Einstein and Curie: Pioneer Scientists Quiz

Scientists Who Changed History

• The book is about notable scientists throughout history and their contributions.
• It features different scientists, including their backgrounds, discoveries, and lasting impact on their respective fields of study.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal

• Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist.
• First to realize the nervous system is composed of independent cells communicating with each other.
• Modified Golgi's tissue-staining method to illuminate human brain tissue in 1888.
• Discredited the theory that nerve cells were continuous in 1888, demonstrating they are separate units.
• Wrote a book on nervous system structure in 1899.
• Jointly won the Nobel Prize with Golgi in 1906.

Max Planck

• German physicist.
• Developed quantum theory, which refuted the notion of continuous energy and fundamentally changed the understanding of the subatomic world.
• Worked on heat theory from 1885 to 1889, and later studied blackbody radiation and atomic vibration frequencies for decades.
• Presented his radiation distribution law incorporating energy quanta into physics in 1900, marking a breakthrough.
• Supported Einstein's Theory of Relativity in 1905.
• Won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1919.

Nettie Stevens

• Early 20th-century US biologist.
• Conducted pioneering work on the discovery that sex determination is determined by chromosomes.
• Identified the X and Y chromosomes' role in sex determination in 1905.
• Published her discovery just before American geneticist Edmund Beecher Wilson.

George Washington Carver

• African American agricultural scientist and experimenter.
• Restored the Southern US economy by developing commercially viable products from crops (e.g., peanuts, sweet potatoes).
• Developed over 300 products from common crops.
• Worked to improve soil quality and crop cultivation, shifting the South from a reliance on cotton to diversified agriculture.

Thomas Hunt Morgan

• US geneticist and zoologist.
• Confirmed the role of chromosomes in heredity, building on Gregor Mendel's work.
• Founded the “Fly Room” at Columbia University in 1908 for breeding and studying fruit flies, a crucial step in understanding inheritable characteristics.
• Published a book outlining how heredity functions in 1915.

Marie Curie

• Polish-born female scientist.
• Pioneer in radioactivity research.
• Discovered two new radioactive elements: Polonium and Radium in 1898, and made crucial studies of the properties of these elements.
• Won the Nobel Prize in Physics for her research on radioactivity in 1903, which she shared with her husband and another scientist.
• Won a second Nobel Prize (in Chemistry in 1911).
• Isolated radium in 1910.
• Worked on radiotherapy, laying the groundwork for its use in cancer treatment.

Ernest Rutherford

• British physicist.
• Revolutionized atomic model; discovered alpha and beta radiation and nuclear fission.
• Discovered the atomic nucleus in 1919, proving that atoms were not indivisible.

António Egas Moniz

• Portuguese neurologist.
• Developed the first techniques of stereotactic surgery.
• Developed the procedure known as prefrontal lobotomy to treat mental diseases (including Schizophrenia, Depression, and Anxiety).

Lise Meitner

• Austrian physicist.
• Coined the term "nuclear fission" in 1938; and developed theories that explained the splitting of the uranium nucleus.
• Helped in the theoretical understanding of nuclear fission.

Albert Einstein

• German-born theoretical physicist.
• Developed the general and special theories of relativity, which fundamentally changed our understanding of space, time, and gravity
• Made groundbreaking contributions to the theory of relativity.

Alfred Wegener

• German meteorologist and polar explorer.
• Proposed the theory of continental drift.
• Presented evidence (e.g., similar fossils and rock formations on separated continents) to support his theory.

Marie Tharp

• American geologist and cartographer.
• Charted the ocean floor, including the mid-Atlantic rift, providing crucial evidence supporting the theory of continental drift

Sydney Brenner

• South African biologist.
• Pioneered research into developmental genetics.
• Helped to explain the genetic code for proteins, with Crick.

Tu Youyou

• Chinese pharmacologist.
• Isolated artemisinin, a highly effective antimalarial drug from traditional Chinese medicine.

Jane Goodall

• British primatologist.
• Extensive research on chimpanzee behavior, social structure, tool use, and more over a span of more than 50 years.

Valentina Tereshkova

• First woman cosmonaut.
• First civilian to fly in space.

Patricia Bath

• American ophthalmologist and inventor.
• Pioneer for women in ophthalmology.
• Developed the Laserphaco Probe for cataract surgery.

Stephen Hawking

• British theoretical physicist.
• Worked on black holes and the origin of the universe.
• Used mathematical models to explain concepts in physics, such as the singularity of the universe

James Watson

• US geneticist.
• Discovered the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953 with Francis Crick.
• Key figure in molecular biology.

Fred Sanger

• British biochemist.
• Developed the method to effectively sequence DNA, and proteins.
• Awarded two Nobel Prizes for his work on sequencing.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell

• British astronomer.
• Discovered pulsars in 1967.

Tak Wah Mak

• Immunologist and molecular biologist.
• Discovered the genetic encoding of human T-cell receptors.

Tim Berners-Lee

• British computer scientist.
• Invented the World Wide Web.

J.C.R. Licklider

• US computer scientist.
• Pioneered work on early internet concepts and architecture.

Other Scientists (Noteworthy but without specific details):

• Shiing-Shen Chern
• Satoshi Omura
• Murray Gell-Mann
• Henry Stommel