Nicolaus Copernicus

                                                     

 
                                              -: Nicolaus Copernicus :-
                                                                (Father of modern astronomy)
                                                                       (February 19, 1473)
Nicolaus Copernicus is born in Torun, a city in north-central Poland on the Vistula River. The father of modern astronomy, he was the first modern European scientist to propose that Earth and other planets revolve around the sun.

Copernicus was born into a family of well-to-do merchants, and after his father's death, his uncle--soon to be a bishop--took the boy under his wing. He was given the best education of the day and bred for a career in canon (church) law. At the University of Krakow, he studied liberal arts, including astronomy and astrology, and then, like many Poles of his social class, was sent to Italy to study medicine and law.

While studying at the University of Bologna, he lived for a time in the home of Domenico Maria de Novara, the principal astronomer at the university. Astronomy and astrology were at the time closely related and equally regarded, and Novara had the responsibility of issuing astrological prognostications for Bologna. Copernicus sometimes assisted him in his observations, and Novara exposed him to criticism of both astrology and aspects of the Ptolemaic system, which placed Earth at the center of the universe.

Copernicus later studied at the University of Padua and in 1503 received a doctorate in canon law from the University of Ferrara. He returned to Poland, where he became a church administrator and doctor. In his free time, he dedicated himself to scholarly pursuits, which sometimes included astronomical work. By 1514, his reputation as an astronomer was such that he was consulted by church leaders attempting to reform the Julian calendar.

The cosmology of early 16th-century Europe held that Earth sat stationary and motionless at the center of several rotating, concentric spheres that bore the celestial bodies: the sun, the moon, the known planets, and the stars. From ancient times, philosophers adhered to the belief that the heavens were arranged in circles (which by definition are perfectly round), causing confusion among astronomers who recorded the often eccentric motion of the planets, which sometimes appeared to halt in their orbit of Earth and move retrograde across the sky.

In the second century A.D., the Alexandrian geographer and astronomer Ptolemy sought to resolve this problem by arguing that the sun, planets, and moon move in small circles around much larger circles that revolve around Earth. These small circles he called epicycles, and by incorporating numerous epicycles rotating at varying speeds he made his celestial system correspond with most astronomical observations on record.

The Ptolemaic system remained Europe's accepted cosmology for more than 1,000 years, but by Copernicus' day accumulated astronomical evidence had thrown some of his theories into confusion. Astronomers disagreed on the order of the planets from Earth, and it was this problem that Copernicus addressed at the beginning of the 16th century.

Sometime between 1508 and 1514, he wrote a short astronomical treatise commonly called the Commentariolus, or "Little Commentary," which laid the basis for his heliocentric (sun-centered) system. The work was not published in his lifetime. In the treatise, he correctly postulated the order of the known planets, including Earth, from the sun, and estimated their orbital periods relatively accurately.

For Copernicus, his heliocentric theory was by no means a watershed, for it created as many problems as it solved. For instance, heavy objects were always assumed to fall to the ground because Earth was the center of the universe. Why would they do so in a sun-centered system? He retained the ancient belief that circles governed the heavens, but his evidence showed that even in a sun-centered universe the planets and stars did not revolve around the sun in circular orbits. Because of these problems and others, Copernicus delayed publication of his major astronomical work, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri vi, or "Six Books Concerning the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs," nearly all his life. Completed around 1530, it was not published until 1543--the year of his death.

In the work, Copernicus' groundbreaking argument that Earth and the planets revolve around the sun led him to make a number of other major astronomical discoveries. While revolving around the sun, Earth, he argued, spins on its axis daily. Earth takes one year to orbit the sun and during this time wobbles gradually on its axis, which accounts for the precession of the equinoxes. Major flaws in the work include his concept of the sun as the center of the whole universe, not just the solar system, and his failure to grasp the reality of elliptical orbits, which forced him to incorporate numerous epicycles into his system, as did Ptolemy. With no concept of gravity, Earth and the planets still revolved around the sun on giant transparent spheres.

In his dedication to De revolutionibus--an extremely dense scientific work--Copernicus noted that "mathematics is written for mathematicians." If the work were more accessible, many would have objected to its non-biblical and hence heretical concept of the universe. For decades, De revolutionibus remained unknown to all but the most sophisticated astronomers, and most of these men, while admiring some of Copernicus' arguments, rejected his heliocentric basis. It was not until the early 17th century that Galileo and Johannes Kepler developed and popularized the Copernican theory, which for Galileo resulted in a trial and conviction for heresy. Following Isaac Newton's work in celestial mechanics in the late 17th century, acceptance of the Copernican theory spread rapidly in non-Catholic countries, and by the late 18th century it was almost universally accepted.

Shivaji

                                    -: Shivaji Bhosale :-

Shivaji Bhosale was an Indian warrior king from the 17th century. An aristocrat of the Bhosle Maratha clan, Shivaji, in 1674, carved out an enclave from the declining Adilshahi sultanate of Bijapur that formed the genesis of an independent Maratha kingdom with Raigad as its capital.

Shivaji established a competent and progressive civil rule with the help of a disciplined military and well-structured administrative organisations. He innovated military tactics, pioneering the guerilla warfare methods (Shiva sutra or ganimi kava), which leveraged strategic factors like geography, speed, and surprise and focused pinpoint attacks to defeat his larger and more powerful enemies. From a small contingent of 2,000 soldiers inherited from his father, Shivaji created a force of 100,000 soldiers; he built and restored strategically located forts both inland and coastal to safeguard his territory. He revived ancient Hindu political traditions and court conventions, and promoted the usage of Marathi and Sanskrit, rather than Persian, in court and administration.

Shivaji's legacy was to vary by observer and time, but began to take on increased importance with the emergence of the Indian independence movement, as many elevated him as a proto-nationalist and hero of the Hindus. Particularly in Maharashtra, debates over his history and role have engendered great passion and sometimes even violence as disparate groups have sought to characterise him and his legacy.

Abraham Lincoln

                                    -: Abraham Lincoln :-
                                                             Born: February 12, 1809

Abraham Lincoln is regarded as one of greatest President due to both his incredible impact on the nation and his unique appeal. His is a remarkable story of the rise from humble beginnings to achieve the highest office in the land; then,
a sudden and tragic death at a time when his country needed him most to complete the great task remaining before the nation. Lincoln's distinctively human and humane personality and historical role as savior of the Union and emancipator of the slaves creates a legacy that endures. His eloquence of democracy and his insistence that the Union was worth saving embody the ideals of self-government that all nations strive to achieve.

Childhood :-
Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky to Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Lincoln. Thomas was a strong and determined pioneer who found a moderate level of prosperity and was well respected in the community. The couple had two other children: Abraham's older sister Sarah and younger brother Thomas, who died in infancy. Due to a land dispute, the Lincolns were forced to move from Kentucky to Perry County, Indiana in 1817, where the family "squatted" on public land to scrap out a living in a crude shelter, hunting game and farming a small plot. Thomas was eventually able to buy the land.
When young Abraham was 9 years old his mother died of tremetol (milk sickness) at age 34 and the event was devastating on him. The 9-year-old Abraham grew more alienated from his father and quietly resented the hard work placed on him at an early age. A few months after Nancy's death, Thomas married Sarah Bush Johnston, a Kentucky widow with three children of her own. She was a strong and affectionate woman with whom Abraham quickly bonded. Though both his parents were most likely illiterate, Sarah encouraged Abraham to read. It was while growing into manhood that he received his formal education—an estimated total of 18 months—a few days or weeks at a time. Reading material was in short supply in the Indiana wilderness. Neighbors recalled how Abraham would walk for miles to borrow a book. He undoubtedly read the family Bible and probably other popular books at that time such as Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrims Progress and Aesop’s Fables.

Law Career :-
In March, 1830, the family again migrated, this time to Macon County, Illinois. When his father moved the family again to Coles County, 22-year-old Abraham Lincoln struck out on this own, making a living in manual labor. At six feet four inches tall, Lincoln was rawboned and lanky, but muscular and physically strong. He spoke with a backwoods twang and walked with a long-striding gait. He was known for his skill in wielding an ax and early on made a living splitting wood for fire and rail fencing. Young Lincoln eventually migrated to the small community of New Salem, Illinois where over a period of years he worked as a shopkeeper, postmaster, and eventually general store owner. It was here that Lincoln, working with the public, acquired social skills and honed story-telling talent that made him popular with the locals.

When the Black Hawk War broke out in 1832 between the United States and Native Americans, the volunteers in the area elected Lincoln to be their captain. He saw no combat during this time, save for "a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes," but was able to make several important political connections.

After the Black Hawk War,Abraham Lincoln began his political career and was elected to the Illinois state legislature in 1834 as a member of the Whig Party. He supported the Whig politics of government-sponsored infrastructure and protective tariffs. This political understanding led him to formulate his early views on slavery, not so much as a moral wrong, but as an impediment to economic development. It was around this time that he decided to become a lawyer, teaching himself the law by reading William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England. After being admitted to the bar in 1837, he moved to Springfield, Illinois and began to practice in the John T. Stuart law firm.

It was soon after this that he purportedly met and became romantically involved with Anne Rutledge. Before they had a chance to be engaged, a wave of typhoid fever came over New Salem and Anne died at age 22. Her death was said to have left Lincoln severely depressed. However, several historians disagree on the extent of Lincoln’s relationship with Rutledge and his level of sorrow at her death may be more the makings of legend.

In 1844, Abraham Lincoln partnered with William Herndon in the practice of law. Though the two had different jurisprudent styles, they developed a close professional and personal relationship. Lincoln made a good living in his early years as a lawyer, but found that Springfield alone didn't offer enough work, so to supplement his income, he followed the court as it made its rounds on the circuit to the various county seats in Illinois.

Entering Politics :-
Abraham Lincoln served a single term in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1847 to 1849. His foray into national politics seems to be as unremarkable as it was brief. He was the lone Whig from the state of Illinois, showing party loyalty, but finding few political allies. He used his term in office to speak out against the Mexican-American War and supported Zachary Taylor for president in 1848. His criticism of the war made him unpopular back home and he decided not to run for second term, but instead returned Springfield to practice law.

By the 1850s, the railroad industry was moving west and Illinois found itself becoming a major hub for various companies. Abraham Lincoln served as a lobbyist for the Illinois Central Railroad as its company attorney. Success in several court cases brought other business clients as well—banks, insurance companies and manufacturing firms. Lincoln also did some criminal trials. In one case, a witness claimed that he could identify Lincoln's client who was accused of murder, because of the intense light from a full moon. Lincoln referred to an almanac and proved that the night in question had been too dark for the witness to see anything clearly.
His client was acquitted.

About a year after the death of Anne Rutledge, Lincoln courted Mary Owens. The two saw each other for a few months and marriage was considered. But in time Lincoln called off the match. In 1840, Lincoln became engaged to Mary Todd, a high spirited, well educated woman from a distinguished Kentucky family. In the beginning, many of the couple's friends and family couldn't understand Mary’s attraction, and at times Lincoln questioned it himself. However, in 1841,the engagement was suddenly broken off, most likely at Lincoln's initiative. They met later, at a social function and eventually married on November 4, 1842. The couple had four children, of which only one, Robert, survived to adulthood.

Elected President :-
In 1854, Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise, and allowed individual states and territories to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery. The law provoked violent opposition in Kansas and Illinois. And it gave rise to the Republican Party. This awakened Abraham Lincoln's political zeal once again, and his views on slavery moved more toward moral indignation. Lincoln joined the Republican Party in 1856.

In 1857, the Supreme Court issued its controversial decision Scott v. Sanford, declaring African Americans were not citizens and had no inherent rights. Though Abraham Lincoln felt African Americans were not equal to whites, he believed the America's founders intended that all men were created with certain inalienable rights. Lincoln decided to challenge sitting U.S. Senator Stephen Douglas for his seat. In his nomination acceptance speech, he criticized Douglas, the Supreme Court, and President Buchanan for promoting slavery and declared "a house divided cannot stand."

The 1858 Senate campaign featured seven debates held in different cities all over Illinois. The two candidates didn't disappoint the public, giving stirring debates on issues ranging from states' rights to western expansion, but the central issue in all the debates was slavery. Newspapers intensely covered the debates, often times with partisan editing and interpretation. In the end, the state legislature elected Douglas, but the exposure vaulted Lincoln into national politics.

In 1860, political operatives in Illinois organized a campaign to support Lincoln for the presidency. On May 18th at the Republican National Convention in Chicago, Abraham Lincoln surpassed better known candidates such as William Seward of New York and Salmon P. Chase of Ohio. Lincoln's nomination was due in part to his moderate views on slavery, his support for improving the national infrastructure, and the protective tariff. In the general election, Lincoln faced his friend and rival, Stephan Douglas, this time besting him in a four-way race that included John C. Breckinridge of the Northern Democrats and John Bell of the Constitution Party. Lincoln received not quite 40 percent of the popular vote, but carried 180 of 303 Electoral votes.

Abraham Lincoln selected a strong cabinet composed of many of his political rivals, including William Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates and Edwin Stanton.

Formed out the adage "Hold your friends close and your enemies closer," Lincoln's Cabinet became one of his strongest assets in his first term in office… and he would need them. Before his inauguration in March, 1861, seven Southern states had seceded from the Union and by April the U.S. military installation Fort Sumter, was under siege in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. In the early morning hours of April 12, 1861,the guns stationed to protect the harbor blazed toward the fort signaling the start of America’s costliest and most deadly conflict.

Civil War :-
Abraham Lincoln responded to the crisis wielding powers as no other present before him. He distributed $2 million from the Treasury for war material without an appropriation from Congress; he called for 75,000 volunteers into military service without a declaration of war; and he suspended the writ of habeas corpus, arresting and imprisoning suspected Confederate sympathizers without a warrant. Crushing the rebellion would be difficult under any circumstances, but the Civil War, with its preceding decades of white-hot partisan politics, was especially onerous. From all directions, Lincoln faced disparagement and defiance. He was often at odds with his generals, his Cabinet, his party and a majority of the American people.

The Union Army's first year and a half of battlefield defeats made it especially difficult to keep morale up and support strong for a reunification the nation. With the hopeful, but by no means conclusive Union victory at Antietam on September 22, 1862, Abraham felt confident enough to reshape the cause of the war from "union" to abolishing slavery. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, which stated that all individuals who were held as slaves "henceforward shall be free."

Gradually, the war effort improved for the North, though more by attrition then by brilliant military victories. But by 1864, the Confederacy had hunkered down to a guerilla war and Lincoln was convinced he'd be a one-term president. His nemesis, George B. McClellan, the former commander of the Army of the Potomac, challenged him for the presidency, but the contest wasn't even close. Lincoln received 55 percent of the popular vote and 212 of 243 Electoral votes. On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Army of Virginia, surrendered his forces to Union General Ulysses S. Grant and the war for all intents and purposes was over.

Assassination :-
Reconstruction began during the war as early as 1863 in areas firmly under Union military control. Abraham Lincoln favored a policy of quick reunification with a minimum of retribution. But he was confronted by a radical group of Republicans in the Senate and House that wanted complete allegiance and repentance from former Confederates. Before a political battle had a chance to firmly develop, Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, by well-known actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. Lincoln was taken from the theater to a Petersen House across the street and laid in a coma for nine hours before dying the next morning. His body lay in state at the Capitol before a funeral train took him back to his final resting place in Springfield, Illinois.

Galileo Galilei

-: Galileo Galilei :-

Galileo Galilei was born on 15 February 1564 near Pisa, the son of a musician. He began to study medicine at the University of Pisa but changed to philosophy and mathematics. In 1589, he became professor of mathematics at Pisa. In 1592, he moved to become mathematics professor at the University of Padua, a position he held until 1610. During this time he worked on a variety of experiments, including the speed at which different objects fall, mechanics and pendulums.

In 1609, Galileo heard about the invention of the telescope in Holland. Without having seen an example, he constructed a superior version and made many astronomical discoveries. These included mountains and valleys on the surface of the moon, sunspots, the four largest moons of the planet Jupiter and the phases of the planet Venus. His work on astronomy made him famous and he was appointed court mathematician in Florence.

In 1614, Galileo was accused of heresy for his support of the Copernican theory that the sun was at the centre of the solar system. This was revolutionary at a time when most people believed the Earth was in this central position. In 1616, he was forbidden by the church from teaching or advocating these theories.

In 1632, he was again condemned for heresy after his book 'Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems' was published. This set out the arguments for and against the Copernican theory in the form of a discussion between two men. Galileo was summoned to appear before the Inquisition in Rome. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, later reduced to permanent house arrest at his villa in Arcetri, south of Florence. He was also forced to publicly withdraw his support for Copernican theory.

Charles Robert Darwin

                                               -: Charles Robert Darwin :-
Charles Robert Darwin’s scientific achievement can be equaled by very few -- either for breadth or depth. Biology came of age as a science when Darwin published “On the Origin of Species”. Darwin’s writing is remarkably clear and persuasive. His style of writing has a charm seldom encountered in scientific works. As Nicolaus Copernicus showed that the Earth has no privileged position in the universe, Darwin convincingly proved that human’s ancestry is no different from the other animals. Darwin was ridiculed for his theory. Even Darwin himself towards the later part of his life was not very convinced of his theory. But today his theory is regarded as the cornerstone of modern biology. And as Julian Huxley said that Darwin’s idea “is the most powerful and most comprehensive idea that has ever arisen on earth. It helps us understand our origins…We are part of a total process, made of the same matter and operating by the same energy as the rest of the cosmos, maintaining and reproducing by the same type of mechanism on the rest of life.

Charles Darwin was born on February 12, 1809 at Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. He was the fifth child of Dr. Robert Waring Darwin, (the son of physician scientist Erasmus Darwin) and his wife Susannah, the daughter of the pottery magnate Josiah Wedgwood. Darwin’s mother died in July 1817 when he was eight years of age and he was brought up by his sister, Caroline.

Darwin was enrolled in Dr. Butler’s Shrewsbury School in 1818 at the age of nine. Darwin did not enjoy learning at school. For him, studies at his Shrewsbury School were a complete bore. Commenting on his school education Darwin wrote : “The school as a means of education to me was simply a blank. I learned absolutely nothing except by amusing myself reading and experimenting with chemistry”. However, he had an intense curiosity about natural world. Since his childhood he developed a thirst for discovery and adventure. He liked to collect unusual objects both living and non-living. Luckily for Darwin his home was surrounded by woods and wildlife. The River Severn flowed right by The Mount, his family home. There were always things to discover, places to explore. He took interest in the birds, fish and frogs found in the surrounding areas. He had a great fascination for collecting beetles, the rarer the species the better. At the age of 13, he had even described, in a scientific journal, a new species he had captured in the neighborhood. In his autobiography he describes a particular beetle hunt in detail : “I will give a proof of my zeal : one day on tearing off some old bark, I saw two rare beetles and seized one in each hand ; then I saw a third and new kind, which I could not bear to lose, so that I popped the one which I held in my right hand into my mouth. Alas it ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as well as the third one.”

Darwin’s father once said to him “you care for nothing but shooting dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all of your family.’ But Darwin commented, “…my father, who was the kindest man I ever knew and whose memory I love with all my heart, must have been angry and somewhat unjust when he used such words”.

Darwin was influenced by his grandfather Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), who was professionally a physician but he also established himself as a philosopher, naturalist and poet. Erasmus’ books Zoonomia : or the Laws of Organic Life and The Botanic Garden or Lovers of the Plants were famous. Erasmus had even offered a theory of evolution. He helped found the Lunar Society. Its members called “Lunatics”, met only during full moons, so that they find their way home in their horse-drawn carriages by bright moonlight. Among its members were inventor James Watt (1736-1819), the industrialist Matthew Boulton (1728-1809), the chemist Joseph Priestly (1733-1804) and potter Josiah Wedgwood (1730-95). Among Darwin’s other heroes were Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), the great zoologist, Karl von Linne or Carolus Linnaeus (1707-78), who classified thousands of plants and animals and Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), the explorer who traveled over much of the world making discoveries.

In his early years Darwin developed interest in geology, zoology, botany and to a lesser extent in astronomy. Darwin’s interest in natural science did not mean much to his father because there were hardly any jobs in natural science. After seeing that his son was not doing good at school Dr. Robert Darwin sent Charles to the University of Edinburgh to be trained as a physician. While studying medicine Darwin continued to pursue his old hobbies – beetle collection, bird watching and so on. He made friends with a few other scholars older than himself but having interest in natural history. Robert Edmond Grant (1793-1874), a Professor of Zoology, took him on field trips. John Edmonston, a talented taxidermist, taught him how to mount birds and mammals specimen for collection.

Darwin could not complete his studies in medicine, and it had to be abruptly terminated. As Darwin did not have the courage to face his father he took refuge with his maternal uncle Joshia Wedgwood II at the Wedgwood home called Maer Hall, at Staffordshire about 30 km from Shrewsbury. His maternal uncle who was very fond of him took him on tours of Scotland, Ireland, London and Paris much to the dislike of Darwin’s father.

After seeing Darwin’s failure at becoming a physician, his father sent him to the Christ’s College, Cambridge in 1827 to study theology with a view to be ordained as a clergyman. But here again Darwin could not concentrate in his studies. Here he became attached with two scholars -- the Reverend Adam Sedgwick, a geology professor and the Reverend John Henslow, a botanist. The latter played a major role in shaping Darwin’s career. Of his Cambridge years, Darwin says, “…my time was wasted, as far as the academic studies were concerned as completely as at Edinburg and at school.” According to Darwin the only things he enjoyed in his studies at Cambridge were geometry, and the works of William Paley (1743-1805), a distinguished eighteenth century theologian. Darwin admired his beautiful logic and clear expression.

Darwin returned home from Cambridge in 1831 without having completed his studies. With Professor Henslow’s encouragement Darwin had turned to be a promising naturalist and he had developed a specific interest in learning geology but he had no formal educational degree. At this stage something unexpected and dramatic appeared that was to change Darwin’s life and also the course of scientific discovery forever. It was a letter from Darwin’s favourite professor Henslow. Henslow was requested to help Robert FitzRoy, the captain of HMS Beagle to find a naturalist. Henslow himself wanted to join the expedition but after realizing the fact that he could not be away from his home, he offered the job to his brother-in-law, the Reverend Leonard Jenyns, a qualified naturalist. However, he also could not accept it as he was tied with Church responsibilities. After this Henslow wrote to Darwin urging him to take up the assignment. In a letter dated 24 August 1831 Henslow while explaining that the captain was seeking a young man to serve as ship’s naturalist not a `mere collector’ but also to be intelligent companion for the captain. He further wrote : “I consider you to be the best qualified person I know of who is likely to undertake such a situation… I state this not in the supposition of your being a finished naturalist, but as amply qualified for collection, observing and noting, anything worthy to be noted in Natural History.. Don’t put on any modest doubts or fears about your qualifications, for I assure you I think you are the very man they are in search of.”

It may be noted here that though FitzRoy is mostly remembered as “Darwin’s Captain’, he made his mark as seaman, explorer, surveyor, mapmaker and meteorologist. He also became governor of New Zealand. His family name is from the French fils roy meaning “son of the king”. Robert FitzRoy graduated from the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth. He served on several vessels. In 1828, he was given the command HMS Beagle which had been sent to map the southern coasts of South America, including Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. During his first command of Beagle (1828-1830) FitzRoy became interested in the Indian tribes of Tierra del Fuego and he brought four young members of the tribe including a nine-year old girl to England. His idea was to teach them English, and the plainer truths of Christianity, reading, gardening and “the use of common tools” and subsequently return them to their homeland. FitzRoy named the girl Fuegia Basket and the other three boys were called : York Minster, Boat Memory and Jemmy Button. One of the tribal youths, called Boat Memory died soon after reaching England. Among the other three Jemmy Button and Fuegia Basket made good progress in their learning and attracted the attention of the Press. After a few months of their stay in England FitzRoy wanted to take back these tribal youths to their homeland. The British Admiralty, however, did not show any interest in financing the project. But FitzRoy was determined to keep his word. Accordingly he took a year’s leave and arranged the money for hiring a ship. At this juncture one of his uncles came in his rescue by persuading the Admiralty to sponsor another surveying voyage for the Beagle. The British Admiralty commissioned Beagle for a five-year voyage with the purpose of mapping the coasts of Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, Chile and Peru and then continue on around the globe to survey longitudes. Besides other normal crew FitzRoy wanted a naturalist preferably a young one to accompany him. It was a common practice to take a naturalist on a voyage of this kind. The main purpose of engaging a naturalist was to provide intelligent and gentlemanly company for the ship’s captain as British captains were expected to remain aloof from their hired crews. The post of naturalist was an upaid one.

Darwin was very much interested in taking up the job but his father was not in its favour. He said that no man of common sense would approve such a foolish idea. His father thought that his son was trying to escape the responsibility of preparing a sensible career. He advised his son to forget about it and return to Cambridge to complete his studies to be qualified as clergyman. So young Darwin had no option other than to inform Henslow his inability to accept the offer. However, Darwin did not give up the hope of convincing his father. His only hope was that his father had said, “If you can find any man of common sense who advise you to go, I will give my consent”. Dawin went to his maternal uncle Josiah Wedgwood II (or uncle Josh as Darwin called him) to persuade him to convince Darwin’s father. Josiah Wedgwood II after listening Darwin carefully explained the risks involved in such a journey. And after seeing that Darwin was not only aware of the risks but he was perfectly willing to accept them, Josiah Wedgwood II decided to take up the matter with Darwin’s father. Darwin provided him a list of objections raised by his father. Josiah Wedgwood II wrote a letter answering every objection. In answer to the very first objection that the voyage would be “disreputable to (Darwin’s) character as a clergyman” Wedgwood replied, “The pursuit of Natural History, though certainly not professional, is very suitable to a clergyman”. Answering Dr. Robert Darwin’s objection that “it would be a useless undertaking” Wedgwood replied, “Looking upon Charles as a man of enlarged curiosity it (the voyage) affords him such an opportunity of seeing men and things as happens to few”. Darwin attached a separate note stating that he would accept his father’s decision on the subject as final and “he would never mention the subject again”. Instead of waiting for a reply Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood II went to Shrewsbury to meet Dr. Robert Darwin. Finally Dr. Robert Darwin consented and agreed to pay all Darwin’s expenses.

The Beagle set sail on December 27, 1831. Darwin was only twenty two years old. There was no proper accommodation for Darwin. He had to share a cabin with the captain and there was virtually no room for keeping his instrument. Darwin wrote in his Journal: “The absolute want of room is an evil that nothing can surmount”. Darwin was plagued with sickness throughout the voyage.

Darwin took four books with him for the journey – the Bible, a copy of Milton’s work, Alexander von Humboldt’s account of his exploration of Venezuela and the Orinoco basin and Volume One of Lyell’s Principle of Geology. The other two volumes of Lyell’s book was sent to him during the journey by Henslow. Darwin sent frequent reports on his observations to Henslow. Many of these reports were read by Henslow at meetings of the Philosophical Society of Cambridge.

The Beagle visited many lands in the southern Pacific seas before returning to England in October 1836 via the Southern Cape of Africa in an effective circumnavigation of the globe. The ship visited amongst other places the Cape Varde Islands, Brazil, Argentina and Chile.

After coming back from the voyage Darwin started working on his “Journal of Researches”, a work based upon this journal which he had kept during the voyage of the Beagle. This was published in 1839 and become an immediate’ success. The success of his first “literary child” always pleased Darwin more than that of any of his other books.

Following the continued deterioration of his health Darwin moved to a country residence at Downe, Kent. Darwin lived a life of a country gentleman of independent means among his gardens, conservatories, pigeons and fowls. However, he conducted extensive experiments especially in variation and interbreeding. It was at Downe that most of his life’s work was done. Because of his continual health problem Darwin’s activities were mainly confined to writing books. The books written by Darwin are given at the end of the article. The first of his major geological works., The structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs”, was published in 1842. In this book Darwin presented a theory of the structure and mode of formation of coral reefs. Darwin’s theory was very different from the one existed them. However, his keen observation and accurate thinking made his theory acceptable to most of the geologists. In fact his theory is even now generally accepted among geologists.

Darwin based on his observation of various facts of paleontology and biogeography, saw the possibility that species might not be immutable. But then he had no theory to work upon. However, he decided to apply the method adopted by Lyell in solving geological problems. Lyell had attacked geological problems by accumulating all applicable data in the absence of a working theory, in the hope that the sheer weight of facts might throw some light upon his problems. Darwin decided to adopt the same method to the species problem. Accordingly he started in July 1837 his work on variation in plants and animals, both under domestication and in nature. Darwin did not want to overlook any possible source of information. Thus he looked into personal observations and experiments, published papers of other biologists, conversations with breeders and gardeners, correspondence with biologists at home and abroad and so. Based on the analysis of accumulated facts from various sources Darwin realized that man’s success in producing useful varieties of plants and animals depended upon selections of desired variation for breeding stock. However, Darwin had no clue on how selection could be applicable to nature.

But then he stumbled upon a theory to work upon. In October 1838, Darwin happened to read for sheer amusement “Malthus on Population”. The book written by Thomas Robert Matlhus (1766-1834) was first published anonymously in 1789. It was titled An Essay on the Principle of Population. The book was not about biology. In his book Malthus proposed that human population increase geometrically (e.g., 2,4,8,16…), while means to support them increase only arithmetically (e.g.1,2,3,4,5…). Accordingly natural selective forces such as overcrowding, disease, war, poverty and vice take over to remove those who are not fit and thus only the fittest survive. Darwin extended Malthus’s ideas and developed the idea of natural selection in species, a concept that is often referred to as “survival of the fittest”. The phrase “survival of the fittest” is often used synonymously with natural selection. The phrase is both incomplete and misleading. The word survival is only one component of selection and perhaps one of the less important ones in many populations. Aso, the word `fit’ is often confused with physically fit. Fitness, in an evolutionary sense, is the average reproductive output of a class of genetic variation in a gene pool . `Fit’ does not necessarily mean biggest, fastest or strongest.

The theory of natural selection answers the question of who made the selection of what is to be evolved. The species that do survive in the competition for existence will go on to produce the next generation. The environment an organism lives in helps to determine which organisms survive and produce young, and which do not.

Commenting on Malthus’s work, Darwin wrote : “In October 1938, that is fifteen months after I had began my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work…”

However, Darwin took four years to write the first outline of his theory. This is because he had to collect a great deal of more data. In 1842 Darwin produced a pencil draft of thirty-five pages. By 1844 Darwin enlarged this draft to 230 pages. Early in 1856 following the advice given by Lyell, Darwin began his work on a much larger scale with a view to prepare a full account of his ideas on the origin of species. But while Darwin was half on its way in completing his work a certain development took place which forced Darwin for early publication of his work. Alfred Russell Wallace (1823-1913) sent Darwin a short essay on the “Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type” with a request that if Darwin think it worthy he should forward it to Lyell for his comments. Darwin liked it very much because he recognized his own theory in it. Darwin sent Wallace’s paper to Lyell along with a covering letter. Darwin wrote: “Your words have come true with a vengeance – that I should be forestalled; if Wallace had my MS. Sketch written out in 1842, he could not have made a better short abstract”. At one point Darwin decided to withhold his own publication in favour of Wallace. However, Lyell and Joseph Hooker (1817-1911) had for years been familier with Darwin’s work on the transmutation of species. Lyell had read Darwin’s outline of 1842. Lyell and Hooker therefore suggested that Darwin write a short abstract of his theory and that it be published jointly with Wallace’s paper in the Journal of the Linnean Society. These papers appeared in that Journal in 1859 together with portion of a letter which Darwin had written to Asa Gray (1810-88), the great American botanist, in September 1857, in which Darwin set forth his views on natural selection and the origin of species.

In his autobiography, Darwin wrote : “Early in 1856 Lyell advised me to write out my views pretty fully, and I began at once to do so on a scale three or four times as extensive as that which afterwards followed by my Origin of Species : yet it was only a abstract of the materials which I had collected, and I had got through about half the work on this scale. But my plans were overthrown far early in the summer of 1858. Mr. Wallace, who was in the Malaya Archipelago, sent me an eassy “On the tendency of varieties to depart indefinitely from the original type” and this eassay (arrived June 18th) contained exactly the same theory as mine. Mr. Wallace expressed the wish that if I thought well of this essay, I should send it to Lyell for perusal. The circumstances under which I consented at the request of Lyell and Hooker to allow an extract from my own M.S., together with a letter to Asa Gray, dated September 5, 1857 to be published at the same time with Wallace’s assay, are given in the Journal of the Linnean Society 1858 p. 45. I was at first very unwilling to consent, as I thought that Mr. Wallace might consider my doing so unjustifiable, for I did not then know how generous and noble was his disposition.”

Following this Lyell and Hooker persuaded Darwin to prepare for early publication of a book on transmutation of species. Accordingly, he condensed the manuscript he had begun in 1856 to about one-third or even one-fourth its original size. The “Origin of Species” thus produced, was finally published in November 1859.

The original title of the manuscript was “An Abstract of an Essay on the Origin of Species and Varieties through Natural Selection”. However, his publisher, John Murrey, persuaded Darwin to reduce this to On the Origin of Species, but Darwin insisted on keeping the words by means of Natural Selection as a kind of subtitle. Darwin also included on the title page the words Or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Every copy of the original 1, 250-copies printed was sold on the VERY first day. Commenting on the success of Origin Darwin wrote :

“The success of the `Origin’ may, I think, be attributed in large part to my having long before written two condensed sketches, and to my having finally abstracted a much larger manuscript, which was itself an abstract. By this means I was enabled to select the more striking facts and conclusions. I had, also, during many years followed a golden rule, namely that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail at once; for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than favorable ones, owig to this habit, very few objections were raised against my views which I had not at least noticed and attempted to answer.”

Darwin always referred to his Origin of Species as abstract. He wrote in its introduction: “This Abstract, which I now publish, most necessarily be imperfect. I cannot have given reference and authorities for my several statements, and I must trust to the reader reposing some confidence in my accuracy. No doubt errors will have crept in though I hope I have always been cautious in trusting to good authorities alone. I can have given only the general conclusions at which I have arrived, with a few facts in illustration, but which, I hope in most cases will suffice. No one can feel more sensible than I do of the necessity of hereafter publishing in detail all the facts, with references, on which my conclusions have been grounded ; and I hope in a future work to do this. For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, after apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question; and this cannot possibly be here done.”

Darwin is mostly known for his hypothesizing the pattern of common descent and proposing a mechanism for evolution -- natural selection. Darwin’s theory of evolution is no longer just a theory -- an overwhelming amount of evidence has accumulated since Darwin. This it may be said that Darwin discovered a law as Copernicus, Galileo and Newton discovered laws -- natural laws. According to Darwin’s law life has come into being and exists and is depended on the process of natural selection. In Darwin’s theory of natural selection, new variants arrives continually with in population. Some of the variation may be neutral, but others help or hinder the organism in its struggle for survival. What Darwin did not know was the mode of inheritance.

Today we know that the true mode of inheritance was discovered by Gregor Mendel through his experiments on hybrid peas. In fact Mendel mailed his paper to Darwin, but Darwin never opened it.

The idea of evolution was not new to Darwin. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) in his book Novum organum (1620) noted the way in which species vary naturally from one generation to the next. Bacon observed that such natural variation could be used by the breeders of plants and animals to produce “many rare and unusual results:” Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), the German mathematician, speculated that species had changed because of difference in environmental conditions. Leibniz’s observation was based on his studies of fossils and the possible relationship between the extinct ammonites and living species such as the nautilus. The term evolution was first used in its modern biological context in 1826 by Robert Jameson. In the eighteenth century Georges Louis Lecrec, Comte de Buffon (1707-88) suggested that the North American bison might be descended from an ancestral variety of ox that had migrated there. Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus Darwin was convinced about the importance of evolution. However, Erasmus mistakenly though, that individual members of a species developed different characteristics during their, lifetime. And once acquired these advanced characteristics are passed on to their offsprings.

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) proposed a theory of evolution in 1809. He believed that species arose continually from nonliving sources. These species were initially very primitive, but increased in complexity over time due to some inherent tendency. Such type of evolution is called orthogenesis. Further Lamarck proposed that an organism’s acclimation to environment could be passed on to its offspring. For example Lamarck thought proto-giraffes stretched their necks to reach higher twigs and which caused their offspring to be born with longer necks. This is known as the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Lamarck also believed that species never went extinct, although they may change into newer forms. Lamarck’s ideas have been proved to be wrong. The observations made by a number of scientists implicitly included the concept of evolution and also the notion that species have evolved to fit their environments -- adaptation. Darwin offered an explanation of how evolution works – that is natural selection.

Darwin’s theory of evolution made him many enemies among orthodox scientists and churchmen since beliefs in the Creation and divine guidance were threatened by Darwin’s revelations. Apelike cartoons of Darwin appeared in newspapers. Essays and sermons proliferated everywhere. Among the scientific opponents were Richard Owens, a renowned geologist at Oxford, Louis Agassiz at Harvard University in the USA and Adam Sedgwick, an old-school geologist from Cambridge. Darwin was not in a position to combat the furor, raised against his theory because of his continued illness. Moreover, he never recovered from the untimely death of his daughter Annie.

The task of defending his theory was left to Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-95), a brilliant zoologist who became famous as “Darwin’s bulldog”. Huxley did his job quite well notably at the famous Oxford debate on June 30, 1860, where Huxley confronted Samuel Wilberforce, the powerful Bishop of Oxford. Besides Huxley and Wilberforce those present on the platform included : Darwin’s old teacher and anti evolutionist J.S. Huxley’s friends Joseph Hooker and John Lubbock, John Draper of New York University and Sir Benjamine Brodie, the Queen’s physician and President of the Royal Society. Seven hundred people were crowded into the University Museum where the debate was organized. In this debate Huxley instead of being ridiculed had won a wider interest and fair hearing for the new theories.

Besides Huxley, Darwin’s prominent supporters were Charles Lyell and James Hooker. Lyell though convinced that Darwin was correct but he refused to come out squarely in favour of evolution in his public statements and writings before 1868 when he embraced the theory at the age of 71.

Though the debate following the publication of the Origin of Species led to wide acceptance of Darwin’s theory among the scientists but it was far from being established during Darwin’s lifetime. The main reason for this was that Darwin could not explain how characteristics passed on from one generation to another and why there are variations from one individual to another. Variation is found among individuals who share the same parents. It is important to note that in the successive revisions to the Origin of Species Darwin himself backed away from natural selection. In the first edition of his Descent of Man Darwin wrote : “In the earlier editions of my “Origin of Species” I probably attributed too much to the action of natural selection or the survival of the fittest”. The first reason for Darwin’s retreat was the failure to explain the cause of variation, a key component in Darwin’s theory of natural selection. The second important reason was the enormous timescale required for evolution. In the second half of the nineteenth century the scientists believed that the Sun could not have been hot for more than a few millions years as there was no process known to scientists which could supply energy to keep the Sun shining for hundreds of millions of years required for the variety of forms of life on Earth to have evolved through small steps. Scientists of the twentieth century have established that the long time-scale required for evolution by natural selection is not a problem as the Sun has essentially remained unchanged for about 4.5 billion years, a more than sufficient time for evolution to happen. Today we know that the energy is supplied by nuclear processes. In the twentieth century biologists developed an understanding of genetics and how characteristics are inherited by offspring from their parents. As mentioned earlier it was Mendel who had first initiated work in this direction.

By the 1940s Darwin’s theory of natural selection as spelt out in the first edition of the Origin of Species had become firmly established. So today, Darwin’s theory of evolution and common descent are considered facts by the scientific community. Though debates continue how various aspects of evolution work. For examples, all the details of pattern of relationship are not fully worked out.

Evolution is regarded as the cornerstone of biology. While it is possible to do research in biology with little or no knowledge of evolution but then without evolution biology becomes a disperate sets of fields. Evolutionary explanations pervade all fields of biology and brings them together under one theoretical umbrella.

The process of evolution can be summerised in three sentences: Genes (hereditary units) mutate. Individuals are selected. Population evolve. Evolution requires genetic variation. In order to continue evolution there must be mechanism to increase or create genetic variation and mechanism to decrease it . Mutation is a change in a gene. These changes are the source of new genetic variation. Natural selection operates on this variation. Natural selection favours traits or behaviours that increase a genotype’s inclusive fitness. The opportunity or natural selection to operate does not induce genetic variation to appear. Selection only distinguishes between existing variants. Selection merely favours beneficial genetic changes when they occur by chance — it does not contribute to their appearance. The potential for selection to act may long precede the appearance of selectable genetic variations. Natural selection does not have any foresight. It only allows organisms for adapt to their current environment. Structures or behaviours do not evolve for future utility. An organism adapts to its environment at each stage of its evolution. As the environment changes, new traits may be selected for.

Darwin died on April 19, 1882 after prolong illness. Following a suggestion from of a group of members of British Parliament, he was accorded the honour of being buried in Westminster Abbey. (A burial place for English monarchs, outstanding statesmen etc).

We would like to end this article by quoting Julian Huxley on Darwin. “Darwin’s work…put the world of life into the domain of natural law. It was no longer necessary or possible to imagine that every kind of animal or plant had been specially created, not that the beautiful and ingenious devices by which they get their food or escapes their enemies have been thought out by some supernatural power, or that there is any conscious purpose behind the evolutionary process. If the idea of natural selection holds good, then animals and plants and man himself have become what they are by natural causes, as blind and automatic as those which go to mould the shape of a mountain, or make the earth and the other planets more in ellipses round the sun. The blind struggle for existence, the blind process of heredity, automatically result in the selection of the best adopted types, and a steady evolution of the stock in the direction of progress…

Darwin’s work has enabled us to see the position of man and of our present civilization in a truer light. Man is not a finished product incapable of further progress. He has a long history behind him, and it is a history not of a fall, but of an ascent. And he has the possibility of further progressive evolution before him. Further, in the light of evolution we learn to be patient. The few thousand years of recorded history are nothing compared to the million years during which man have been on earth, and the thousand million years of life’s progress. And we can afford to be patient when the astronomers assure us of at least another thousand million years ahead of us in which to carry evolution to new heights”.

Books written by Charles Darwin

1. Voyage of the Beagle or Journal of Researches. London. 1839
2. Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs. London. 1842
3. Geological observations on Volcanic Island. London. 1844
4. Geological observation on South America. London. 1846
5. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. London. 1859
6. The Various Contrivances by which orchids are Fartilised by Insects and on the Good Effects of Intercrossing. London. 1862.
7. The Variations of Plants and Animals under Domestication. London. 1868.
8. Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. London. 1871
9. The Expression of the Emotion in Men and Animals. London. 1872
10. Insectivorous Plants. London. 1875
11. Climbing Plants. London. 1875
12. The Effects of Cross- and Self-Fertilisation in Vegetable Kingdom. London. 1876
13. Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species. London. 1877
14. The Power of Movements in Plants. London. 1880
15. The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms with Observations on Their Habits. London. 1881
16. Autobiography of Charles Darwin (Nora Barlow.ed). New York. 1958

Books on Darwin and His Theory

1. Allan, Mea, Darwin and His Flowers . New York, Taplinger, 1977
2. Brent, Peter, Charles Darwin : A Man of Enlarged Curiosity. New York : Harper & Row
3. Clark, Ronald. The Survival of Charles Darwin. New York : Random House. 1984
4. Colp, Ralph. To Be an Invalid : The Illness of Charles Darwin. Chicago : University of Chicago 1977.
5. Gould, Stephen Jay, Ever Since Darwin. New York : Norton , 1979.
6. Hyman, Stanley. The Tangled Bank : Darwin, Marx, Frazer and Freud as Imaginative Writers. New York: Atheneum. 1962.
7. Irivine, William Apes, Angles and Victorians; The Story of Darwin, Huxley and Evolution. London : Wedden field & Nicholson, 1956.
8. Moore, James and Adrian Desmond, Darwin. New York : Warner Books, 1992.
9. Bowler, Peter J. Evolution : The History of an Idea, Berkeley : University of California Press. 1984.
10. Futuyma, Dauglas. Science on Trial : The Case for Evolution. New York : Patheon. 1982..
11. Moorchead, Alan. Darwin and the Beagle. New York ; harper and Row. 1969.
12. Darwin, Fancis (Ed.) Life and Letters of Charles Darwin. New York : Appleton, 1966.

Thomas Alva Edison

                               -: Thomas Alva Edison :-
People often say Edison was a genius. He answered, "Genius is hard work, stick-to-it-iveness, and common sense."

Thomas Alva Edison was born February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio (pronounced MY-lan). In 1854, when he was seven, the family moved to Michigan, where Edison spent the rest of his childhood.

"Al," as he was called as a boy, went to school only a short time. He did so poorly that his mother, a former teacher, taught her son at home. Al learned to love reading, a habit he kept for the rest of his life. He also liked to make experiments in the basement.

Al not only played hard, but also worked hard. At the age of 12 he sold fruit, snacks and newspapers on a train as a "news butcher." (Trains were the newest way to travel, cutting through the American wilderness.) He even printed his own newspaper, the Grand Trunk Herald, on a moving train.

At 15, Al roamed the country as a "tramp telegrapher." Using a kind of alphabet called Morse Code, he sent and received messages over the telegraph. Even though he was already losing his hearing, he could still hear the clicks of the telegraph. In the next seven years he moved over a dozen times, often working all night, taking messages for trains and even for the Union Army during the Civil War. In his spare time, he took things apart to see how they worked. Finally, he decided to invent things himself.

After the failure of his first invention, the electric vote recorder, Edison moved to New York City. There he improved the way the stock ticker worked. This was his big break. By 1870 his company was manufacturing his stock ticker in Newark, New Jersey. He also improved the telegraph, making it send up to four messages at once.
During this time he married his first wife, Mary Stilwell, on Christmas Day, 1871. They had three children -- Marion, Thomas, Jr., and William. Wanting a quieter spot to do more inventing, Edison moved from Newark to Menlo Park, New Jersey, in 1876. There he built his most famous laboratory.

He was not alone in Menlo Park. Edison hired "muckers" to help him out. These "muckers" came from all over the world to make their fortune in America. They often stayed up all night working with the "chief mucker," Edison himself. He is sometime called the "Wizard of Menlo Park" because he created two of his three greatest works there.

The phonograph was the first machine that could record the sound of someone's voice and play it back. In 1877, Edison recorded the first words on a piece of tin foil. He recited the nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb," and the phonograph played the words back to him. This was invented by a man whose hearing was so poor that he thought of himself as "deaf"!

Starting in 1878, Edison and the muckers worked on one of his greatest achievements. The electric light system was more than just the incandescent lamp, or "light bulb." Edison also designed a system of power plants that make the electrical power and the wiring that brings it to people's homes. Imagine all the things you "plug in." What would your life be like without them?

In 1885, one year after his first wife died, Edison met a 20-year-old woman named Mina Miller. Her father was an inventor in Edison's home state of Ohio. Edison taught her Morse Code. Even when others were around, the couple could "talk" to each other secretly. One day he tapped a question into her hand: would she marry him? She tapped back the word "yes."

Mina Edison wanted a home in the country, so Edison bought Glenmont, a 29-room home with 13-1/2 acres of land in West Orange, New Jersey. They married on February 24, 1886 and had three children: Madeleine, Charles and Theodore.

A year later, Edison built a laboratory in West Orange that was ten times larger than the one in Menlo Park. In fact, it was one of the largest laboratories in the world, almost as famous as Edison himself. Well into the night, laboratory buildings glowed with electric light while the Wizard and his "muckers" turned Edison's dreams into inventions. Once, the "chief mucker" worked for three days straight, taking only short naps. Edison earned half of his 1,093 patents in West Orange.

But Edison did more than invent. Here Edison could think of ways to make a better phonograph, for example, build it with his muckers, have them test it and make it work, then manufacture it in the factories that surrounded his laboratory. This improved phonograph could then be sold throughout the world.

Not only did Edison improve the phonograph several times, but he also worked on X-rays, storage batteries, and the first talking doll. At West Orange he also worked on one of his greatest ideas: motion pictures, or "movies." The inventions made here changed the way we live even today. He worked here until his death on October 18, 1931, at the age of 84.

By that time, everyone had heard of the "Wizard" and looked up to him. The whole world called him a genius. But he knew that having a good idea was not enough. It takes hard work to make dreams into reality. That is why Edison liked to say, "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration."

Nelson Mandela

     

                                                      -: Nelson Mandela :-
Nelson Mandela, leader of the movement to end South African apartheid, is released from prison after 27 years on February 11, 1990.

In 1944, Mandela, a lawyer, joined the African National Congress (ANC), the oldest black political organization in South Africa, where he became a leader of Johannesburg's youth wing of the ANC. In 1952, he became deputy national president of the ANC, advocating nonviolent resistance to apartheid--South Africa's institutionalized system of white supremacy and racial segregation. However, after the massacre of peaceful black demonstrators at Sharpeville in 1960, Nelson helped organize a paramilitary branch of the ANC to engage in guerrilla warfare against the white minority government.

In 1961, he was arrested for treason, and although acquitted he was arrested again in 1962 for illegally leaving the country. Convicted and sentenced to five years at Robben Island Prison, he was put on trial again in 1964 on charges of sabotage. In June 1964, he was convicted along with several other ANC leaders and sentenced to life in prison.

Mandela spent the first 18 of his 27 years in jail at the brutal Robben Island Prison. Confined to a small cell without a bed or plumbing, he was forced to do hard labor in a quarry. He could write and receive a letter once every six months, and once a year he was allowed to meet with a visitor for 30 minutes. However, Mandela's resolve remained unbroken, and while remaining the symbolic leader of the anti-apartheid movement, he led a movement of civil disobedience at the prison that coerced South African officials into drastically improving conditions on Robben Island. He was later moved to another location, where he lived under house arrest.

In 1989, F.W. de Klerk became South African president and set about dismantling apartheid. De Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC, suspended executions, and in February 1990 ordered the release of Nelson Mandela.

Mandela subsequently led the ANC in its negotiations with the minority government for an end to apartheid and the establishment of a multiracial government. In 1993, Mandela and de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. One year later, the ANC won an electoral majority in the country's first free elections, and Mandela was elected South Africa's president.

Mandela retired from politics in 1999, but remained a global advocate for peace and social justice until his death in December 2013.

Sir Charles Edward Kingsford Smith

                               -: Sir Charles Edward Kingsford Smith  :-
Charles was born on 9 February 1897 in Brisbane, fifth son and seventh child of William Charles Smith, banker, and his wife Catherine Mary, née Kingsford. The name Kingsford was added to the family surname in Canada; William went into real estate business there in 1903 and later became a clerk with the Canadian Pacific Railways. The family returned to Sydney in 1907. Charles was educated at Vancouver, Canada, at St Andrew's Cathedral Choir School, Sydney, and at Sydney Technical High School. At 16 he was apprenticed to the Colonial Sugar Refining Co. Ltd.

In February 1915 after three years with the Senior Cadets Kingsford Smith enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force. He embarked with the 4th Signal Troop, 2nd Division Signal Company, on 31 May as a sapper and served on Gallipoli and, as a dispatch rider, in Egypt and France. In October 1916, as sergeant, he transferred to the Australian Flying Corps. After training in England he was discharged from the A.I.F. and commissioned as second lieutenant, Royal Flying Corps, in March next year; he was appointed flying officer in May and in July joined No.23 Squadron in France. Wounded and shot down in August, he was awarded the Military Cross 'for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty'; he had brought down four machines during his first month at the front and done valuable work in attacking ground targets and hostile balloons. After promotion to lieutenant in April 1918 he served as an R.F.C. flying instructor.

Barred from participating in the 1919 England to Australia air race because of supposedly inadequate navigational experience, Kingsford Smith and his friend Cyril Maddocks piloted joy-flights in England as Kingsford Smith, Maddocks Aeros Ltd. 'Smithy' then went to the United States of America where he failed to attract sponsors for a trans-Pacific flight and was briefly a stunt flier in a flying circus. Back in Australia in January 1921 he worked first in Sydney with another joy-riding organization, the Diggers' Aviation Co., and then as a salaried pilot for Norman Brearley's Western Australian Airways Ltd. On 6 June 1923 at Marble Bar, Western Australia, he married Thelma Eileen Hope Corboy.

Realizing the great potential for air transport in Australia, Kingsford Smith formed a partnership in 1924 with fellow pilot Keith Anderson. They raised the capital to buy two Bristol Tourers by operating a trucking business from Carnarvon, the Gascoyne Transport Co., and in 1927 they returned to Sydney to operate with Charles Ulm as Interstate Flying Services. After tendering unsuccessfully for an Adelaide-Perth mail service, the partners launched a series of important demonstration flights.

On the first of these in June 1927 Kingsford Smith and Ulm completed a round-Australia circuit in 10 days, 5 hours, a notable achievement with minimal navigational aids. Kingsford Smith at once sought support for a trans-Pacific flight and obtained a grant of £9000 from the New South Wales government as well as backing from Sidney Myer and the Californian oil magnate G. Allan Hancock. In a three-engined Fokker plane, the Southern Cross, with Ulm and two American crewmen, Harry Lyon and Jim Warner, he took off from Oakland, California, on 31 May 1928 and flew via Hawaii and Suva to Brisbane, completing the historic crossing in 83 hours, 38 minutes, of flying time. The fliers received subscriptions of over £20,000; Kingsford Smith was awarded the Air Force Cross and appointed honorary squadron leader, Royal Australian Air Force. Anderson, no longer a partner, sued unsuccessfully for part of the prize-money.

In August Kingsford Smith flew the Southern Cross non-stop from Point Cook, Victoria, to Perth. In September-October with Ulm and an Australian crew he piloted the plane from Sydney to Christchurch, New Zealand, demonstrating the feasibility of regular passenger and mail services across the Tasman Sea. He then set out to fly the Southern Cross to England to place orders for a fleet of four aircraft with which he intended to begin an inter-capital air service in Australia. However, on 1 April 1929, losing radio contact with the ground and meeting bad weather over north-west Australia, he was forced to land on the flats of the Glenelg River estuary. Before help reached the stranded party on 13 April, Keith Anderson and Robert Hitchcock had perished in the search. After an official inquiry exonerated Kingsford Smith and Ulm from a charge of having staged the incident for publicity, the flight to England was resumed in June and completed in the record time of 12 days, 18 hours.

Kingsford Smith's airline, Australian National Airways, began operations in January 1930 with Kingsford Smith piloting one of the new Avro Ten planes, the Southern Cloud, on the Sydney-Melbourne route. But 'Smithy' was far from ready to settle down. Collecting his 'old bus', Southern Cross, from the Fokker Aircraft Co. in Holland where it had been overhauled, in June 1930 he achieved an east-west crossing of the Atlantic, from Ireland to Newfoundland, in 31½ hours. New York gave him a tumultuous welcome. He then returned to England to take delivery of an Avro Avian biplane, Southern Cross Junior, and attempt a record-breaking solo flight to Darwin in October. This he accomplished, within ten days, beating four competitors who had left England ahead of him and breaking Hinkler's time by 5½ days.

He was now 34 and world famous. Divorced in May 1929, he married Mary Powell on 10 December 1930 at Scots Church, Melbourne. A little later he joined Eric Campbell's New Guard. He had been made honorary air commodore in November, and the future of his airline appeared bright.

However, on 21 March 1931 the Southern Cloud, flying from Sydney to Melbourne with pilot, co-pilot and six passengers, was lost in severe storms over the Snowy Mountains. There were no survivors and the wreckage was not discovered until 1958. This loss and the deepening Depression crippled the airline. Yet to a man with Kingsford Smith's ambitions the pressure to continue flying was constant. In April 1931 he flew the Southern Cross on an emergency mission to pick up mail for Australia from a damaged Imperial Airways plane in Timor. In September he made a solo flight to England in a new Avro Avian biplane, Southern Cross Minor, intending to gain publicity with an immediate return flight. But his health was showing the strains of an arduous career and the return trip was abandoned on medical advice. In November, however, when one of his company planes under contract to fly Christmas mail to England was damaged in Malaya, he took off in another plane to collect the stranded mail, flew it to England in time for Christmas delivery, and returned with mail for Australia.

In 1932, when he was knighted for services to aviation, Kingsford Smith was almost back to where he had started, selling joy-flights at ten shillings a trip. A flight to New Zealand in 1933 added to this precarious income but failed to persuade the New Zealand government to give him a charter for passenger and mail services between Auckland and Singapore. That year he established a flying training school in Sydney, Kingsford Smith Air Service, but sold out at a loss in 1935.

Towards the end of 1933 prospects brightened. After travelling to England by sea in September, he achieved a brilliant success in October, flying solo from London to Wyndham, Western Australia, in a Percival Gull, Miss Southern Cross, in just over seven days. After the feat the Commonwealth government granted him £3000 and he was appointed aviation consultant to the Vacuum Oil Co.

Inevitably, he was attracted by the announcement that a London to Melbourne air race, sponsored by Sir Macpherson Robertson with a prize of £10,000, would be a feature of Victoria's centenary celebrations. With financial help from friends and sponsors, he bought a fast two-seater Lockheed Altair, which he named Lady Southern Cross, and invited (Sir) P. G. Taylor to accompany him in the race. The plan had to be dropped when modifications to the aircraft could not be completed in time. Kingsford Smith and Taylor then flew Lady Southern Cross from Brisbane to San Francisco in October-November 1934 in order to sell it and reimburse sponsors. This west-east trans-Pacific flight was another first in aviation history.

Leaving the Lady Southern Cross to find an American purchaser, Kingsford Smith and Taylor returned to Australia to the long-awaited authorization for a trans-Tasman airmail service. They began the inaugural flight on 15 May 1935. The result was failure in a setting of spectacular courage. Before dawn and some 500 miles (800 km) out over the Tasman, a damaged propeller blade had put one of the three motors out of action, and a second motor threatened to seize as it rapidly burned oil. Taylor, climbing out of the cockpit, succeeded at great hazard in collecting enough oil from the sump of the dead motor to replenish the other. By jettisoning cargo, and finally most of the mail-bags, Kingsford Smith nursed the Southern Cross back to Sydney.

He was a tired man of 38; but he was impelled to go on demonstrating that the future of world transport was in aviation. He arranged for the still unsold Lady Southern Cross to be shipped to England. From there, with J. T. Pethybridge, he took off on 6 November 1935, aiming to make one more record-breaking flight to Australia. It was the end of the long endeavour. The plane and both fliers were lost. It is assumed they crashed into the sea somewhere off the coast of Burma while flying at night towards Singapore. Kingsford Smith was survived by his wife and son and left an estate valued for probate at £12,875.

His contribution to civil aviation was an effort of faith and stamina and places him among the world's notable pioneers. Lean, with 'cool blue eyes', generous mouth and terse manner, he is featured on the Australian $20 note. Sydney's airport is named after him and there is a memorial to him, Taylor and Ulm at Anderson Park, Sydney. The Southern Cross is on view at Brisbane airport. Kingsford Smith was the author of The Old Bus (1932) and, with Ulm, Story of 'Southern Cross' Trans-Pacific Flight (1928). His autobiography My Flying Life was published posthumously in 1937 and the story of his life was filmed in Australia in 1946.

Jagjit Singh

                                                              -: Jagjit Singh :-
Born in Ganganagar located in Rajasthan on 8th February, 1941, the name Jagjit means the one who triumphs over the world. His father Sardar Amar Singh Dhiman was a Government official and his mother Sardarni Bachchan Kaur had a religious family background. He has four sisters and two brothers and is fondly addressed as "Jeet" by his family. Check out this biography of Jagjit Singh, which captures his intriguing life history.

Jagjit Singh studied at Khalsa High School located in Ganganagar. After completing his matriculation, he took up science. He graduated in Arts from DAV College located in Jalandhar and has a post graduate degree in history from Kurukshetra University, Haryana. His father wanted him to join the Indian Administrative Services. But when he saw his son achieving accolades in the world of music, he was more than happy. Jagjit learnt classical music under Pundit Chaganlal Sharma and achieved expertise in classical forms like Khayal, Thumri and Dhrupad.

He moved to Bombay in the year 1965 searching for better luck in the field of music. Any budding artist faces initial struggles and tribulations before finally making an indelible mark in the industry. He got assignments that were limited to performing at wedding functions and singing jingles for advertisements. Around 1970's, the world of ghazals was dominated by renowned names like Noor Jehan, Malika Pukhraj, Begum Akhtar, Talat Mahmood and Mehdi Hassan. Jagjit Singh made the efforts to come with his first album titled "The Unforgettables", which was a collection of semi-classical Indian music. The different melody and freshness in Jagjit's voice appealed to all and he was recognized by the industry. Though he was scorned by many critics, it did not deter him from carving a nice for himself. The album sold numerous copies and was a hit with listeners.

While Jagjit Singh was still doing jingles for advertisements during the initial years, he met another singer named Chitra. They got married after a two year long courtship in the year 1969. Together, they exemplified the first successful husband-wife singing team. They both produced numerous soulful and melodic Ghazals which were enjoyed by a wider audience. Some of the popular albums of the couple were Ecstasies, A Sound Affair and Passions.

During the early 90's, they released an album named Beyond Time, which was an experimentation with different sounds and music. It conveyed a feeling that was beyond space and time and logical explanation. Sadly, around this time, their only son Vivek met with an accident and died at the young age of twenty one. It was a huge jolt for the couple and also all their fans and well wishers all over the world. After the album "Someone Somewhere", Chitra quit singing. The songs are emotionally very powerful and moving since they connect with the personal loss of the couple.

However, Jagjit Singh continued to sing and his songs have only gained more popularity with each passing day. His later albums named Hope, In Search, Insight, Mirage, Visions, Kahkashan (Galaxy), Love Is Blind, Chirag (Lamp), etc. have made him the top Ghazal singer in the country and a favorite among fans. An album with Lata Mangeshkar named "Sajda" (Offering) was a hit and sold innumerable copies. It was a classic Ghazal album. Jagjit Singh did not limit himself to just Hindi songs and has also sung many Punjabi songs. His bubbly and vibrant Punjabi songs are very popular and are very pleasant to hear.

Jagjit Singh has also sung many songs for Hindi movies. Popular films include Arth, Saath Saath, Premgeet, Tum Bin, Sarfarosh, Dushman and Tarkeeb. Jagjit Singh has proved himself as a genius as he brings out the true meaning of Mirza Ghalib's poetry by singing them as melodious Ghazals. The album can be easily called as a masterpiece. His transition from the 90's till date has been absolutely marvelous as he has moved towards much more melodious and meaningful Ghazals. The quality of his voice has only become better. Besides movies, he has sung many devotional songs also that are very peaceful to hear. Jagjit Singh is any day the undisputed Ghazal artist in the modern times....

G. H. Hardy

                                                                  -:G. H. Hardy:-

7 February 1877 – 1 December 1947

The eccentric British mathematician G.H. Hardy is known for his achievements in number theory and mathematical analysis. But he is perhaps even better known for his adoption and mentoring of the self-taught Indian mathematical genius, Srinivasa Ramanujan.

Hardy himself was a prodigy from a young age, and stories are told about how he would write numbers up to millions at just two years of age, and how he would amuse himself in church by factorizing the hymn numbers. He graduated with honours from Cambridge University, where he was to spend most of the rest of his academic career.

Hardy is sometimes credited with reforming British mathematics in the early 20th Century by bringing a Continental rigour to it, more characteristic of the French, Swiss and German mathematics he so much admired, rather than British mathematics. He introduced into Britain a new tradition of pure mathematics (as opposed to the traditional British forte of applied mathematics in the shadow of Newton), and he proudly declared that nothing he had ever done had any commercial or military usefulness (he was also an outspoken pacifist).

Just before the First World War, Hardy (who was given to flamboyant gestures) made mathematical headlines when he claimed to have proved the Riemann Hypothesis. In fact, he was able to prove that there were infinitely many zeroes on the critical line, but was not able to prove that there did not exist other zeroes that were NOT on the line (or even infinitely many off the line, given the nature of infinity).

Meanwhile, in 1913, Srinivasa Ramanujan, a 23-year old shipping clerk from Madras, India, wrote to Hardy (and other academics at Cambridge), claiming, among other things, to have devised a formula that calculated the number of primes up to a hundred million with generally no error. The self-taught and obsessive Ramanujan had managed to prove all of Riemann’s results and more with almost no knowledge of developments in the Western world and no formal tuition. He claimed that most of his ideas came to him in dreams.

Hardy was only one to recognize Ramanujan's genius, and brought him to Cambridge University, and was his friend and mentor for many years. The two collaborated on many mathematical problems, although the Riemann Hypothesis continued to defy even their joint efforts.

A common anecdote about Ramanujan during this time relates how Hardy arrived at Ramanujan's house in a cab numbered 1729, a number he claimed to be totally uninteresting. Ramanujan is said to have stated on the spot that, on the contrary, it was actually a very interesting number mathematically, being the smallest number representable in two different ways as a sum of two cubes. Such numbers are now sometimes referred to as "taxicab numbers".

It is estimated that Ramanujan conjectured or proved over 3,000 theorems, identities and equations, including properties of highly composite numbers, the partition function and its asymptotics and mock theta functions. He also carried out major investigations in the areas of gamma functions, modular forms, divergent series, hypergeometric series and prime number theory.

Among his other achievements, Ramanujan identified several efficient and rapidly converging infinite series for the calculation of the value of π, some of which could compute 8 additional decimal places of π with each term in the series. These series (and variations on them) have become the basis for the fastest algorithms used by modern computers to compute π to ever increasing levels of accuracy (currently to about 5 trillion decimal places).

Eventually, though, the frustrated Ramanujan spiralled into depression and illness, even attempting suicide at one time. After a period in a sanatorium and a brief return to his family in India, he died in 1920 at the tragically young age of 32. Some of his original and highly unconventional results, such as the Ramanujan prime and the Ramanujan theta function, have inspired vast amounts of further research and have have found applications in fields as diverse as crystallography and string theory.

Hardy lived on for some 27 years after Ramanujan’s death, to the ripe old age of 70. When asked in an interview what his greatest contribution to mathematics was, Hardy unhesitatingly replied that it was the discovery of Ramanujan, and even called their collaboration "the one romantic incident in my life". However, Hardy too became depressed later in life and attempted suicide by an overdose at one point. Some have blamed the Riemann Hypothesis for Ramanujan and Hardy's instabilities, giving it something of the reputation of a curse.