Category Scientist & Invensions

What is the life story of Stephen Hawking?

The genius in the wheelchair

When Stephen Hawking was 21, he was given only a few years to live after being diagnosed with a rare form of motor neurone disease. Undaunted, Hawking made breakthroughs in quantum physics and cosmology with his “The Theory of Everything” and his work on black holes. Although a number of biographies have been written about the genius, a new memoir gives an affectionate account of Hawking and his indomitable spirit.

Written by Leonard Mlodinow, who worked closely with Hawking for nearly 11 years and co-authored two bestselling books with him (“A Briefer History of Time” and “The Grand Design”), “Stephen Hawking – A Memoir of Physics and Friendship gives fresh insights into Hawking’s character and his famous sense of adventure and fun.

A daredevil

Hawking was born on January 8, 1942 in Oxford. At 17, he won a scholarship to study at University College, Oxford. Despite his brilliance in academics, Hawking hated studying. According to his own estimates, he studied for only 1,000 hours during his three undergraduate years at Oxford. Once he even joined the college boat dub. But earned himself a daredevil reputation as he steered his crew on risky courses that often damaged boats.

Living with a rare disease

After being diagnosed with a rare form of motor neurone disease known as ALS, Hawking sunk into depression. Though the disease progressed slowly, it began to interfere with his daily activities, and his condition worsened in 1985 during a trip to Cern. Hawking underwent a tracheotomy, which saved his life but destroyed his voice. He started using a voice synthesiser.

The early diagnosis of the terminal disease ignited a sense of purpose in Hawking and he embarked on his career in earnest. He pursued his work with black holes and relativity with new zest. In 1988, Hawking published “A Brief History of Time, which turned him into an instant icon.

Writing for children

Hawking and his daughter Lucy came up with a series of illustrated books to explain the “secret keys to the universe” to young readers. The books deal with complex topics, including the Big Bang, black holes, atoms. planets and their moons, in the form of space adventures embarked on by junior astronaut George and his best friend Annie. The series helped simplify cosmology for children.

Love for adventures

Hawking enjoyed his fame, taking many opportunities to travel and to have unusual experiences such as going down a mine shaft visiting the south pole and undergoing the zero-gravity of free fall, and to meet other distinguished people.

Legacy

Hawking died at his home in Cambridge on March 14, 2018, at the age of 76. In the same year in June, Hawking’s words, set to music by Greek composer Vangelis, were beamed into space from a European Space Agency satellite dish in Spain with the aim of reaching the nearest black hole 1A 0620-00.

 

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Why did Sir Isaac Newton stick a needle in his eye?

He did indeed. Or more accurately, he pushed a needle behind his eye and with it, indented the sclera. The needle never entered the eye.

By doing so, he stimulated his retina in many spots and noted a “phosphene” or glowing spot that resulted from the pressure. From this he was able to “map” his own retina against where he saw the spots. This map conformed to the map on the back of a rabbit’s retina that he made by shining light from a window, through a pinhole, into the rabbit’s eye that had an opening cut away from the sclera allowing him to see into the rabbit’s eye.

And thus Newton showed how the rays of light enter our eye by an optical system now called the camera design. And how the retina represents the outside world but with inversion (up is down and left is right).

Newton was a dedicated scientist who was willing to accept some pain and personal risk to satisfy his curiosity.

 

Credit : Quora

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Who invented the computer mouse?

The computer mouse was invented by Douglas Engelbart in the 1960s, and patented in 1970. Dr Engelbart who died on July 2, 2013 also invented a number of other interactive information systems that helped make the computer a user-friendly tool. Before pioneers like specialized machines those only trained scientists could operate.

The computer mouse was popularised by its inclusion as standard equipment with the Apple Macintosh in 1984.

Why was it called ‘mouse’? The object’s shape and tail-like cord suggested the name.

A year after the mouse was invented, a researcher named Jack Kelley created the first mouse pad.

 

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Who invented the escalator?

The escalator is a moving staircase that helps people to move between floors at public places like malls, train, stations, airports etc.

The first idea of “revolving stairs” was patented by Nathan Ames in 1859 in USA, but it never saw the light of day. In the 1890s, American engineer Jesse W. Reno installed an “inclined elevator” at Coney Island, an amusement park in New York City. The 7-feet long conveyor belt was inclined at a 25 degree angle. It was the first example of a working escalator. The term ‘escalator’ was coined by Charles Seeberger, an American inventor, from the Latin word scala for steps and the word ‘elevator’, which had already been invented. He joined hands with the pioneering elevator company, Otis, and produced the first commercial wooden escalator which won the first prize at the Paris 1900 Exposition Universelle in France. Soon, escalators were installed in Europe and USA. As the Otis Elevator Company held the trademark rights to the word ‘escalator’ until 1950, other manufacturers called them by different names like Moving Stairs and Motorstair. Today, Otis and Schindler are the largest makers of escalators in the world.

 

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WHO INVENTED THE GRAMOPHONE?

In 1888, the German-American inventor Emile Berliner (1851-1929) invented a system of sound recording that could be mass produced. He devised a flat disc, called a gramophone record. On the disc, a groove ran in a spiral from the outer edge of the disc to the centre. Side-to-side, rather than up-and-down movements of the stylus recorded and played the sound vibrations. Once one disc had been made, it could be used as a mould to make a metal die, which could then stamp out exact copies of the disc in large numbers.

Early attempts to design a consumer sound or music playing gadget began in 1877. That year, Thomas Edison invented his tinfoil phonograph, which played recorded sounds from round cylinders. Unfortunately, the sound quality on the phonograph was bad and each recording only lasted for only one play.

Edison’s phonograph was followed by Alexander Graham Bell’s graphophone. The graphophone used wax cylinders, which could be played many times. However, each cylinder had to be recorded separately, making the mass reproduction of the same music or sounds impossible with the graphophone.

On November 8, 1887, Emile Berliner, a German immigrant working in Washington D.C., patented a successful system for sound recording. Berliner was the first inventor to stop recording on cylinders and start recording on flat disks or records.

The first records were made of glass. They were then made using zinc and eventually plastic. A spiral groove with sound information was etched into the flat record. To play sounds and music, the record was rotated on the gramophone. The “arm” of the gramophone held a needle that read the grooves in the record by vibration and transmitted the information to the gramophone speaker.

Berliner’s disks (records) were the first sound recordings that could be mass-produced by creating master recordings from which molds were made. From each mold, hundreds of disks were pressed.

Berliner founded “The Gramophone Company” to mass manufacture his sound disks (records) as well as the gramophone that played them. To help promote his gramophone system, Berliner did a couple of things. First, he persuaded popular artists to record their music using his system. Two famous artists who signed early on with Berliner’s company were Enrico Caruso and Dame Nellie Melba. The second smart marketing move Berliner made came in 1908 when he used Francis Barraud’s painting of “His Master’s Voice” as his company’s official trademark.

Berliner later sold the licensing rights to his patent for the gramophone and method of making records to the Victor Talking Machine Company (RCA), which later made the gramophone a successful product in the United States. Meanwhile, Berliner continued doing business in other countries. He founded the Berliner Gram-o-phone Company in Canada, the Deutsche Gramophone in Germany and the U.K based Gramophone Co., Ltd.

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WHAT WAS THE EARLIEST SOUND RECORDING?

In 1877, the American inventor Thomas Edison (1847-1931) experimented with a machine called a “phonograph”, which converted sound vibrations into grooves on a cylinder covered with tinfoil. A sharp needle, called a stylus, was attached to a diaphragm at the narrow end of a large horn. When sound waves travelled into the horn, they made the diaphragm vibrate, causing the needle to move up and down, and cutting a groove of varying depth in the tinfoil. If this process was reversed, so that the needle was made to run over the grooves, it caused the diaphragm to vibrate. Vibrations passed through the horn, pushing air in front of them, to reach the listener’s ear as sound. Later, wax-coated cylinders were used instead of tinfoil, to give a better result.

The history of sound recording – which has progressed in waves, driven by the invention and commercial introduction of new technologies — can be roughly divided into four main periods:

  • the “Acoustic” era, 1877 to 1925
  • the “Electrical” era, 1925 to 1945
  • the “Magnetic” era, 1945 to 1975
  • The “Digital” era, 1975 to the present day.

Experiments of capturing sound on a recording medium for preservation and reproduction began in earnest during the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s. Many pioneering attempts to record and reproduce sound were made during the latter half of the 19th century – notably Scott’s Phonautograph of 1857 – and these efforts culminated in the invention of the phonograph by Thomos Edison in 1877. Digital recording emerged in the late 20th century and has since flourished with the popularity of digital music and online streaming services.

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