#physics

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Although Lattes was the main researcher and first author of the historic Nature article describing the pi meson, Cecil Powell was the only person awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1950 for his development of a photographic method for studying nuclear processes and his discovery that led to the discovery of mesons. The reason for this apparent neglect is the policy of the Nobel Committee, which until 1960 was to reward only the leader of the research group.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9sar_Lattes

Happy birthday Cesar Lattes, Brazilian physicist who was born 100 years ago!

He became well-known for his work on cosmic rays. In 1947, while working at the University of Bristol in England with Cecil Powell & Giuseppe Occhialini, he played a crucial role in the discovery of the pion. He also contributed to the early development of the CERN. Lattes worked extensively in Brazil, particularly at the Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas and the Universidade Estadual de Campinas.

French science writer Amédée Guillemin was born in 1826.

Guillemin presently started writing books of physics and astronomy which became very popular. He wrote "The Sky" and "The Physical World" (5 vols.). He also wrote a series of booklets about astronomy and physics under the title "Small popular encyclopaedia", a scientifically sound but accessible collection about sciences and their applications.

Books by Amédée Guillemin at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/9614

Canadian physicist Harriet Brooks was born in 1876.

Harriet Brooks is recognized as one of the first female nuclear physicists and a pioneer in the field of radioactivity. Under Ernest Rutherford's mentorship, Brooks conducted groundbreaking research on radioactivity. Her work on the "emanation" of radium was pivotal in identifying radon, a noble gas, as one of the decay products of radium.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Brooks

"Science is nothing without generalisations... The suggestion of a new idea, or the detection of a law, supersedes much that had previously been a burden upon the memory, and by introducing order and coherence facilitates the retention of the remainder in an available form."

In: William C. McC. Lewis, A System of Physical Chemistry (Volume 1) (p. iv), Longmans, Green and Company. 1918

~John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh (12 November 1842 – 30 June 1919)

in 1905.

Albert Einstein sends the article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, for publication in Annalen der Physik.

Reconciled Maxwell's equations for electricity and magnetism with the laws of mechanics by introducing changes to mechanics, resulting from analysis based on empirical evidence that the speed of light is independent of the motion of the observer. Discredited the concept of a "luminiferous ether".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_mirabilis_papers

"Do not imagine that mathematics is hard and crabbed, and repulsive to common sense. It is merely the etherealization of common sense."
Quoted in Life of Lord Kelvin (1910) by Silvanus Phillips Thompson

Happy Birthday Lord Kelvin! Today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of William Thomson, an Irish mathematician, mathematical physicist and engineer.

Books by Lord Kelvin at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/48139

in 1903, Marie Skłodowska Curie defended her doctoral thesis on radioactive substances at Université de la Sorbonne in Paris, becoming the first woman in France to receive a doctoral degree in physics.

The examination committee expressed the opinion that Curie's findings, including determining radium’s atomic weight, represented the greatest scientific contribution ever made in a doctoral thesis. via @NobelPrize

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43233

French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic writer Blaise Pascal was born in 1623.

One of his most famous contributions in Mathematics is the Pascal's Theorem. Along with Pierre de Fermat, Pascal is credited with founding probability theory. He also made significant contributions to the study of binomial coefficients, which led to the formation of Pascal's Triangle.

Books by Blaise Pascal at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/7913

Molecular Evolution
BY JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

"At quite uncertain times and places,
The atoms left their heavenly path,
And by fortuitous embraces,
Engendered all that being hath.
...
Soon, all too soon, the chilly morning,
This flow of soul will crystallize,
Then those who Nonsense now are scorning,
May learn, too late, where wisdom lies."

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45777/molecular-evolution

"Velocity of transverse undulations in our hypothetical medium, calculated from the electromagnetic experiments of 'MM'. Kohlrausch and Weber, agrees so exactly with the velocity of light calculated from the optical experiments of M. Fizeau, that we can scarcely avoid the conclusion that light consists in the transverse undulations of the same medium which is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena."

Lecture at Kings College (1862)

~James Clerk Maxwell (1831 – 1879)

Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell was born in 1831.

His most significant contribution is his formulation of the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation. In 1861-1862, he published a series of papers culminating in "A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field," in which he presented Maxwell's equations. He made substantial contributions to the kinetic theory of gases as well as to the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1586