Geoffrey Hinton: The Godfather of Deep Learning

Geoffrey Everest Hinton, often called the “Godfather of Deep Learning,” is one of the most influential figures in artificial intelligence (AI). Born on December 6, 1947, in London, England, Hinton trained as a cognitive psychologist before becoming a pioneer in computer science. His work laid the foundation for modern AI systems that power technologies such as voice assistants, image recognition, and autonomous vehicles.

Hinton’s academic path was eclectic. He studied physiology, philosophy, and physics at the University of Cambridge before earning a degree in experimental psychology in 1970. He then completed a Ph.D. in AI at the University of Edinburgh in 1978. His early research explored how the brain might inspire computational models of learning, an interest that shaped his lifelong focus on neural networks. After research stints in San Diego and teaching at Carnegie Mellon, he joined the University of Toronto in 1987, where much of his breakthrough work took place.

One of Hinton’s most celebrated contributions was advancing the backpropagation algorithm, a method for training artificial neural networks so computers could learn patterns from data. This insight, along with work on Boltzmann machines, distributed representations, and time-delay neural networks, transformed AI research from a niche pursuit into a rapidly growing discipline.

In 2013, Hinton joined Google’s Brain team, where he advanced deep learning applications and supported the development of TensorFlow, now one of the world’s most widely used machine learning platforms. At the same time, he co-founded the Vector Institute in Toronto, serving as its chief scientific advisor to help grow Canada’s AI ecosystem.

Hinton’s contributions have been recognized globally. In 2018, he received the Turing Award—often described as the “Nobel Prize of Computing”—shared with Yoshua Bengio and Yann LeCun for their deep learning research. In 2024, he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics with John Hopfield for groundbreaking work that made modern neural networks possible.

Despite his achievements, Hinton has voiced strong concerns about AI’s risks, including misinformation, job loss, and loss of human control. His decision to leave Google in 2023 underscored his belief that society must carefully manage the technology he helped create.
Geoffrey Hinton: The Godfather of Deep Learning

Otto Fritz Meyerhof: Nobel Laureate and Pioneer of Muscle Metabolism

Otto Fritz Meyerhof, born on April 12, 1884, in Hanover, Germany, was a distinguished physician and biochemist whose research significantly advanced our understanding of muscle metabolism. He is best known for his groundbreaking work on the biochemical processes underlying cellular respiration, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1922. His Nobel was shared with British physiologist Archibald V. Hill, with Meyerhof recognized for elucidating the biochemical relationship between oxygen consumption and lactic acid production in muscles.

Meyerhof’s early life was marked by a strong intellectual environment. His family moved to Berlin in 1888, where he completed his early education, developing an interest in both medicine and the sciences. He pursued his higher education in medical studies at several universities, including the University of Strasbourg and the University of Heidelberg, where he earned his M.D. in 1909. Though his doctoral thesis explored the psychological theory of mental illness, Meyerhof soon became captivated by biochemistry, a field that was rapidly growing in importance at the time.

In 1912, Meyerhof accepted a position at the University of Kiel, where he began his influential research on muscle physiology. His focus was on glycolysis, the process by which glucose is broken down to produce energy within cells. Meyerhof's work, particularly his exploration of the interplay between oxygen and lactic acid in muscle tissues, laid the foundation for what is now referred to as the Embden-Meyerhof pathway. This pathway, named in part after Meyerhof, describes the crucial series of enzymatic reactions that enable cells to produce energy anaerobically.

Unfortunately, Meyerhof’s promising career in Germany was disrupted by the rise of the Nazi regime. As a Jew, he faced increasing persecution, leading him to flee Germany in 1938. He initially sought refuge in Paris but eventually moved to the United States in 1940, where he joined the University of Pennsylvania. There, he continued his research until his death on October 6, 1951, in Philadelphia. Meyerhof's legacy endures in the fields of biochemistry and physiology, where his contributions continue to inform our understanding of cellular respiration and energy production. His work stands as a testament to scientific brilliance and personal resilience in the face of adversity.
Otto Fritz Meyerhof: Nobel Laureate and Pioneer of Muscle Metabolism

George Hevesy: Pioneering Chemist and Nobel Laureate

Hevesy George Charles von (1885-1966) was a Hungarian-born Swedish chemist renowned for his pioneering work on radioactive tracers, which earned him the 1943 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Born into affluence, he was the son of a wealthy industrialist and received his PhD from the University of Freiburg in 1908. Despite a career marked by frequent disruptions due to war and politics, Hevesy made significant contributions to the field of chemistry across seven different countries.

After brief stints in Zurich and Karlsruhe, Hevesy joined the eminent scientist Ernest Rutherford in Manchester. There, he was tasked with the challenging job of separating radioactive radium D from lead. Given that radium D is an isotope of lead, traditional chemical methods failed. However, this apparent failure led to a groundbreaking realization: if radioactive lead and ordinary lead were chemically indistinguishable, the radioisotope could serve as a tracer to monitor lead’s path through complex systems. By 1923, Hevesy demonstrated how radioactive lead could label salts absorbed by plants. By 1934, using radioactive phosphorus, he successfully applied his tracer technique to animals, revolutionizing biological and medical research by enabling the study of dynamic processes within living organisms.

Hevesy’s career was a testament to resilience and adaptability. After leaving Manchester in 1913, he moved to the University of Vienna. The outbreak of World War I in 1914 prompted his return to Budapest. Post-war, he worked in Copenhagen from 1920 to 1926 before accepting the chair in physical chemistry at the University of Freiburg. The rise of Hitler’s regime forced Hevesy to flee Germany in 1934, returning to Denmark. In 1942, the advancing threat of the Nazis once again compelled him to seek refuge, this time in Sweden, where he completed his academic career.

Apart from his work on radioactive tracers, Hevesy is also credited with the discovery of the element hafnium in 1923, in collaboration with Dirk Coster. This discovery was significant as hafnium was the last element predicted by Dmitri Mendeleev’s periodic table to be found in nature, underscoring the accuracy of the periodic law and filling a crucial gap in the periodic table.

Hevesy’s contributions extend beyond his technical achievements; his work laid the foundation for modern nuclear medicine and biological research, showcasing how scientific inquiry can transcend political and social upheavals. His legacy is a testament to the enduring impact of scientific perseverance and innovation.
George Hevesy: Pioneering Chemist and Nobel Laureate

Biography of Sir Edward Victor Appleton (1892-1965)

Sir Edward Victor Appleton, an eminent English physicist, left an indelible mark on the field of radiophysics, earning him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1947. Born on September 6, 1892, in Bradford, England, to Peter and Mary Appleton, he embarked on a journey of scientific inquiry that would shape our understanding of the atmosphere and radio waves.

Appleton's academic journey commenced at Hanson Grammar School in Bradford, where he laid the foundation for his illustrious career. He pursued a B.A. degree in Natural Science at St. John’s College, Cambridge, specializing in physics under the mentorship of luminaries such as Sir J.J. Thomson and Lord Rutherford. His exceptional academic prowess earned him prestigious accolades, including the Wiltshire Prize in 1913 and the Hutchinson Research Studentship in 1914.

The outbreak of World War I interrupted Appleton's academic pursuits as he dutifully served in the West Riding Regiment before transferring to the Royal Engineers. Upon the war's conclusion, he returned to Cambridge to delve deeper into his research on radio waves.

Appleton's contributions to atmospheric physics burgeoned as he immersed himself in pioneering radio techniques. His tenure as assistant demonstrator in experimental physics at the Cavendish Laboratory marked the beginning of a prolific career. Subsequently, he assumed the position of sub-rector at Trinity College in 1922.

Transitioning to King’s College, London, Appleton served as the esteemed Wheatstone Professor of Experimental Physics from 1924 to 1936. A brief interlude as the Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy at Cambridge preceded his pivotal role as secretary to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research from 1939 to 1949.

The zenith of Appleton's career arrived in 1947 when he received the Nobel Prize for Physics, alongside the US Medal for Merit and the Norwegian Cross of Freedom. His enduring legacy extended beyond academia as he assumed the mantle of Principal and Vice Chancellor at Edinburgh University in 1949 until his demise in 1965.

Sir Edward Victor Appleton's life epitomizes the relentless pursuit of scientific inquiry and the transformative power of discovery. His groundbreaking work continues to inspire generations of physicists, leaving an indelible imprint on the annals of scientific history.
Biography of Sir Edward Victor Appleton (1892-1965)

Richard Willstätter - German organic chemist

Richard Martin Willstätter was a German organic chemist whose study of the structure of plant pigments won him the 1915 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. He invented paper chromatography independently of Mikhail Tsvett.

Richard Martin Willstätter was born in Karlsruhe in Baden on August 13, 1872, was the son of Maxwell (Max) Willstätter, a textile merchant, and his wife, Sophie Ulmann. He went to school in Nuremberg and studied chemistry at the University of Munich. Willstätter obtained his doctorate from the University of Munich in 1894 for work on the structure of cocaine.

While serving as an assistant to Adolf von Baeyer at Munich, he continued research into the structure of alkaloids and synthesized several. Willstätter stayed there for the following fifteen years, first as a student, from 1896 as a lecturer – pursuing his scientific work independently – until in early 1902 he became J. Thiele’s successor as Extraordinary Professor.

He was professor of chemistry at the University of Berlin and director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute at Berlin (1912–16), where his investigations revealed the structure of many of the pigments of flowers and fruits.

In 1915 he won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his studies on pigments in the plant kingdom, especially chlorophyll.

During the 1920s, he investigated the mechanisms of enzyme reactions and did much to establish that enzymes are chemical substances and not biological organisms. His view of enzymes as nonprotein in nature was widely held until disproved in 1930.

In 1924 Willstätter resigned and became a freelancer in the chemical industry. In 1938 he fled from the Gestapo with the help of his pupil A. Stoll and managed to emigrate to Switzerland, losing all but a meagre part of his belongings.

Willstätter was married to Sophie Leser, the daughter of a Heidelberg University professor. They had one son, Ludwig, and one daughter, Ida Margarete. He died of a heart attack in Muralto (Ticino) on 3 August 1942
Richard Willstätter - German organic chemist

Hans Adolf Krebs

Sir Hans Adolf Krebs was born on Aug. 25, 1900, in Hildesheim, an ancient town of some 50 000 in habitants located near Hanover, in North Germany. He was the son of Dr. Georg Krebs, an ear, nose, and throat surgeon, and his wife Alma Davidson.

Krebs was educated at the Gymnasium Andreanum at Hildesheim and between the years 1918 and 1923 he studied medicine at the Universities of Göttingen, Freiburg-im-Breisgau, and Berlin.

After one year at the Third Medical Clinic of the University of Berlin he took, in 1925, his M.D. degree at the University of Hamburg. Following his medical education, Dr. Krebs spent an additional year studying chemistry in Berlin. In 1926, he was appointed assistant to Professor Otto Warburg at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology.

In June 1933, the National Socialist Government terminated his appointment. By that time, in collaboration with his research student Kurt Henseleit, he had published the details of the first cyclic metabolic pathway to be discovered, the urea cycle.

Later he went, at the invitation of Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, to the School of Biochemistry, Cambridge, where he held a Rockefeller Studentship until 1934, when he was appointed Demonstrator of Biochemistry in the University of Cambridge.

The following year Dr. Krebs was appointed as lecturer in pharmacology at the University of Sheffield where he quickly moved up the ranks and became lecturer-in-charge of the Department of Biochemistry in 1938. It was there, in collaboration with William Johnson, that he resolved the sequence of reactions that they called the citric acid cycle.

Krebs served on the faculty of the University of Oxford from 1954 to 1967. He wrote (with the British biochemist Hans Kornberg) Energy Transformations in Living Matter (1957), which discusses the complex chemical processes which provide living organisms with high-energy phosphate by way of what is known as the Krebs or citric acid cycle. He also coauthored (with Anne Martin) Reminiscences and Reflections in 1981.

In 1953 he received Nobel Prize (with Fritz Lipmann) the for Physiology or Medicine for the discovery in living organisms of the series of chemical reactions known as the tricarboxylic acid cycle (or the citric acid cycle, or Krebs cycle). Hans Krebs died on November 22, 1981.
Hans Adolf Krebs

Hans Albrecht Bethe: German-American nuclear physicist

Hans Albrecht Bethe (July 2, 1906 – March 6, 2005) was a German and American nuclear physicist. Born in Strasbourg, Hans Bethe demonstrated an early genius in math.

He studied physics at the University of Frankfurt in 1924. He discovered that he had little facility for experimental physics, but Bethe’s interest in mathematics drove him to take up theoretical physics.

In 1926, he left Frankfurt to study under Arnold Sommerfeld, professor of theoretical physics at the University of Munich.

He received PhD in 1928 from the University of Munch and he did post-doctoral work at Cambridge and at Enrico Fermi’s laboratory in Rome.

He emigrated to England in 1933 and in 1935, Bethe moved to the United States, where he joined the Cornell University faculty. For most of his career, Bethe was a professor at Cornell University.

In 1943, spurred by fears that Nazi Germany was building a nuclear weapon, he accepted J. Robert Oppenheimer’s request to move to Los Alamos and head the theoretical division.

Bethe was Nobel laureate in Physics for his work on the theory of stellar nucleo-synthesis. His identification of two thermonuclear reaction chains as the power source of main-sequence stars was a decisive turning point in research on stellar structure and evolution.

Bethe’s work in theoretical nuclear physics explained how stars converted mass to energy and broadened the scientific understanding of subatomic events.
Hans Albrecht Bethe: German-American nuclear physicist

Sir Henry Hallet Dale: English pharmacologist and physiologist

Henry Hallet Dale (9 June 1875 – 23 July 1968) received the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine in 1936 with Otto Loewi for their research which proved chemical synaptic transmission in the peripheral nervous system. Sir Henry Hallet Dale can undisputedly be accoladed as one of the greatest British pharmacologists of the twentieth century. His work was pivotal in laying down the principles of chemical neurotransmission.

Henry Dale was born in 1875, and he died in 1968. His career in physiology thus spanned more than seven decades and epitomises many of the transitions that the subject went through, between the end of the nineteenth and the middle of the twentieth century.

Henry Dale was born in London and attended the Leys School in Cambridge before completing his undergraduate course in natural sciences at Trinity College. He worked under John Langley as a Coutts-Trotter student from 1889 to 1900 before completing his medical degree at Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital in 1903.

After Cambridge and medical qualification at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, Dale was fortunate to be awarded a very rare postgraduate scholarship, the George Henry Lewes Studentship in Physiology. After consultation with Michael Foster, Dale elected to hold the George Henry Lewes Studentship in the Physiology Department of University College London.

On University College London Ernest H. Starling’s recommendation, Dale was offered a position as a pharmacologist on the staff of Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratories.

At the suggestion of Henry Wellcome, Dale’s initial research was on the physiological effects of the fungus ergot, in which he discovered that extracts reversed the effect of adrenaline and the action of sympathetic nerves. By 1910 his work on noradrenaline established that it had a stronger stimulating and weaker inhibitory activity than adrenaline.

By 1936 Dale and co-workers had confirmed that neurotransmitters were secreted at all peripheral synapses.

In 1914, Dale became a member of the scientific staff of the Medical Research Committee, which 6 years later became the Medical Research Council. He was appointed director of the Department of Biochemistry and Pharmacology of the National Institute for Medical Research in 1928 and retired in 1942.
Sir Henry Hallet Dale: English pharmacologist and physiologist

Anglo-Irish physicist: Ernest Walton

Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton (6 October 1903 – 25 June 1995) was born in Dungarvan, Co. Waterford, in 1903, son of Methodist Minister from Tipperary, John Walton and Anne E. Sinton.

In his early years Ernest Walton attended schools in Banbridge and Cookstown before his seven years as a boarder in Methodist College, Belfast, from 1915 to 1922, where he excelled in science and mathematics.

Walton entered Trinity College Dublin in 1922 on scholarship and took a first-class honors degree in Physics and Mathematics (1926).

Upon graduation in 1926, Walton decided to pursue a Master’s degree by research in hydrodynamics for which he was awarded the McCullagh prize in mathematics.

He received a research scholarship to work with Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937) at

the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge. Walton’s first job in Cavendish Laboratory was to build an apparatus capable of accelerating electrons to very high speeds.

In 1929 Walton was joined by J.D. Cockroft. They succeeded in constructing just such a device in 1932. The new accelerator was a significant development in 20th-centiry physics as it provided a tool for study of the nucleus and its particles, but it was Walton’s first use of the new machine that was to bring the brilliant young Irish research to the fore.

The ‘atom-splitting’ experiment grabbed the public imagination and the significance of the work was immediately appreciated by the scientific community. The Walton-Cockroft particle accelerator sparked off a huge amount of scientific research.

In 1951, Walton and John Cockcroft were recipients of Nobel Prize in Physics “for their pioneer work on the transmutation of atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles."
Anglo-Irish physicist: Ernest Walton

Gabriel Lippmann - Nobel prize of Physics 1908 for colour photography

More than one hundred years ago Gabriel Lippmann recorded the first permanent colour photographs in France. His technique based on recorded light interference structures in an emulsion produced unique colour photographs. It is known as interferential photography or interference colour photography, as well as Lippmann photography.

Gabriel Lippmann was born of French parents at Hollerich (Luxembourg) on August 16, 1845. His parents moved to Paris and eventually he was admitted to the École Normale. Pursuing only the topics that aroused his interest, Lippmann was not an ideal student.

He failed in the examination that would have qualified him as a teacher. Nevertheless, his latent abilities were recognized and he was given the opportunity to study in Heidelberg, where the celebrated physicist, Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (1824-1887) was professor.

He became head from 1886until his death in 1921 of the famous L.R.P.S. “Laboratoire des Recherches Physiques de la Sorbonne”, in which he finalized his interference colour photography.

In 1891 Lippmann announced that he had succeeded in recording a true-colour spectrum. A little more than one year later Lippmann displayed four colour photographs of different objects. Lippmann developed the first theory of recording monochromatic and polychromatic spectra. He applied Fourier mathematics to optics, which was a new approach at that time.

Lippmann died aboard ship on July 12, 1921, while returning from a visit to Canada; but by no means did interest in the development and use of the capillary electrometer die with him.
Gabriel Lippmann - Nobel prize of Physics 1908 for colour photography

Bosch, Carl (1874-1940): German industrial chemist

Bosch, Carl (1874-1940)
Bosch was a German industrial chemist. His development of high pressure chemical plant enabled the laboratory Haber process to be translated into the immensely important industrial Haber-Bosch process. He was awarded the 1931 Nobel Price for Chemistry.

The son of engineer, Bosch began his career in a foundry, before being allowed by his father to pursue a formal education at the University of Leipzig. After gaining his PhD in 1898, Bosch joined the research staff of Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik (BASF) in Ludwigshafen. There he became involved in the major task facing German industry: the synthetic of ammonia, for use in both agriculture and the armaments industry.

In 1907, Fritz Haber had demonstrated that, with high temperature and pressures and appropriate catalysts, ammonia could be synthesized from atmospheric nitrogen and nitrogen. The Haber process, however, then was restricted to the laboratory. Bosch was assigned the task of transforming the process into an industrial plant: he did this at Oppau, where BASF’s first high pressure ammonia plant opened in 1909.

By 1930 well over 2 million tons of ammonia were being produce annually. Remaining at BASF, Bosch rose to become chairman of its successor, IG Farben, and continued to hold the position until his death.
Bosch, Carl (1874-1940): German industrial chemist

Élie Metchnikoff

Élie Metchnikoff (15 May 1845 – 15 July 1916) Russian scientist won the 1908 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with Paul Ehrlich for their work on immunology.

Metchnikoff was born on May 16, 1845 in the Land of Panaskova, the steppe of Little Russia.

Élie Metchnikoff

Metchnikoff completed the four-year course of study at the University of Kharkov in two years graduating in 1864. In 1867 Metchnikoff received his doctorate from the University of St. Petersburg for his thesis on the embryonic development of fish and crustaceans. In 1884, Metchnikoff announced a novel theory of the protective role of inflammation.

In 1888 Louis Pasteur offered him a post at the Pasteur Institute and he succeeded Pasteur as director in 1895.

Working with starfish, he discovered amoeba-like cells in their systems that engulf foreign bodies such as bacteria. He established that phagocytes are the first line of defense against acute infection in most animals.
Élie Metchnikoff

John Forbes Nash, Jr. (June 13, 1928 – May 23, 2015)

John Forbes Nash, Jr. was born almost exactly four years after his parents’ marriage, in Bluefield, West Virginia to John Forbes Nash, Sr., an electrical engineer with Appalachian Power Company and Margaret Virginia Martin and English and Latin teacher.

His mathematics skills were recognized at a young age, and his parents arranged for him to take extra classes at the local Bluefield College while still in high school.

In 1945 Nash won one of 10 George Westinghouse Scholarship in a national competition and entered Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, majoring in chemical engineering.

Harvard University and Princeton University offered him fellowships; he chose Princeton because it was closer to home and they seemed more eager to have him come to the school.

He entered Princeton in 1948, where he pursued broad interests in several branches of pure mathematics, including topology, algebraic, geometry, game theory and mathematical logic.

John Nash was renowned for his works in game theory, differential geometry and partial differential equations.

In 1994, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, which he shared with the mathematical economists and game theorist Reinhard Selten and John Harsanyi.

In 1978, Nash was awarded the John von Neumann Theory Prize for his invention of non cooperative equilibria, now called Nash equilibria and in 1999 Nash was awarded the Leroy P. Steele Prize by the American Mathematical Society.

John Nash passed away on 23 May 2015. He was 86 and died in a car crash along with his wife Alicia Nash in New Jersey.
John Forbes Nash, Jr. (June 13, 1928 – May 23, 2015)

Sin-Itiro Tomonaga (March 31, 1906 – July 8, 1979)

Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Japanese-born physicist was born in Tokyo.  In 1913 his family moved to Kyoto when his father was appointed a professor of philosopher at Kyoto Imperial University.

During undergraduate study in 1929 at Kyoto Imperial University he majored in physics. He was engaged in graduate work for three years at the same university and was then appointed a research associate by Dr. Yoshio Nishina at the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, Tokyo, where he started to work in a newly developed frontier of theoretical physics-quantum electrodynamics under the guidance of Dr. Nishina.

In 1937, Tomonaga went to Leipzig to study under and work with Heisenberg. He stayed there for two years and used the results obtained while working there to write up a thesis for the Tokyo University. He received his D.Sc. from Tokyo Imperial University and in 1941 he was appointed professor at the Tokyo University of Science and Literature.

Later, he was invited by Robert Oppenheimer, the leader of the Manhattan project to spend some time at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He studied a many-body problem on the collective oscillations of a quantum-mechanical system.

He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965, jointly with Richard Feynman and Julian Schwinger, for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics, with deep –ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles.

He worked in Tokyo, Japan, in Leipzig, Germany in Tsukuba, Japan and at IAS (Institute for Advanced Study) Princeton, NJ. His paper on the photoelectric pair creation is well-known.
Sin-Itiro Tomonaga (March 31, 1906 – July 8, 1979)

Erlanger, Joseph (1874-1965)

Erlanger is a US physiologist who, in collaboration with Herbert Gasser, developed techniques for recording nerve impulses using a cathode ray oscilloscope.

In 1944 they shared the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for demonstrating that different fibers in the same nerve cord can have different functions.

Erlanger qualified at the University of California and the John Hopkins Medical School (1899), where he worked for a seven years. He was appointed professor of physiology at the University of Wisconsin (1906-1910) and there began a successful collaboration with his student Gasser. Erlanger moved to the Washington University, St. Louis (1910-46), and Gasser joined him soon after.

There they studied various means of applying electronics to physiological research. They devised a method of applying electric responses occurring in an individual nerve fiber and were able to record them using the oscilloscope.

An amplified impulse produced a characteristics wave form on the screen, which could then be studied. In 1932 Erlanger and Gasser found that the fibers within a nerve conduct impulses at different rate, depending on fibers thickness, and that each fiber has a different threshold of excitability. Different fibers produced different wave forms on the screen, indicating that different types of impulses were being passed.

Richard Phillips Feynman (May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988)

Known as the ‘Great Explainer,’ Richard Phillips Feynman was born in New York City in 1918 and grew up in Far Rockaway, Queens.  As a child Feynman enjoyed tinkering and inventing such things as a burglar alarm for the house and a motor to rock his baby sister’s crib.

He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as an undergraduate when he was a seventeen years old. He received his PhD from Princeton University in 1942. He later held an appointment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as an assistant professor of physics.

Fearing that Germany would develop an atomic bomb before the United States, Feynman eventually signed on to Wilson’s isotron project to separate Uranium 235 from Uranium 238.

Feynman later was recruited by Julius Robert Oppenheimer to work on the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos., New Mexico.

Feynman was known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the super-fluidity of super-cooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics.

For his contributions to the devolvement of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman, jointly with Julian Schwinger and Sino-Itiro Tomonaga, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965.

Feynman’s mathematical notation system for QED was accepted by the physics community over the systems developed by Schwinger and Tomonaga and his method of graphically drawing particle interaction, in what came to be dubbed Feynman diagrams.
Richard Phillips Feynman (May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988)

Biography of Max Perutz (19 May 1914 – 6 February 2002)

Max Perutz is an Austria-born biochemist who worked in Great Britain for the majority of his career.

Max Ferdinand Perutz was born in Vienna, into a large family of successful industrialists. Both of his parents were members of affluent families of textile manufacturers who had made their fortunes in the 19th century when spinning and weaving became mechanized.

Perutz developed an interest in chemistry due the encouragement of a schoolmaster. This interest compelled him to obtain a degree in chemistry from the University of Vienna where he changed his focus to biochemistry.

In 1936 Max Perutz arrived in Cambridge for PhD from Vienna as a hopeful 22- year graduate student, and he never left.

His excellent research skill earned Perutz a fellowship to continue studying at Cambridge University where he also was offered employment.

In October 1947 Perutz and John Kendrew established the Medical Council Unit for Research on the Molecular Structure of Biological Systems, late rename Molecular Biology Research Unit.

In 1962 Max Perutz received the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his X-ray crystallography determination of the structure of the hemoglobin molecule.

The Queen made him a Companion of Honor in 1975 and awarded him the Order of Merit in 1988.
Biography of Max Perutz (19 May 1914 – 6 February 2002)

Walter Houser Brattain

Walter Houser Brattain
Walter Houser Brattain was a physicist, who collaboration with John Bardeen invented the point contact transistor. He shared the 1956 Nobel Prize for Physics with Bardeen and W.B Shockley.

Brattain was educated at Whitman College, the University of Oregon and Minnesota when he gained his Ph.D in 1928.

We he joined the staff of the Bell Telephone Laboratories as a research physicist and remained with them until his retirement in 1967.

In 1940s, Brattain’s interests at Bell centered on the properties of semiconductors as germanium and silicon.

Working with John Bardeen he developed the first workable point contact transistor in 1947 and they published their result in 1948.
Walter Houser Brattain

Frederick Banting

Frederick Banting
Frederick Banting received the Nobel Price for Medicine in 1923 for his discovery of insulin as a treatment for diabetes. He was only thirty two year old.

The Nobel Price had only been introduced and awarded since 1901, and Banting was the first Canadian to receive one. As a result of his Nobel Price, he went from obscurity to world fame, from small town doctor to world renowned scientist and he became a national hero overnight.

The discovery of insulin was not vague esoteric or of questionable value to society. Its impact was clear, practical and immediate. There were literally millions of people all over the world who suffered from diabetes and who could previously only look forward to a life with a progressive, debilitating illness that usually led to an early death.

Frederick Banting was born in November 19, 1891 on a farm near Alliston, Ontario. He attended school in Alliston, where he had an average but undistinguished academic career but he excel at athleticism was good at art and was a hard working determined student.

After graduating from high school, Banting entered Divinity College to satisfy his parent’s wishes. He soon realized the medicine was his real interest and he transferred into the medical program.

When he graduated as a doctor in 1916, World War I was at its peak, and he felt compelled to do his part for his country. He enlisted on the Royal Canadian Army medial corps and was sent to Europe to work as a military surgeon in a rear field hospital.

After the war he served for a year as resident surgeon at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. But for a young doctor just out of the army, earning a decent living was practical necessity. So Banting opened a small practice in London, Ontario.

He also lectured at the Medical school of the University of Western Ontario, and conducted research in neurophysiology under Dr. F.R Miller.

One day while Banting was preparing a lecture in the pancreas he read a paper by Moses Barron in a medical journal. The article described changes that occurred in the pancreatic juice when the pancreatic duct was blocked by gallstone.

Banting was intrigued by the possibility that something that occurred in this process might hold the secret to diabetes – a disease that had distressed Banting since school days, when young classmate slowly wasted away from the disease before his eyes and finally died in her teens.

He had the idea but neither a lab nor funds for the necessary research. Banting arranged meeting with Dr. John MacLeod of the University of Toronto to use facilities in the university.

The first human patient treated with insulin was a fourteen year old boy with severe juvenile diabetes. His discovery was remarkable and immediate. Other patients followed with the same impressive results.
Frederick Banting

Bertram Brockhouse

Bertram Brockhouse 

Bertram Brockhouse was “awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physics for pioneering contributions to the development of neutron scattering techniques for studies of condensed matter and particularly for the development of neutron spectroscopy.” 

The work for which he was recognized was carried out in the 1950s and 1960s and it helped answer “the question of what atoms do!” 

Bertram Brockhouse was born in Lethbridge, Alberta, in 1918 and briefly attended a one room prairie schoolhouse before the family moved to Vancouver, but the family was uprooted again in 1935 in the middle of the Great Depression. 

They went to Chicago for three years to try to improve their precarious financial situation. While in Chicago, Bertram began to design and repair radios, which probably sparked his later interest in physics and electronic equipment. 

The family returned to Vancouver in 1938 and when war broke out, Brockhouse enlisted in the Royal Canadian navy. 

In1944, he spent 6 months at the Nova Scotia technical College in an electrical engineering course and then he was assigned to the National Research Council in Ottawa. 

Canada had made a commitment on nuclear energy in the late 1940s and 1950s and the Atomic Energy Project of the National Research Council was strongly supported by the Government both politically and financially. 

He solved one problem after another and eventually came up with his own design for a triple-axis spectrometer. 

The instrument enabled him to bombard solid materials with slow moving neutrons produced in the reactor. 

That, in turn, allowed him to calculate the strength of the forces that bond atoms together. His neutrons spectrometer was so successful that it is now used worldwide. 

A special feature of hi spectrometer was its ability to vary three angles: the direction of the neutron beam, the position o the specimen and the angle of the detector. With access to one of the world’s best nuclear reactor facilities and his new spectrometer, Brockhouse was able to explore the tiny inner-world of the atom for the next twelve years. 

It was during this period that he and his neutron spectrometer accomplished the work that led to his Nobel Prize. 

He was appointed professor of physics at McMaster University in Hamilton which had the only university-sited nuclear reactor in Canada at the time. 

When Brockhouse was named as the recipient of the 1994 Nobel prize in Physics, he had already been retired since 1984. 

Bertram Brockhouse