Authors of scientific discoveries are individuals, as a rule, extraordinary and eccentric. And perhaps thanks to this, many scientific discoveries were made that allowed humanity to make a real breakthrough in various fields.
1. Hennig Brand, alchemist from Hamburg (1630-c. 1710)
Scientific discoveries are often completely unpredictable and unexpected. This is how, by chance, Hennig Brand discovered phosphorus.
During the Middle Ages, almost all alchemists were obsessed with the idea of obtaining gold. And although their attempts to find the "philosopher's stone" were not crowned with success, one of them still managed to immortalize his name as the discoverer of a new chemical element. It turned out to be the German Hennig Brand.
Having built a laboratory with his wife's money, Brand decided to use urine as a substrate for obtaining gold, since it also has a golden color. Having bought it in huge quantities (several tons) from the military barracks, he got down to work - he began to evaporate it. After this procedure, he got a thick liquid, which he subjected to double distillation, and then calcined without access to air with sand and coal. As a result of all these manipulations, a white powder was formed that glowed in the dark. Brand called this intermediate phosphorus (light-bearer). Further attempts to convert the powder into gold were fruitless.
But society became interested in the unusual luminous powder, and the enterprising Brand began to trade it at a price higher than gold, without revealing the secret of obtaining it. But later, having decided that he would hardly be able to keep this secret for a long time, he sold the technology itself.
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2. Isaac Newton, English physicist (1643-1727)
Exceptional concentration in scientific matters often coexists with extreme absent-mindedness and forgetfulness in everyday life. Whatever Newton did when he was only 25 years old: in physics - mechanical motion, universal gravitation, optics, in mathematics - differential and integral calculus. Brilliant intelligence!
But on the other hand, there were legends about his absent-mindedness in everyday life. Lost in thought, he could go out to the guests undressed, he could forget that he had already dined and came to dinner a second time. And, having woken up in the morning, without getting out of bed, he often remained sitting for a long time, staring at one point, sometimes this lasted until the evening.
Once he thought of boiling an egg for breakfast, put on the water, and prepared the clock. Having decided to time the clock, he found that the clock was being boiled in boiling water, and he was holding an egg. So absent-minded …
3. André Marie Ampere, French physicist (1775-1836)
But what an incident happened once with Ampere: in the morning, leaving home for a long time, he decided to leave a note on the door (in case someone unexpectedly comes to visit): “Gentlemen! Ampere is not at home, come in the evening. But he returned home early in the afternoon. And after reading the note on the door, he went home, not even remembering that he had written it himself. And he is Ampere. Well, I forgot, it happens …
In the house-museum of Ampere.
A fragment of a table that Ampere made for experiments.
4. Mikhail Ostrogradsky, Russian mathematician and physicist (1801-1862)
Once Ostrogradsky, right in the middle of the street, unexpectedly dawned on another interesting idea about mathematics. Seeing a suitable dark board in front of him, he immediately began to quickly write down his calculations and formulas on it. And suddenly the board went somewhere from him - it turned out to be a carriage. The dumbfounded genius rushed after her with a request to stop, shouting to the coachman: “Wait! Where are you in a hurry? I am now!"
5. William Buckland, British zoologist (1784-1856)
Oxford graduate William Buckland was a prominent scientist. With enthusiasm and successfully he was engaged in zoology, paleontology. But, perhaps, he earned greater fame for his eccentricity and perverse gluttony. He believed and insisted on this that almost everything can be eaten. And he arranged receptions at home, where guests were awaited by exotic dishes - from hedgehogs, crocodiles, ostriches, puppies, panthers.
William Buckland with a hyena skull.
Whether it actually happened or not, they say that once he even ate the embalmed heart of Louis XIV, which was kept by the archbishop. Without even asking permission, Buckland snatched it from the box and ate it, claiming that he had never tasted royal hearts before. Interestingly, the father's business was continued by the son, who organized the society of omnivorous people.
William Buckland lecturing at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
6. Ernest Rutherford, English physicist (1871-1937)
Rutherford liked to repeat: "A good experimenter whose results infuriate theorists!" And he himself really puzzled them constantly.
So, his epoch-making discovery of atomic nuclei forced theorists to reconsider the existing traditional picture of the world, and formed the basis of all modern theories concerning the structure of the atom.
Rutherford was not very much like a scientist - rather large and clumsy, but how much energy and tenacity he had! In addition, Rutherford had an unusually loud voice, he always spoke as if on stage, three times louder than the others. Once, when we were discussing a radio show with his participation, someone jokingly asked: "Why do we need radio?"
Modesty has never been a hallmark of this scholar. When it came to his phenomenal ability to always be on the “crest of a wave”, at the forefront of science, he immediately replied: “Why not? I caused the wave, didn't I? Who would mind …
When Rutherford selected employees for work, he first gave them a task. But those who, having fulfilled it, approached and asked what to do next, he immediately dismissed.
The students respected their teacher, but this did not prevent them from coming up with various nicknames for him, the most popular of which was “Crocodile”. Sergei Kapitsa, a pupil of Rutherford, a Nobel laureate, explained the nickname he invented in this way: "This animal never turns back and therefore can symbolize Rutherford's insight and its rapid advancement."
7. Fritz Zwicky, Swiss astrophysicist (1898-1974)
In the 1920s, Zwicky moved to the California Institute of Technology. Constantly ignoring conventional wisdom and swimming against the tide, he quickly made enemies among his American counterparts. And the wonderful ideas that were born in his head, especially concerning the phantom "Dunkle Materie" ("dark matter") were not understood and not taken seriously. Fritz stubbornly defended his ideas, but the scientific community ignored them for forty years.
Fritz was and remained a lone wolf in astronomy, and in relation to others he became very rude and did not call them otherwise than "spherical bastards". "Why? Because no matter which side you look at him, he's still a bastard. Clear?".
"… empty-headed, sycophants and just thieves" who "do not know how to love lonely wolves, which do not look like sheep", "edit their observations, hiding flaws so that most astronomers can believe in their most flawed assumptions and interpretations of facts" and then publish "Useless rubbish in plump astronomical magazines."
In general, his colleagues got it …
Nevertheless, Zwicky was also known as a great joker. A serious scientist who has comprehended many secrets of neutron stars and "dark matter", he could easily, in front of everyone, without any hesitation, fall to the ground and start push-ups on one hand. That was how he was, this lone wolf …
