Old School: Aristotle and Archimedes
Archimedes
Aristotle
Aristotle is considered by many to be the first true scientist. His primary interest was biology and wrote extensively about marine biology and taxonomy (animal classification). He also proposed that celestial bodies moved in circles at constant velocities. This, of course, was incorrect assumption, but a critical step in the history of astronomy. Archimedes was a mathematician and inventor whose innovations included conic sections, the area of circles, the physics of levers, and displacement of floating bodies. He was also the inventor of many devices including the Archimedes screw, a sun based heat ray (probably not a real invention, but it sounds cool (and hasn’t actually been completely disproved)) ,and a water based clock.
New School: James Watson and Francis Crick
Watson and Crick
Watson and Crick are best known for proposing the double helix model of DNA in 1953 by using x-ray crystallography. They are also the pioneers of the Watson-Crick nucleotide pairing model. This model describes how certain nucleotide sequences are paired with a specific nucleotide sequence. They won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries and their research created the revolutionary field of genetic biology.
http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/watsoncrick.html
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/528771/history-of-science/29322/Aristotle-and-Archimedes
Strikers?
Forwards
Interesting review of some of the greats. I sure hate to see the political influence on science that we are now going through!
Watson and Crick didn’t actually use X-ray crystallography themselves to propose the structure of DNA (they used data collected from Rosalind Franklin). Also I think it would be a shame to leave out Maurice Wilkins who also shared the nobel prize with Watson and Crick.
Excellent points, but I feel I should explain myself. Franklin did a vast majority of the actual X-Ray crystallography, but Watson and Crick did use her info for their discovery. As to Wilkins: I know he won it with them, but they are the two scientists featured in my post, so I left him out in this case as it was more of a description of their accomplishments not the history of the discovery of DNA.
Don’t open yourself up to charges of sexism. Make sure you put together a co-ed team.
The old school won’t have any. Unfortunately, at that point in time, women did not play a big role in science as they were seen as the weaker gender. However, my new school team will feature a number of great women scientists.
Madam Curie???
I like this series, one of your best. Sorry I haven’t been around here for a bit, I’ll get back into it.