80 The Theory of Evolution

hissed from deep in the rock blocked his path. The broken lava was covered by stunted, sunburned brushwood that looked far more dead than alive.
In a grove of trees filled with chirping birds, Darwin found his thirteenth and fourteenth new species of finches. Their beaks were larger and rounder than any hed seen on
other islands. More important, these finches ate small red berries.
Everywhere else on Earth finches ate seeds. In these islands some finches ate seeds,
some insects, and some berries! More amazingly, each species of finch had a beak perfectly
shaped to gather the specific type of food that species preferred to eat.
Darwin began to doubt the Christian teaching that God created each species just as it
was and that species were unchanging. He deduced that, long ago, one variety of finch arrived in the Galapagos from South America, spread out to the individual islands, and then
adapted (evolved) to best survive in its particular environment and with its particular
sources of food. These findings he reported in his book, A Naturalists Voyage on the
Beagle.
After his return to England, Darwin read the collected essays of economist Thomas
Malthus, who claimed that, when human populations could not produce enough food, the
weakest people starved, died of disease, or were killed in fighting. Only the strong survived.
Darwin realized that this concept should apply to the animal world as well.
He blended this idea with his experiences and observations on the Beagle to conclude
that all species evolved to better ensure species survival. He called it natural selection.
A shy and private man, Darwin agonized for years about revealing his theories to the
public. Other naturalists finally convinced him to produce and publish Origin of Species.
With that book, Darwins discoveries and theory of evolution became the guiding light of
biological sciences.
Fun Facts: Bats, with their ultrasonic echolocation, have evolved the
most acute hearing of any terrestrial animal. With it, bats can detect insects the size of gnats and objects as fine as a human hair.

More to Explore
Aydon, Cyril. Charles Darwin: The Naturalist Who Started a Scientific Revolution.
New York: Carroll & Graf, 2003.
Bowlby, John. Charles Darwin: A New Life. New York: W. W. Norton, 1998.
Bowler, Peter. Charles Darwin: The Man and His Influence. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1998.
Browne, Janet. Charles Darwin: Voyaging. London: Jonathan Cape, 1998.
Dennet, Daniel. Darwins Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New
York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
Jenkins, Steve. Life on Earth: The Story of Evolution. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2002.
Mayr, Ernst. One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.
Woram, John. Charles Darwin Slept Here. Rockville Center, NY: Rockville Press,
2005.

Atomic Light Signatures

Year of Discovery: 1859
What Is It? When heated, every element radiates light at very specific and
characteristic frequencies.
Who Discovered It? Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen

Why Is This One of the 100 Greatest?

Twenty new elements (beginning with the discovery of cesium in 1860) were discovered
using one chemical analysis technique. That same technique allows astronomers to determine
the chemical composition of stars millions of light years away. It also allowed physicists to
understand our suns atomic fires that produce heat and light. That same technique allows
other astronomers to calculate the exact speed and motion of distant stars and galaxies.
That one technique is spectrographic analysis, the discovery of Kirchhoff and Bunsen,
which analyzes the light emitted from burning chemicals or from a distant star. They discovered that each element emits light only at its own specific frequencies. Spectrography provided the first proof that the elements of Earth are also found in other heavenly bodiesthat
Earth was not chemically unique in the universe. Their techniques are routinely used by scientists in virtually every field of science in the biological, physical, and earth sciences.

How Was It Discovered?

In 1814, German astronomer Joseph Fraunhofer discovered that the suns energy was
not radiated evenly in all frequencies of the light spectrum, but rather was concentrated in
spikes of energy at certain specific frequencies. Some thought it interesting, none thought it
important. The idea lay dormant for 40 years.
Gustav Kirchhoff (born in 1824) was an energetic Polish physicist who barely stood
five feet in height. Through the mid-1850s he focused his research on electrical currents at
the University of Breslau. In 1858, while helping another professor with a side project,
Kirchhoff noted bright lines in the light spectrum produced by flames and recalled having
read about a similar occurrence in Fraunhofers articles. Upon investigation, Kirchhoff
found that the bright spots (or spikes) in the light from his flame studies were at the exact
same frequency and wave lengths that Fraunhofer had detected in solar radiation.
Kirchhoff pondered what this could mean and was struck by what turned out to be a
brilliant insight: use a prism to separate any light beam he wanted to study into its constituent parts (instead of peering at it through a sequence of colored glass filters as was the cus-

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