FOREIGN SCIENTIST

Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta

Alessandro Guiseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta (b.

Como, Italy, 18th Feb.1745, d. Como, Italy, 5th March
1827) was a pioneer in the field of electricity. The SI
unit of electric potential was named after him as the
Volt. The portrait (above) was featured on the Italian
10,000 Lire banknote. He came from a Lombard
family ennobled by the municipality of Como and
almost extinguished, in his time, through its service to
the church. One of his paternal uncles was a
Dominican, another a Canon and the third an
Archdeacon. His father, Filipo (1862-1752), after
eleven years as a Jesuit, withdrew to propagate the
line. Filipo married Maddelena de' conti Inzaghi in
1773. They had seven children; three girls, two of
whom became nuns; three boys who followed the
careers of their uncles; and Alessandro, the youngest.

Alessandro was about seven when his father died. His

uncle the Canon took charge of his education. Alessandro joined the local Jesuit College in 1757.
His quickness soon attracted the attention of his teachers. In 1761 the philosophy professor,
Girolamo Bonensi, tried to recruit him. This made his uncle want to take him from school. Volta
continued his education at Seminario Benzi. His uncle wanted him to be an attorney. But, Volta
chose the study of electricity.

Alessandro was a large, vigorous man. He actively practised the Catholic faith. He, in the words
of his friend Lichtenberg, "understood a lot about the electricity of women." For many years he
enjoyed the favours of a singer, Marianna Paris, whom he might have married but for his
theological and family opinion.

Volta developed the concept of 'state of saturation of bodies' to explain attractions and repulsions
of electrified bodies. The electrophore he invented was severely criticized by Beccaria, one of
the chief authorities in electricity. In 1774, he became the principal of the state Gymnasium in
Como. In 1775, he was granted the professorship of experimental physics. Cavendish's memoir
of 1771 made Volta transform his notion of 'natural saturation' into the concept of potential. His
last memoir was on galvanic and common electricity. Seeing Volta's demonstrations, Napoleon
raised him to Count and Senator of the kingdom of Italy. During the last 20 years of his life he
had the income of a wealthy man.
James Prescott Joule

James Prescott Joule (b. Salford, England, 24th Dec.

1818, d. Salford, England, 11th October 1889) was the
second son of a prosperous brewer. The SI Unit of
energy or work was named after him as the Joule.
James was not a strong child. He had a spinal injury
which left a slight deformity. Because of this, his
education was limited. To a large extent he was self
taught. He even read relatively little and had no
pretence of being a great scientist. When he was 16, he
and his brother, Benjamin, studied under Dalton for
about two years. His chief contact with the world was
with the members of the Manchester Literary and
Philosophical Society. He began his quantitative
electrical work when he was 19, using a standard
resistance of copper wire.

He was a simple, earnest and modest man. He was the first to give an expression for the heat
generated in a resistor by current flow, in 1840, and to observe magnetostriction. He spent a
major part of his life working on the mechanical equivalence of heat. In 1845, he investigated the
relationship between the temperature and the internal energy of gas. In April 1847, he gave a
popular lecture in Manchester in which he stated the concept of the conservation of energy. But,
it went unnoticed. At a meeting at Oxford in June 1847, he was advised by the chairman to
restrict himself to a brief oral report on his experiments, rather than a paper, and not to invite
discussion. Fortunately, his idea was grasped by William Thomson, Faraday and Stokes.
Recognition to Joule came from Faraday who introduced Joule's 1849 paper to the Society. This
paper won for him the 1852 Royal Medal. His last remarkable contribution was work in 1860
which resulted in a significant improvement of steam-engine efficiency. In the same year, he
made one of the first accurate galvanometers and calibrated it by use of a voltmeter. He received
many awards and medals including the 1870 Copley Medal and a pension from the queen in
1878.

His mother died in 1836. His father retired in 1883 due to illness. James and Benjamin took over
the family brewing. James married in 1847 and had a daughter and a son. After the death of his
wife in 1854, the brewery was sold. Joule's health became worse as time passed. He suffered
from frequent nose-bleeding, presumably haemophilia. But, he kept on working as much as he
could until his death.
Georg Simon Ohm

Georg Simon Ohm (b. Erlangen, Germany, 16th

March 1789, d. Munich, Germany, 6th July 1854) was
a mathematician and a physicist. The SI unit of
electrical resistance was named after him as the Ohm.
His father, Johan Wolfgang Ohm, was a master
locksmith. Johan Wolfgang married Maria Elizabeth
Beck, daughter of a master tailor. They were a
protestant couple. Of their seven children only three
survived childhood: Georg Simon the eldest, Martin
the mathematician, and Elizabeth Barbara. Johan
Wolfgang gave his sons a solid education in
mathematics, physics, chemistry and the philosophies
of Kant and Fichte. Their mathematical talents were
soon recognised by the Erlangen professor Karl
Christian Von Langsdorf. Georg Simon matriculated
on the 3rd of May 1805 at the University of Erlangen.
He studied 3 semesters there until his father's
displeasure at his supposed overindulgence in dancing,
billiards, and ice skating forced him to withdraw to rural Switzerland.

He began to teach mathematics in September 1806 in Gottstadt. He received his PhD on the 25th
of October 1811. Lack of money forced him to seek employment from the German government.
But, the best he could obtain was a post as a teacher of mathematics and physics at a poorly
attended 'Realschule' in Bamberg. He worked there with great dissatisfaction. In 1817, Ohm was
offered the position of 'Oberlehrer' of mathematics and physics at the Jesuit Gymnasium at
Cologne.

He began his experiments on electricity and magnetism after 1820. His first scientific paper was
published in 1825 in which he sought a relationship between the decrease in the force exerted by
current-carrying wires and the length of the wires. In April 1826, he published two important
papers on galvanicm electricity.

He published his book on Ohm's law, Die Galvanische Kette Mathematische Bearbeit, in 1827.
Sir John Leslie had already provided both theoretical discussion and experimental confirmation
of Ohm's law in a paper written in 1791 and published in 1824, which was not accepted. Ohm's
law was so coldly received that Ohm resigned his post at Cologne.

Ohm obtained the professorship of physics at the Polytechninische Schedule in Nuremberg in

1833. Finally, his work began to be recognised. In 1841, he was awarded the Copley Medal of
the Royal Society of London and was made a foreign member a year later.
Charles-Augustin Coulomb

Charles-Augustin Coulomb (b. Angouleme, France,

14th June 1736, d. Paris, France, 23rd August, 1806)
was a pioneer in the field of electricity, magnetism and
applied mechanics. The SI unit of quantity of electric
charge was named after him as the Coulomb. In his
electrical studies Coulomb determined the quantitative
force law, gave the notion of electric mass, and studied
charge leakage and the surface distribution of charge on
conducting bodies. In magnetism he determined the
quantitative force law, created a theory of magnetism
based on molecular polarisation, and introduced the idea
of demagnetisation.

His father, Henrey, came from Montpellier, where the family was important in the legal and
administrative history of Languedoc. His mother, Catherine Bajet, was related to the wealthy de
Senac family. During Charles-Augustin's youth the family moved to Paris. Charles-Augustin
attended lectures at the College Mazarin and the College de France. An argument with his
mother over career plans caused Coulomb to follow his father to Montpellier who became
penniless later through financial speculations.

Coulomb graduated in November 1761 with the rank of lieutenant en premier in the Corps du
Génie. He worked at Brest and then at Martinique. While he was in Martinique he became
seriously ill several times. The research he did in Richefort won him the double first prize at the
academy in Paris in 1781. He became a resident in Paris. He found a wife there and raised a
family. He wrote 25 scientific Momoirs at the Academy from 1781 to 1806. He also participated
in 310 committee reports to the Academy. In 1787 Coulomb was sent to England to investigate
hospital conditions in London. In 1801 he was elected to the position of the president of the
Institute de France. By 1791, the National Assembly reorganized the Corps du Génie. Coulomb
had to resign from the corps. He received an annual pension which was reduced by two-thirds
after the Revolution. He returned to his research in Paris in December 1795, upon his election as
member for physique experiméntale in the new Institute de France. Coulomb's last public service
was as inspector general of public instruction from 1802 until his death. Coulomb's health
declined precipitously in the early summer of 1806 and he died. Secondary accounts indicate that
Revolution took most of his properties and that he died almost in poverty.
Michael Faraday

Michael Faraday (b. Newington, Surrey, England,

22nd Sep. 1791, d. Hampton Court, Middlesex,
England, 25th August 1867) was a physicist, a
chemist, a physical chemist and a natural philosopher.
The SI unit of capacitance was named after him as the
Farad (F). He was born into a poor family, of which
he was he third of four children. His father, James
Faraday, was a blacksmith. James Faraday's poor
health prevented him from providing more than bare
necessities to his family. Michael later recalled that he
was once given a loaf of bread to feed him for a week.
His parents were members of the Sandemanian
Church, and Michael was brought up within this
discipline. His most favourite book was the Bible in
which he had heavily underlined, Timothy 6:10, "The
love of money is the root of all evil." Michael, at the
age of 14, was apprenticed to Riebau, a bookseller
and a bookbinder, in whose shop he read books on
science that came to his hands.

In 1812, one of the customers at Riebau's shop, gave Faraday a ticket to attend the last four
lectures of a course given by Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. He applied
to Davy for employment, sending him as evidence of his interest the notes that he had made of
his lectures. At the age of 21, he was appointed assistance to Davy to help with both lecture
experiments and research. He accompanied Davy on a tour in Europe where he saw much of the
active scientific research. In 1821, he married Sarah Barnard, a union that was happy though
childless. Faraday became the discoverer of electromagnetic induction, of the laws of
electrolysis, and of the fundamental relations between between light and magnetism. He was the
originator of the conceptions that underlie the modern theory of the electromagnetic field. He
also discovered two unknown chlorides of carbon and a new compound of carbon. His last
discovery was the rotation of the plane of polarization of light in magnetic field. When Faraday
was endeavouring to explain to the Prime Minister or to the Chancellor of the Exchequer an
important discovery, a politician's alleged comment was, "But, after all, what use is it?"
Whereupon Faraday replied, "Why sir, there is a probability that you will soon be able to tax it!"
His mind deteriorated rapidly after the mid-1850s. In 1862, he resigned his position at the Royal
Institution, retiring to a house provided for him by Queen Victoria at Hampton Court.
Joseph Henry

Joseph Henry (b. Albany, NY, USA, 17th December

1797, d. Washington, USA, 13th May 1878) was a
pioneer in the field of electromagnetism. The SI unit
of inductance was named after him as the Henry (H).
He was born to a poor family of Scottish descent and
raised as a Presbyterian, a faith he followed
throughout his life. His elementary education was in
Albany and Galway, New York, where he stayed with
relatives. Henry was apprenticed to an Albany
watchmaker and silversmith. The theater was his
principal interest as an adolescent, until a chance
reading of George Gregory's Popular Lectures on
Experimental Philosophy, Astronomy, and chemistry
turned him to science. In 1819 he enrolled in the
Albany Academy and remained there until 1822, with
a year off to teach in a rural school in order to support
himself. He did odd surviving jobs while he was doing his scientific research. in 1825, Henry
was appointed professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at the Albany Academy. In 1832,
he accepted a chair at the College of New Jersey.

Henry's earliest known work was in chemistry. In 1827, he started active research on electricity
and magnetism. Throughout his career, Henry was interested in terrestrial magnetism and other
geophysical topics. He independently uncovered the sense of Ohm's law and engaged in
impedance matching. In 1832, Henry discovered self-inductance following some experiments.
He also conducted investigations on capillarity, phosphorescence, heat, colour blindness and the
relative radiation of solar spots with skill and imagination. His 1835 paper was on the action of a
spiral conductor in increasing the intensity of galvanic currents. He conceived of astronomy as
the model science and mechanics as the ultimate analytical tool. Henry could not accept
Faraday's field concept because of his belief in central forces acting in a universal fluid. He
concluded that the currents are oscillatory wave phenomena exciting equivalent effects in an
electrical plenum coincident, if not identical, with the universal aether.

Henry formed the Smithsonian Committee, consisting of dedicated men forming internationally
recognized standards and engaging in free and harmonious intellectual intercourse among
themselves. Being the secretary of the Smithsonian, he was not interested in popularizing science
but with supporting research and disseminating findings.
Wilhelm Eduard Weber

Wilhelm Eduard Weber (b. Wittenberg, Germany, 24th

October 1804, d. Gottingen, Germany, 23rd June
1891) was one of the twelve children of Michael
Weber, professor of theology at the University of
Wittenberg. The family lived in the house of Christian
August Langguth, a professor of medicine and natural
history. The house was burned during the
bombardment of Wittenberg by the Prussians in 1813.
The following year the Webers settled in Halle.
Wilhelm began his scientific work in collaboration
with Ernest Heinrich at the University of Halle.

Wilhelm published his famous paper, which contained

experimental investigations of water and sound
waves, in 1825. In 1831, he became the professor of
physics at Gottingen, where his friendship with Gauss
began. In 1832, Weber introduced absolute units of
measurements into magnetism. Gauss and Weber
founded the Gottingen Magnetische Verenin to initiate a network of magnetic observations and to
correlate the resulting measurements. In 1833, they set up a battery-operated telegraph line some
9,000 feet long, between the physics and
astronomical observatory, in order to facilitate simultaneous magnetic observations. Weber also
managed to find time to work with his younger brother Eduard on the physiology and physics of
human locomotion.

With the death of William IV in 1837, Victoria became the queen of England and her uncle, Ernst
August, acceded to the rule of Hannover and at once revoked the liberal constitution of 1833.
Weber was one of the seven Gottingen professors who signed a statement of protest. At the king's
order all the seven lost their positions. But, Weber continued his research. In 1843, Weber
became the professor of physics at Leipzig. There he formulated his law of electrical force,
which was later discarded with the triumph of Maxwell's field theory. In 1848, he was able to
return to his old position. Weber retired in 1870's, relinquishing his duties in physics to his
assistant, Edward Rieche. Rieche, later began the development of electron theory of metals from
Weber's ideas. Weber received many honours from Germany, France, and England, including the
title of Geheimrat and the Royal Society's Copley Medal. The SI unit of magnetic flux was
named after him as the Weber (Wb). Weber, a friendly, modest, and unsophisticated man,
remained unmarried. He died peacefully in his garden.
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz

Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (b. Hamburg, Germany, 22nd

Feb. 1857, d. Bonn, Germany, 1st January 1894), a
physicist, whose research has come to be regarded as
the starting point of radio - it was he who first
detected and measured electromagnetic waves in
space. The SI unit of frequency was named after him
as the Hertz (Hz). His grandfather, Heinrich David
Hertz, the youngest son of a wealthy Jewish family
was converted to the Lutheran faith along with his
wife and children. David Heinrich Hertz's son,
Gustav, became a Minister of Justice and was the
first to attend a university in the family. He married a
classmate's sister, Anna Elisabeth Pfefferkorn, and
had five children, the eldest of whom was Heinrich
Rudolf Hertz.

He was an exceptionally gifted child and excelled in

every way. After completing his secondary
education, he wanted to be a structural engineer and served as an apprentice in a civil
engineering office. Reading a lot of books, he became interested in telegraphy and enrolled in the
Technical University of Dresden. Finding the level of instruction low for him, after one semester,
he embarked on his year of compulsory military service. He then enrolled in the Technical
University of Munich to do physics, but later, switched to the University of Munich. He was still
not satisfied, and after two semesters transferred to the University of Berlin where Gustav
Kirchhoff and Hermann Helmholtz taught physics. Very soon he was working as a student
assistant to Helmholtz. He graduated the following year, before which he had written two papers
on his research - determining if electrons have inertial mass and induction in rotating spheres. He
obtained his doctorate in 1880 and was appointed assistant of Helmholtz.

After three years, he went to the University of Kiel to become a lecturer in physics and soon he
was promoted and became a professor at the Technical High School in Karlsruhe, and then he
went to the University of Bonn. In 1886 he married Elizabeth Doll, and started his research on
electric waves. He wrote many papers not only in electromagnetism but also in the theory of
contact mechanics and the measurement of hardness. Suffering a severe illness which led to
chronic blood poisoning he died after indescribable suffering. He was an extremely modest man
and once denying the request for publishing his portrait he said, "... Too much honour certainly
does me harm in the eyes of reasonable men..." and four years after, following his death, his
portrait was published.
Charles William Siemens

Charles William Siemens (ne: Carl Wilhelm Siemens, b.

Lenthe, Germany, 4th April 1823, d. London, England,
9th November 1883) was a pioneer in the practical
application of scientific discoveries to industrial
processes. The SI unit of electrical conductance was
named after him as the Siemens (S). Christian Ferdinand
Siemens, a wealthy farmer, and his wife, Eleonore
Deichmann had eleven sons and three daughters, of
whom Charles William was the seventh child. In July
1839, Eleonore died. Unable to bear this loss, Ferdinand
died six months later. A few years later, the children were
dispersed among relations and friends.

Siemens went to England in 1843. Being a shrewd

businessman, he sold the patent of the electroplating
invention of his elder brother, Werner. William was
naturalised as a British subject on the 19th of March
1859. On the 23rd of July he same year, he married Anne Gordon. Siemens Brothers, founded in
1865 by William and Werner, soon became a world famous manufacturer of telegraphic
equipment, cables, dynamos and lighting equipment.

William was a member of the Society of Telegraph Engineers; the British Association, the
Institution of Civil Engineers, and the Institute of Mechanical Engineers and a fellow of the
Royal Society. He developed a highly successful meter for measuring water consumption. His
important invention of the regenerative gas furnace and its application to open-hearth steel
making and other industrial processes made him independently wealthy before 1870. In 1874, he
designed the cable ship 'Faraday' and assisted in the laying of the first of several transatlantic
cables. During the last 15 years of his life he actively supported the development of the
engineering profession and stimulated public interest in the reduction of air pollution and the
potential value of electric power in a wide variety of engineering applications.

Suffering an acute pain in the region of the heart for a few weeks, he was attacked by a difficulty
of breathing. As he was sitting in his arm chair, peacefully and quietly, as if he were falling
asleep, his spirit passed away. The burial took place on the 26th of November, followed by a very
grand funeral service. As he had requested, the inscription on his coffin contained simply his
name. The Institute of Civil Engineers erected a stained glass window in Westminster Abbey as a
tribute of respect in his memory.
James Dewey Watson

James Dewey Watson (born April 6, 1928) is an American

molecular biologist, best known as one of the co-
discoverers of the structure of DNA. Watson, Francis Crick,
and Maurice Wilkins were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in
Physiology or Medicine “for their discoveries concerning
the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance
for information transfer in living material”. He studied at
the University of Chicago and Indiana University and
subsequently worked at the University of Cambridge’s
Cavendish Laboratory in England where he first met
Francis Crick.

In 1956 he became a junior member of Harvard

University’s Biological Laboratories until 1976, but in 1968
served as Director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, New York and shifted its
research emphasis to the study of cancer. In 1994 he became its President for ten years, and then
subsequently served as its Chancellor until 2007, when he was forced into retirement by
controversy over several comments about race and intelligence. Between 1988 and 1992 he was
associated with the National Institutes of Health, helping to establish the Human Genome
Project. He has written many science books, including the seminal textbook The Molecular
Biology of the Gene (1965) and his bestselling book The Double Helix (1968) about the DNA
Structure discovery.

BIOGRAPHY

Watson was born in Chicago, Illinois, on April 6, 1928, the son of a businessman, also named
James Dewey Watson, and Margaret Jean Mitchell. His father was of midwestern English
descent. His mother’s father Lauchlin Mitchell, a tailor, was from Glasgow, Scotland, and her
mother, Lizzie Gleason, was the child of Irish parents from Tipperary. Watson was fascinated
with bird watching, a hobby he shared with his father. Watson appeared on Quiz Kids, a popular
radio show that challenged precocious youngsters to answer questions. Thanks to the liberal
policy of University president Robert Hutchins, he enrolled at the University of Chicago at the
age of 15. After reading Erwin Schrödinger’s book What Is Life? in 1946, Watson changed his
professional ambitions from the study of ornithology to genetics. He earned his B.S. in Zoology
from the University of Chicago in 1947. In his autobiography, Avoid Boring People, Watson
describes the University of Chicago as an idyllic academic institution where he was instilled with
the capacity for critical thought and an ethical compulsion not to suffer fools who impeded his
search for truth, in contrast to his description of his later work at Harvard University.