Archive for Maxwell
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1900 – Pauli – bio
Wolfgang Pauli was born in Vienna, Austria in 1900 and was a physicist known as one of the creators of quantum mechanics. He particularly become known for the “Pauli Exclusion Principle” which states that no two electrons can be in the same quantum state at the same time. PRECURSOR: 1831 – Maxwell 1838 – Mach [...]
1858 – Planck – bio
Max Planck was born in 1858 in Kiel, Germany and was the physicist responsible for creating the beginnings of quantum theory. Planck was working on a description of electromagnetic radiation when he discovered that energy is only radiated in discrete bundles, or quanta. A constant derived from the equation he produced is now known as [...]
1864 – Minkowski – bio
Hermann Minkowski was born in Lithuania in 1864 and was a mathematician who also did work in mathematical physics and relativity. “Minkowski Space” is a manifold constructed with three space-like dimensions and one time-like dimension to create the four dimensional spacetime continuum associated with relativity theory. When he taught at a science and technology university [...]
1854 – Poincare – bio
Henri Poincare was born in Nancy, France in 1854 and was a mathematician, physicist and philosopher. He may be best known for posing a theoretical problem in topology called “the Poincare Conjecture” which is a problem in topology about how a sphere can be defined by dealing with the characteristics of a three dimensional manifold. [...]
1853 – Lorentz – bio
Hendrik Antoon Lorentz was born in 1853 in Arnhem, The Netherlands. He was a physicist who collaborated with Pieter Zeeman to describe the Zeeman effect, for which both men were awarded the nobel prize for physics in 1902. The Zeeman effect describes how a magnetic field causes light to be split across spectral lines. The [...]
1885 – Kaluza – bio
Theodore Kaluza was born in Oppeln, Germany in 1885. He was a mathematician and physicist who is most noted for his contribution to “Kaluza-Klein” theory. This theory, named for the work done by both Kaluza and Oscar Klein, deals with field equations that attempted to unify Einstein’s theory of gravition and and Maxell’s electromagnetic theory [...]
1777 – Gauss – bio
“Mathematics is the queen of sciences and number theory the queen of mathematics. She often condescends to render service to astronomy and other natural sciences, but in all relations she is entitled to the first rank.” Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss was born in Braunschweig, Germany in 1777. He made great contributions to mathematics, but was [...]
1873 – electromagnetic waves
In 1873, James Clerk Maxwell published a textbook called, “A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism” which compiled all known electromagnetic theory at that date including some of his previous work on equations related to electricity and magnetism. Maxwell theorized that light was an electromagnetic wave and tied together light, electricity and magnetism which had been [...]
1879 – Einstein – bio
Albert Einstein was born in Wurttemburg, Germany in 1879 and become known as one of the greatest physicists and thinkers. PRECURSOR: -0300 – Euclid 1564 – Galileo 1642 – Newton 1777 – Gauss 1826 – Riemann 1831 – Maxwell 1838 – Mach 1849 – Klein 1853 – Lorentz 1854 – Poincare 1858 – Planck 1862 [...]
1791 – Faraday – bio
Michael Faraday was born in 1791 in South London, England. Faraday studied electromagnetic fields and was also a chemist. He proposed that magnetism is a circular force and used that idea to build the first simple electric motor. He discovered electromagnetic induction and built the first generator and transformer. He discovered that a magnetic field [...]
