, Viktor Yakovlevich Bunyakovsky himself wrote beautiful poetry, translated a lot, including Byron. In the USSR, there was a Bunyakovsky Prize for the best works in mathematics.
Francois Viet
The son of a public prosecutor, as lord de la Bigautier, François Viet had a very eventful life. He was born in 1540 in France. He studied first at the Franciscans in the monastery, then at the university. Despite the fact that he had to be a politician and even a noble intriguer, his mathematical talent won out. Scientists-mathematicians, whose biographies were more modest, could hardly have done more for science. François Viet became the founder of symbolic algebra, and by the age of 30 he was doing so much trigonometry that he prepared a major work - "The Mathematical Canon".
His disciples were numerous. And even a student. One of them made a wonderful party by marrying a prince and not forgetting her teacher. Thanks to her, Vieta's career was a success: he was an adviser to two Henrys - III and IV, kings of France. Once he managed to decipher the letters of Spanish spies, for which Philip II, King of Spain, accused the mathematician of black magic. But providence will never let talent disappear in intrigues, even in palace ones.
Once Viet fell into disgrace and spent 4 years studying only mathematics. Then he invented the symbolic language of algebra, which we still use today. His many works were published mostly posthumously. From them, humanity has learned how to clearly, simply and compactly describe the laws of arithmetic. Prominent mathematicians have highly appreciated this symbolism and in different countries v different time they began to improve it little by little.
It acquired an absolutely modern look 2 centuries after Descartes. In addition to algebraic symbolism, Vieta owns formulas named after him, new trigonometric methods for solving a cubic irreducible equation, an example of an infinite product submitted for the first time, Vieta's formula (approximation of a number). It would take several pages to list the rest. The name of François Vieta is a crater on the moon.
Evariste Galois
The founder of higher algebra, which is used by our contemporaries, was born in 1811 and lived much less than Lermontov and Abel. However, Evariste Galois managed to make several fundamental discoveries: from him we know what a group and a field are in mathematics. The final fields bear his name. He was also a Republican, revolutionary and duelist. This is what caused his death - Galois was shot at the age of 20. The fate of this man was truly merciless, even the film "Unlucky" could not sufficiently illustrate his life.
He started to study mathematics by accident and a little late - at the age of 16. A year later, he published the first studies and discoveries, but this did not contribute to his success. The teachers did not understand even part of what he was doing. For the same reason, he could not enter the Polytechnic School three times, each time losing his temper due to a misunderstanding of his calculations by people who are engaged in mathematics. The second failure was generally curious: Galois got so angry that he threw a rag at the examiner to wipe the board. But then, nevertheless, the Polytechnic School surrendered under the onslaught of a brilliant mathematician, and he was accepted.
Fate
The bad luck is not over! Already reviewed by Cauche, Galois's huge work, intended for a competition at the Paris Academy of Sciences, was by this reviewer and was irretrievably lost. The only thing Kosh could do was say that she was beautiful. The next work by Evariste Galois was sent to Fourier for the same purpose - to receive a prize from the Academy of Sciences. Fourier read it. And a few days later he died.
Then Galois publishes 3 of his works and receives feedback from Poisson, where it was beautifully and honestly stated that none of the mathematicians can understand this scientific work and draw conclusions about any accuracy of calculations. Even on the night before the duel, Galois did not forget that he was a genius. He wrote several letters, one of them to his best friend, who later conveyed to the descendants the works that the author asked for. And humanity is still grateful to this brilliant young man.
Gauss
Johann Karl Friedrich Gauss, German mathematician, mechanic, physicist, astronomer and surveyor, is given the title of one of the greatest scientists of all times and peoples - the title of the king of mathematics. He was born into the family of a Brunschweig gardener in 1777 and grew up as a child prodigy. He showed this quality from the age of 2, at the age of 3 he already read and wrote freely (he even corrected the mistakes of adults). I counted only in my head and very quickly.
After graduating from college, he chose mathematics, although philology attracted him - he loved to write in Latin, adored French and English literature. He read it in the originals. Already after the 16th anniversary, he took up the Russian language, since Lobachevsky inspired him. He also read it in the original. At the university he studied with the famous Kestner, where he made several discoveries on the problems of constructing polygons. He bequeathed to depict a 17-sided inscribed in a circle on his grave.
But the trouble is that in those days it was very difficult and troublesome to publish works. This is not to say that Gauss was unlucky, like Galois, but the list of his lost priorities is very long. Humanity learned about the time of these discoveries only after reading Gauss's diaries. These were the results of exceptional importance that were first published by Jacobi, Lobachevsky, Abel, Cauchy and other scientists in the field of mathematics. But Gauss made these discoveries much earlier. For example, Gauss discovered quaternions 30 years before Hamilton!
Many brilliant mathematicians
David Hilbert is a universal mathematician who made many discoveries in all areas of this science; and the brilliant Rene Descartes, born 4 centuries before him, philosopher, physicist, mathematician; and our creator of aerodynamics, Nikolai Yegorovich Zhukovsky, together with Sofia Vasilievna Kovalevskaya, a mathematician and writer, the first woman professor of mathematics; and Augustin Louis Cauchy and Joseph Louis Lagrange; and Pierre-Simon Laplace, whose name is the equation; and the founder of Soviet computer technology - MESM and BESM - Academician Sergei Alekseevich Lebedev; and GV von Leibniz - a mathematical genius from the 17th century; and founder of the first mathematical journal, professor at the Ecole Polytechnique, inventor transcendental Joseph Liouville numbers; and all other geniuses selected from the general list down to the letter "I". None of them can be written briefly, for they deserve a truly grateful word.
Summing up, I would like to say that in the past there were many talented scientists. They were able to bring into the world something new, hitherto unknown. That is why we should be grateful to the great researchers who made our world more understandable, rational and explainable. All of the above mathematicians deserve more detailed consideration, but this will require writing a whole book. The main thing is to get interested in this topic and understand how smart, resourceful and talented people were who lived much more modest and simpler.
It is believed that the discoveries made by women did not affect the development of mankind and were rather an exception to the rule. Useful little things or things the men didn't complete, such as a car muffler (El Dolores Jones, 1917) or windshield wipers (Mary Anderson, 1903). Housewife Marion Donovan made history by sewing a waterproof diaper (1917), Frenchwoman Ermini Cadol patented a bra in 1889. The women allegedly invented freezing food (Mary Ingel Penington, 1907), a microwave oven (Jesse Cartwright), machines for removing snow (Cynthia Westover, 1892) and washing dishes (Josephine Cochrane, 1886).
In their know-how, the ladies appear as an intellectual minority who frivolously enjoy coffee filters (Merlitta Benz, 1909), chocolate chip cookies (Ruth Wakefield, 1930) and Nicole Clicquot pink champagne, while stern men grind microscopic lenses, surf the open spaces and building colliders.
There are few fundamental discoveries and scientific insights on the female account, and even in this case, one has to share laurels with men. Rosalind Elsie Franklin (1920-1957), who discovered the double helix of DNA, shared the Nobel Prize with three male colleagues without gaining official recognition.
Physicist Maria Mayer (1906 - 1972), having completed all the work on modeling the atomic nucleus, "treated" two associates with the Nobel Prize. Yet in some cases, women's intuition, ingenuity, and the ability to work hard have produced more than a hat or a salad.
Hypatia of Alexandria (355-415)
Hypatia, daughter of the mathematician Theon of Alexandria, is the world's first woman astronomer, philosopher and mathematician. According to contemporaries, she surpassed her father in mathematics, introduced the terms hyperbola, parabola and ellipse. In philosophy, she had no equal. At the age of 16, she founded the school of Neoplatonism.
She taught at the Alexandrian school the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, mathematics, was engaged in the calculation of astronomical tables. It is believed that Hypatia invented or improved the distiller, the hydrometer, the astrolabe, hydroscope, and planisphere, a flat moving map of the sky, for measuring the density of water. The supremacy in the invention of the astrolabe (a device for astronomical measurements, which is called the astrologer's computer) is disputed.
At a minimum, Hypatia and her father finalized the astrolabon of Claudius Ptolemy, and her letters describing the device have also been preserved. Hypatia is the only woman depicted in Raphael's famous fresco "The School of Athens", surrounded by the greatest scientists and philosophers.
Ari Allenby's article An Astronomical Murder ?, published in 2010 in Astronomy and Geophysics, explores the political assassination of the pagan Hypatia. In those days, the Alexandrian and Roman churches set the date for the celebration of Easter according to different calendars. Easter was supposed to fall on the first Sunday after the full moon, but not earlier than the vernal equinox.
Different dates of the celebration could cause conflict in cities with a mixed population, so it is possible that both branches of the single church turned to the secular authorities for a decision. Hypatia determined the equinox by the time of sunrises and sunsets. Unaware of atmospheric refraction, she might have miscalculated the date.
Because of these discrepancies, the Church of Alexandria lost its dominance in the definition of Easter throughout the Roman Empire. According to Allenby, this could provoke a conflict between Christians and pagans. The enraged townspeople burned down the Library of Alexandria, killed the Prefect of Orestes, mauled Hypatia and expelled the Jewish community. Later, scientists left the city.
Lady Augusta Ada Byron (1815-1851)
“The Analytical Engine does not pretend to create something really new. The machine can do everything that we know how to prescribe to it "
When Lord Byron had a daughter, the poet worried that God would not endow the child with poetic talent. But little Ada inherited from her mother Annabella Minbank, nicknamed in society "the princess of parallelograms", a gift more valuable than writing.
She had access to the beauty of numbers, the magic of formulas and the poetry of calculations. The best teachers taught Hell the exact sciences. At the age of 17, a beautiful and intelligent girl met Charles Babbage. A professor at the University of Cambridge presented to the public a model of his calculating machine. While the aristocrats stared at the mixture of gears and levers like a native on a mirror, the smart girl bombarded Babbage with questions and offered her help.
Completely fascinated, the professor commissioned her to translate from Italian the essays on the car, recorded by the engineer Manabrea. Ada completed the work and added 52 pages of translator notes and three programs to demonstrate the analytic capabilities of the device. This is how programming was born.
One program solved a system of linear equations - in it Ada introduced the concept of a working cell and the ability to change its contents. Another was calculating a trigonometric function - for this Ada defined a cycle. The third found Bernoulli numbers using recursion.
Here are some of her assumptions: An operation is any process that changes the relationship between two or more things. The operation is independent of the object to which it is applied. Actions can be performed not only on numbers, but also on any objects that can be designated. “The essence and purpose of the machine will change depending on what information we put into it. The machine will be able to write music, paint pictures and show science such paths that we have never seen anywhere else. "
The design of the machine became more complicated, the project dragged on for nine years, and in 1833, without receiving a result, the British government stopped funding ... Only a hundred years later, the first working computing machine will appear, and it turns out that Ada Lovelace's programs work. In another 50 years, programmers will populate the planet, and everyone will write their first "Hello, World!" The Difference Engine was built in 1991 to commemorate Babbage's 200th birthday. The ADA programming language is named after Countess Lovelace. On her birthday, December 10, programmers around the world celebrate their professional holiday.
Marie Curie (1867-1934)
"There is nothing in life that is worth fearing, there is only that which needs to be understood."
Maria Sklodowska was born in Poland, which was part of Russian Empire... At that time, women could only get higher education in Europe. To earn money to study in Paris, Maria worked as a governess for eight years. At the Sorbonne, she received two degrees (in physics and mathematics) and married her colleague Pierre Curie.
Together with her husband, she was engaged in the study of radioactivity. To isolate a substance with unusual properties, they hand-processed tons of uranium ore in a barn. In July 1989, the couple discovered an element that Maria named polonium. Radium was discovered in December. After four years of grueling work, Maria finally isolated a decigram of a substance emitting a pale glow, and called her opponents its atomic weight - 225.
In 1903, the spouses Curie and Henri Becquerel were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of radioactivity. All 70 thousand francs went to pay debts for uranium ore and equip the laboratory. At that time, a gram of radium cost 750 thousand gold francs, but the Curies decided that the discovery belonged to mankind, refused the patent and published their method. Three years later, Pierre died, and Marie herself continued her research.
She was the first woman professor in France, giving students the world's first course on radioactivity. But when Marie Curie announced her candidacy for the Academy of Sciences, the pundits voted against. On election day, the President of the Academy told the gatekeepers: "Let everyone in except women" ...
In 1911, Maria isolated radium in pure metallic form, and won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Marie Curie became the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize twice and the only scientist to receive a prize in various fields of science. Maria suggested using radium in medicine - for the treatment of scar tissue and cancer. During the First World War, she created 220 portable X-ray units (they were called "little Curies").
Vthe honor of Marie and Pierre is named chemical element curium and the unit of measurement for radioactivity is Curie. Madame Curie always wore an ampoule with precious particles of radium around her neck as a talisman. Only after her death from leukemia did it become clear that radioactivity can be dangerous to humans.
Heady Lamar (1913 - 2000)
“Any girl can be charming. All you need to do is stand still and look silly. "
The face of Hedi Lamar may seem familiar to designers - ten years ago, her portrait was on the Corel Draw splash screen. One of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler was born in Austria. In her youth, the actress misunderstood - she starred in a film with a frank sex scene. For this, Hitler called her a disgrace of the Reich, the pontiff urged Catholics not to watch the film, and her parents quickly married her to Fritz Mandl.
The husband was engaged in the arms business and never parted with his wife for a second. The girl was present at her husband's meetings with Hitler and Mussolini, at meetings of industrialists, and watched the production of weapons. She ran away from her husband, gave the servants sleeping pills and changed into her dress, went to America. A new life began in Hollywood under a new name.
Heedy Lamar "pushed" blondes on the big screen and made an excellent career, earning $ 30 million on the set. During the war, the actress became interested in radio-controlled torpedoes and turned to the US National Council of Inventors. Officials, in order to get rid of the beauty, shoved bonds to sell on her. Heady announced that she would kiss everyone who buys over $ 25,000 worth of bonds. And she collected 17 million.
In 1942, Hedy Lamar and avant-garde composer George Antheil patented the Secret Communication System, a frequency hopping technology. One can say about this invention “Music inspired”. Antheil experimented with pianolas, bells and propellers. Watching the composer try to make them sound in sync, Heady came up with a solution.
The signal with the coordinates of the target is transmitted to the torpedo at one frequency - it can be intercepted and redirected to the torpedo. But if the transmission channel is changed randomly and the transmitter and receiver are synchronized, then the data will be protected. Considering the drawings and a description of the principle of operation, the officials joked: "Do you want to shove a piano into a torpedo?"
The invention was never realized due to the unreliability of the mechanical components, but came in handy in the era of electronics. The patent became the basis for spread spectrum communications that are used in everything from mobile phones to 802.11 Wi-Fi to GPS today. The actress's birthday on November 9 was named the inventor's day in Germany.
Barbara McClintock (1902-1992)
"For many years, I really liked the fact that I was not obliged to defend my ideas, but could just work with great pleasure."
Geneticist Barbara McClintock discovered gene transfer in 1948. Only 30 years after opening, at 81 years old, Barbara McClintock received the Nobel Prize, becoming the third woman to receive a Nobel laureate. While studying the effect of X-rays on the chromosomes of maize, McClintock found that certain genetic elements can change their position in the chromosomes.
She suggested that there are mobile genes that suppress or alter the action of neighboring genes. Colleagues reacted somewhat hostilely to the message. Barbara's conclusions contradicted the provisions of the chromosome theory. It was generally accepted that the position of the gene is stable, and mutations are a rare and accidental phenomenon.
Barbara continued her research for six years and persistently published her results, but scientific world ignored her. She took up teaching, trained cytologists from South American countries. In the 1970s, methods became available to scientists to isolate genetic elements, and Barbara McClintock was proven right.
Barbara McClintock developed a method for visualizing chromosomes and, using microscopic analysis, made many fundamental discoveries in cytogenetics. She explained how structural changes occur in chromosomes. The ring chromosomes and telomeres she described were later found in humans.
The former shed light on the nature of genetic diseases, the latter explain the principle of cell division and biological aging of the body. In 1931, Barbara McClintock and her graduate student Harriet Creighton investigated the mechanism of gene recombination during reproduction, when parent cells exchange parts of chromosomes, giving rise to new genetic traits in offspring.
Barbara discovered transposons - elements that turn off the genes around them. She made many discoveries in cytogenetics - more than 70 years ago, without the support and understanding of colleagues. According to cytologists, out of 17 major discoveries in the cytogenetics of maize, in the 30s, ten were made by Barbara McClintock.
Grace Murray Hopper (1906 - 1992)
“Go and do; you will always have time to make excuses later "
During World War II, 37-year-old Grace Hopper, an assistant professor and mathematician, joined the United States Navy. She studied for a year at the school of warrant officers and wanted to go to the front, but Grace was sent to the first programmable computer in the United States, Mark I, to translate ballistic tables into binary codes. As Grace Hopper later recalled: "I did not understand computers - this was the first."
Then there were Mark II, Mark III and UNIVAC I. With her light hand, the words bug and debugging came into use. The first "bug" was a real insect - a moth flew into the computer and closed the relay. Grace pulled it out and pasted it into a work journal. A logical paradox for programmers "How was the first compiler compiled?" - this is also Grace. The first ever compiler (1952), the first hand-built subroutine library "because it's too lazy to remember if it was done before", and COBOL, the first programming language (1962) that looks like a regular language - all this was due to Grace Hopper.
This little woman believed that programming should be open to the public: "There are many people who need to solve different problems ... they need different types of languages, not our attempts to turn them all into mathematicians." In 1969, Hopper won the Person of the Year award.
It will be interesting for you:
In 1971, the Grace Hopper Award for Young Programmers was established. (The first nominee was 33-year-old Donald Knuth, author of the multivolume monograph "The Art of Programming."
Admiral Gray Hopper retired at 80, traveled for five years with lectures and reports - nimble, incredibly witty, with a bunch of "nanoseconds" in her purse. In 1992 she died in a dream in new year's eve... The US Navy destroyer USS Hopper is named after her, and each year the Computing Machinery Association awards the best young programmer the Grace Hopper Award. published by
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)
Polish astronomer, creator of the first mathematically grounded model of the world's heliocentric system. He studied at several universities in Europe. Nicolaus Copernicus did not believe that his system was contrary to the Bible. In 1533, Pope Clement VII got acquainted with his theory, approved it and persuaded the scientist to prepare the work for publication. Copernicus was never under fear of religious persecution - in addition to the Pope, Catholic Bishop Tiedemann Giese, Cardinal Schonberg and Protestant professor Georg Retik also asked him to publish a description of the heliocentric model.
Ser Francis Bacon (1561-1627).
Bacon is a philosopher known for pioneering the scientific method of research based on experimentation and inductive reasoning. V " De Interpretatione Naturae Prooemium»He defined his goals: knowledge of the truth, service to his country and service to the church. Although in his writings he emphasized experimental approach and reasoning, he rejected atheism as a phenomenon that arose as a result of insufficient depth of philosophical knowledge, stating: “It is true that shallow knowledge in philosophy tilts the human mind towards atheism, but the depth in philosophy brings it to religion; if the human mind turns to scattered secondary factors, it can stop at them and stop moving on; if he traces the commonalities between them, their interconnection, he will come to the necessity of Providence and Divinity "( "On Atheism").
Joannes Kepler (1571-1630).
Kepler is an outstanding mathematician and astronomer. WITH early age he studied light and established the laws of motion of the planets around the sun. He also came close to putting forward the Newtonian concept. universal gravitation- long before Newton was born! The idea of force in astronomy, which he introduced, radically changed it in modern understanding. Kepler was an eminently sincere and devout Lutheran whose writings on astronomy contained descriptions of how the cosmos and celestial bodies represent the Trinity. Kepler did not suffer persecution for his discovery of the generally accepted heliocentric system, and he was even allowed to remain a professor (1595-1600) in Catholic Graz when the rest of the Protestants were evicted.
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
Italian physicist, mechanic, astronomer, philosopher and mathematician, founder of experimental physics and classical mechanics... About the conflict of the scientist with the Roman Catholic Church are remembered quite often. His work "Dialogues", which discusses the device Solar system, was published in 1632 and made a lot of noise. He did not contain evidence of a heliocentric system of the world, but criticized the generally accepted system of Ptolemy at the time in favor of the Copernican system. The conflict arose due to the fact that in "Dialogues" Galileo put into the mouth of one of the heroes, the simpleton Simplicio, the arguments that Pope Urban VIII himself, an old friend of Galileo, liked to use. The Pope was insulted and did not forgive Galileo for such a trick. After the "trial" and the ban on the doctrine of heliocentric system, the scientist completed his long-conceived book on mechanics, in which he formulated all the discoveries in this area that he had made earlier. Galileo said that the Bible cannot be wrong, and regarded his system as an alternative interpretation of the biblical texts.
René Descartes (1596-1650)
French mathematician, scientist and philosopher, founder of the principles of modern philosophy. Studying early philosophy led him to disillusionment: as a Catholic, he had deep religious convictions, which he retained until the end of his life, along with a determined, passionate desire to find the truth. At the age of twenty-four, he began looking for a way that would combine all knowledge into a single frame of reference. His method starts with the question: "What would be known if you questioned everything else?" - implying the famous “I think, therefore I am”. But it is often forgotten that after this Descartes formulated an almost irrefutable statement about the existence of God: we can trust our feelings and processes of logical thinking only if God exists and does not want us to be deceived by our own experience. Thus, God is central to Descartes' philosophy. René Descartes and Francis Bacon (1561-1626) are considered key figures in the history of the development of scientific methodology. It is worth noting that in the system of each of them God occupied an important place, and that both of them were considered very pious.
Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
English physicist, mathematician, philosopher and astronomer, one of the founders of classical physics. In optics, mechanics and mathematics, his genius and innovation are undeniable. Newton saw mathematics and numbers in all the sciences he studied (including chemistry). It is not well known that Newton was a deeply religious person and believed that mathematics contributed greatly to understanding God's plan. The scientist did a great job on biblical numerology and, although his views were not orthodox, he attached great importance to theology. In Newton's worldview, God is inseparable from the nature and absoluteness of space. In his work "Beginnings"< он заявил: «Самая прекрасная система солнца, планет и комет могла произойти только посредством премудрости и силы разумного и могущественного Существа».
Robert Boyle (1627-1691)
One of the founders and key members of the early Royal Society, Boyle named Boyle's Law for Gases and also wrote an important work on chemistry. Encyclopedia Britannica says about him: “On his own initiative, he conducted a series of lectures, or sermons, by Boyle, which are still being held,“ to bring the arguments of the Christian religion to outright atheists ... ”. As a devout Protestant, Boyle took a particular interest in spreading the Christian religion abroad, donating money to translate and publish the New Testament in Irish and Turkish. In 1690 he expounded his theological views in “ Christian Virtuoso", In which he wrote that the study of nature was his main religious duty. At one time, Boyle wrote against atheists (the concept that atheism is an invention of modernity is a myth), of course, he was a much more devout Christian than the average people of his era.
Michael Faraday (1791-1867)
Michael Faraday was born into a blacksmith family and became one of the greatest scientists of the 19th century. His work on electricity and magnetism not only revolutionized physics, but also largely led to today's lifestyles that depend on them (including computers, telephone lines, and websites). Faraday was a member of the Sandemanian community, which significantly influenced his views and was largely reflected in his approach to understanding nature. The Sandemanians of Presbyterian descent rejected the idea of a state church and strove for a New Testament type of Christianity.
Gregor Mendel (1822-1884)
Austrian biologist and botanist, author of the mathematical laws of genetics. He began his research in 1856 (three years before Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species) in the experimental garden at the monastery, in which he was a monk. In the period from 1856 to 1863. he managed to formulate the basic laws explaining the mechanism of inheritance. But in 1868 Mendel was elected abbot of the monastery and stopped his scientific studies. The results of his work remained relatively unknown until the turn of the century, when representatives of a new generation of biologists, based on the general results of their experiments, rediscovered the laws he formulated. It is interesting that in the 1860s the so-called. The X-Club is a community whose main goal was to weaken religious influences and promote an alleged conflict between science and religion. One of the members of the club was Francis Galton, a relative of Charles Darwin, a supporter of selective interbreeding of people in order to "improve" the race. While the Austrian monk Mendel single-handedly made a breakthrough in genetics, Galton wrote that the "priestly mind" only interferes with science. Repetition of Mendel's experiments was carried out too late to be able to change Galton's ideas about the role of religion in the knowledge of the world.
William Thomson Kelvin (1824-1907)
Kelvin was the most prominent of the small group of British scientists who helped lay the foundations of modern physics. His work covered most areas of physics, and it is said that there were more letters after his name than anyone else in the Commonwealth, as he received many honorary degrees from European universities that recognized the value of his work. He was a firm Christian, certainly more devout than the average people of his era. Interestingly, his research assistants, physicist George Gabriel Stokes (1819-1903) and James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879), also had a deep, fiery faith at a time when many were nominal, indifferent, or anti-Christian. V Encyclopedia Britannica about him it is said: “Most modern physicists consider Maxwell to be a scientist of the 19th century, who had the greatest influence on physics of the 20th century; he is put on a par with Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein for his enormous contribution to the development of fundamental science. " Lord Kelvin was a creationist ancient earth, who estimated the age of the Earth to be 20 to 100 million years with an upper limit of 500 million years based on cooling rates (an underestimate due to a lack of knowledge of radiogenic heating).
Max Planck (1858-1947)
Planck contributed greatly to the development of various areas of physics, but is best known for the creation of quantum theory, which revolutionized the understanding of atomic and subatomic worlds. In 1939, in his lecture "Religion and Natural Science", Planck shared his opinion that God is present everywhere, and "the holiness of symbols speaks of the holiness of the unknown Deity." He believed that atheists attach too much importance to what are just symbols. Planck was the churchwarden from 1920 until his death and believed in an Almighty, Omniscient, Gracious God (though not necessarily personal). Science and religion are waging a "constant war against skepticism and dogmatism, against unbelief and superstition."
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Physicist, one of the founders of modern theoretical physics. Einstein is perhaps the most famous and respected scientist of the 20th century. His name is associated with the main upheavals in the concept of time, space, energy and matter. Einstein never approached personal belief in God, but he recognized the impossibility of the universe without creation. Einstein said that he believed in "the God of Spinoza, who manifests himself in the harmony of all that exists, but not in God, who cares about the fate and actions of people." In fact, this aroused his interest in science. The scientist said: “I want to know how God created the world. I am not interested in certain phenomena in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, everything else is details. " Einstein's words about Heisenberg's uncertainty principle became a catch phrase: "God does not play dice" - for him it was an indisputable truth about God in whom he believed. Another famous saying of Einstein is the phrase: "Science without religion is chromium, religion without science is blind."
