NASA wants you ... to help find meteorites

The blazing meteor lit up the Alabama sky on May 18

This composite, wide-angle view of the meteor was captured from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center on May 18. NASA has put out a call for any meteorites from the event.

NASA has launched an all-out search for any meteorites that may have survived from a bright fireball that streaked over northeastern Alabama last month. And the space agency wants your help.

The blazing meteor lit up the Alabama sky on May 18 and was spotted by all-sky cameras at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville and the Walker County Science Center near Chickamauga, Ga.

Scientists estimate the space rock, which came from the asteroid belt, weighed about 60 pounds (27 kilograms), though it may have broken into pieces if any reached the ground.

"Expert opinion is that one or more pieces of this meteor survived to make it to the ground as meteorites, and calculations indicate that the area of the fall lies north of a line joining Woodville and Scottsboro," NASA officials said in a statement.

NASA is asking residents who saw the meteor, or those who may have noticed or picked up an unusual rock in the vicinity, to contact the Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center.

source ref: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37553911/ns/technology_and_science-space/

Ernest Rutherford ( ATOM MAN)

The creator of modern atomic physics and forerunner of the nuclear age, Rutherford was one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908 and a baronetcy in 1931, choosing the title Baron Rutherford of Nelson. In the words of Einstein, hew was "a second Newton", the man who "tunneled into the very material of God": inventor, experimenter and Nelson farm boy.

Source from : http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/rutherford.html

more info : http://www.rutherford.org.nz/

links to scientist biographies

1.  Archimedes	2.  Aristotle	3.  Nicholas Copernicus
4.  Marie Curie	5.  Charles Darwin	6.  Leonardo da Vinci
7.  Alexander Graham Bell	8.  Albert Einstein	9.  Ben Franklin
10.  Thomas Alva Edison	11.  Galilei Galileo	12.  Isaac Newton
13.  George Washington Carver	14.  Jacques Cousteau	15.  Frances Crick
16. Robert Koch	17.  Robert Hooke	18.  J. Robert Oppenheimer
19.  Alfred Nobel	20.  James D. Watson	21.  Gregor Mendel
22.  Stephen Hawking	23.  Konrad Lorenz	24.  Camillo Golgi
25.  Carl Sagan	26.  Ivan Petrovich Pavlov	27.  Alexander Fleming
28.  Bill Gates	29.  Jane Goodall	30.  Steven Jobs

more info:

• http://www.libraryspot.com/biographies/  Links to scientist biographies
• http://outreach.rice.edu/~dgabby/science/famoussci.htm  Links to web sites that have biographical information about famous scientists
• http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Biographies/Science/Scients.htm  Alphabetical list of biographies of scientists

Aryabhatta (476-550 A.D.) The Indian Mathematician

Aryabhatta (476-550 A.D.) was born in Patliputra in Magadha, modern Patna in Bihar. Many are of the view that he was born in the south of India especially Kerala and lived in Magadha at the time of the Gupta rulers; time which is known as the golden age of India. There is no evidence that he was born outside Patliputra and traveled to Magadha, the centre of education and learning for his studies where he even set up a coaching centre. His first name "Arya" is hardly a south Indian name while "Bhatt" (or Bhatta) is a typical north Indian name even found today specially among the "Bania" (or trader) community.

Whatever this origin, it cannot be argued that he lived in Patliputra where he wrote his famous treatise the "Aryabhatta-siddhanta" but more famously the "Aryabhatiya", the only work to have survived. It contains mathematical and astronomical theories that have been revealed to be quite accurate in modern mathematics. For instance he wrote that if 4 is added to 100 and then multiplied by 8 then added to 62,000 then divided by 20,000 the answer will be equal to the circumference of a circle of diameter twenty thousand. This calculates to 3.1416 close to the actual value Pi (3.14159). But his greatest contribution has to be zero. His other works include algebra, arithmetic, trigonometry, quadratic equations and the sine table.

He already knew that the earth spins on its axis, the earth moves round the sun and the moon rotates round the earth. He talks about the position of the planets in relation to its movement around the sun. He refers to the light of the planets and the moon as reflection from the sun. He goes as far as to explain the eclipse of the moon and the sun, day and night, the contours of the earth, the length of the year exactly as 365 days.
He even computed the circumference of the earth as 24835 miles which is close to modern day calculation of 24900 miles.

This remarkable man was a genius and continues to baffle many mathematicians of today. His works was then later adopted by the Greeks and then the Arabs.

source from : http://ezinearticles.com/?Aryabhatta,-The-Indian-Mathematician&id=580066

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Shalini_Singh

Indian Scientists

source from: http://www.scribd.com/doc/7148674/Indian-Scientists

Aryabhatta defined the shape of Earth to be round in 499 A.D.,

Ancient Indian Scientists 

The ancient Indian people possessed great scientific knowledge which they applied for the benefit of community. The Vedic sciences are considered the richest and most comprehensive science of ancient India. The Vedic sciences include several branches like astronomy, medicine, space science, mathematics and there were numerous Indian scientists who studied and enhanced Vedic sciences. Aryabhatta, Charaka, Sushruta, Panini, etc. were some of the eminent scientists in the ancient era. While Aryabhatta defined the shape of Earth to be round in 499 A.D., Charaka and Sushruta largely contributed in the development of Ayurveda. On the other hand, Panini discovered the systematic linguistic analysis during the fourth-century B.C. These ancient Indian scientists have also given many mathematical and scientific explanations that can be proved using the current methods.


Source from : http://www.indianetzone.com/8/indian_scientists.htm

Pioneer of electro-magnetic waves

Jagadis Chandra Bose (1858-1937) 

Pioneer of electro-magnetic waves and widely regarded as the first modern Indian scientist, Jagadis Chandra Bose was a far-sighted visionary and gifted experimentalist. In 1895 in Calcutta, he publicly demonstrated wireless transmission of electromagnetic waves for the first time anywhere in the world, using the waves to ring a distant bell to thereby explode some gunpowder. The Daily Chronicle of England noted in 1896 that "The inventor (J.C. Bose) has transmitted signals to a distance of nearly a mile and herein lies the first and obvious and exceedingly valuable application of this new theoretical marvel." Bose was also the first to use a semi-conducting crystal as a detector of radio waves. According to Neville Mott "J.C. Bose was at least 60 years ahead of his time" and that he had "anticipated the existence of P-type and N-type semiconductors." Bose was invited by Lord Rayleigh to present his experiments at the Royal Institution in January 1897, attended by Marconi's business partner who importuned him to take out a patent and share his proceeds with him. Bose refused on the grounds that scientific discoveries must inure to the benefit of the public. Marconi's wireless transmission on Salisbury plain did not occur until May 1897. Bose also crossed from physics into biology, challenging widespread notions that these realms were different - among the fields he is regarded to have anticipated is cybernetics, through his model of memory as an information storage device. His boundless curiosity led him to study the electrical response of plants and the phenomenon of photosynthesis. Freethinking pioneer and icon, Bose was born and educated in rural Bengal and later Calcutta and achieved both a knight hood and international distinction. He was admitted to read Natural Sciences at Christ’s in 1882, took his BA in 1884 and MA in 1896.

Source from :http://www.christs.cam.ac.uk/alumni/distinguished-alumni/bose/

for more info:

http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/scientists/JCBOSE.htm 

http://www.tuc.nrao.edu/~demerson/bose/bose.html 
http://web.mit.edu/varun_ag/www/bose.html

Newton's Three Laws of Motion

Sir Isaac Newton
Scientist and Mathematician, 1642 - 1727

Isaac Newton was born on December 25, 1642 (by the Julian calendar then in use; or January 4, 1643 by the current Gregorian calendar) in Woolsthorpe, near Grantham in Lincolnshire, England. He was born the same year Galileo died. Newton is clearly the most influential scientist who ever lived. His accomplishments in mathematics, optics, and physics laid the foundations for modern science and revolutionized the world.

Newton was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge where he lived from 1661 to 1696. During this period he produced the bulk of his work on mathematics. In 1696 he was appointed Master of the Royal Mint, and moved to London, where he resided until his death.

As mathematician, Newton invented integral calculus, and jointly with Leibnitz, differential calculus. He also calculated a formula for finding the velocity of sound in a gas which was later corrected by Laplace.

Newton made a huge impact on theoretical astronomy. He defined the laws of motion anduniversal gravitation which he used to predict precisely the motions of stars, and the planets around the sun. Using his discoveries in optics Newton constructed the first reflecting telescope.

Newton found science a hodgepodge of isolated facts and laws, capable of describing some phenomena, but predicting only a few. He left it with a unified system of laws that can be applied to an enormous range of physical phenomena, and that can be used to make exact predications. Newton published his works in two books, namely "Opticks" and "Principia."

Newton died in London on March 20, 1727 and was buried in Westminster Abbey, the first scientist to be accorded this honor. A review of an encyclopedia of science will reveal at least two to three times more references to Newton than any other individual scientist. An 18th century poem written by Alexander Pope about Sir Isaac Newton states it best:

“Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.”

Source Ref : http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95dec/newton.html
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/newton3laws.html

Albert Einstein(Physicist)

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

Albert Einstein
Physicist, 1879 -1955


Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Wurttemberg, Germany. Einstein contributed more than any other scientist since Sir Isaac Newton to our understanding of physical reality.


Einstein was slow to learn to talk, not beginning to speak until sometime after his second birthday. His slow verbal development combined with a native rebelliousness toward authority, led one schoolmaster to say that young Albert would never amount to much.


Einstein’s mother, Pauline, was a talented pianist. She introduced Albert to music as a small child, beginning his violin lessons at age six. He labored under unimaginative instruction until discovering the joys of Mozart’s sonatas at age 13. From that point on, although he had no further lessons, his violin remained a constant companion. Einstein said later that, “I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in the form of music.”


When Einstein was 10, a poor student named Max Talmud began dining with the Einstein family once a week. Max would bring illustrated science books for Albert to study, and they would discuss what Albert learned. Max gave him a geometry textbook two years before Albert was to study the subject at school. Max later recalled, “Soon the flight of his mathematical genius was so high that I could no longer follow.”


In 1896, Einstein entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich to be trained as a physics and mathematics instructor. He graduated in 1901, and unable to find a teaching position, accepted a job as technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. Einstein worked at the patent office from 1902 to 1909. During this period he completed an astonishing range of theoretical physics publications, written in his spare time, without the benefit of scientific literature or close contact with colleagues.


The most well known of these works is Einstein’s 1905 paper proposing ̴the special theory of relativity.” He based his new theory on the principle that the laws of physics are in the same form in any frame of reference. As a second fundamental hypothesis, Einstein assumed that the speed of light remained constant in all frames of reference.


Later in 1905 Einstein showed how mass and energy were equivalent expressing it in the famous equation: E=mc2 (energy equals mass times the velocity of light squared). This equation became a cornerstone in the development of nuclear energy.


Einstein received the Nobel Prize in 1921 but not for relativity, rather for his 1905 work on the photoelectric effect. He worked on at Princeton until the end of his life on an attempt to unify the laws of physics.

Source Ref: http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96mar/einstein.html