ISAAC NEWTON
Isaac Newton is one of the
most extraordinary minds in history. He is considered the representative of
modern science, for his important contributions to physics and mathematics. He
was much more than a scientist.
He did not know his father
and his mother did not want to raise him. He barely felt loved.
He received a rather
strict education, especially in religion.
His adolescence was spent
far from his family, but still the years were quiet.
He met Catherine, with whom
he had a great friendship.
He created many toys
(wood, light, water, wind).
At the age of 16, he
finished his studies at King's School.
He studied at the
University of Cambridge.
He chose physics. He
explained the Law of Gravity, which changed many concepts of science. In 1669 he invented the reflecting telescope.
He even made some
complicated calculations to discover when the end of the world would be. He concluded that it would be in 2060.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Albert was born in Germany on March 14, 1879, in a small town called
Ulm. Throughout his life he had three different nationalities: German, then Swiss
and the United States, where he died in April 1955.
As unlikely as it may seem, Einstein was considered by his teachers to
be a bad student, a bit irresponsible, lazy and rather clumsy with mathematics.
He enjoyed the violin, however, a passion that was instilled in him by his
mother and which accompanied him throughout his life.
Curious, isn't it? Especially when we know him as one of the most
brilliant minds in the fields of arithmetic, mathematics, physics... and we
know that his contributions came to revolutionize all these areas, even giving
rise to new branches of study.
At Einstein College he was very interested in mathematics and physics,
but the other subjects were boring and simple.
Some of his most interesting theories are
Brownian Movement
Theory of Special Relativity
Mass Energy Equivalence. E = mc²
Theory of General Relativity.
You see that even for a genius like Einstein studying required effort.
THOMAS EDISON
This American inventor was born in Milan (Ohio) on 11 February 1847. His
childhood was not easy because his family was poor. Furthermore, as a child, he
became partially deaf as a result of scarlet fever. This handicap conditioned
his way of seeing the world and his relationships with children of his age.
Since he was a child he liked to carry out experiments.
. Although he was smart, he was bored in class and his grades were low.
At the age of seven he was expelled from school because his teacher considered
him to be a retard.
His mother, who was a school teacher, decided to take over his training.
She was able to convey to him things that were very difficult to teach:
curiosity about things and phenomena, perseverance in work and a desire to
read. It was precisely the reading of a book provided by his mother that
created in Thomas a great fascination for experimentation. And since he was ten
years old, he had been conducting experiments in a pantry at home. At the age
of twelve, he sold newspapers and knick-knacks on the train to pay for his
laboratory experiments.
After saving a child from dying on the train tracks, the child's
grateful father taught him telegraphy. He liked what he didn't know so much
that he built a domestic telegraph. He was a tireless reader; it is said that
he tried to read a whole library. He reproduced the experiments he had read.
All his circumstances and calamities in his childhood force us to think of this
character not only as an inventor but as a person.
In 1868, Thomas Edison patented his first invention. It was a device for
counting votes in elections. But it was not very successful.
He improved Graham Bell's telephone by adding a carbon microphone.
In 1877, he made one of his most important contributions: the
phonograph.
Perhaps his most famous discovery was the light bulb.
Behind all these discoveries there were many hours of work and not
always successful. Thomas Edison had a natural optimism and great perseverance.
And on another occasion, he said: "An experience is never a
failure, because it always comes to prove something".
Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla, was a Croatian engineer born in Smija, in the Austrian
Empire in July 1856. He was an inventor in the field of electromagnetism. His
studies and researches today have been the basis of systems for the use of
alternating electric current.
Son of Serbian parents. His father Milutin Tesla was a priest of the
Serbian Orthodox Church and his mother Duka Mandic was a housewife who invented
small domestic appliances, although she was illiterate.
In 1862, the family moved to Gospic, where Nikola attended a secondary school like the lycée in France,
and studied for three years when the normal was four, but Tesla's genius helped
him complete the curriculum in less time.
He was convinced by his father to return to university and entered
Charles University in Prague, where he met Ernst Macht, an Austrian physicist
and philosopher in the field of optics and acoustics.
However, when his father died, he dropped out of the course.
Nikola Tesla moved to Paris in 1882, and there he began working at the
Continental Edison Company as an engineer, designing electrical equipment. That
year, he invented the induction motor, which is an alternating current electric
motor.
In 1884 he arrived in the United States to work with Thomas Edison
himself, who hired him to work at the Edison Machine Works. Tesla excelled at
repairing the damaged dynamos of the Oregon liner, which earned him Edison's
congratulations and further consideration.
He redesigned the Edison company's DC generators, for which he was
offered $50,000. In 1886, Tesla opened his own company: Tesla Electric Light
& Manufacturing, without much success since its investors did not approve
the project of an alternating current motor.
But he continued with his project. Later George Westinghouse bought
Tesla's patent for his alternating current motor. With this money he became
more independent and opened a workshop in Manhattan with hired personnel.
Nikola's inventions are many: the Tesla coil, wireless lighting, the
steam oscillator generator, among others.
This ingenious electrician died in New York in 1943.
