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Science and technological advancements during WWI
Science and technological advancements during WWI
Science and technological advancements during WWI
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Richard Philip Feynman was born in New York City on May 11th 1918 to a middle class family that lived on the Southern tip of Manhattan. He grew up in a household where both of his parents poured into him their best qualities. His mother, Lucille, instilled in Richard a powerful sense of humor, which would be essential in forming his magnetic personality and eccentric lecturing style. His father, Melville, decided before Richard was born that if he were a boy, he would grow up to be a scientist, something that Melville himself had always wanted to be. And so guided subtly by his father, and given the power to laugh by his mother, Richard was set on a course that would eventually lead him to become a legend.
At a young age it was apparent that he was scientifically inclined. In school, he was interested in all things scientific and loved math. At one point he even gave thought to becoming a mathematician. After high school, he went to MIT to study physics, and after four years of that he went to Princeton as a graduate student. During this time in his life, he became engaged to his high school sweetie, Arline Greenbaum. Halfway into his education at Princeton, Arline was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and was not given many years to live. So Richard married her and put his doctoral thesis on hold.
Shortly after their marriage, a friend of Richard, Robert Wilson, came to Richard and told him that the government of America was looking for the finest physicists to help construct the atomic bomb. Otherwise known as the Manhattan project. At first Richard said no, but eventually his patriotism won over and he agreed to join the project.
Upon agreeing to join the project, he moved to Los Alamos, where the research facility was located and Arline could move to a hospital in Albuquerque. In July 1945, Arline, the love of Richards life, finally succumbed to the dreaded tuberculosis she had been fighting all of this time. To escape the pain, he immersed himself in his work and the 1st atomic bomb ever was ready for detonation very quickly.
With his work at Los Alamos done, Richard took a teaching position at Cornell University where he became depressed and believed that his life's work was behind him. But as he was stewing in his own depression, more and more of the top universities were sending more and more lucrative professorships his way.
When he was fifteen years old, his mother died from appendicitis. From fifteen years of age to his college years, he lived in an all-white neighborhood. From 1914-1917, he shifted from many colleges and academic courses of study as well as he changed his cultural identity growing up. He studied physical education, agriculture, and literature at a total of six colleges and universities from Wisconsin to New York. Although he never completed a degree, his educational pursuits laid the foundation for his writing career.
In 1941, The United States began an atomic bomb program called the “Manhattan Project.” The main objective of the “Manhattan Project” was to research and build an atomic bomb before Germany could create and use one against the allied forces during World War II. German scientists had started a similar research program four years before the United States began so the scientists of the “Manhattan Project” felt a sense of urgency throughout their work (Wood “Men … Project”).
After graduating from MIT, he went straight into work at Bell Laboratory. He did most of his research in solid state physics, especially vacuum tubes. Most of his theoretical advances led the company to conquer their goal of using electronic switches for telephone exchanges instead of the mechanical switches there were using at the time. Some of the other research he did was on energy bands in solids, order and disorder in alloys, self-diffusion of copper, experiments on photoelectrons in silver chloride, experiment and theory on ferromagnetic domains, and different topics in transistor physics. He also did operations research on individual productivity and the statistics of salary in research laboratories.
He finished his doctorate, started concentrating on identity. It is said that he was the first teacher to instruct a school level course on identity hypothesis, a course that today is required by about all undergrad brain science majors.
Richard Franklin Lennox Pryor III was born in Peoria, Illinois in 1940. He had a troubled life in the beginning from being abandoned by his mother, and getting beaten by his grandmother who ran a brothel. Richard was also raped by a teenaged neighbor at age 6, and was molested by a Catholic priest during catechism. His mother was a prostitute and eventually left him at age 10 then he was raised by his abusive grandmother. He was kicked out of school at 14 for a petty offense, then he began to work at a strip club as a janitor, meat packer and shoe shiner. Richard combined all his life experiences into his comedy routines, also his former school teacher encouraged him to pursue the life of a comedian. Later on in his career as a comedian he won several awards such as Grammies, Hall of Fame, and was the first person to receive the Mark Twain Prize. Richard’s success was motivated by his harsh beginning and wanted a better living for his family.
Richard Milhous Nixon was born to Frank and Hannah Nixon on January 9, 1913. He was the second eldest son of five sons and was born and raised in Yorba Linda, California. His father worked as a jack of all trades until buying a family operated store where Richard worked as a child. Hannah Nixon taught Richard to read young, and by age five he was solidly progressing in the three R's. Throughout school Richard was always among the top of his class and upon graduation from Whittier High School he was offered financial scholarships to both Yale and Harvard. The scholarships covered tuition only and Richard was forced to decline them because he would be unable to afford the cost of living while away at school. Instead he attended Whittier College in 1930 and was either President of Vice President of his class three of the four years he was in school. He then was awarded another scholarship to Duke Law School in 1934. In 1937 he graduated form Duke and moved back to California. Three years later he married Patricia Ryan on June 24,1940.
His father had planned for him to follow him in a career in the clergy, but Lee wanted to go to school for science and, in 1893, enrolled at the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, one of the few institutions in the United States then offering a first-class scientific education. (Kraeuter, 74). De Forest went on to earn the Ph.D. in physics in 1899, with the help of scholarships, and money his parents made by working odd jobs. By this time he had become interested in electricit...
Richard Halliburton was born on January 9, 1900 in Brownsville, Tennessee. He was an American traveler, adventurer, and author. Halliburton attended Memphis University and Lawrenceville school during his childhood. Upon graduating Lawrenceville school, Halliburton was the chief editor of The Lawrence. Princeton University was his post secondary choice. In 1919, Halliburton left college temporarily to travel to England and explore historic places around the area. Arriving back to the United States to finish school, he desired to investigate the world and what it had to offer. In 1921, Halliburton graduated from Princeton University and rejected the regular steps a person would take--marriage, family, and a steady job. He liked the ways of bachelorhood,
Carl Sagan: astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, skeptic, and visionary. The middle of the twentieth century was clad in scientific advancements that opened up the realm of our universe to the world. At the head of this exploration was Carl Sagan, a pioneer of sorts. Aside from his countless contributions to the scientific community, he backed a new understanding of the cosmos to the more pedestrian population of the world.
There exists a man in the annals of modern physics who defies almost all description. His name is Richard P. Feynman, and he is equally known for dozens of accomplishments which often seem to have very little to do with physics. Bongo drummer is nearly as good a description as any, for playing the bongos was one of those accomplishments. In a feat of rhythmic skill that is rare amongst even the most prestigious classically trained musicians, Feynman taught himself to sustain two-handed polyrhythms of seven against six and even thirteen against twelve (Gleick, 16). He had a feeling for rhythm that allowed him to do everything from hold an audience spellbound with his improvisational bongo drumming (16), to annoy his college roommates with an incessant, almost absentminded drumming of his fingers (65).
In 1939 rumor came to the U.S. that Germans had split the atom. The threat of the Nazis developing a nuclear weapon prompted President Roosevelt to establish The Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer set up a research lab in Los Alamos, New Mexico and brought the best minds in physics to work on the problem of creating a nuclear weapon. Although most the research and development was done in Los Alamos, there were over 30 other research locations throughout the project. After watching the first nuclear bomb test Oppenheimer was quoted as saying simply “It works.”.
His pursuit of knowledge became even more important when he entered the university of Ingolstadt. He "read with ardour" (35) and soon become "so ardent and eager that the stars often disappeared in the light of the morning whilst I was yet engaged in my laboratory" (35). He was a proud product of the Enlightenment...
When Feynman was born, his father, Melville, had already determined that Feynman would grow up to be a scientist. Melville had always dreamed to be a scientist. Unfortunately, Melville's dream was left unsatisfied only to live it through his son. Melville encouraged Feynman not to focus on things he knew, but rather things he did not know. This was the base of Richard Feynman's understanding. Feynman believed sincerely that what was important was not knowing the answers to questions, but instead asking the right questions. He believed that the answers wait patiently to be discovered.
Richard Avedon was born in 1923, in New York City. Avedon attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. He never completed his high school career, and in 1942 Avedon joined the U.S. Merchant Marine Photographic Department. When he returned he joined the Design Laboratory taught at The New School by famous art teacher Alexey Brodovitch. Through this class he started to become well known for his stylistically fashion work that often took place in exotic and vivid locations. Avedon was married in 1944 to Dorcas Nowell, a model known professionally as Doe Avedon. They divorced after five years. In 1951, he married Evelyn Franklin. The pair later separated. In 1945 his photography career began.
Carl Sagan is known as one of the most famous scientists of all time. He revolutionized how the world looked at space and the search for intelligent life beyond our planet. The author of many books, he is most known for Contact (which was adapted into a movie) and for the PBS documentary Cosmos. As one of America's most famous astronomers and science-fiction writers, Carl Sagan turned a life of science into one of the most critically successful scientific careers of the 20th century.