Scientists, Mathmaticians, and Explorers Flashcards

1
Q

Wilhelm Röntgen

A

German physicist, 1845-1923 (78)
Nobel prize in physics, 1901
X-Rays, bitch!

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2
Q

Alfred Nobel

A

Swiss chemist, 1833-1896 (63)
Invented dynamite, founder of Nobel prize

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3
Q

Frederick Sanger

A

British biologist, 1918-2013 (85)
Nobel prizes in chemistry (1958, 1980)
Structure of proteins, esp. insulin

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4
Q

Who is “The Father of Geology”?

A

James Hutton (Scottish, 1726-1797 [71])

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5
Q

Who invented the laser, and when?

A

Charles Hard Townes (1915-2015), 1964

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6
Q

Nicolaus Copernicus

A

Polish astronomer, 1473-1543
Heliocentricism, bitch

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7
Q

Who invented the transistor, and when?

A

John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley, at Bell Labs in 1947.

William Shockley, as it turns out, is a racist, eugenics-loving wacko.

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8
Q

Edward Jenner

A

British physiscian, 1749-1823
Smallpox vaccine, “father of immunology”

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9
Q

Georg Cantor

A

German mathematician, 1845-1918
Founder of set theory
Transfinite numbers
“No one shall expell us from the paradise that Cantor has created” - Hilbert
Opposed by Poincaré, Kronecker, and Wittgenstein

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10
Q

Marie Curie

A

1867-1934 (67)
Polish born, French by marriage
Nobel Prize in Chemistry and Physics (one of four people to be twice laureates)

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11
Q

Tycho Brahe

A

Danish astronomer, 1546-1601

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12
Q

James Hutton

A

“Father of Geology”
Scottish, 1726-1797 (71)

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13
Q

John Venn

A

British mathematician, 1834-1923 (89)

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14
Q

Charles Hard Townes

A

American physicist, 1915-2015
Won Nobel Prize in 1964 for work leading to the invention of the laser

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15
Q

Donald Glaser

A

American physicist, 1926-2013 (87)
1960 Nobel prize in physics for invention of the bubble chamber (proving wrong one of Fermi’s conclusions)

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16
Q

Maryam Mirzakhani

A

Iranian, 1977-2017 (40)
Stanford
Fields Medal, 2014

17
Q

Who led the first successful expidition to the geographic South Pole?

A

Roald Amundsen (Norwegan, 1872-1928), in 1911. Amundsen disappeared in the Barents Sea in 1928 at the age of 55.

18
Q

Amerigo Vespucci

A

Italian explorer, 1454-1512
Explored the coast of South America

19
Q

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

A

German mathematician, 1646-1716

20
Q

Roald Amundsen

A

Norwegian explorer, 1872-1928
First to reach South Pole in 1911
Disappeared in Barents Sea in 1928

21
Q

Enrico Fermi

A

Italian physicist, 1901-1954
Discovered first nuclear chain reaction, Fermi paradox
Columbia, University of Chicago (many more in Europe)
From his deathbed, when asked what he would first ask his maker: “The cause and nature of turbulence”

22
Q

Augustin-Louis Cauchy

A

French mathematician, 1789-1857 (68)
Analysis (esp. complex), among the first to rigorously prove theorems of calculus

23
Q

Linus Pauling

A

American chemist, 1901-1994 (93)
born in Portland -> OSU -> Cal Tech -> UCSD -> Stanford
One of founders of quantum chemistry and molecular biology
Won Nobel prizes in chemistry and peace, the only person to win two unshared Nobel prizes

24
Q

Charles Darwin

A

British naturalist, 1809-1882

25
Four people are twice Nobel laureates; who are they?
Marie Curie, Linus Pauling, John Bardeen, Frederick Sanger
26
Ferdinand Magellan
Portuguese explorer, 1480-1521 First circumnavigation of Earth First expedition to Asia (from Europe First expedition across Atlantic, through Straight of Magellan, to Pacific
27
Who invented modern air conditioning?
Willis Carrier (American, 1876-1950, age 64)
28
Sir Francis Galton
English polymath, 1822-1911 (89) Created statistical correlation Promoted regression to the mean Into eugenics and racism 👎
29
Who won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry?
Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and K. Barry Sharpless; “click chemistry”
30
Who invented the transistor, and when?
John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley, Bell Labs, 1947
31
Thomas Bayes
English statistician, philosopher, and Presbyterian minister, 1701-1761 (60).
32
Otto Warburg
German physiologist, 1883-1970 Nobel prize in 1931 for his "discovery of the nature and mode of action of the respiratory enzyme" Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology, Berlin (now located in Tübingen)
33
John Goodenough
American physicist, 1922-2023 (100). Won Nobel prize in chemistry in 2019 for work on Li-ion batteries. MIT, UT Austin