The most famous scientist in the world is perhaps Albert Einstein. Many people may not know that he developed the theory of relativity, but everyone has probably seen his famous photograph with his tongue hanging out. An equally famous scientist is Isaac Newton, who developed the laws of motion and universal gravitation, and also created the world's first reflecting telescope. Einstein, Newton and many other scientists changed our world once and for all, and their names are in almost all encyclopedias. But there are scientists who also made important discoveries for us, but at the same time they remain in the shadows and are very rarely talked about. Do you want to know about a few undeservedly forgotten people, without whom our world would be completely different?
Did you know that one of the first electric cars was created in the Russian Empire? Source: mos.ru
Contents
- 1 Boris Jacobi – inventor of the domestic electric motor
- 2 Ippolit Romanov – creator of the Russian electric car
- 3 Karl Landsteiner – scientist who discovered blood groups
- 4 Narinder Singh Kapani – creator of optical fiber
- 5 Grace Hopper – pioneer of programming
Boris Jacobi – inventor of the domestic electric motor
Do you know the name of Boris Semenovich Jacobi? He is not as famous as Newton and Einstein, but he also made a huge contribution to science and our lives. If it weren't for him, we might not have many works of art and electric cars today.
This scientist was born in 1801, in Germany. Having received a German education, he moved to Russia, where he made all the major scientific discoveries and presented his amazing inventions. In his native country he was known as Moritz Hermann von Jacobi, but then he took a different name.
Physicist Boris Jacobi. Source: kipis.ru
The German-Russian scientist Boris Jacobi is primarily known for inventing the technology of electroforming. In short, it is a technique for creating exact copies of metal objects. With its help, many works of art were created. For example, the electroplating method was used to decorate St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg.
Boris Jacobi is also known as the inventor of the world's first electric motor. They existed before, but the 1834 version was the first, the power of which was sufficient for practical use. With the help of Boris Jacobi's electric motor, people were the first to set vehicles in motion.
Electric motor by Boris Jacobi. Source: fishki.net
In 1839, Boris Jacobi invented the electromagnetic telegraph, which made it possible to transmit messages across distances using electrical impulses. A couple of years later, the Jacobi apparatus was installed in the personal office of Emperor Nicholas I to create a communication line with the General Headquarters of the Russian Imperial Army.
Ippolit Romanov is the creator of the Russian electric car
The most popular electric cars today are produced by the company Tesla under the leadership of Elon Musk. Did you know that electric cars already existed in the Russian Empire?
The first domestic electric car was created by the inventor Ippolit Vladimirovich Romanov in 1899. The “Kukushka” he developed could carry two people at a speed of up to 35 kilometers per hour. One battery charge was enough for him to cover a distance of 60 kilometers. Thanks to the use of lightweight materials, the car weighed only 750 kilograms, with the batteries weighing 370 kilograms.
Ippolit Romanov and one of his “electric cars”. Source: habr.com
During the time of Ippolit Romanov, omnibuses – multi-seat carts driven by horses – drove along the city streets. The engineer decided to improve this type of transport and created electric omnibuses. Horses were not needed to move them, and up to 17 people could fit inside. Accelerating to a speed of 20 kilometers per hour, the electric mode of transport can cover 60 kilometers on a single charge.
In general, Ippolit Romanov was a great expert in the field of electric transport. Perhaps today he could create an excellent Russian analogue of the foreign Tesla.
The Indian created an electric car with his own hands. How is it better than production models?
Karl Landsteiner is a scientist , who discovered blood groups
Austrian-American immunologist and pathologist Karl Landsteiner saved millions of lives. In 1930, he discovered the main blood groups, which made it possible to transfuse blood from healthy people to sick people. He received the Nobel Prize for his discovery, but few people talk about this man.
Karl Landsteiner, who discovered blood groups. Source: fishki.net
Karl Landsteiner also made enormous contributions to the study of polio, also known as infantile paralysis. This infectious disease is transmitted through contaminated food and water and can affect the nervous system. Until the mid-20th century, some children under 5 years of age contracted the disease and lost the ability to move their legs. In 1909, Karl Landsteiner and Erwin Popper discovered that polio was caused by a virus. This was the first step towards creating a vaccine and saving the lives of millions of children.
Read also:Why do people have different blood types?
Narinder Singh Kapani – creator of optical fiber
Narinder Singh Kapani is an American physicist of Indian origin, without whom the Internet and television would have appeared later, or looked a little different.
He is called the “father of fiber optics” because in 1953, together with his colleagues , he was able to transmit images over a distance using bundles of optical fibers. In 1960, he first used the term “fiber optics,” and his work became the basis for the creation of data transmission technologies that are used today to operate the Internet and television.
Narinder Singh Kapani is one of the most prominent scientists in India. Source: indianexpress.com
He has founded several companies in Silicon Valley and has registered more than 120 patents. In addition to fiber optics, he was interested in lasers. solar energy and biomedical devices. We can say that this is the first person from India who has achieved significant success in Silicon Valley.
You will be interested: The history of the creation of “Tetris” – the most famous Russian game
Grace Hopper – programming pioneer
Our article would be incomplete without mentioning Grace Hopper, an American scientist who was not only an admiral in the US Navy, but also an outstanding mathematician. She is known as one of the pioneers of computer programming because she developed the COBOL programming language and popularized the term “debugging” in the context of correcting errors in computer programs.
Grace Hopper is one of the very first programmers in the world. Source: novochag.ru
Grace Hopper made one of her first achievements in 1944, when she wrote the first user manual for the Harvard Mark I computer. In 1952, she developed the world's first compiler – a program that turns instructions written by a programmer into code that a computer can understand. She also came up with the term “bug”, which means an error in a program.
Be sure to subscribe to our Zen channel. This way you won't miss any interesting material!
We hope you found this article interesting and learned something new. If you liked it, read our article “The 5 Greatest Scientists in Human History”. There's a lot of interesting stuff there too!