Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore[] (IPA: /rbindrnt tr/ ( listen); Bengali: , Bengali

pronunciation: [robindd ro natd akur]), also written Rabndrantha Thkura,[2] (7 May 1861 7 August 1941),[]
sobriquet Gurudev,[] was a Bengali polymath who reshaped Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian art
with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly
sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse",[3] he became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in
1913.[4] In translation his poetry was viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical
poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal.[5] Tagore introduced new prose and verse forms and the use of
colloquial language into Bengali literature, thereby freeing it from traditional models based on classical Sanskrit.
He was highly influential in introducing the best of Indian culture to the West and vice versa, and he is generally
regarded as the outstanding creative artist of the modern Indian subcontinent, being highly commemorated in India
and Bangladesh, as well as in Sri Lanka, Nepal and Pakistan.[6][7][8]
A Pirali Brahmin from Kolkata with ancestral gentry roots in Jessore, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old.[9] At
age sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhnusiha ("Sun Lion"), which were
seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics.[6][10] He graduated to his first short stories and dramasand
the aegis of his birth nameby 1877. As a humanist, universalist internationalist, and strident nationalist he
denounced the Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he
advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand
songs; his legacy endures also in the institution he founded, Visva-Bharati University.[11][12][13][14][15]
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels,
stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora
(Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Hoe and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories,
and novels were acclaimedor pannedfor their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation.
His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh's
Aar Shonar Bangla. The original song of Sri Lankas National Anthem was also written and tuned by Tagore. [16]

Early life: 18611878

Main article: Early life of Rabindranath Tagore
1

The youngest of thirteen surviving children, Tagore was born in the Jorasanko mansion in Kolkata, India to parents
Debendranath Tagore (18171905) and Sarada Devi (18301875).[][17] The Tagore family came into prominence
during the Bengal Renaissance that started during the age of Hussein Shah (14931519). The original name of the
Tagore family was Banerjee. Being Brahmins, their ancestors were referred to as 'Thakurmashai' or 'Holy Sir'.
During the British rule, this name stuck and they began to be recognised as Thakur and eventually the family name
got anglicised to Tagore.Tagore family patriarchs were the Brahmo founders of the Adi Dharm faith. The loyalist
"Prince" Dwarkanath Tagore, who employed European estate managers and visited with Victoria and other royalty,
was his paternal grandfather.[18] Debendranath had formulated the Brahmoist philosophies espoused by his friend
Ram Mohan Roy, and became focal in Brahmo society after Roy's death.[19][20]
The last two days a storm has been raging, similar to the description in my songJhauro jhauro borishe baridhara [... amidst it] a hapless,
homeless man drenched from top to toe standing on the roof of his steamer [...] the last two days I have been singing this song over and
over [...] as a result the pelting sound of the intense rain, the wail of the wind, the sound of the heaving Gorai [R]iver, have assumed a fresh
life and found a new language and I have felt like a major actor in this new musical drama unfolding before me.

"Rabi" was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely.[22]
His home hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of both Bengali and Western classical
music featured there regularly, as the Jorasanko Tagores were the center of a large and art-loving social group.
Tagore's oldest brother Dwijendranath was a respected philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was
the first Indian appointed to the elite and formerly all-European Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother,
Jyotirindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright.[23] His sister Swarnakumari became a novelist.
Jyotirindranath's wife Kadambari, slightly older than Tagore, was a dear friend and powerful influence. Her abrupt
suicide in 1884, soon after he married, left him for years profoundly distraught.
Tagore largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby Bolpur and Panihati, idylls
which the family visited.[24][25] His brother Hemendranath tutored and physically conditioned himby having him
swim the Ganges or trek through hills, by gymnastics, and by practising judo and wrestling. He learned drawing,
anatomy, geography and history, literature, mathematics, Sanskrit, and Englishhis least favourite subject.[26]
Tagore loathed formal educationhis scholarly travails at the local Presidency College spanned a single day. Years
later he held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity:[27]
[It] knock[s] at the doors of the mind. If any boy is asked to give an account of what is awakened in him by such
knocking, he will probably say something silly. For what happens within is much bigger than what comes out in
words. Those who pin their faith on university examinations as the test of education take no account of this.[27]
After he underwent an upanayan initiation at age eleven, he and his father left Kolkata in February 1873 for a
months-long tour of the Raj. They visited his father's Santiniketan estate and rested in Amritsar en route to the
Himalayan Dhauladhars, their destination being the remote hill station at Dalhousie. Along the way, Tagore read
biographies; his father tutored him in history, astronomy, and Sanskrit declensions. He read biographies of
Benjamin Franklin among other figures; they discussed Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the
Roan Epire; and they examined the poetry of Klidsa.[28] In mid-April they reached the station, and at 2,300
metres (7,546 ft) they settled into a house that sat atop Bakrota Hill. Tagore was taken aback by the region's deep
green gorges, alpine forests, and mossy streams and waterfalls.[29] They stayed there for several months and adopted
a regime of study and privation that included daily twilight baths taken in icy water.[30][31]
He returned to Jorosanko and completed a set of major works by 1877, one of them a long poem in the Maithili
style of Vidyapati; they were published pseudonymously. Regional experts accepted them as the lost works of
Bhnusimha, a newly discovered[] 17th-century Vaishnava poet.[32] He debuted the short-story genre in Bengali
with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"),[33][34] and his Sandhya Sangit (1882) includes the famous poem
"Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall"). Servants subjected him to an almost ludicrous
regimentation in a phase he dryly reviled as the "servocracy".[35] His head was water-dunkedto quiet him.[36] He
irked his servants by refusing food; he was confined to chalk circles in parody of Sita's forest trial in the Raayana;
and he was regaled with the heroic criminal exploits of Bengal's outlaw-dacoits.[37] Because the Jorasanko manor
was in an area of north Kolkata rife with poverty and prostitution,[38] he was forbidden to leave it for any purpose
2

other than travelling to school. He thus became preoccupied with the world outside and with nature. Of his 1873
visit to Santiniketan, he wrote:
What I could not see did not take me long to get overwhat I did see was quite enough. There was no servant rule,
and the only ring which encircled me was the blue of the horizon, drawn around these solitudes by their presiding
goddess. Within this I was free to move about as I chose.[39]

Works
Known mostly for his poetry, Tagore wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of
songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded; he is indeed credited with originating
the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical
nature. Such stories mostly borrow from deceptively simple subject matter: commoners. Tagore's non-fiction
grappled with history, linguistics, and spirituality. He wrote autobiographies. His travelogues, essays, and lectures
were compiled into several volumes, including Europe Jatrir Patro (Letters fro Europe) and Manusher Dhoro
(The Religion of Man). His brief chat with Einstein, "Note on the Nature of Reality", is included as an appendix to
the latter. On the occasion of Tagore's 150th birthday an anthology (titled Kalanukroik Rabindra Rachanabali) of
the total body of his works is currently being published in Bengali in chronological order. This includes all versions
of each work and fills about eighty volumes.[92] In 2011, Harvard University Press collaborated with Visva-Bharati
University to publish The Essential Tagore, the largest anthology of Tagore's works available in English; it was
edited by Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakravarthy and marks the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth.[93]
Novels
Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them Chaturanga, Shesher Kobita, Char Odhay, and
Noukadubi. Ghare Baire (The Hoe and the World)through the lens of the idealistic zaindar protagonist Nikhil
excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the Swadeshi movement; a frank expression
of Tagore's conflicted sentiments, it emerged from a 1914 bout of depression. The novel ends in Hindu-Muslim
violence and Nikhil'slikely mortalwounding.[128]
Gora raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. As with Ghare Baire, matters of self-identity
(jti), personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle.[129] In it an
Irish boy orphaned in the Sepoy Mutiny is raised by Hindus as the titular gora"whitey". Ignorant of his foreign
origins, he chastises Hindu religious backsliders out of love for the indigenous Indians and solidarity with them
against his hegemon-compatriots. He falls for a Brahmo girl, compelling his worried foster father to reveal his lost
past and cease his nativist zeal. As a "true dialectic" advancing "arguments for and against strict traditionalism", it
tackles the colonial conundrum by "portray[ing] the value of all positions within a particular frame [...] not only
syncretism, not only liberal orthodoxy, but the extremest reactionary traditionalism he defends by an appeal to what
humans share." Among these Tagore highlights "identity [...] conceived of as dhara."[130]
In Jogajog (Relationships), the heroine Kumudinibound by the ideals of iva-Sati, exemplified by Dkshyani
is torn between her pity for the sinking fortunes of her progressive and compassionate elder brother and his foil: her
roue of a husband. Tagore flaunts his feminist leanings; pathos depicts the plight and ultimate demise of women
trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honour; he simultaneously trucks with Bengal's putrescent landed gentry.[131]
The story revolves around the underlying rivalry between two familiesthe Chatterjees, aristocrats now on the
decline (Biprodas) and the Ghosals (Madhusudan), representing new money and new arrogance. Kumudini,
Biprodas' sister, is caught between the two as she is married off to Madhusudan. She had risen in an observant and
sheltered traditional home, as had all her female relations.
Others were uplifting: Shesher Kobitatranslated twice as Last Poe and Farewell Songis his most lyrical
novel, with poems and rhythmic passages written by a poet protagonist. It contains elements of satire and
postmodernism and has stock characters who gleefully attack the reputation of an old, outmoded, oppressively
renowned poet who, incidentally, goes by a familiar name: "Rabindranath Tagore". Though his novels remain
among the least-appreciated of his works, they have been given renewed attention via film adaptations by Ray and
others: Chokher Bali and Ghare Baire are exemplary. In the first, Tagore inscribes Bengali society via its heroine: a
3

rebellious widow who would live for herself alone. He pillories the custom of perpetual mourning on the part of
widows, who were not allowed to remarry, who were consigned to seclusion and loneliness. Tagore wrote of it: "I
have always regretted the ending".
Stories
Tagore's three-volume Galpaguchchha comprises eighty-four stories that reflect upon the author's surroundings, on
modern and fashionable ideas, and on mind puzzles.[33] Tagore associated his earliest stories, such as those of the
"Sadhana" period, with an exuberance of vitality and spontaneity; these traits were cultivated by zaindar Tagore's
life in Patisar, Shajadpur, Shelaidaha, and other villages.[33] Seeing the common and the poor, he examined their
lives with a depth and feeling singular in Indian literature up to that point.[132] In "The Fruitseller from Kabul",
Tagore speaks in first person as a town dweller and novelist imputing exotic perquisites to an Afghan seller. He
channels the lucubrative lust of those mired in the blas, nidorous, and sudorific morass of subcontinental city life:
for distant vistas. "There were autumn mornings, the time of year when kings of old went forth to conquest; and I,
never stirring from my little corner in Kolkata, would let my mind wander over the whole world. At the very name
of another country, my heart would go out to it [...] I would fall to weaving a network of dreams: the mountains, the
glens, the forest [...]."[133]
The Golpoguchchho (Bunch of Stories) was written in Tagore's Sabuj Patra period, which lasted from 1914 to 1917
and was named for another of his magazines.[33] These yarns are celebrated fare in Bengali fiction and are
commonly used as plot fodder by Bengali film and theatre. The Ray film Charulata echoed the controversial Tagore
novella Nastanirh (The Broken Nest). In Atithi, which was made into another film, the little Brahmin boy Tarapada
shares a boat ride with a village zaindar. The boy relates his flight from home and his subsequent wanderings.
Taking pity, the elder adopts him; he fixes the boy to marry his own daughter. The night before his wedding,
Tarapada runs offagain. Strir Patra (The Wife's Letter) is an early treatise in female emancipation.[134] Mrinal is
wife to a Bengali middle class man: prissy, preening, and patriarchal. Travelling alone she writes a letter, which
comprehends the story. She details the pettiness of a life spent entreating his viraginous virility; she ultimately gives
up married life, proclaiming, Aio bachbo. Ei bachlu: "And I shall live. Here, I live."
Haianti assails Hindu arranged marriage and spotlights their often dismal domesticity, the hypocrisies plaguing
the Indian middle classes, and how Haimanti, a young woman, due to her insufferable sensitivity and free spirit,
foredid herself. In the last passage Tagore blasts the reification of Sita's self-immolation attempt; she had meant to
appease her consort Rama's doubts of her chastity. Musalani Didi eyes recrudescent Hindu-Muslim tensions and,
in many ways, embodies the essence of Tagore's humanism. The somewhat auto-referential Darpaharan describes a
fey young man who harbours literary ambitions. Though he loves his wife, he wishes to stifle her literary career,
deeming it unfeminine. In youth Tagore likely agreed with him. Darpaharan depicts the final humbling of the man
as he ultimately acknowledges his wife's talents. As do many other Tagore stories, Jibito o Mrito equips Bengalis
with a ubiquitous epigram: Kadobini oriya proan korilo she ore nai"Kadombini died, thereby proving that
she hadn't."
Poetry
Tagore's poetic style, which proceeds from a lineage established by 15th- and 16th-century Vaishnava poets, ranges
from classical formalism to the comic, visionary, and ecstatic. He was influenced by the atavistic mysticism of
Vyasa and other rishi-authors of the Upanishads, the Bhakti-Sufi mystic Kabir, and Ramprasad Sen.[135] Tagore's
most innovative and mature poetry embodies his exposure to Bengali rural folk music, which included mystic Baul
ballads such as those of the bard Lalon.[136][137] These, rediscovered and repopularised by Tagore, resemble 19thcentury Kartbhaj hymns that emphasise inward divinity and rebellion against bourgeois bhadralok religious and
social orthodoxy.[138][139] During his Shelaidaha years, his poems took on a lyrical voice of the oner anush, the
Buls' "man within the heart" and Tagore's "life force of his deep recesses", or meditating upon the jeevan devata
the demiurge or the "living God within".[21] This figure connected with divinity through appeal to nature and the
emotional interplay of human drama. Such tools saw use in his Bhnusimha poems chronicling the Radha-Krishna
romance, which were repeatedly revised over the course of seventy years.[140][141]

The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long.
I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light, and pursued my voyage through the wildernesses of worlds leaving my track on many
a star and planet.
It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself, and that training is the most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune.
The traveller has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the
innermost shrine at the end.
My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said 'Here art thou!'
The question and the cry 'Oh, where?' melt into tears of a thousand streams and deluge the world with the flood of the assurance 'I am!'

Tagore reacted to the halfhearted uptake of modernist and realist techniques in Bengali literature by writing
matching experimental works in the 1930s.[143] These include Africa and Caalia, among the better known of his
latter poems. He occasionally wrote poems using Shadhu Bhasha, a Sanskritised dialect of Bengali; he later adopted
a more popular dialect known as Cholti Bhasha. Other works include Manasi, Sonar Tori (Golden Boat), Balaka
(Wild Geese, a name redolent of migrating souls),[144] and Purobi. Sonar Tori's most famous poem, dealing with the
fleeting endurance of life and achievement, goes by the same name; hauntingly it ends: Shunno nodir tire rohinu
poi / Jaha chhilo loe glo shonar tori"all I had achieved was carried off on the golden boatonly I was left
behind." Gitanjali () is Tagore's best-known collection internationally, earning him his Nobel.[145]
Tagore's poetry has been set to music by composers: Arthur Shepherd's triptych for soprano and string quartet,
Alexander Zemlinsky's famous Lyric Symphony, Josef Bohuslav Foerster's cycle of love songs, Leo Janek's
famous chorus "Potuln lenec" ("The Wandering Madman") for soprano, tenor, baritone, and male chorusJW
4/43inspired by Tagore's 1922 lecture in Czechoslovakia which Janek attended, and Garry Schyman's "Praan",
an adaptation of Tagore's poem "Stream of Life" from Gitanjali. The latter was composed and recorded with vocals
by Palbasha Siddique to accompany Internet celebrity Matt Harding's 2008 viral video.[148] In 1917 his words were
translated adeptly and set to music by Anglo-Dutch composer Richard Hageman to produce a highly regarded art
song: "Do Not Go, My Love". The second movement of Jonathan Harvey's "One Evening" (1994) sets an excerpt
beginning "As I was watching the sunrise ..." from a letter of Tagore's, this composer having previously chosen a
text by the poet for his piece "Song Offerings" (1985).[149]

Politics
Tagore hosts Gandhi and wife Kasturba at Santiniketan in 1940.

Tagore opposed imperialism and supported Indian nationalists,[150][151][152] and these views were first revealed in
Manast, which was mostly composed in his twenties.[44] Evidence produced during the HinduGerman Conspiracy
Trial and latter accounts affirm his awareness of the Ghadarites, and stated that he sought the support of Japanese
Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake and former Premier kuma Shigenobu.[153] Yet he lampooned the Swadeshi
movement; he rebuked it in "The Cult of the Charka", an acrid 1925 essay.[154] He urged the masses to avoid
victimology and instead seek self-help and education, and he saw the presence of British administration as a
"political symptom of our social disease". He maintained that, even for those at the extremes of poverty, "there can
be no question of blind revolution"; preferable to it was a "steady and purposeful education".[155][156]
So I repeat we never can have a true view of man unless we have a love for him. Civilisation must be judged and prized, not by the amount
of power it has developed, but by how much it has evolved and given expression to, by its laws and institutions, the love of humanity.

Such views enraged many. He escaped assassinationand only narrowlyby Indian expatriates during his stay in
a San Francisco hotel in late 1916; the plot failed when his would-be assassins fell into argument.[158] Tagore wrote
songs lionising the Indian independence movement.[159] Two of Tagore's more politically charged compositions,
"Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "Ekla Chalo Re" ("If They Answer Not to Thy
Call, Walk Alone"), gained mass appeal, with the latter favoured by Gandhi.[160] Though somewhat critical of
Gandhian activism,[161] Tagore was key in resolving a GandhiAmbedkar dispute involving separate electorates for
untouchables, thereby mooting at least one of Gandhi's fasts "unto death".[162][163]

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Ancient Roman architecture

MAGRIPPALFCOSTERTIVMFECIT

The Colosseum in Rome, Italy

The Roman Pantheon was the largest dome in the world

Ancient Roman architecture

developed different aspects of Ancient Greek architecture and newer technologies such as the arch and the dome to create a
new architectural style. Roman architecture flourished throughout the Empire during the Pax Romana. Its use of new
materials, particularly concrete, was an important feature.
Roman Architecture covers the period from the establishment of the Roman Republic in 509 BC to about the 4th century AD,
after which it becomes reclassified as Late Antique or Byzantine architecture. Most of the many surviving examples are from
the later imperial period. Roman architectural style continued to influence building in the former empire for many centuries,
and the style used in Western Europe beginning about 1000 is called Romanesque architecture to reflect this dependence on
basic Roman forms.
The Ancient Romans were responsible for significant developments in housing and public hygiene, for example their public
and private baths and latrines, under-floor heating in the form of the hypocaust, mica glazing (examples in Ostia Antica), and
piped hot and cold water (examples in Pompeii and Ostia).

History

Background
Factors such as wealth and high population densities in cities forced the ancient Romans to discover new architectural
solutions of their own. The use of vaults and arches, together with a sound knowledge of building materials, enabled them to
achieve unprecedented successes in the construction of imposing structures for public use. Examples include the aqueducts of
Rome, the Baths of Diocletian and the Baths of Caracalla, the basilicas and Colosseum. These were reproduced at smaller
scale in most important towns and cities in the Empire. Some surviving structures are almost complete, such as the town walls
of Lugo in Hispania Tarraconensis, now northern Spain.
The Ancient Romans intended that public buildings should be made to impress, as well as perform a public function. The
Romans did not feel restricted by Greek aesthetic axioms alone in achieving these objectives.[citation needed] The Pantheon is an
example of this,particularly in the version rebuilt by Hadrian,which remains perfectly preserved, and which were over the
centuries that has served, particularly in the Western Hemisphere,as the inspiration for countless public buildings. [1] The same
emperor left his mark on the landscape of northern Britain when he built a wall to mark the limits of the empire, and after
further conquests in Scotland, the Antonine Wall was built to replace Hadrian's Wall.
Influences
The Romans were indebted to their Etruscan neighbors and forefathers who supplied them with a wealth of knowledge
essential for future architectural solutions, such as the use of hydraulics and the construction of arches. The Romans absorbed
Greek Architectural influence both directly (e.g. Magna Graecia) and indirectly (e.g. Etruscan Architecture was itself
influenced by the Greeks). The influence is evident in many ways; for example, in the introduction and use of the Triclinium
in Roman villas as a place and manner of dining. The Romans were also known to employ Greek craftsmen and engineers to
construct Roman buildings.
Roman Architectural Revolution
The Roman Architectural Revolution, also known as the Concrete Revolution,[4][5][6] was the widespread use in Roman
architecture of the previously little-used architectural forms of the arch, vault, and dome. For the first time in history, their
potential was fully exploited in the construction of a wide range of civil engineering structures, public buildings, and military
facilities. These included amphitheatres, aqueducts, baths, bridges, circuses, dams, domes, harbours, and temples.
A crucial factor in this development, which saw a trend toward monumental architecture, was the invention of Roman
concrete (opus caeenticiu), which led to the liberation of shapes from the dictates of the traditional materials of stone and
brick.[7]

Architectural features
The Roman use of the arch and their improvements in the use of concrete and bricks facilitated the building of the many
aqueducts throughout the empire, such as the Aqueduct of Segovia and the eleven aqueducts in Rome itself, including the
Aqua Claudia and Anio Novus. The same concepts produced numerous bridges, some of which are still in daily use, for
example the Puente Romano at Mrida in Spain, and the Pont Julien and the bridge at Vaison-la-Romaine, both in Provence,
France.
The dome permitted construction of vaulted ceilings without crossbeams and made possible large covered public space such
as public baths and basilicas. The Romans based much of their architecture on the dome, such as Hadrian's Pantheon in the
city of Rome, the Baths of Diocletian and the Baths of Caracalla.
The use of arches that spring directly from the tops of columns was a Roman development, seen from the 1st century AD, that
was very widely adopted in medieval Western, Byzantine and Islamic architecture.
Art historians such as Gottfried Richter in the 1920s have identified the most important Roman architectural innovation as the
Triumphal Arch. This symbol of power was transformed and utilised within the Christian basilicas when the Roman Empire of
the West was on its last legs. The arch was set before the altar to symbolize the triumph of Christ and the afterlife. The arch is
seen in aqueducts, especially in the many surviving examples, such as the Pont du Gard, the aqueduct at Segovia and the
remains of the Aqueducts of Rome itself. Their survival is testimony to the durability of their materials and design.

The Romans first adopted the arch from the Etruscans, and implemented it in their own building. An arch transmits load
evenly and is still commonly used in architecture today.
Isaac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton PRS MP (/nju tn/;[8] 25 December 1642 20 March 1726/7[1]) was an English physicist and
mathematician (described in his own day as a "natural philosopher") who is widely recognised as one of the most
influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in the scientific revolution. His book Philosophi Naturalis
Principia Matheatica ("Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy"), first published in 1687, laid the
foundations for classical mechanics. Newton made seminal contributions to optics, and he shares credit with
Gottfried Leibniz for the development of calculus.
Newton's Principia formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, which dominated scientists' view of
the physical universe for the next three centuries. By deriving Kepler's laws of planetary motion from his
mathematical description of gravity, and then using the same principles to account for the trajectories of comets, the
tides, the precession of the equinoxes, and other phenomena, Newton removed the last doubts about the validity of
the heliocentric model of the Solar System. This work also demonstrated that the motion of objects on Earth and of
celestial bodies could be described by the same principles. His prediction that the Earth should be shaped as an
oblate spheroid was later vindicated by the measurements of Maupertuis, La Condamine, and others, which helped
convince most Continental European scientists of the superiority of Newtonian mechanics over the earlier system of
Descartes.
Newton built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a
prism decomposes white light into the many colours of the visible spectrum. He formulated an empirical law of
cooling, studied the speed of sound, and introduced the notion of a Newtonian fluid. In addition to his work on
calculus, as a mathematician Newton contributed to the study of power series, generalised the binomial theorem to
non-integer exponents, developed a method for approximating the roots of a function, and classified most of the
cubic plane curves.
Newton was a fellow of Trinity College and the second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of
Cambridge. He was a devout but unorthodox Christian and, unusually for a member of the Cambridge faculty of the
day, he refused to take holy orders in the Church of England, perhaps because he privately rejected the doctrine of
the Trinity. Beyond his work on the mathematical sciences, Newton dedicated much of his time to the study of
biblical chronology and alchemy, but most of his work in those areas remained unpublished until long after his

death. In his later life, Newton became president of the Royal Society. Newton served the British government as
Warden and Master of the Royal Mint.
Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein (/lbrt a nsta n/; German: [ alb rt a n ta

( listen)
n] ; 14 March 1879 18 April 1955) was a
[3]
German-born theoretical physicist and philosopher of science. He developed the general theory of relativity, one
of the two pillars of modern physics (alongside quantum mechanics).[2][4] He is best known in popular culture for his
massenergy equivalence formula E = c2 (which has been dubbed "the world's most famous equation").[5] He
received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of
the law of the photoelectric effect.[6] The latter was pivotal in establishing quantum theory.
Near the beginning of his career, Einstein thought that Newtonian mechanics was no longer enough to reconcile the
laws of classical mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. This led to the development of his special
theory of relativity. He realized, however, that the principle of relativity could also be extended to gravitational
fields, and with his subsequent theory of gravitation in 1916, he published a paper on the general theory of
relativity. He continued to deal with problems of statistical mechanics and quantum theory, which led to his
explanations of particle theory and the motion of molecules. He also investigated the thermal properties of light
which laid the foundation of the photon theory of light. In 1917, Einstein applied the general theory of relativity to
model the large-scale structure of the universe.[7]
He was visiting the United States when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 and, being Jewish, did not go back to
Germany, where he had been a professor at the Berlin Academy of Sciences. He settled in the U.S., becoming an
American citizen in 1940.[8] On the eve of World War II, he endorsed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt
alerting him to the potential development of "extremely powerful bombs of a new type" and recommending that the
U.S. begin similar research. This eventually led to what would become the Manhattan Project. Einstein supported
defending the Allied forces, but largely denounced the idea of using the newly discovered nuclear fission as a
weapon. Later, with the British philosopher Bertrand Russell, Einstein signed the RussellEinstein Manifesto,
which highlighted the danger of nuclear weapons. Einstein was affiliated with the Institute for Advanced Study in
Princeton, New Jersey, until his death in 1955.
Einstein published more than 300 scientific papers along with over 150 non-scientific works.[7][9] On 5 December
2014, universities and archives announced the release of Einstein's papers, comprising more than 30,000 unique

documents.[10][11] Einstein's intellectual achievements and originality have made the word "Einstein" synonymous
with genius[12] so that in a sense he may be regarded as the greatest genius who ever lived.
Thomas Edison

Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He
developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture
camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. Dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park",[3] he was one of the
first inventors to apply the principles of mass production and large-scale teamwork to the process of invention, and
because of that, he is often credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory.[4]
Edison was a prolific inventor, holding 1,093 US patents in his name, as well as many patents in the United
Kingdom, France, and Germany. More significant than the number of Edison's patents was the widespread impact
of his inventions: electric light and power utilities, sound recording, and motion pictures all established major new
industries world-wide. Edison's inventions contributed to mass communication and, in particular,
telecommunications. These included a stock ticker, a mechanical vote recorder, a battery for an electric car,
electrical power, recorded music and motion pictures.
His advanced work in these fields was an outgrowth of his early career as a telegraph operator. Edison developed a
system of electric-power generation and distribution[5] to homes, businesses, and factories a crucial development
in the modern industrialized world. His first power station was on Pearl Street in Manhattan, New York.[5]
Electric light
Thomas Edison's first successful light bulb model, used in public demonstration at Menlo Park,
December 1879

Edison did not invent the first electric light bulb, but instead invented the first commercially practical incandescent
light.[46] Many earlier inventors had previously devised incandescent lamps, including Alessandro Volta's
demonstration of a glowing wire in 1800 and inventions by Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans. Others who
developed early and commercially impractical incandescent electric lamps included Humphry Davy, James
Bowman Lindsay, Moses G. Farmer,[47] William E. Sawyer, Joseph Swan and Heinrich Gbel. Some of these early
bulbs had such flaws as an extremely short life, high expense to produce, and high electric current drawn, making
them difficult to apply on a large scale commercially.[48]:217218

After many experiments, first with carbon filaments and then with platinum and other metals, in the end Edison
returned to a carbon filament.[49] The first successful test was on October 22, 1879;[48]:186 it lasted 13.5 hours.[50]
Edison continued to improve this design and by November 4, 1879, filed for U.S. patent 223,898 (granted on
January 27, 1880) for an electric lamp using "a carbon filament or strip coiled and connected to platina contact
wires".[51]
Although the patent described several ways of creating the carbon filament including "cotton and linen thread,
wood splints, papers coiled in various ways",[51] it was not until several months after the patent was granted that
Edison and his team discovered a carbonized bamboo filament that could last over 1,200 hours. The idea of using
this particular raw material originated from Edison's recalling his examination of a few threads from a bamboo
fishing pole while relaxing on the shore of Battle Lake in the present-day state of Wyoming, where he and other
members of a scientific team had traveled so that they could clearly observe a total eclipse of the sun on July 29,
1878, from the Continental Divide.[52]
Marie Curie

Marie Skodowska-Curie (/kj ri, kjri/;[2] French: [ky i]; 7 November 1867 4 July 1934) was a Polish and
naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first
woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person (and only woman) to win twice, the only person to win twice in
multiple sciences, and was part of the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. She was also the first woman to
become a professor at the University of Paris, and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own
merits in the Panthon in Paris.
She was born Maria Salomea Skodowska (pronounced [ marja sal m a skw d )fska]
in Warsaw, in what was
then the Kingdom of Poland, part of the Russian Empire. She studied at Warsaw's clandestine Floating University
and began her practical scientific training in Warsaw. In 1891, aged 24, she followed her older sister Bronisawa to
study in Paris, where she earned her higher degrees and conducted her subsequent scientific work. She shared the
1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband Pierre Curie and with physicist Henri Becquerel. She won the 1911
Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Her achievements included a theory of radioactivity (a term that she coined[3]), techniques for isolating radioactive
isotopes, and the discovery of two elements, polonium and radium. Under her direction, the world's first studies
were conducted into the treatment of neoplasms, using radioactive isotopes. She founded the Curie Institutes in
Paris and in Warsaw, which remain major centres of medical research today. During World War I, she established
the first military field radiological centres.
While a French citizen, Marie Skodowska Curie (she used both surnames)[4][5] never lost her sense of Polish
identity. She taught her daughters the Polish language and took them on visits to Poland.[6] She named the first
chemical element that she discovered polonium, which she first isolated in 1898 after her native country.[a]

Curie died in 1934 at the sanatorium of Sancellemoz (Haute-Savoie), France, due to aplastic anemia brought on by
exposure to radiation including carrying test tubes of radium in her pockets during research and her World War I
service in mobile X-ray units created by her.[7]