Aristotle Biography, Inventions, Education, Awards and Facts

Aristotle Biography: When we talk about Philosophy, the first name that comes into our mind is that of Aristotle (384 BC- 322 BC) who followed a comprehensive system of ideas about human nature and the nature of the reality we live in.

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Aristotle Biography

Aristotle Biography, Inventions, Education, Awards and Facts

One of the prominent names of history, this famous personality was a Greek philosopher, was bom in Stagira in North Greece, the son of Nichomachus, the court physician to the Macedonian royal family. He was trained first in medicine, and then in 367BC was sent to Athens to study philosophy with Plato. He stayed at Plato’s Academy until about 347. He has also been under the supervision of Alexander the Great.

Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in his time as his writings constitute a first at creating a broad system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality and aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics. Besides this, his piece of work also includes other subjects, including physics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, government and ethics.

Though a bright pupil, Aristotle opposed some of Plato’s teachings, and when Plato died, Aristotle was not appointed head of the Academy. After leaving Athens, Aristotle spent some time traveling, and possibly studying biology, in Asia Minor and its islands. He returned to Macedonia in 338 to tutor Alexander the Great, after Alexander conquered Athens, Aristotle returned to Athens and set up a school of his own, known as the Lyceum.

After Alexander’s death, Athens revolted against Macedonian rule, and Aristotle’s political situation became unstable. Therefore to keep away from being put to death, he fled to the island of Euboea, where he died soon after.

Legacy:
Now talking about Aristotle’s work and achievements, he was very versatile and his views on the physical sciences profoundly shaped medieval scholarship, and their influence extended well into the Renaissance, although they were ultimately replaced by Newtonian physics. In the biological sciences, some of his observations were confirmed to be accurate only for a few times. His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, which was incorporated in the late nineteenth century into modern formal logic.

A complete account of Aristotle’s contributions to science and philosophy is beyond the scope of this exhibit, but a brief summary can be made, whereas Aristotle’s teacher Plato had located ultimate reality in Ideas or eternal forms, knowable only through reflection and reason but on the other hand Aristotle saw final authenticity in physical matter, predictable through experience.

Matter has the potential to assume whatever form a sculptor gives it, and a seed or embryo has the potential to grow into a living plant or animal form. In living creatures, the form was known with the soul, plants had the lowest kinds of souls, animals had higher souls which could feel, and humans alone had rational, reasoning souls. In turn, animals could be classified by their way of life, their actions, or, most importantly, by their parts.

Though Aristotle’s work in zoology was not without faults, it was the grandest biological synthesis of the time, and remained the vital authority’ for many centuries after his death. His observations on the anatomy of octopus, cuttlefish, crustaceans, and many other marine invertebrates are extremely correct, with amazing results. He described the embryological development of a chick, and distinguished whales and dolphins from fish, plus he also noticed that some sharks give birth to live young. Aristotle’s books also discuss his detailed observations that he has been doing throughout his life.

We all have come across the classification of animals into different types and the readers will be amazed to know that Aristotle’s classification of animals grouped together is used in a much broader sense than present-day biologists use. He divided the animals into two types, those with blood, and those without blood (or at least without red blood).

These distinctions correspond closely to our distinction between vertebrates and invertebrates. The blooded animals, corresponding to the vertebrates, whereas the bloodless animals were classified as cephalopods (such as the octopus), crustaceans, insects, shelled animals and zoophytes also known as plant-animals.

Aristotle’s thoughts on earth sciences can be found in his thesis Meteorology, the word today means the study of weather, but Aristotle used the word in a much broader sense, covering, as he put it, “all the affections we may call common to air and water, and the kinds and parts of the earth and the affections of its parts.” In it he discussed the nature of the earth and the oceans and explained the entire hydrologic cycle.

The sun moving as it does sets up processes of change, and by its agency the finest and sweetest water is every day carried up and is dissolved into vapour and rises to the upper region, where it is condensed again by the cold and so returns to the earth.

He has also discussed winds, earthquakes, thunder, lightning, rainbows, meteors, comets, and the Milky Way. Aristotle was of the view that the whole vital process of the earth takes place so gradually and in periods of time which are so immense compared with the length of our life that these changes are not observed, and before their course can be recorded from beginning to end whole nations die and are ruined.

In metaphysics, Aristotelianism had a deep influence on philosophical and theological thinking in the Islamic and Jewish traditions in the Middle Ages, and it continues to influence Christian theology and the scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church.

His followers called him IIIe Philosophus (The Philosopher), or “the master of them that know,” and many accepted every word of his writings, or at least every word that did not contradict the Bible as eternal truth. All aspects of Aristotle’s philosophy continue to be the object of active academic study today.

Despite the far-reaching appeal that Aristotle’s works have traditionally enjoyed, today modem scholarship questions a considerable portion of the Aristotelian quantity as genuinely Aristotle’s own. Aristotle is said to have written 150 philosophical treatises. The 30 that survive touch on a huge range of philosophical problems, from biology and physics to morals to aesthetics to politics.

Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues, it is thought that the majority of his writings are now lost and only about one-third of the original works have endure but whatever has lasted is still a source of inspiration for the learners and will continue to be.

Archimedes Biography, Inventions, Education, Awards and Facts

Archimedes Biography and Inventions

Archimedes Biography: One of the greatest names from olden days that will always be remembered is that of Archimedes who was a great mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. His outstanding contributions in the field of science brought about significant changes to the scientific world. Some of his notable contributions to the field of Maths and Science include the findings and developments of the laws and principles of mechanics, buoyancy, hydrostatics, specific gravity, the lever, and the pulley. In addition, he also discovered ways to measure a circle and the volume of a solid.

A short Biography on world Famous Scientists and Their Inventions.

Archimedes Biography

Archimedes Biography, Inventions, Education, Awards and Facts

Archimedes was born in 287 BC in the Greek city-state of Syracuse on the island of Sicily. His father, Phidias was an astronomer. Archimedes is said to be a relative of Hiero II, the then king of Syracuse and presumably lived a royal life. He spent most of his life in Syracuse except for the time he went to Alexandria, Egypt to receive his education. Belonging to a Greek family young Archimedes was always encouraged to get education and be knowledgeable. Besides math and science his other major interests included: poetry, politics, astronomy, music, art and military tactics.

Opportunity came when he got the chance to continue his studies in a famous school of mathematics founded by Euclid. Here he got the pleasure to study astronomy, physics and mathematics with other geniuses and big minds of that era. Under the guidance of two great mathematicians and scholars: Conon of Samos, and Eratosthenes of Cyrene, Archimedes grew up to be a great scientist.

Famous Discoveries and Inventions

The Story of the Golden Crown
Archimedes was given the task to determine the purity of the gold crown made for King Hiero II. In the process, he discovered the way to find out the density of gold and successfully proved that silver was mixed with the gold crown. This is how he devised a method for determining the volume of an object with an irregular shape.

The Archimedes Screw
Another great discovery by Archimedes is his famous Archimedes Screw. This is still a famous tool in Egypt used for irrigation. This screw was mainly invented to remove water from the hold of large ship; however it is also helpful for handling light, loose materials, such as ash, grain, sand, etc.

The Claw of Archimedes
Also known as the ship shaker, The Claw of Archimedes is a great weapon designed by Archimedes for the purpose of defending his home city, Syracuse.

Contribution to Mathematics
Archimedes is also famous for his contributions to the filed of mathematics. These include: The use infinitesimals in a way that is similar to modem integral calculus, the mathematical proof of the formula for the area of a circle, the solution to the problem as an infinite geometric series etc.

Archimedes died during the Siege of Syracuse in 212 BC when he was killed by a Roman soldier. The Roman soldier killed him, while he was busy working and experimenting on his ideas.

This great scientist and mathematician passed away but his contributions led the world towards scientific development and betterment of the human race.

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek Biography, Inventions, Education, Awards and Facts

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek Biography: While living organisms have been extensively studied for centuries, the discovery that organisms are made up of cells was comparatively new to the world. One of the reasons behind this could be the absence of modem technology laboratory equipment. The 1595 invention of the microscope made the cells visible for the first time.

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Antonie van Leeuwenhoek Biography

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek Biography, Inventions, Education, Awards and Facts

The Dutch scientist, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, commonly known as ‘the Father of Microbiology’, was one of the first microscopists in history. He committed himself to the discovery and research related to the thus-far invisible world of biology, notable among them the discovery of protozoa and the first-ever description of the red blood cell.

Born on October 24, 1632 in Delft, The Netherlands, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek was entirely self-taught and did not receive a formal degree. His primitive approach, dismissing any type of scientific dogma, made him think freely, and directed him only towards his own passion and interests.

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek was a salesman by profession who traded household linen. He often took magnifying glasses to judge the quality of cloth. Leeuwenhoek employed his own lenses of diamond shavings, which he got from Delft-diamond cutters. He constructed his own microscopes which were basically simple instruments consisting of a single lens. The product, containing two metal plates set to each other with a fixed lens in between, was however with high precision, and able to perform magnifications of around 300x.

The object intended to be magnified was put on top of a movable metal holder, and focussing took place by way of a screw provided at the back. The whole thing was less than 10 cm in size.

Van Leeuwenhoek’s microscopes were actually very strong magnifying glasses, having considerable similarities with the composite microscopes of the time. It was Leeuwenhoek’s passion, skill and the quality of illuminating the objects properly that made him discover the microscopic objects. He analysed things like tooth plaque, stagnant water, baker’s yeast, sperms and blood.

Reinier de Graaf, a delft physician, brought Leeuwenhoek to the Royal Society, where he published his uniquely detailed findings in Dutch, consisting of only 200 letters.

Leeuwenhoek gained worldwide fame with these observations, and he wrote in 1716 that he ‘did not strive for fame, but [was] driven by an inner craving for knowledge’. This great scientist died on August 16, 1723 at the age of 90.

Antoine Lavoisier Biography, Inventions, Education, Awards and Facts

Antoine Lavoisier Biography and Inventions

Antoine Lavoisier Biography: Widely credited as the ‘father of modern chemistry’, Antoine Lavoisier was a French chemist and a central figure in the 18th- century chemical revolution. He formulated a theory of the chemical reactivity of oxygen and cowrote the modern system for the nomenclature of chemical substances.

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Antoine Lavoisier Biography

Antoine Lavoisier Biography, Inventions, Education, Awards and Facts

After having a formal education in law and literature, Lavoisier studied science under some of the most well-known figures of the day. He helped develop the first geological map of France and the main water supply of Paris in 1769 at a young age of 25. This earned him a membership of the Royal Academy of Sciences in 1768. The same year he managed to purchase a part-share in the ‘tax farm’, a private tax collection agency.

Lavoisier started working on such processes as combustion, respiration and the calcination or oxidation of metals in 1772. His influential research helped discard the old prevailing theories which dealt with absurd combustion principle called Phlogiston. He gave modern explanations to these processes. His concepts about the nature of acids, bases and salts were more logical and methodical. Lavoisier introduced a chemical element in its modem sense and demonstarted how it should be implemented by composing the first modern list of the chemical elements.

His revolutionary approaches helped many chemists realise the fundamental processes of science and implement the scientific methods. This proved to be the turning point in scientific and industrial chemistry. Lavoisier was hired by the Government to continue his research into a number of practical questions with a chemical bias, for instance the production of starch and the distillation of phosphorus.

Louis XVI arranged the Gunpowder Commission in 1775 to ameliorate the supply and quality of gunpowder and cope up with the inadequacies which had affected France’s war efforts. Lavoisier, as a leader of the Commission, presented its reports and monitored its implementation. He dramatically increased the output so that France could even export gun powder, which turned out to be a major factor in France’s war effort in the Revolution and the Napoleonic wars.

Lavoisier also applied his scientific principles to agriculture when he bought some land at Frenchines, near Blois, central France. His efforts bore fruit after short span of time and he described his observations in the 1788 book “Results of some agricultural experiments and reflections on their relation to political economy”, which is considered highly influential in agriculture and economics.

Regardless of his extraordinary services to the nation and to mankind, Antoine Lavoisier’s connections to the fax agency proved to be fatal to him, for he died in May 1794 during the reign of terror. The Revolutionaries guillotined some 28 tax farmers, including Lavoisier and his father-in-law.

Andreas Vesalius Biography, Inventions, Education, Awards and Facts

Andreas Vesalius Biography and Inventions

Andreas Vesalius Biography: The Flemish physician Andreas Vesahus (also Andreas Vesal, Andre Vesalio or Andre Vesale) is widely considered to be the founder of the modern science of anatomy. He was a major figure of the Scientific Revolution. Vesahus ’s book, “De Humarti Commis Fabrica” (On the Structure of the Human Body) is one of the most important works about human anatomy.

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Andreas Vesalius Biography

Andreas Vesalius Biography, Inventions, Education, Awards and Facts

Born in Brussels, Belgium in a family of physicians and pharmacists, Andreas Vesahus’s father was court apothecary to Charles V of Spain, the Holy Roman Emperor. Vesalius learned medicine from the University of Louvain and the University of Paris. He later obtained his medical degree from the University of Padua in 1537. After his graduation, Vesalius became very interested in anatomy.

During that time, scholars thought that the work of the ancient Greek physician Galen was an authority when it came to human anatomy. As Greek and Roman laws had disallowed the dissection of human beings, Galen had evidently reasoned out analogies related to human anatomy after studying pigs and apes. Vesalius knew that it was absolutely essential to analyze real corpses to study the human body.

Vesalius resurrected the use of human dissection, regardless of the strict ban by the Catholic Church. He soon began to realise that Galen’s work was an evalution of the dissection of animals, not human beings. Vesalius once demonstrated that men and women have the same number of ribs, contrary to the biblical story of Adam and Eve which tells that Eve was brought into existence from one of Adam’s ribs, and that men had one less rib as compared to women. Vesalius proved that belief wrong.

Vesalius published his influential book aboout human anatomy “De Humani Commis Fabrica” (The Structure of The Human Body) in 1543. It contained over 200 anatomical illustrations. The work was the earliest known precise presentation of human anatomy.

It disgraced several of Galen’s doctrines, for instance the Greek belief that blood has the ability to flow between the ventricles of the heart, and that the mandible, or jaw bone, was made up of more than one bones. Particularly, his visual representation of the muscles was found to be very accurate. The seven volumes of the book laid down a solid understanding of human anatomy as the groundwork for all medical practice and curing.

Andreas Vesalius was appointed as a court physician to Charles V of Spain and his family. Vesalius’s bravery and intelligence, however, made many conservative physicians and Catholic clergy his worst enemies. They charged him of being involved in body snatching.

He was accused of murder in 1564 for the dissection of a Spanish noble who, his disputants said, was still alive. Vesalius was also accused of atheism. King Philip II, however, reduced his sentence to a pilgrimage of penitence to the Holy Land. Regrettably on his way back, his vessel was badly harmed by a storm. Vesalius was rescued from the sea, but he died shortly thereafter.