ΟΙ ΜΕΓΑΛΥΤΕΡΟΙ ΣΥΓΧΡΟΝΟΙ ΦΥΣΙΚΟΙ ΚΑΙ ΆΛΛΟΙ ΕΠΙΣΤΗΜΟΝΕΣ
ΠΗΓΗ: https://www.brainscape.com
Physics is a key science that helps us understand the world around us. It explains why the world works as it does and defines every interaction, big or small. Seemingly unconnected phenomena can be unified only using physics.
Since physics defines so much in our lives, it’s important to recognize the modern physicists who have been working to discover more about the physical world. With that, we share with you just some of the greatest modern physicists, as well as their discoveries that have changed the way we see the world.
6 of the Greatest Modern Physicists
1. Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking has been widely recognized as one of the best minds in physics today and has won many titles for his achievements, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the U.S. Of his many notable theories, Hawking is most famous for developing the theory that black holes emit radiation (known as Hawking radiation) and his work on gravitational singularity theorems in developing the framework for general relativity. Hawking also wrote the book explaining many important concepts of cosmology in layman’s terms, called A Brief History of Time, that became an international and New York Times bestseller. He was the subject of the 2014 film The Theory of Everything.
2. Steven Weinberg
A Nobel laureate in Physics, Steven Weinberg has conducted pioneering research across many fields within physics, including quantum field theory, gravitational theory, supersymmetry, superstrings, technicolor physical theories, and cosmology. Weinberg is most known for his work on creating a unified theory of the weak and electromagnetic interactions between elementary particles, which earned him a Nobel prize alongside Sheldon Lee Glashow and Abdus Salam. This work was ultimately experimentally proven and unified two of the four fundamental forces of nature. According to the American Philosophical Society, which awarded him the Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievements in Sciences, Weinberg is “considered by many to be the preeminent theoretical physicist alive in the world today.”
3. Edward Witten
Known primarily for his work in string theory, Edward Witten has been named by Time and other organizations and publications as “the world’s greatest living theoretical physicist,” thanks to his insights into the fundamental mathematical mechanics of string theory. Witten discovered that various string theories could be mapped onto one another using certain rules, thus developing the most important mathematical underpinnings of string theory today. Since his work is so grounded in math, Witten has garnered a position of importance in the field of mathematics as well. He is actually currently the only physicist to have been awarded a Fields Medal (sometimes called the Nobel Prize for math).
4. Alan Guth
Alan Guth is best known as the originator of the theory of cosmic inflation. This theory explains why the universe appears flat, homogeneous, and isotropic, and if proven correct, would explain the large-scale structure of the universe that emerged after the Big Bang. So far, cosmic inflation remains a theory, but evidence may have emerged recently that would help confirm it as a reality, cementing Guth’s place among the greatest modern physicists.
5. Peter Higgs
Another Nobel laureate, Peter Higgs is most famous for his research on the Higgs mechanism, which predicted the particle named after him: the Higgs boson. According to the Standard Model of particle physics, the Higgs mechanism defines the way that fundamental particles acquire their masses, making it crucial to all theories of particle physics. When research at the CERN Large Hadron Collider ultimately demonstrated the existence of the Higgs boson, the discovery earned Higgs a Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013.
6. Freeman Dyson
Despite being semi-retired, Freeman Dyson still continues to frame scientific discussions in physics. Over the course of his career, he developed a number of groundbreaking physics concepts and theories, including the Dyson sphere, the Dyson operator, the Dyson series, the Schwinger-Dyson equation, Dyson conjecture, the Dyson tree, Project Orion, and TRIGA. As you can see, his collective work is prolific, and while it is difficult to choose just one contribution that’s made him so important, he is perhaps best known for demonstrating the equivalence of Richard Feynman’s diagrams and Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga’s operator method. Along with further developing much of Feynman’s work, Dyson also proved that the exclusion principle plays the main role in maintaining the stability of bulk matter.
Physicists Matter
These six people have changed the world’s understanding of physics dramatically in recent years, yet they are only some of the key men and women defining physics today. Let us know in the comments who you think are some of the other great modern physicists.
Studies in physics today would be nowhere without the scientists who came before and made some of the most important discoveries of all time. If your knowledge of the greatest physicists (or physics itself) is a bit rusty, it may help to brush up using Brainscape’s Knowledge Rehab subject. Everyone should know the basics of physics in order to be a productive member of society. After all, few things are as key to life itself.
Image Source: CERN
ΠΗΓΗ: BigThink
26 November, 2017
The 10 greatest living scientists in the world today
The most influential contemporary scientists and their accomplishments.
PAUL RATNER
Ranking the world's greatest contemporary scientists may be a no-win proposition, with inevitable questions about how to evaluate one's contribution over another. How does a discovery in one field measure up to a discovery in a different one? And what about Richard Dawkins, where is he on this list? All reasonable questions, but ultimately we need to start the discussion somewhere. So here's a debatable list of top ten scientists from around the world who have made a great impact on our life (but not in order of the magnitude of their achievements because that just might be an unscientific exercise):
1. Timothy Berners-Lee
It would be hard to argue against the guy who invented a little something called “the world wide web" being on this list. Timothy Berners-Lee is a British computer scientist, knighted by the Queen Elizabeth II for his pioneering work. He is especially famous for his proposal to share information by using the technology of hypertext, the cornerstone of the world wide web. Berners-Lee also made the world's first website in 1991.
2. Stephen Hawking (UPDATE: Hawking died on March 14, 2018)
Arguably the world's most famous living scientist, Stephen Hawking is known for his landmark contributions to our understanding of the big bang, black holes, and relativity. He is also renowned for his work as a science popularizer, writing the best-selling book “A Brief History of Time".
The British theoretical physicist and cosmologist, Hawking is acclaimed for his ideas on gravitational singularity theorems in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, dubbed “Hawking radiation."
Hawking's remarkable accomplishments are also an inspiration for people living with disabilities as he has suffered paralyzing amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) from early in his life.
3. Jane Goodall
Jane Goodall is a British primatologist, known as the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees. She has studied social and family interactions with wild chimps for over 55 years. Her revolutionary work showed that chimpanzees, and not only humans, can learn to make and use tools. She also made pioneering observations on the violent nature of chimpanzees, finding some to hunt and eat smaller monkeys.
4. Alan Guth
An American theoretical physicist and cosmologist, Guth developed the theory of cosmic inflation. Winner of the Fundamental Physics Prize and the Kavli Prize, Guth came up with groundbreaking ideas in inflationary theory, discovering why the cosmos is as large as it is.
5. Ashoke Sen
An Indian theoretical physicist, Ashoke Sen won numerous international awards for his work including the Fundamental Prize in Physics in 2012. He has made significant contributions in string theory, with field-changing research.
6. James Watson
James Watson is an American molecular biologist and geneticist, known as the co-discoverer of the double helix structure of the DNA in 1953 - a fact for which he was awarded a Nobel Prize.
7. Tu Youyou
Tu Youyou became the first Chinese woman to win a Nobel Prize in 2015 for her work in creating an anti-malaria drug that saved millions of lives in Asia and Africa. She relied on traditional Chinese medicine in her discovery of artemisinin and dihydroartemisinin, which have helped significantly improve the health of people living in tropical climates.
8. Noam Chomsky
U.S. linguist and firebrand political activist, Noam Chomsky has influenced the world in many fields. Described as "the father of modern linguistics," Chomsky is also one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. While writing over a 100 books and leading a broad intellectual life, Chomsky is known as an outspoken critic of American foreign policy.
9. Shinya Yamanaka
Yamanaka is a Japanese Nobel Prize-winning stem cell researcher. He received the prize in 2012 for his co-discovery that existing cells of the body can be converted to stem cells. He also received the 2013 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, worth $3 million.
10. Elizabeth Blackburn
An Australian-American molecular biologist, Blackburn won the Nobel Prize in 2009 for her research on anti-aging, in particular on the benefits of lengthening telomeres - a structure capping and protecting chromosomes. Blackburn co-discovered an enzyme called telomerase that replenishes the telomere.
Physics is a key science that helps us understand the world around us. It explains why the world works as it does and defines every interaction, big or small. Seemingly unconnected phenomena can be unified only using physics.
Since physics defines so much in our lives, it’s important to recognize the modern physicists who have been working to discover more about the physical world. With that, we share with you just some of the greatest modern physicists, as well as their discoveries that have changed the way we see the world.
6 of the Greatest Modern Physicists
1. Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking has been widely recognized as one of the best minds in physics today and has won many titles for his achievements, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the U.S. Of his many notable theories, Hawking is most famous for developing the theory that black holes emit radiation (known as Hawking radiation) and his work on gravitational singularity theorems in developing the framework for general relativity. Hawking also wrote the book explaining many important concepts of cosmology in layman’s terms, called A Brief History of Time, that became an international and New York Times bestseller. He was the subject of the 2014 film The Theory of Everything.
2. Steven Weinberg
A Nobel laureate in Physics, Steven Weinberg has conducted pioneering research across many fields within physics, including quantum field theory, gravitational theory, supersymmetry, superstrings, technicolor physical theories, and cosmology. Weinberg is most known for his work on creating a unified theory of the weak and electromagnetic interactions between elementary particles, which earned him a Nobel prize alongside Sheldon Lee Glashow and Abdus Salam. This work was ultimately experimentally proven and unified two of the four fundamental forces of nature. According to the American Philosophical Society, which awarded him the Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievements in Sciences, Weinberg is “considered by many to be the preeminent theoretical physicist alive in the world today.”
3. Edward Witten
Known primarily for his work in string theory, Edward Witten has been named by Time and other organizations and publications as “the world’s greatest living theoretical physicist,” thanks to his insights into the fundamental mathematical mechanics of string theory. Witten discovered that various string theories could be mapped onto one another using certain rules, thus developing the most important mathematical underpinnings of string theory today. Since his work is so grounded in math, Witten has garnered a position of importance in the field of mathematics as well. He is actually currently the only physicist to have been awarded a Fields Medal (sometimes called the Nobel Prize for math).
4. Alan Guth
Alan Guth is best known as the originator of the theory of cosmic inflation. This theory explains why the universe appears flat, homogeneous, and isotropic, and if proven correct, would explain the large-scale structure of the universe that emerged after the Big Bang. So far, cosmic inflation remains a theory, but evidence may have emerged recently that would help confirm it as a reality, cementing Guth’s place among the greatest modern physicists.
5. Peter Higgs
Another Nobel laureate, Peter Higgs is most famous for his research on the Higgs mechanism, which predicted the particle named after him: the Higgs boson. According to the Standard Model of particle physics, the Higgs mechanism defines the way that fundamental particles acquire their masses, making it crucial to all theories of particle physics. When research at the CERN Large Hadron Collider ultimately demonstrated the existence of the Higgs boson, the discovery earned Higgs a Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013.
6. Freeman Dyson
Despite being semi-retired, Freeman Dyson still continues to frame scientific discussions in physics. Over the course of his career, he developed a number of groundbreaking physics concepts and theories, including the Dyson sphere, the Dyson operator, the Dyson series, the Schwinger-Dyson equation, Dyson conjecture, the Dyson tree, Project Orion, and TRIGA. As you can see, his collective work is prolific, and while it is difficult to choose just one contribution that’s made him so important, he is perhaps best known for demonstrating the equivalence of Richard Feynman’s diagrams and Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga’s operator method. Along with further developing much of Feynman’s work, Dyson also proved that the exclusion principle plays the main role in maintaining the stability of bulk matter.
Physicists Matter
These six people have changed the world’s understanding of physics dramatically in recent years, yet they are only some of the key men and women defining physics today. Let us know in the comments who you think are some of the other great modern physicists.
Studies in physics today would be nowhere without the scientists who came before and made some of the most important discoveries of all time. If your knowledge of the greatest physicists (or physics itself) is a bit rusty, it may help to brush up using Brainscape’s Knowledge Rehab subject. Everyone should know the basics of physics in order to be a productive member of society. After all, few things are as key to life itself.
Image Source: CERN
ΠΗΓΗ: BigThink
26 November, 2017
The 10 greatest living scientists in the world today
The most influential contemporary scientists and their accomplishments.
PAUL RATNER
Ranking the world's greatest contemporary scientists may be a no-win proposition, with inevitable questions about how to evaluate one's contribution over another. How does a discovery in one field measure up to a discovery in a different one? And what about Richard Dawkins, where is he on this list? All reasonable questions, but ultimately we need to start the discussion somewhere. So here's a debatable list of top ten scientists from around the world who have made a great impact on our life (but not in order of the magnitude of their achievements because that just might be an unscientific exercise):
1. Timothy Berners-Lee
It would be hard to argue against the guy who invented a little something called “the world wide web" being on this list. Timothy Berners-Lee is a British computer scientist, knighted by the Queen Elizabeth II for his pioneering work. He is especially famous for his proposal to share information by using the technology of hypertext, the cornerstone of the world wide web. Berners-Lee also made the world's first website in 1991.
2. Stephen Hawking (UPDATE: Hawking died on March 14, 2018)
Arguably the world's most famous living scientist, Stephen Hawking is known for his landmark contributions to our understanding of the big bang, black holes, and relativity. He is also renowned for his work as a science popularizer, writing the best-selling book “A Brief History of Time".
The British theoretical physicist and cosmologist, Hawking is acclaimed for his ideas on gravitational singularity theorems in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, dubbed “Hawking radiation."
Hawking's remarkable accomplishments are also an inspiration for people living with disabilities as he has suffered paralyzing amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) from early in his life.
3. Jane Goodall
Jane Goodall is a British primatologist, known as the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees. She has studied social and family interactions with wild chimps for over 55 years. Her revolutionary work showed that chimpanzees, and not only humans, can learn to make and use tools. She also made pioneering observations on the violent nature of chimpanzees, finding some to hunt and eat smaller monkeys.
4. Alan Guth
An American theoretical physicist and cosmologist, Guth developed the theory of cosmic inflation. Winner of the Fundamental Physics Prize and the Kavli Prize, Guth came up with groundbreaking ideas in inflationary theory, discovering why the cosmos is as large as it is.
5. Ashoke Sen
An Indian theoretical physicist, Ashoke Sen won numerous international awards for his work including the Fundamental Prize in Physics in 2012. He has made significant contributions in string theory, with field-changing research.
6. James Watson
James Watson is an American molecular biologist and geneticist, known as the co-discoverer of the double helix structure of the DNA in 1953 - a fact for which he was awarded a Nobel Prize.
7. Tu Youyou
Tu Youyou became the first Chinese woman to win a Nobel Prize in 2015 for her work in creating an anti-malaria drug that saved millions of lives in Asia and Africa. She relied on traditional Chinese medicine in her discovery of artemisinin and dihydroartemisinin, which have helped significantly improve the health of people living in tropical climates.
8. Noam Chomsky
U.S. linguist and firebrand political activist, Noam Chomsky has influenced the world in many fields. Described as "the father of modern linguistics," Chomsky is also one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. While writing over a 100 books and leading a broad intellectual life, Chomsky is known as an outspoken critic of American foreign policy.
9. Shinya Yamanaka
Yamanaka is a Japanese Nobel Prize-winning stem cell researcher. He received the prize in 2012 for his co-discovery that existing cells of the body can be converted to stem cells. He also received the 2013 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, worth $3 million.
10. Elizabeth Blackburn
An Australian-American molecular biologist, Blackburn won the Nobel Prize in 2009 for her research on anti-aging, in particular on the benefits of lengthening telomeres - a structure capping and protecting chromosomes. Blackburn co-discovered an enzyme called telomerase that replenishes the telomere.
Σχόλια
Δημοσίευση σχολίου