Georg Simon Ohm The German physicist Georg Simon Ohm (1789-1854) was the discoverer of the law,

named for him, which states the exact relationship of potential and current in electric conduction. Georg Ohm was born on March 16, 1789, in Erlangen, Bavaria, the eldest of seven children. His father, Johann Wolfgang Ohm, was a master mechanic and an avid reader of books on philosophy and mathematics. He cultivated the obvious mathematical talents of Georg and his younger brother, Martin, and the two soon gained the reputation of being the latter-day version of the famed Bernoulli brothers. Due to financial difficulties, Georg left the University of Erlangen in 1806 after three semesters. For the next year and a half he earned his living as private tutor in Gottstadt, Switzerland, but by 1809 he settled in Neuchtel to continue privately with his university studies. In 1811 he returned to Erlangen and obtained his doctorate. For the next three semesters Ohm taught mathematics at the University of Erlangen, but the meagerness of his income forced him to take the post of tutor at the realgymnasium in Bamberg. Following the publication in 1817 of Ohm's first book, a textbook of geometry, he received an appointment as teacher of mathematics and physics at the Royal Prussian Konsistorium in Cologne. The well-equipped laboratory of the local Jesuit gymnasium was put at his disposal, and there he began his epoch-making investigations on the characteristics of electric circuits, a virtually unexplored field at that time. In 1825 the Journal fr Chemie und Physik carried Ohm's first communication on the laws of the galvanic (electric) circuit, "Preliminary Notice on the Law according to Which Metals Conduct Contact-electricity." The paper gave an incorrect formula for what later became known as Ohm's law, but within a year Ohm corrected the mistake. The 1826 issue of the Journal carried Ohm's

"Determination of the Law according to Which Metals Conduct Contact-electricity, Together with the Outlines of a Theory of the Voltaic Apparatus and of the Schweigger Multiplicator [Galvanoscope]." In the introductory part of the paper he noted that the new form of his law was not only in perfect agreement with all experiments but also embodied a unitary explanation of a broad range of phenomena. Consequently, he argued, his law or formula had to be a true law of nature. These remarks of Ohm are important to note as they hold the key to some of the subsequent misunderstanding of his work. His experimental work was unimpeachable. His data fully justified his conclusion that the ratio of V (the change in electromotive force) and X (the electromotive force) was proportional to the ratio of h (the change in the length of the conducting wire) and x (the wire's original length), or V/X = h/ (b+x), where b is a constant. Ohm was, however, determined to give the law a most general if not an a priori justification. In 1827 he published his most renowned work, The Galvanic Circuit Mathematically Treated. It contains the now familiar formula I = V/R written in the notation S = A/L, which is followed by the historic statement, "The magnitude of the current in a galvanic circuit is directly proportional to the sum of all tensions [potentials] and indirectly to the total reduced length of the circuit." By "reduced" he meant the appropriate resistances of all parts of the circuit. Ohm's Galvanic Circuit was greeted with some appreciation but largely with indifference and with some hostility. He withdrew from the academic world for 6 years. In 1833 he became professor of physics at the Polytechnic School in Nuremberg. But the real turning point in his life came when the Royal Society of London awarded him the Copley Medal in 1841. Ohm dedicated to the Royal Society the first volume of hisContribution to Molecular Physics, a work in which he planned to elucidate the internal constitution of matter with the same

success Isaac Newton had achieved in celestial dynamics. Apart from the gigantic demands of the plan, Ohm's teaching duties stood in the way of its execution. In 1835 he assumed, in addition to his duties in Nuremberg, the chair of higher mathematics at the University of Erlangen. Shortly afterward, he became inspector of scientific education in the state of Bavaria. He achieved his lifelong dream, a position with a major university, in 1849 as professor at the University of Munich. He was working on the manuscript of his textbook on optics when he died on July 6, 1854.

Alessandro Volta The Italian physicist Alessandro Volta (1745-1827) invented the electric battery, or "voltaic pile," thus providing for the first time a sustained source of current electricity. Alessandro Volta was born on Feb. 18, 1745, in Como. He resisted pressure from his family to enter the priesthood and developed instead an intense curiosity about natural phenomena, in particular, electricity. In 1769 he published his first paper on electricity. It contained no new discoveries but is of some interest as the most speculative of all Volta's papers, his subsequent ones being devoted almost exclusively to the presentation of specific experimental discoveries. Early Investigations and Inventions In 1774 Volta was appointed professor of physics at the gymnasium in Como, and that same year he made his first important contribution to the science of electricity, the invention of the electrophorus, a device which provided a source of electric potential utilizing the principle of electrostatic induction. Unlike earlier source of electric potential, such as the Leyden jar, the electrophorus provided a sustained, easily replenishable source of static electricity. In 1782 Volta announced the application of the electrophorus to the detection of minute electrical charges. His invention of the so-called condensing electroscope culminated his efforts to improve the sensitivity of earlier electrometers. During these same years Volta also conducted researches of a purely chemical nature. He had for some time been experimenting with exploding various gases, such as hydrogen, in closed containers and had observed that when hydrogen and air were exploded there was a diminution in volume greater than the volume of hydrogen burned. In order to measure such changes in volume, he developed a graduated glass container, now known as a eudiometer, in

which to explode the gases. Utilizing this eudiometer he studied marsh gas, or methane, and distinguished it from hydrogen by its different-colored flame, its slower rate of combustion, and the greater volume of air and larger electric spark required for detonation. In 1779 Volta was appointed to the newly created chair of physics at the University of Pavia. In 1782 he became a corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences. In 1791 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London, and in 1794, in recognition of his contributions to electricity and chemistry, he was awarded the society's coveted Copley Medal. However, his most significant researchesthose which were to lead to the discovery of current electricity were yet to be undertaken. Discovery of Current Electricity Until the last decade of the 18th century electrical researchers had been primarily concerned with static electricity, with the electrification produced by friction. Then, in 1786, Luigi Galvani discovered that the muscles in a frog's amputated leg would contract whenever an electrical machine was discharged near the leg. As a result of his initial observations, Galvani undertook a long series of experiments in an effort to more thoroughly examine this startling phenomenon. In the course of these investigations he discovered that a frog's prepared leg could be made to contract if he merely attached a copper hook to the nerve ending and then pressed the hook against an iron plate on which the leg was resting so as to complete an electrical circuit, even though no electrical machines were operating in the vicinity. Galvani concluded the contraction was produced in the organism itself and referred to this new type of electricity as "animal electricity." Galvani's experiments and interpretation were summarized in a paper published in 1791, a copy of which he sent to Volta. Although, like most others, initially convinced by Galvani's arguments, Volta gradually came to the

conclusion that the two metals were not merely conductors but actually generated the electricity themselves. He began by repeating and verifying Galvani's experiments but quickly moved beyond these to experiments of his own, concentrating on the results of bringing into contact two dissimilar metals. By 1794 he had convinced himself that the metals, in his own words, "are in a real sense the exciters of electricity, while the nerves themselves are passive," and he henceforth referred to this new type of electricity as "metallic" or "contact" electricity. The announcement of Volta's experiments and interpretation touched off one of the great controversies in the history of science. Although other factors were important as well, the physiologists and anatomists tended to support Galvani's view that the electricity was produced by the animal tissue itself whereas the physicists and chemists, like Volta, tended to see it as produced by the external bimetallic contacts. The resulting rivalry not only took on international dimensions but died out only gradually after more than a decade. Although Galvani withdrew from the arena, allowing others to carry his standard, Volta took an active role in the controversy and vigorously pursued his research. Volta discovered that not only would two dissimilar metals in contact produce a small electrical effect, but metals in contact with certain types of fluids would also produce such effects. In fact, the best results were obtained when two dissimilar metals were held in contact and joined by a moist third body which, in modern terminology, completed the circuit between them. Such observations led directly to the construction in 1800 of the electric battery, or "pile" as Volta called it, the first source of a significant electric current. Volta announced his discovery in a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, then president of the Royal Society of London. The letter, dated March 20, 1800, created an instant sensation. Here for the first time was an instrument capable of producing a steady, continuous flow of

electricity. All previous electrical machines, including Volta's electrophorus, had produced only short bursts of static electricity. The ability to create at will a sustained electrical current opened vast new fields for investigation, and the significance of Volta's discovery was immediately recognized. Acclaim and Retirement Volta was summoned to Paris by Napoleon and in 1801 gave a series of lectures on his discoveries before the National Institute of France, as the Academy of Sciences was then called. A special gold medal was struck to honor the occasion, and the following year Volta was distinguished by election as one of the eight foreign associates of the institute. Although only in his mid-50s when he announced the discovery of the "pile," Volta took no part in applying his discovery to any of the immense new fields it opened up. During the last 25 years of his life he demonstrated none of the intense creativity that had characterized his earlier researches, and he published nothing of scientific significance during these later years. He continued, at the urging of Napoleon, to teach at the University of Pavia and eventually became director of the philosophy faculty there. In 1819 he retired to his family home near Como. He died there on March 5, 1827, little realizing that current electricity would eventually transform a way of life.

Andr-Marie Ampre Andr-Marie Ampre (1775-1836), was a French physicist, natural philosopher, and mathematician who is best known for his important contributions to the study of electrodynamics. He invented the astatic needle, a critical component of the modern astatis galvanometer, and was the first to demonstrate that a magnetic field is generated when two parallel wires are charged with electricity. He is generally credited as one of the first to discover electromagnetism. Born January 20, 1775, Ampre was the son of a successful businessman and local government official in Polemieux-auMont-d'Or, a small community near Lyon, France. As a child Ampere spent a great deal of time reading in the library of his family home, and he voraciously consumed books of history, geography, literature, philosophy and the natural sciences. His father taught him Latin and encouraged Ampre to pursue his passion for mathematics. Some historians write that the young Ampre was a math prodigy at a very early age and that he used to work out long mathematical formulas, just for his own personal entertainment, using small pebbles or breadcrumbs to represent groups of numbers. Even without any formal education Ampre began a career as a science teacher. After teaching for a while in Lyon he accepted positions at institutions of higher learning including the College of France and the Polytechnic School at Paris, where he was a professor of mathematics. It was there that he first conducted important research and experiments into the nature of electrical and magnetic forces. In the early 1820s, after learning about the electromagnetism experiments of Hans Christian Oersted, Ampre began to formulate a combined theory of electricity and magnetism, doing several demonstrations involving magnetic and electrical forces. His work confirmed and validated the discoveries of Oersted while also expanding upon them, helping to accelerate work in the field of electromagnetism around the world.

Ampre's most significant scholarly paper on the subject of electricity and magnetism, titled Memoir on the Mathematical Theory of Electrodynamic Phenomena, was published in 1826. The theoretical foundation presented in this publication served as the basis for other ideas of the 19th century regarding electricity and magnetism. It helped to inspire research and discoveries by scientists including Faraday, Weber, Thomson, and Maxwell. Ampre was elected to the prestigious National Institute of Sciences in 1814, and was awarded a chair at the University of France in 1826. There he taught electrodynamics and remained a member of the faculty until his death. He was also a member of the Fellows of the Royal Society of London Despite his celebrated accomplishments, Ampre led a rather tragic life. When Lyons was taken over by rebels during the French Revolution, his beloved father was a district judge. Because of his political affiliations, Ampres father was taken as a political prisoner and then publicly executed by guillotine, an event that severely scarred the young Ampre and led to a period of psychological depression. Later in life Ampres first wife met with an early death after a prolonged illness, and although he remarried, his second marriage was unhappy and unsuccessful. Ampre died June 10, 1836 in Marseilles, France, and was buried in the Montmartre Cemetery in Paris. When Gustave Eiffel built his famous Eiffel Tower in Pairs in 1889, he included the names of 72 prominent French scientists on plaques around the first section at the base of the structure. The name of AndrMarie Ampre is included in that distinguished memorial. The ampere the unit for measuring electric current was named in honor of Ampre. In the past, an ampere was understood as the force generated between parallel electrically charged wires, but as scientific knowledge evolves over time, the definition of ampere

sometimes changes slightly also. The current modern definition of ampere describes the ability of a specified current to deposit a precise amount of a substance on an electrode during electrolysis.

Henry Cavendish The English physicist and chemist Henry Cavendish (1731-1810) determined the value of the universal constant of gravitation, made noteworthy electrical studies, and is credited with the discovery of hydrogen and the composition of water. Henry Cavendish was born on Oct. 10, 1731, the elder son of Lord Charles Cavendish and Lady Anne Grey. He entered Peterhouse, Cambridge, in 1749 and left after 2 years without taking a degree. He never married and was so reserved that there is little record of his having any social life except occasional meetings with scientific friends. His death (Feb. 24, 1810) he faced with the same equanimity with which he faced the unavoidable breaking of apparatus in the course of increasing knowledge. He was buried in All Saints Church, Derby. Cavendish's work and reputation have to be considered in two parts: the one relating to his published work, the other to the large amount he did not publish. During his lifetime he made notable discoveries in chemistry mainly between 1766 and 1788 and in electricity between 1771 and 1788. In 1798 he published a single notable paper on the density of the earth, but interest in this subject was evidently of long standing. Contributions to Chemistry At the time Cavendish began his chemical work, chemists were just beginning to recognize that the "airs" which were evolved in many chemical reactions were distinct entities and not just modifications of ordinary air. Cavendish reported his own work in Three Papers Containing Experiments on Factitious Air in 1766. These papers added greatly to knowledge of the formation of "inflammable air" (hydrogen) by the action of dilute acids on metals. Cavendish also distinguished the formation of oxides of nitrogen from nitric acid. Their true chemical character was not yet

known, but Cavendish's description of his observations had almost the same logical pattern as if he were thinking in modern terms, the principal difference being that he used the terminology of the phlogiston theory (that is, a burning substance liberates into its surroundings a principle of inflammability). Cavendish's other great merit is his experimental care and precision. He measured the density of hydrogen, and although his figure is half what it should be, it is astonishing that he even found the right order of magnitude, considering how difficult it was to manage so intractable a substance. Not that his apparatus was crude; where the techniques of his day allowed, his apparatus (like the splendid balance surviving at the Royal Institution) was capable of refined results. Cavendish investigated the products of fermentation, showing that the gas from the fermentation of sugar is indistinguishable from the "fixed air" characterized as a constituent of chalk and magnesia by Black (both are, in modern language, carbon dioxide). Another example of Cavendish's technical expertise was Experiments on Rathbone-Place Water (1767), in which he set the highest possible standard of thoroughness and accuracy. It is a classic of analytical chemistry. In it Cavendish also examined the phenomenon of the retention of "calcareous earth" (chalk, calcium carbonate) in solution, and in doing so he discovered the reversible reaction between calcium carbonate and carbon dioxide to form calcium bicarbonate, the cause of temporary hardness of water. He also found out how to soften such water by adding lime (calcium hydroxide). In his study of the methods of gas analysis Cavendish made one remarkable observation. He was sparking air with excess oxygen (to form oxides of nitrogen) over alkali until no more absorption took place and noted that a tiny amount of gas could not be further reduced, "so that if there is any part of the phlogisticated air of our atmosphere which

differs from the rest, and cannot be reduced to nitrous acid, we may safely conclude, that it is not more than 1/120 part of the whole." As is now known, he had observed the noble gases of the atmosphere. One of Cavendish's researches on the currently engrossing problem of combustion made an outstanding contribution to fundamental theory. Without seeking particularly to do so, in 1784 Cavendish determined the composition of water, showing that it was a compound of oxygen and hydrogen ("dephlogisticated air" and "inflammable air"). Joseph Priestley had reported an experiment of Warltire in which the explosion of the two gases had left a dew on the sides of a previously dry vessel. Cavendish studied this, prepared water in measurable quantity, and got an approximately correct figure for its volume composition. Electrical Researches Cavendish published only a fraction of the experimental evidence he had available to support his theories, but his contemporaries were convinced of the correctness of his conclusions. He was not the first to profound an inverse-square law of electrostatic attraction, but Cavendish's exposition, based in part on mathematical reasoning, was the most effective. He founded the study of the properties of dielectrics and also distinguished clearly between quantity of electricity and what is now called potential. Cavendish had the ability to make an apparently limited study yield far-reaching results. An example is his study of the origin of the ability of some fish to give an electric shock. He made up imitation fish of leather and wood, soaked in salt water, with pewter attachments representing the organs of the fish which produced the effect. By using Leyden jars to charge the imitation organs, he was able to show that the results were entirely consistent with the fish's being able to produce electricity. This investigation was among the earliest in which the conductivity of aqueous solutions was studied.

Cavendish began to study heat with his father, then returned to the subject in 1773-1776 with a study of the Royal Society's meteorological instruments, in the course of which he worked out the most important corrections to be employed in accurate thermometry. In 1783 he published a study of the means of determining the freezing point of mercury. In it he added a good deal to the general theory of fusion and freezing and the latent heat changes accompanying them. Cavendish's most elaborate (and celebrated) investigation was that on the density of the earth. He took part in a program to measure the length of a seconds pendulum in the vicinity of a large mountain (Schiehallion). Variations from the period on the plain would show the attraction exerted by the mountain, from which the density of its substance could be calculated. Cavendish also approached the subject in a more fundamental way by determining the force of attraction of a very large, heavy lead ball for a very small, light ball. The ratio between this force and the weight of the light ball would furnish the mass of the earth. His results were unquestioned and unsurpassed for nearly a century. Unpublished Works Had Cavendish published all his work, his great influence would undoubtedly have been greater, but in fact he left in manuscript form a vast amount which often anticipated that of his successors. It came to light only bit by bit until the thorough study undertaken by Maxwell (published in 1878) and by Thorpe (published in 1921). In these notes is to be found such material as the detail of his experiments to examine the law of electrostatic force, the conductivity of metals, and many chemical questions such as a theory of chemical equivalents. He had a theory of partial pressures before Dalton. However, the history of science is full of instances of unpublished works which might have influenced others but in fact did not. Whatever he did not reveal, Cavendish gave his

colleagues enough to help them on the road to modern conceptions. Nothing he did has been rejected, and for this reason he is still, in a unique way, part of modern life.

Coulomb, Charles FRENCH ENGINEER 17361806 AND PHYSICIST

Charles-Augustin de Coulomb was born to affluent parents in Angoulme, France. His father's family was prominent in the legal profession and involved in the administration of the Languedoc region of France. His mother's family was quite wealthy. After being raised in Angoulme, Charles moved with his family to Paris, where he entered the Collge Mazarin and pursued a classical education. After a brief stay in Montpellier, Coulomb returned to Paris to study at the cole du Gnie at Mzires. This was one of the first schools of engineering; it specifically focused on military engineering. Coulomb graduated in 1761 with a degree in engineering and the rank of lieutenant in the Corps du Gnie. Over the next twenty years, he was posted to a variety of locations where he became involved in the structural design of forts and fortifications, and soil mechanics. In 1777 his work on torsion balances (among other subjects) won Coulomb a share of the Grand Prix of the Acadmie des Sciences. Historically, all measurements of weight had been obtained by using a two-pan balance, which is simply a bar centered on a fulcrum . Coulomb's torsion balance replaced the fulcrum with a fine silk thread or hair, and rather than the up-and-down motion of the pan balance, he used a twist or torsion around this thread. He was able to show that the amount of torsion is proportional to the amount of force; thus he devised a method for measuring very small interactions. With his very fine torsion balance, Coulomb was able to demonstrate that the repulsive force between two small spheres electrified with the same type of electricity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the centers of the two spheres. At the time, the electron had not yet been discovered,

so the underlying reason for this remained a mystery but Coulomb was able to demonstrate that both repulsion and attraction followed this principle. He was not able to make the quantitative step to show that the force was also directly proportional to the product of the charges, but he did complete some experiments exploring this relationship. As a consequence, the law governing one of the four fundamental forces of nature is named Coulomb's law: F = kq 1q 2/r 2 For his work in setting physics on a course of discovery, the fundamental unit of charge was named the "coulomb" in his honor.

Antoine Henri Becquerel The French physicist Antoine Henri Becquerel (1852-1908) was the discoverer of natural radioactivity. Antoine Henri Becquerel was born in Paris on Dec. 15, 1852. Both his father, Alexandre Edmond Becquerel, and his grandfather, Antoine Csar Becquerel, were scientists. Following his graduation from the cole Polytechnique in 1874, Antoine Henri worked as a civil engineer, but he also retained a strong interest in scientific problems. In 1878 he succeeded in the chair of his father who was professor of applied physics at the Conservatoire des Arts et Mtiers. Ten years later Becquerel earned his doctor's degree with a dissertation on the absorption of light in crystals. He then became professor of applied physics at the Museum of Natural History in Paris in 1892 and professor of physics at the Polytechnique in 1895. Prior to 1895 Becquerel did research on phosphorescence. He had inherited from his father a supply of uranium salts, which were known to be phosphorescent when exposed to light. Upon learning in January 1896 about W. C. Roentgen's discovery of x-rays, Becquerel's interest immediately turned to the question of whether all phosphorescent materials acted as sources of similar rays. The results did not justify his hopes, but Becquerel stumbled on an unexpected phenomenon. After placing sheets of sulfate of uranium on photographic plates wrapped in black paper, he exposed the package to light for several hours. On developing the plates he obtained distinct pictures of the uranium sheets. Later he obtained pictures of medals which had been placed between the uranium and the plates. The uneven thickness of the medals blocked in varying degrees the effectiveness of the radiation from uranium. He also discovered that part of the radiation could

be deflected by a magnetic field and that the radiations had an ionizing effect on the surrounding air. For the discovery of natural radioactivity, which for a number of years was called Becquerel rays, he won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1903. In his Nobel lecture Becquerel noted that the new radiation indicated the possible modification of atoms which "the methods at our disposal are unable to bring about (but which) could certainly release energy in sufficiently large quantities to produce the observed effects, without the changes in matter being large enough to be detectable by our methods of investigation." As a cause of that modification, he held out the possible existence of "an external radiation" hitherto undetected but which, when absorbed by radioactive materials, would be transformed into radioactivity without bringing about the transformation of the atoms themselves. Becquerel's election as perpetual secretary of the Academy of Sciences in 1908 was one of the numerous honors bestowed on him. His death on Aug. 25, 1908, at Le Croisic did not signal the end of the lineage of scientists in the Becquerel family. From Becquerel's marriage to Lucie Zo Marie Jamin a son, Jean, had been born; he became the fourth Becquerel to occupy the chair of physics at the Museum of Natural History and was also an able investigator of radioactivity.

move. On Aug. 29, 1831, he discovered electromagnetic induction. Michael Faraday The English physicist and chemist Michael Faraday (1791-1867) discovered benzene and the principles of current induction. One of a blacksmith's 10 children, Michael Faraday was born on Sept. 22, 1791, in Newington, Surrey. The family soon moved to London, where young Michael picked up the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic. At the age of 14 he was apprenticed to a bookbinder and bookseller. He read ravenously and attended public lectures, including some by Sir Humphry Davy. Faraday's career began when Davy, temporarily blinded in a laboratory accident, appointed Faraday as his assistant at the Royal Institution. With Davy as a teacher in analytical chemistry, Faraday advanced in his scientific apprenticeship and began independent chemical studies. By 1825 he discovered benzene and had become the first to describe compounds of chlorine and carbon. He adopted the atomic theory to explain that chemical qualities were the result of attraction and repulsion between united atoms. This proved to be the theoretical foundation for much of his future work. Faraday had already done some work in magnetism and electricity, and it was in this field that he made his most outstanding contributions. His first triumph came when he found a solution to the problem of producing continuous rotation by use of electric current, thus making electric motors possible. Hans Oersted had discovered the magnetic effect of a current, but Faraday grasped the fact that a conductor at rest and a steady magnetic field do not interact and that to get an induced current either the conductor or the field has to During the next 10 years Faraday explored and expanded the field of electricity. In 1834 he announced his famous two laws of electrolysis. Briefly, they state that for any given amount of electrical force in an electrochemical cell, chemical substances are released at the electrodes in the ratio of their chemical equivalents. He also invented the voltameter, a device for measuring electrical charges, which was the first step toward the later standardization of electrical quantities. Faraday continued to work in his laboratory, but his health began to deteriorate and he had to stop work entirely in 1841. Almost miraculously, however, his health improved and he resumed work in 1844. He began a search for an interaction between magnetism and light and in 1845 turned his attention from electrostatics to electromagnetism. He discovered that an intense magnetic field can rotate the plane of polarized light, a phenomenon known today as the Faraday effect. In conjunction with these experiments he showed that the magnetic line of force is conducted by all matter. Those which were good conductors he called paramagnetics, while those which conducted the force poorly he named diamagnetics. Thus, the energy of a magnet is in the space around it, not in the magnet itself. This is the fundamental idea of the field theory. Faraday was a brilliant lecturer, and through his public lectures he did a great deal to popularize science. Shortly after he became head of the Royal Institution in 1825, he inaugurated the custom of giving a series of lectures for young people during the Christmas season. This tradition has been maintained, and over the years the series have frequently been the basis for fascinating, simply written, and informative books. On Aug. 25, 1867, Faraday died in London.

The admiration of physicists for Faraday has been demonstrated by naming the unit of capacitance the farad and a unit of charge, the faraday. No other man has been doubly honored in this way. His name also appears frequently in connection with effects, laws, and apparatus. These honors are proper tribute to the man who was possibly the greatest experimentalist who ever lived.

Ernest Rutherford The British physicist Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson (18711937), discovered transmutation of the elements, the nuclear atom, and a host of other phenomena to become the most prominent experimental physicist of his time. In searching for an experimental physicist to compare with Lord Rutherford, it is natural to think of Michael Faraday. Like Faraday, Rutherford instinctively knew what experiments would yield the most profound insights into the operations of nature; unlike Faraday, however, Rutherford established a school of followers by training a large number of research physicists. One of his colleagues observed that Rutherford always appeared to be on the "crest of the wave." Rutherford, with no sense of false modesty, replied, "Well! I made the wave, didn't I?" Then, after a moment's reflection, he added, "At least to some extent." Most physicists would agree that it was to a very large extent. Ernest Rutherford was born on Aug. 30, 1871, in Spring Grove (Brightwater), near Nelson, New Zealand. His father, a Scot, was a wheelwright, farmer, timberman, and largescale flax producer. Rutherford attended Nelson College, a secondary school (18861889), and then studied at Canterbury College in Christchurch, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1892. The following year he took his master's degree with honors in mathematics and physics. First Research Rutherford's interest in original research induced him to remain at Canterbury for an

additional year. Using the rather primitive research facilities available to him, he proved that iron can be magnetized by the rapidly oscillating (and damped) electric field produced during the discharge of a Tesla coil. This indicated that electromagnetic (Maxwellian or Hertzian) waves might be detectable if they were allowed to demagnetize a magnetized wire, and by the end of 1894 he was sending and receiving these "wireless" signals in the laboratory. In 1895 Rutherford arrived in Cambridge, where he became the first research student to work under J. J. Thomson at the Cavendish Laboratory. He improved his earlier instrumentation and was soon transmitting and receiving electromagnetic signals up to 2 miles' distance, a great achievement in those days. Thomson asked Rutherford to assist him in his own researches on the x-rayinduced conduction of electricity through gases. Within a year these studies led Thomson to his discovery of the electron. Rutherford then explored still another recent find, A. H. Becquerel's 1896 discovery of radioactivity. Rutherford soon determined that the uranium rays were capable of ionizing gases. He also discovered something new, namely, that uranium emits two different types of radiation, a highly ionizing radiation of low penetrating power, which he termed alpha radiation, and a much lower ionizing radiation of high penetrating power, which he termed beta radiation. Rutherford remained with Thomson at the Cavendish Laboratory until 1898; he was therefore extremely fortunate in being at precisely the right place at precisely the right time. His scientific horizons broadened enormously during these years; and his confidence increased greatly owing to Thomson's open recognition of his exceptional ability.

Radioactive Transformations Rutherford's first professorship was the Macdonald professorship of physics at McGill University in Montreal. In 1900 he married Mary Newton; the following year their only child, Eileen, was born. Concerning research, Rutherford knew precisely the area he wished to study: radioactivity. On his suggestion, R. B. Owens, a young colleague in electrical engineering, had prepared a sample of thorium oxide to study the ionizing power of thorium's radiations. Owens found, oddly enough, that the ionization they produced apparently depended upon the presence or absence of air currents passing over the thorium oxide. Nothing similar had ever been observed with uranium. It was this mystery that Owens, going on vacation, left for Rutherford to solve. Rutherford designed a series of masterful experiments from which he concluded that thorium somehow produces a gas, which he called "thorium emanation." It was this gas that Owens's air currents had transported, thereby influencing the recorded ionization. Rutherford also found that any thorium emanation produced soon disappeared before his very eyes! By passing some thorium emanation through a long tube at a constant rate, Rutherford discovered that half the amount present at any given time disappeared ("decayed") roughly every minuteits "halflife." He also found that, if thorium emanation came into contact with a metal plate, the plate would acquire an "active deposit" which also decayed but which had a half-life of roughly 11 hours. Further studies revealed that pressure or other external conditions did not influence these half-lives. In addition, the "activities" of the substances as a function of time decayed exponentially, which Rutherford realized was possible only if the activity was directly proportional to the number of "ions" (atoms) present at any given time. In this way Rutherford discovered the first known radioactive gas, thorium emanation, and explored its behavior.

In 1900 Rutherford was joined by Frederick Soddy, a member of McGill's chemistry department. Together they resolved to isolate the sources of thorium's radioactivity by chemical separation techniques. By the end of 1901 their most important conclusions were, first, that thorium emanation is an inert gas like argon and, second, that thorium emanation is produced, not by thorium directly, but by some unknown, and apparently chemically different, element which they termed "thorium X." This was a key insight into the understanding of radioactivity, for it suggested that one element, thorium, can decay into a second element, thorium X, which in turn can decay into a third element, thorium emanation. Item after item now fell into place. Soddy, turning from thorium to uranium, found that it decayed into a new radioactive element, "uranium X." Next, Rutherford came to understand the crucial fact that each radioactive transformation is accompanied by the instantaneous emission of a single alpha or beta particle. Rutherford also proved by a simple calculation that in radioactive transformations enormous quantities of energy are released, which, he argued could be derived only from an internal atomic source. Although some links were still missing, Rutherford's revolutionary theory of radioactive transformations was essentially complete by early 1904. He summarized the results of all of his own researches, as well as those of the Curies and other physicists, in his Bakerian lecture, "The Succession of Changes in Radioactive Bodies," of May 19, 1904, which he delivered before the Royal Society of London. In this lecture, one of the classics in the literature of physics, he presented the complete mathematical formulation of his theory, identified the four radioactive series uranium, thorium, actinium, and radium (neptunium)and established the principle, albeit tacitly, that any radioactive element can be uniquely identified by its half-life.

Rutherford also delivered a lecture at the Royal Institution in which he dwelled at some length on an important consequence of his theoryits implications for the age of the earth. He realized that lead, a stable element, is the end product of each radioactive series. This meant that, by determining the relative amounts of, say, uranium and lead in a sample of rock, its age can be calculatedwhich is the basis of the radioactive dating method. Rutherford's researches attracted a number of scientists to McGill. His activities there teaching, experimenting, writing his famous book Radioactivitywere prodigious. Recognition came to Rutherford early: he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1902, was awarded the society's Rumford Medal in 1905, and delivered the Yale University Silliman Lectures and received his first honorary degree in 1906. In 1908 he received the Nobel Prizein chemistry! Rutherford later remarked that he had in his day observed many transformations of varying periods of time, but the fastest he had ever observed was his own from physicist to chemist. He refused to disappoint the Nobel Committee, however, and titled his Nobel lecture "The Chemical Nature of the Alpha-Particles from Radioactive Substances." Nuclear Atom and Transmutations Artificial

emanation, in a glass enclosure. There the alpha particles acquired free electrons and formed a gas which spectroscopic analysis proved to be helium. This work took on much broader significance as a result of another observation, namely, that alpha particles can be scattered by various substances. His coworkers, H. Geiger and E. Marsden, allowed alpha particles to strike various metal foils (for example, gold and platinum) and counted that between 3 and 67 alpha particles per minute or about 1/8000 of those present in the incident beamwere scattered backward, that is, through more than a right angle. Two years elapsed before Rutherford achieved the insights necessary for a satisfactory explanation of Geiger and Marsden's experiments. He had to realize that the alpha particle is not of atomic dimensions but that it can be considered to be a point charge in scattering theoretical calculations and that the number of electrons per atom is relatively smallon the same order of magnitude, numerically speaking, as the atom's atomic weight. He also had to realize the extreme improbability of obtaining Geiger and Marsden's results if the alpha particle was multiply scattered by presumably widely separated electrons in the atom, as a 1904 atomic model, as well as a 1910 scattering theory, of Thomson's suggested. In early 1911 Rutherford became convinced, through rather extensive calculations, that Geiger and Marsden's alpha particles were being scattered in hyperbolic orbits by the intense electric field surrounding a dense concentration of electric charge in the center of the atomthe nucleus. The nuclear atom had been born. No one, however, noticed the new arrival. It was apparently not even mentioned, for example, at the famous 1911 Solvay Conference in Brussels, which Rutherford, Albert Einstein, Max Planck, and many other prominent physicists attended. Whatever novelty contemporary physicists attached to Rutherford's paper seems to have been to his scattering theory rather than to his model of the atom which was only one of many models

In 1907 Rutherford arrived at the University of Manchester to succeed Sir Arthur Schuster as Langworthy professor of physics. Rutherford seems to have enjoyed teaching at Manchester more than at McGill. As he later wrote to his friend B.B. Boltwood of Yale University: "I find the students here regard a full professor as little short of Lord God Almighty. It is quite refreshing after the critical attitude of Canadian students." By early 1908 Rutherford was ready to test some new ideas. One of the first questions he wanted to settle was the nature of alpha particles. He devised a very simple scheme for capturing alpha particles, from purified radium

present in the literature. Only after Niels Bohr exploited the nucleus in developing his famous 1913 quantum theory of the hydrogen atom, and only after H.G.J. Moseley attached to the nucleus a unique atomic number through his well-known 1913-1914 x-ray experiments, was the full significance of Rutherford's nuclear model generally appreciated. Only then, for example, did the concept of isotopes become generally and clearly recognized. The researches that Rutherford fostered at Manchesterpartly for which he was knighted in 1914were not confined to alpha scattering and atomic structure. For example, he and his coworkers studied the chemistry and modes of decay of the radioactive elements; the scattering, the wavelengths, and the spectra of gamma rays; and the relationship between the range of alpha particles and the lifetime of the elements from which they are emitted. Most of this immense activity was brought to a halt at the outbreak of World War I. Rutherford became associated with the Admiralty Board of Invention and Research early in the war, and he carried out experiments relating to the detection of submarines, devising a variety of microphones, diaphragms, and underwater senders and receivers to study underwater sound propagation. He supplied American scientists with a vast amount of information when the United States entered the war in 1917. In 1919 Rutherford and William Kay found, as the culmination of a long series of investigations, that when alpha particles strike hydrogenor, in a more famous experiment, nitrogenrecoil "protons" (Rutherford's term) are produced. Rutherford realized at once that he had achieved the first artificial nuclear transmutation (alpha particle + nitrogen to proton + oxygen) known to man. He gave a full account of his and Kay's work in 1920 in his second Bakerian lecture, "Nuclear Constitution of Atoms." One surprising prediction he made in this lecture was that of a "kind of neutral doublet," perhaps a faint premonition of the neutron. Rutherford's discovery of artificial

transmutation was, in general, a fitting capstone to his brilliant career at Manchester. Cambridge and Honors In 1919 Rutherford became Cavendish Professor of Physics and Director of the laboratory and, a bit later, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. As the occupant of the most prestigious chair of physics in England, and, concurrently, as the holder of a Professorship of Natural Philosophy at the Royal Institution (1921), Rutherford was more and more called upon to deliver public lectures and serve in various professional offices. In 1923 he was elected President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; in 1925, the same year in which he gained admittance into the coveted Order of Merit, he became President of the Royal Society for the customary 5-year term. In 1933 he accepted the presidency of the Academic Assistance Council, formed to aid Nazi-persecuted Jewish scholars. He died on Oct. 19, 1937, in Cambridge. Portrait of the Man C. P. Snow has provided the following portrait of Rutherford in mature life: "He was a big, rather clumsy man, with a substantial bay window that started in the middle of the chest. I should guess that he was less muscular than at first sight he looked. He had large staring blue eyes and a damp and pendulous lower lip. He didn't look in the least like an intellectual. Creative people of his abundant kind never do, of course, but all the talk of Rutherford looking like a farmer was unperceptive nonsense. His was really the kind of face and physique that often goes with great weight of character and gifts. It could easily have been the soma of a great writer. As he talked to his companions in the streets, his voice was three times as loud as any of theirs, and his accent was bizarre. It was part of his nature that, stupendous as his work was, he should consider it 10 per cent more so. It was also part of his nature that, quite without acting, he should behave constantly as though he were 10 per cent larger than life. Worldly success? He loved every

minute of it: flattery, titles, the company of the high official world."

Gustav Robert Kirchhoff The German physicist Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (1824-1887) is best remembered for his pioneering work in spectroscopy that permitted investigation of the chemical composition of stars. Gustav Kirchhoff was born on March 12, 1824, in Knigsberg, East Prussia, the son of a lawyer. He attended the local gymnasium and entered the University of Knigsberg at the age of 18. Among his teachers were Franz Neumann, the noted theoretical physicist, and Friedrich Richelot, the mathematician. Shortly after he received his doctorate in 1847, he married Richelot's daughter, Clara; they had two sons and two daughters. Also in 1847, he received a rarely awarded travel grant from the university for a study trip to Paris, but the political situation forced him to cancel the plans. In 1848 Kirchhoff became privatdozent in Berlin, and 2 years later he obtained the post of extraordinary (associate) professor at Breslau. It was there that he first met Robert Bunsen. By 1854 both Kirchhoff and Bunsen were working together in Heidelberg. The investigation of spectra with prisms had been going on for decades. There had also been several guesses made as to the identity between some lines in the solar spectrum and in spectra produced in laboratories. But it was Kirchhoff who, one afternoon in the summer of 1859, looked at the interaction of sunlight and the light of table salt burning in the flame of the Bunsen burner and said, "There must be a

fundamental story here." When he returned to the laboratory the next day, he had the solution to his observation. It is known as Kirchhoff's law of radiation: the relation between the powers of emission and the powers of absorption for rays of the same wavelength is constant for all bodies at the same temperature. This law also implies that the bodies absorb more readily the radiation of such wavelengths as they tend to emit. Furthermore, the law implies that the greater the opacity of a body, the more complete its spectrum, and that the true emission spectrum of a substance is obtained in its gaseous state. Kirchhoff's now famous paper, written with Bunsen and published in 1859, also stated that "the dark lines [Fraunhofer lines] of the solar spectrum which are not caused by the terrestrial atmosphere, arise from the presence in the glowing solar atmosphere of those substances which in a flame produce bright lines in the same position." Kirchhoff and Bunsen became celebrities overnight. Subsequent scientific developments did full justice to the elation of the moment. Spectroscopy turned out to be the magic key to a great number of practical discoveries, and half a century later it ushered in the era of modern atomic physics. In a sense, Kirchhoff's great success in spectroscopy drew attention away from his varied contributions to every branch of physics. He occupied the chair of theoretical physics at the University of Berlin from 1875 until his death on Oct. 17, 1887.

the system of receiving simultaneous weather reports by telegraph and basing weather predictions on them. From these beginnings came the U.S. Weather Bureau. During the Civil War he served on the Navy's permanent commission to evaluate inventions and on the Lighthouse Board. Henry was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1835. He helped organize the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1847 and was an original member of the National Academy of Sciences, chartered by Congress in 1863. He became vice president of the National Academy in 1866 and was president from 1868 until his death. He was responsible for reorganizing the academy and transforming it from a society that emphasized governmental service to an honorary organization which recognized "original research." Henry died on May 13, 1878. By concurrent resolution a memorial service was held in his honor on the evening of Jan. 16, 1879, in the hall of the House of Representatives, and by act of Congress a bronze statue was erected at Washington in his memory.

Joseph Henry Joseph Henry (1797-1878), American physicist and electrical experimenter, was primarily important for his role in the institutional development of science in America. Joseph Henry was born Dec. 17, 1797, in Albany, N. Y. He attended the common school until the age of 14, when he was apprenticed to a jeweler. He later studied at the Albany Academy and in 1826 became professor of mathematics there. He immediately began researching a comparatively new fieldthe relation of electric currents to magnetism. The important result of this work was Henry's discovery of induced currents. In 1832 he was appointed professor of natural philosophy (chemistry and physics) in the College of New Jersey at Princeton. In 1846 Henry became the first secretary and director of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., a position he held for the rest of his life. Under his direction the institution encouraged and supported original research. Although a large portion of the income settled on the institution by Congress was for the support of the museum, art gallery, laboratory, and library, Henry took every opportunity to divest the institution of such burdens. As the Smithsonian's director, Henry acted as one of the major coordinators of government science. Among the projects he originated was

Jean Bernard Lon Foucault The French physicist Jean Bernard Lon Foucault (1819-1868) is remembered for the Foucault pendulum, by which he demonstrated the diurnal rotation of the earth, and for the first accurate determination of the velocity of light. Lon Foucault, son of a Paris bookseller, was born on Sept. 18, 1819. He began to study medicine but turned to physics, probably as a result of becoming assistant to Alfred Donn, who was developing a photoengraving process by etching daguerreotypes in connection with his anatomy lectures. This brought Foucault contact with the physicist Hippolyte Fizeau, who was at that time attempting to improve the daguerreotype process, and they collaborated for several years on optical topics. From 1845 Foucault was editor of the scientific section of the Journal de dbats. In 1855 he was appointed physicist at the Paris Observatory; in 1864 he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Society of London; and in 1865 he became a member of the Acadmie des Sciences. Rotating Frames of Reference Foucault's first important experimental demonstration was of the earth's rotation, for which he used a pendulum. The plane of motion of a freely suspended simple pendulum appears to rotate; in fact, it is spatially fixed

while the earth rotates. Foucault published his account of this in 1851, together with an equation connecting the apparent angular rotation of the pendulum's plane with the angular velocity of the earth and the latitude of the place of the experiment. It created great interest, and the experiment, readily repeatable with simple apparatus, was, and still is, frequently performed in public. In 1852 Foucault gave a further demonstration of the earth's rotation with a freely mounted gyroscope and derived some laws describing its behavior. These experiments, in combination with earlier theoretical work by Gustave Coriolis, led to a clearer understanding of rotating frames of reference. For his work Foucault was awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1855. Determining the Velocity of Light In 1850 Foucault joined the debate over the then-competing particle and wave theories of light. D. F. J. Arago had demonstrated in 1838 that a crucial test could be made by comparing the velocities of light in air and in a dense medium, and he was experimenting to determine the velocity of light with a rotatingmirror method devised by Charles Wheatstone in 1834. Lack of success and ill health led Arago to pass the task on to Foucault in 1850. Success came in the same year, when Foucault observed a retardation of the velocity of light in water, giving support to the wave theory. He then saw how the rotating-mirror method could be refined to measure the absolute velocity of light in a restricted space. Foucault overcame the technical problems and in 1862 obtained a value of 2.98 x 1010 centimeters per second, the first accurate measure of this fundamental physical constant. From 1855, as physicist at the Imperial Observatory, Foucault worked to improve the design of telescopes. As a member of the Bureau of Longitudes from 1862 he improved certain surveying instruments, particularly the centrifugal governor, which aided timekeeping in the use of field-transit instruments. The 1860s saw Foucault turning toward precision

engineering and electricity, but he was incapacitated by a stroke in July 1867 and died in Paris on Feb. 11, 1868. Foucault's ability to recognize fruitful lines of research, so sadly lacking in many of his contemporary countrymen, was combined with an experimental ability of the first order. His early death was a great loss to French science.

Uhlenbeck's urging, Fermi went to study at the University of Leiden with Uhlenbeck's teacher, Paul Ehrenfest. Several years later, when Uhlenbeck was at the University of Michigan, he arranged for Fermi to spend the summers of 1930, 1933, and 1935 at Michigan's Summer School for Theoretical Physics. Fermi Statistics Late in 1924, after leaving Leiden, Fermi went to the University of Florence, where he taught mathematical physics and theoretical mechanics. In 1926 he published his first major discovery, namely, the quantum statistics now universally known as Fermi-Dirac statistics. The particles obeying these statistics are now known as fermions. Fermi's discovery did not stem basically from the concurrently emerging quantum theory, as might be expected, but rather from his own studies in statistical mechanics. These studies began as early as 1923 but were frustrated because a key concept, Wolfgang Pauli's exclusion principle, was still missing. Fermi saw immediately that all particles (fermions) obeying Pauli's exclusion principle would behave in a definite way, quantummechanically and statistically speaking. Fermi's discovery led to an understanding of certain important features of gas theory, of how electrons in metals conduct electricity, of why electrons do not contribute to the specific heats of substances, and of many other phenomena. It also undergirded Fermi's widely used 1927 statistical model of the atom, an approximate model in which the atom is envisioned as a statistical assemblage of electrons. Theory of Beta Decay The years between 1926 and 1938 constituted Fermi's "golden age." He accepted the chair of theoretical physics at the University of Rome in 1926 and only 3 years later became one of the first 30 members (and sole physicist) to be elected to the Royal Academy of Italy. In 1928

Enrico Fermi The Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi (1901-1954) discovered "Fermi statistics," described beta decay, established the properties of slow neutrons, and constructed the first atomic pile. In Enrico Fermi, the theorist and experimentalist were combined in a supremely intimate, complementary, and creative way. He possessed an almost uncanny physical intuition which, together with his personal simplicity, made him universally admired and respected. Fermi was born on Sept. 29, 1901, in Rome, the third child of an official in the Ministry of Railroads. At about the age of 10 his interest in mathematics and physics awakened. A perceptive colleague of his father's, the engineer A. Amidei, recognized Fermi's truly exceptional intellectual qualities and guided his mathematical and physical studies between ages 13 and 17. By the time Fermi received his doctorate from the University of Pisa in 1922, he had written several papers on relativistic electrodynamics, using the methods of Albert Einstein's general theory. Fermi received a fellowship to study at the University of Gttingen. In spite of the fact that he attacked problems of interest to the Gttingen physicists, his 8 months there were not very satisfactory. In 1924, on George E.

he married Laura Capon; they had a son and a daughter. Fermi made significant contributions to a wide variety of problems in atomic, molecular, and nuclear spectroscopy; in particle scattering theory; in atomic and nuclear structure; and in quantum electrodynamics. His most celebrated theoretical work of this period was his 1933 theory of nuclear beta decay, a theory that nicely supplemented the theory of nuclear alpha decay of George Gamow, R. W. Gurney, and Edward U. Condon. In beta decay a negatively charged particle (beta particle), known to be identical to an electron, is emitted from the nucleus of an atom, thereby increasing the atomic number of the nucleus by one unit. Fermi worked out in a short time an elegant theory of beta decay based on the idea that a neutron in the nucleus is transformed (decays) into three particles: a proton, an electron (beta particle), and a neutrino. Actually, the neutrinoan elusive, massless, chargeless particlewas not detected experimentally until the 1950s. Slow Neutrons In the late 1920s Fermi decided to attack experimental problems in nuclear physics rather than continue his ongoing spectroscopic researches. By mixing beryllium powder with some radon gas, he had a source of neutrons with which to experiment and determine whether neutrons could induce radioactivity. He constructed a crude Geiger-counter detector and, methodically, he started bombarding hydrogen, then went on to elements of higher atomic number. All results were negative until he bombarded fluorium and detected a weak radioactivity. This key date in neutron physics was March 21, 1934. With high excitement Fermi and his coworkers continued. By summer 1934 they had bombarded many substances, discovering, for example, that neutrons can liberate protons as well as alpha particles. In addition, they had

detected a slight radioactivity when bombarding uranium, and they attempted, without success, to understand why aluminum, when bombarded with neutrons, could not decide, in effect, which of two different nuclear reactions to undergo. Their next discovery was a milestone. They found that the level of radioactivity induced in a substance was increased if a paraffin filter was placed in the beam of neutrons irradiating the substance. Fermi's hypothesis for this miracle, which he immediately confirmed, was that in passing through the paraffin, a compound containing a large amount of hydrogen, the neutrons had their velocity much reduced by collisions with the hydrogen nuclei; and these very slow neutronscontrary to all expectationsinduced a much higher radioactivity in substances than did fast neutrons. Furthermore, the old aluminum mystery had been solved: slow neutrons produce one kind of reaction, fast neutrons another. The discovery of the remarkable properties of slow neutrons was the key discovery in neutron physics. By 1937 Fermi's wife and their children became directly affected by the racial laws in Fascist Italy. In December 1938 the Fermi family went to Stockholm for the presentation of the Nobel Prize in physics to Fermi. He and his family then left for the United States, arriving in New York on Jan. 2, 1939, where Fermi accepted a position at Columbia University. Atomic Age With the assistance of Herbert L. Anderson, Fermi produced a beam of neutrons with the Columbia cyclotron, thus verifying the fission of uranium. Then he quantitatively explored the conditions governing its production. He and his coworkers also proved, using a minute sample, that the fissionable isotope of uranium is U 235. By mid-1939 there was clear evidence that a self-sustaining chain reaction might be realizable. Furthermore, the stupendous military importance of nuclear fission had become clear. By July 1941 Arthur H. Compton,

chairman of a special committee of the National Academy of Sciences, could report the possibility not only of a uranium bomb but also of a plutonium bomb. Fermi was asked to assume the huge responsibility of directing the construction of the first atomic pile. He, and other key physicists, moved to the University of Chicago in the spring of 1942; by early October their researches had progressed to the point where Fermi was confident he knew how to construct the pile, and the project (the "Manhattan Project") was under way. Construction of the pile began in mid-November 1942, and on December 2 Fermi directed the operation of the first self-sustaining chain reaction created by man. The actual length of time it was operated on that historic day was 40 minutes; its maximum power was 1/2 watt, enough to activate a penlight. It was the opening of a new age, the Atomic Age. Fermi's experiment was far more than an experiment in pure research. Huge national laboratories were constructed, one of which, Los Alamos, had immediate responsibility for the construction of the nuclear bomb. Its director was J. Robert Oppenheimer. In September 1944 he brought Fermi from Chicago primarily to have him on hand during the last, critical stages in the construction of the bomb. By early 1945 the project had proceeded to the point where the greatest amount of new information could be obtained only by actually exploding the fearsome weapon. The test, which bore the code name "Project Trinity," was successfully carried out on July 16, 1945, in the desert near Alamogordo in southern New Mexico. Last Years On Dec. 31, 1945, Fermi became Charles H. Swift distinguished service professor of physics and a member of the newly established Institute (now the Enrico Fermi Institute) for Nuclear Studies at the University of Chicago. This was the beginning of a period during which his reading and range of interests

always confined largely to physics contracted considerably. For a few years he continued working in the fields of nuclear and neutron physics. In 1949 he demonstrated theoretically that the extremely high cosmic-ray energies can be accounted for by the accelerations imparted to them by vast interstellar magnetic fields. At about the same time his interest shifted away from nuclear physics to highenergy (particle) physics. In a number of his researches he used the Chicago synchrocyclotron to explore pi-meson interactions in an effort to discover the means by which the nucleus is held together in a stable configuration. Fermi died in Chicago on Nov. 29, 1954.

a different kind of wonder: the deep emotional stirring that accompanied his discovery of Euclidean geometry, with its lucid and certain proofs. Einstein mastered differential and integral calculus by age 16. Education in Zurich Einstein's formal secondary education was abruptly terminated at 16. He found life in school intolerable, and just as he was scheming to find a way to leave without impairing his chances for entering the university, his teacher expelled him for the negative effects his rebellious attitude was having on the morale of his classmates. Einstein tried to enter the Federal Institute of Technology (FIT) in Zurich, Switzerland, but his knowledge of nonmathematical disciplines was not equal to that of mathematics and he failed the entrance examination. On the advice of the principal, he thereupon first obtained his diploma at the Cantonal School in Aarau, and in 1896 he was automatically admitted into the FIT. There he came to realize that his deepest interest and facility lay in physics, both experimental and theoretical, rather than in mathematics. Einstein passed his diploma examination at the FIT in 1900, but due to the opposition of one of his professors he was unable to subsequently obtain the usual university assistantship. In 1902 he was engaged as a technical expert, third-class, in the patent office in Bern, Switzerland. Six months later he married Mileva Maric, a former classmate in Zurich. They had two sons. It was in Bern, too, that Einstein, at 26, completed the requirements for his doctoral degree and wrote the first of his revolutionary scientific papers. Academic Career These papers made Einstein famous, and universities soon began competing for his services. In 1909, after serving as a lecturer at the University of Bern, Einstein was called as an associate professor to the University of Zurich. Two years later he was appointed a full

Albert Einstein The German-born American physicist Albert Einstein (1879-1955) revolutionized the science of physics. He is best known for his theory of relativity. In the history of the exact sciences, only a handful of menmen like Nicolaus Copernicus and Isaac Newtonshare the honor that was Albert Einstein's: the initiation of a revolution in scientific thought. His insights into the nature of the physical world made it impossible for physicists and philosophers to view that world as they had before. When describing the achievements of other physicists, the tendency is to enumerate their major discoveries; when describing the achievements of Einstein, it is possible to say, simply, that he revolutionized physics. Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, in Ulm, but he grew up and obtained his early education in Munich. He was not a child prodigy; in fact, he was unable to speak fluently at age 9. Finding profound joy, liberation, and security in contemplating the laws of nature, already at age 5 he had experienced a deep feeling of wonder when puzzling over the invisible, yet definite, force directing the needle of a compass. Seven years later he experienced

professor at the German University in Prague. Within another year and a half Einstein became a full professor at the FIT. Finally, in 1913 the well-known scientists Max Planck and Walter Nernst traveled to Zurich to persuade Einstein to accept a lucrative research professorship at the University of Berlin, as well as full membership in the Prussian Academy of Science. He accepted their offer in 1914, quipping: "The Germans are gambling on me as they would on a prize hen. I do not really know myself whether I shall ever really lay another egg." When he went to Berlin, his wife remained behind in Zurich with their two sons; after their divorce he married his cousin Elsa in 1917. In 1920 Einstein was appointed to a lifelong honorary visiting professorship at the University of Leiden. During 1921-1922 Einstein, accompanied by Chaim Weizmann, the future president of the state of Israel, undertook extensive worldwide travels in the cause of Zionism. In Germany the attacks on Einstein began. Philipp Lenard and Johannes Stark, both Nobel Prize-winning physicists, began characterizing Einstein's theory of relativity as "Jewish physics." This callousness and brutality increased until Einstein resigned from the Prussian Academy of Science in 1933. (He was, however, expelled from the Bavarian Academy of Science.) Career in America On several occasions Einstein had visited the California Institute of Technology, and on his last trip to the United States Abraham Flexner offered Einsteinon Einstein's termsa position in the newly conceived and funded Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. He went there in 1933. Einstein played a key role (1939) in mobilizing the resources necessary to construct the atomic bomb by signing a famous letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt which had been drafted by Leo Szilard and E.P. Wigner. When Einstein's famous equation E mc2 was finally demonstrated in the most awesome and

terrifying way by using the bomb to destroy Hiroshima in 1945, Einstein, the pacifist and humanitarian, was deeply shocked and distressed; for a long time he could only utter "Horrible, horrible." On April 18, 1955, Einstein died in Princeton. Theory of Brownian Motion From numerous references in Einstein's writings it is evident that, of all areas in physics, thermodynamics made the deepest impression on him. During 1902-1904 Einstein reworked the foundations of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics; this work formed the immediate background to his revolutionary papers of 1905, one of which was on Brownian motion. In Brownian motion (first observed in 1827 by the Scottish botanist Robert Brown), small particles suspended in a viscous liquid such as water undergo a rapid, irregular motion. Einstein, unaware of Brown's earlier observations, concluded from his theoretical studies that such a motion must exist. Guided by the thought that if the liquid in which the particles are suspended consists of atoms or molecules they should collide with the particles and set them into motion, he found that while the particle's motion is irregular, fluctuating back and forth, it will in time nevertheless experience a net forward displacement. Einstein proved that this net forward displacement of the suspended particles is directly related to the number of molecules per gram atomic weight. This point created a good deal of skepticism toward Einstein's theory at the time he developed it (1905-1906), but when it was fully confirmed many of the skeptics were converted. Brownian motion is to this day regarded as one of the most direct proofs of the existence of atoms. Light Quanta Duality and Wave-Particle

The most common misconceptions concerning Einstein's introduction of his revolutionary

light quantum (light particle) hypothesis in 1905 are that he simply applied Planck's quantum hypothesis of 1900 to radiation and that he introduced light quanta to "explain" the photoelectric effect discovered in 1887 by Heinrich Hertz and thoroughly investigated in 1902 by Philipp Lenard. Neither of these assertions is accurate. Einstein's arguments for his light quantum hypothesisthat under certain circumstances radiant energy (light) behaves as if it consists not of waves but of particles of energy proportional to their frequencies were absolutely fundamental and, as in the case of his theory of Brownian motion, based on his own insights into the foundations of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. Furthermore, it was only after presenting strong arguments for the necessity of his light quantum hypothesis that Einstein pursued its experimental consequences. One of several such consequences was the photoelectric effect, the experiment in which high-frequency ultraviolet light is used to eject electrons from thin metal plates. In particular, Einstein assumed that a single quantum of light transfers its entire energy to a single electron in the metal plate. The famous equation he derived was fully consistent with Lenard's observation that the energy of the ejected electrons depends only on the frequency of the ultraviolet light and not on its intensity. Einstein was not disturbed by the fact that this apparently contradicts James Clerk Maxwell's classic electromagnetic wave theory of light, because he realized that there were good reasons to doubt the universal validity of Maxwell's theory. Although Einstein's famous equation for the photoelectric effectfor which he won the Nobel Prize of 1921 appears so natural today, it was an extremely bold prediction in 1905. Not until a decade later did R.A. Millikan finally succeed in experimentally verifying it to everyone's satisfaction. But while Einstein's equation was bold, his light quantum hypothesis was revolutionary: it amounted to reviving Newton's centuries-old idea that light consists of particles.

No one tried harder than Einstein to overcome opposition to this hypothesis. Thus, in 1907 he proved the fruitfulness of the entire quantum hypothesis by showing it could at least qualitatively account for the low-temperature behavior of the specific heats of solids. Two years later he proved that Planck's radiation law of 1900 demands the coexistence of particles and waves in blackbody radiation, a proof that represents the birth of the waveparticle duality. In 1917 Einstein presented a very simple and very important derivation of Planck's radiation law (the modern laser, for example, is based on the concepts Einstein introduced here), and he also proved that light quanta must carry momentum as well as energy. Meanwhile, Einstein had become involved in another series of researches having a direct bearing on the wave-particle duality. In mid1924 S.N. Bose produced a very insightful derivation of Planck's radiation lawthe origin of Bose-Einstein statisticswhich Einstein soon developed into his famous quantum theory of an ideal gas. Shortly thereafter, he became acquainted with Louis de Broglie's revolutionary new idea that ordinary material particles, such as electrons and gas molecules, should under certain circumstances exhibit wave behavior. Einstein saw immediately that De Broglie's idea was intimately related to the Bose-Einstein statistics: both indicate that material particles can at times behave like waves. Einstein told Erwin Schrdinger of De Broglie's work, and in 1926 Schrdinger made the extraordinarily important discovery of wave mechanics. Schrdinger's (as well as C. Eckart) then proved that Schrdinger's wave mechanics and Werner Heisenberg's matrix mechanics are mathematically equivalent: they are now collectively known as quantum mechanics, one of the two most fruitful physical theories of the 20th century. Since Einstein's insights formed much of the background to both Schrdinger's and Heisenberg's discoveries, the debt quantum physicists owe to Einstein can hardly be exaggerated.

Theory of Relativity The second of the two most fruitful physical theories of the 20th century is the theory of relativity, which to scientists and laymen alike is synonymous with the name of Einstein. Once again, there is a common misconception concerning the origin of this theory, namely, that Einstein advanced it in 1905 to "explain" the famous Michelson-Morley experiment (1887), which failed to detect a relative motion of the earth with respect to the ether, the medium through which light was assumed to propagate. In fact, it is not even certain that Einstein was aware of this experiment in 1905; nor was he familiar with H.A. Lorentz's elegant 1904 paper in which Lorentz applied the transformation equations which bear his name to electrodynamic phenomena. Rather, Einstein consciously searched for a general principle of nature that would hold the key to the explanation of a paradox that had occurred to him when he was 16: if, on the one hand, one runs at, say, 4 miles per hour alongside a train moving at 4 miles per hour, the train appears to be at rest; if, on the other hand, it were possible to run alongside a ray of light, neither experiment nor theory suggests that the ray of lightan oscillating electromagnetic wave would appear to be at rest. Einstein eventually saw that he could postulate that no matter what the velocity of the observer, he must always observe the same velocity c for the velocity of light: roughly 186,000 miles per second. He also saw that this postulate was consistent with a second postulate: if an observer at rest and an observer moving at constant velocity carry out the same kind of experiment, they must get the same result. These are Einstein's two postulates of his special theory of relativity. Also in 1905 Einstein proved that his theory predicted that energy E and mass mare entirely interconvertible according to his famous equation, E=mc2. For observational confirmation of his general theory of relativity, Einstein boldly predicted the gravitational red shift and the deflection of starlight (an amended value), as well as the quantitative explanation of U. J. J. Leverrier's

long-unexplained observation that the perihelion of the planet Mercury precesses about the sun at the rate of 43 seconds of arc per century. In addition, Einstein in 1916 predicted the existence of gravitational waves, which have only recently been detected. Turning to cosmological problems the following year, Einstein found a solution to his field equations consistent with the picture (the Einstein universe) that the universe is static, approximately uniformly filled with a finite amount of matter, and finite but unbounded (in the same sense that the surface area of a smooth globe is finite but has no beginning or end). The Man and His Philosophy Fellow physicists were always struck with Einstein's uncanny ability to penetrate to the heart of a complex problem, to instantly see the physical significance of a complex mathematical result. Both in his scientific and in his personal life, he was utterly independent, a trait that manifested itself in his approach to scientific problems, in his unconventional dress, in his relationships with family and friends, and in his aloofness from university and governmental politics (in spite of his intense social consciousness). Einstein loved to discuss scientific problems with friends, but he was, fundamentally a "horse for single harness." Einstein's belief in strict causality was closely related to his profound belief in the harmony of nature. That nature can be understood rationally, in mathematical terms, never ceased to evoke a deepone might say, religious feeling of admiration in him. "The most incomprehensible thing about the world," he once wrote, "is that it is comprehensible." How do we discover the basic laws and concepts of nature? Einstein argued that while we learn certain features of the world from experience, the free inventive capacity of the human mind is required to formulate physical theories. There is no logical link between the world of experience and the world of theory. Once a theory has been formulated, however, it must

be "simple" (or, perhaps, "esthetically pleasing") and agree with experiment. One such esthetically pleasing and fully confirmed theory is the special theory of relativity. When Einstein was informed of D.C. Miller's experiments, which seemed to contradict the special theory by demanding the reinstatement of the ether, he expressed his belief in the spuriousness of Miller's resultsand therefore in the harmoniousness of naturewith another of his famous aphorisms, "God is subtle, but he is not malicious." This frequent use of God's name in Einstein's speeches and writings provides us with a feeling for his religious convictions. He once stated explicitly, "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the harmony of all being, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and actions of men." It is not difficult to see that this credo is consistent with his statement that the "less knowledge a scholar possesses, the farther he feels from God. But the greater his knowledge, the nearer is his approach to God." Since Einstein's God manifested Himself in the harmony of the universe, there could be no conflict between religion and science for Einstein. To enumerate at this point the many honors that were bestowed upon Einstein during his lifetime would be to devote space to the kind of public acclamation that mattered so little to Einstein himself. How, indeed, can other human beings sufficiently honor one of their number who revolutionized their conception of the physical world, and who lived his life in the conviction that "the only life worth living is a life spent in the service of others"? When Einstein lay dying he could truly utter, as he did, "Here on earth I have done my job." It would be difficult to find a more suitable epitaph than the words Einstein himself used in characterizing his life: "God is inexorable in the way He has allotted His gifts. He gave me the stubbornness of a mule and nothing else; really, He also gave me a keen scent."