Newton's Laws of Motion

Brief insight of Newton's laws of motion.

Any science student or follower of Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727) would know that his 3 laws of motion were framework for the mechanics of science. Newton calculated that the force of the attraction (gravity) between 2 objects is equal to the mass of each object multiplied by a gravitational constant and divided by the square of the distance between the objects.

What it means is that larger masses exert the stronger attraction, a reason why apples fall toward the Earth's gravitational centre. But, the force of gravity is reduced by distance - a reason why the Moon doesn't rush toward Earth or other larger celestial body. However, the earth's mass is much greater than that of the objects upon it that the force of attraction is large.

David E. Hughes and Carbon Microphone

Inventor of Carbon Microphone

English-born American David Edward Hughes is widely agreed as the inventor of the carbon microphone, a device important in the development of telephony. He also invented the induction balance for metal detectors and the printing telegraph system.

David Hughes was born in London, England on May 16, 1831. At the age of seven, he moved to the United States with his Welsh parents. In 1850, he became a music professor in Kentucky at the college of Bardstown. He later became a natural philosophy professor in the same school. Hughes only spent four years in the academic field, from where he began working on various devices, such as the type-printing telegraph and carbon microphone.

Hubble Space Telescope

Speaking of the birth of time, the Big Bang theory states that all matter and energy were once contained in compressed matter. It's really unimaginable.

We don't know whatever happened between the Big Bang and the tiny time afterward known as the "Planck Time" - named after the physicist Max Planck. The first evidence to support the theory of the expanding world was found by American astronomer Edwin Hubble in 1929.

Amalie Dietrich: 19th Century Natural Sciences Pioneer

Science/Scientists Datebook: 6 May

 

A brief profile of Amalie Dietrich   

 

 

Amalie Dietrich

 

 

Amalie Dietrich was a German botanist and naturalist best known for her pioneering work in introducing Australia’s natural wonders to Europe. Natural science students will recognize her name perpetuated in variety of botanical and entomological species – Acacia Dietrichiana, Bonamia Dietrichiana, Nortonia Amaliae Odynerus Dietrichianous, among others.  Dietrich spent 10 years in the wilds of northern Queensland, collecting specimens for the Museum Godeffroy in Hamburg, Germany.

Koncordie Amalie Dietrich (nee Nelle) was born on 6th May 1821, in Siebenlehn, Saxony, German Confederation. A daughter of a pursemaker, she came from a completely unscientific background, a working-class family at a time when scientists were considered upper-class, well-educated and male. She lived the life of a humble peasant until her late 20s. Her idea of fun was pottering around in the fields of her upbringing.  

 

In 1846, she was married to Wilhelm Dietrich, learning natural history and specimen gathering him. They separated in 1861 and she became an independent single mother, collecting specimens across Europe.  

 

Work in Australia

 

She arrived in Queensland, Australia in August 1863 on contract with Museum Godeffroy. She explored remote and newly settled regions largely on her own, enduring harsh wilderness conditions. She collected massive quantities of flora and fauna, including insects, snakes, and plants. Several Australian plant and animal species, such as the wattle Acacia dietrichiana, are named in her honour. 

 

Amalie Dietrich Legacy 

 

Amalie Dietrich is celebrated as a pioneering female scientist who succeeded in a male-dominated field in her day. In modern times, she has been re-evaluated regarding her collection of indigenous human remains and ethnographic materials.   

 

(Apology: In moving this piece from another website, my full article article had been immensely cropped.) 

Image Credit:

Amalie Dietrich.  Wikipedia Commons / Public Domain  

Resources: 

Amalie Dietrich. En.Wikipedia.org. Accessed May 6, 2016.

Amalie Dietrich (1821-1891). Australian Dictionary of Biography. Accessed May 6, 2026.

Note:  Originally written for Suite101, May 6, 2011.   


(c)  May 2016. Updated May 5, 2026. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.

Friedrich Bergius: The Bergius Process

Friedrich Bergius, German chemist known for Bergius Process

Friedrich Karl Rudolf Bergius (Oct 11, 1884 – March 30, 1949), was born in Goldschmieden near Breslau (Wroclaw), within the German Empire's Prussian Province of Silesia. He was a German chemist known for the Bergius process that produces synthetic fuel from coal. His discovery converted wood into sugar, and coal into petrol products.

He was educated at the universities of Breslau, Berlin and Leipzig.  His book which was published in 1913, The Use of High Pressure in Chemical Actions, explains his work.

Melvin Calvin: Calvin Cycle and Photosynthesis

American chemist famous for Calvin Cycle discovery and photosynthesis

Melvin Ellis Calvin (April 8, 1911 – January 8, 1997), was an American chemist famous for his work on photosynthesis and discovering the Calvin cycle along with Andrew Benson and James Bassham. He contributed in all areas of Chemistry and  spent most of his career at the University of California, Berkeley. He was awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

M. Calvin Brief Profile

The son of Russian and Lithuanian immigrants to the U.S., Melvin Calvin was born in St. Paul, Minnesota. The family settled in Detroit, Michigan, where he attended the Michigan College of Mining and Technology, becoming the school's first chemistry major. He completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Minnesota.  He also studied at the University of Manchester and University of California, Berkeley.

It was in the early 1940s when Calvin began to focus his work on photosynthesis by using radioactive tracers in chemical reactions. During this period in his researches and experiments, his now known Calvin Cycle of plant photosynthesis took fruition.

The Calvin Cycle and Photosynthesis

The Calvin Cycle or the Calvin-Benson-Bassham Cycle - is a system that describes the series of biochemical reactions taking place in the chloroplasts of photosynthetic organisms.  Further, the cycle describes a light independent reaction (that is, without any need for visible or ultraviolet light), where stored energy is used to convert carbon dioxide and water into organic compounds.  In each stage of the process of  "carbon fixation," carbon dioxide is added with a carbon-14 tracer to explain the chemical pathway.



Resource:

"Melvin Calvin - Biography". Nobelprize.org. 9 Apr 2012.

Image Source:

Melvin Calvin, Nobelprize.org.

The Doppler Effect

It is extremely noticeable when police sirens or ambulance emergency vans rise in pitch as they approach us, and then eventually the pitch lowers down when they go off away from us into the distance.  This is referred to as Doppler effect.  More recently, the Doppler effect took centre-stage as investigators used it to trace the Malaysian aircraft Flight 370's disappearance.

The purpose of this post is to introduce in simple terms the concept of Doppler effect, what it is about and it's effect, and not to quantify intricate scientific formulations of frequency and the relationship of source and observer velocities.

Bunsen-Kirchhoff and Spectroscopy Theory

Science / Discoveries & Inventions

 

When a chemical element is heated to incandescence, it produces its own characteristic lines in the spectrum of light.

As a chemistry student moons ago, I'll never forget the Bunsen burner as a constant laboratory companion in my numerous "flame test" experiments. Bunsen developed the burner in 1855. The test is used to identify the presence of a particular metal by the colour of the flames produced. The burner's non-luminous flame is basically used as it does not interfere with the coloured flame given off by the sample metal being tested.

Bunsen-Kirchhoff Spectroscopy theory and other Discoveries

Together, Bunsen and Kirchhoff developed the first spectroscope, a device used to produce and observe a spectrum. Using their spectroscope, in 1860, they went on to discover two elements: caesium and rubidium. These discoveries ushered a new era in ways used to find new chemical elements.


The first 50 elements discovered (beyond those known since ancient times) were either the products of chemical reactions or were released by electrolysis. From 1860, however, thanks to Burner and Kirchhoff, the search was on for trace elements detectable only with the help of specialized instruments like the spectroscope. The Bunsen–Kirchhoff Award for spectroscopy is named after Bunsen and Kirchhoff.

Kirchhoff also discovered that when heated to incandescence, each chemical element produced its own characteristic lines in the spectrum. For instance, sodium (Na) has a spectrum with two yellow lines, wavelengths about 588 and 589 nanometres.  Extending experiments beyond Bunsen and Kirchhoff, later scientists were able to determine the presence of elements, for example, in the sun or stars once similar wavelengths were identified in their spectra. 

Georg Ohm

German physicist who formulated Ohm's Law.

He worked on electric currents and acoustics. The unit of electrical resistance (Ohm) was named after him.
 
Georg Simon Ohm (16 March 1787 (89?) – 6 July 1854) was a German physicist born in Erlangen, Brandenburg-Bayreuth. He began his research as a high school teacher, used an electrochemical cell invented by Italian Count Alessandro Volta that time. Ohm taught in Cologne, Nuremberg, and finally in Munich.

A highly methodical experimenter, Ohm also availed his own created equipment to determine that there is a direct proportion between the potential difference (voltage) applied across a conductor and the resultant electric current.  This relationship is known as Ohm's law, an empirical law (found by experiment), which he formulated in 1827.

Radio Waves and the Pioneers

Science / Radio Waves Milestone

What are Radio Waves?

Radio waves are electromagnetic waves that transmit sound and pictures through the air.   Scottish scientist James Maxwell (1831-1879), known for his development of the single force field, electromagnetism, predicted that radio waves existed. German scientist and professor Heinrich Hertz (1857-1894), wanted to find out more and experimented using circuits and electric currents. In 1886, Hertz created and measured radio waves for the first time. This phenomenon of electromagnetic waves that he demonstrated is referred to as "Hertzian waves" coined after his name. He further showed that their velocity and length could be measured, and that heat and light are electromagnetic waves.

Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier

Science/Astronomy Datebook:  March 11

French astronomer and mathematician Urbain J.J. Le Verrier co-discovered planet Neptune

Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier (1811-1877), was a French astronomer who co-discovered planet Neptune (with John Couch Adams), was born on March 11, 1811, in St. Lo, Normandy.  He became a teacher of astronomy at the Polytechnique.

Ernest Rutherford: Nuclear Physics Pioneer

Science Datebook: March 11

Baron Ernest Rutherford, Father of Nuclear Physics

Baron Ernest Rutherford (b. August 30, 1871-d. October 19, 1937), was a New-Zealand born British physicist. 

This day on March 11, 1911, Ernest Rutherford is considered the father of nuclear physics, as he published his atomic theory describing the structure of the atom for the first time at the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society.

He described the atom as having a central positive nucleus surrounded by negative orbiting electrons. His model suggested that most of the mass of the atom was contained in the small nucleus, with the rest of the atom mostly empty space. His conclusion followed what we now know as Rutherford's "gold foil experiment" especially amongst science students and other advocates.

Otto Hahn: Nuclear Fission

Science Datebook: March 8

Otto Hahn discovered nuclear fission

Otto Hahn (1879-1968), German radio chemist and Nobel Prize winner, is born on March 8, 1879, in Frankfurt, Germany, and died July 28, 1968, in Gottingen, Germany. He discovered nuclear fission, in particular, the split of uranium atom into barium and krypton.

Hahn was awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize in chemistry, and shared the 1966 Enrico Fermi Award. He was involved in the discovery of several new radio elements, among them radiothorium, radioactinium and mesothorioum.

History of the Laser

LASER is an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.  It is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of photons.  The emitted laser light is noted for its high degree of spatial and temporal coherence, which is unattainable using other technologies.

Laser amplifiers are used in industrial, medical, military, and commercial applications.

Spatial coherence is typically expressed through the output being a narrow beam which is diffraction-limited, often a so-called "pencil beam." Laser beams can be focused to very tiny spots, achieving a very high irradiance. They can also be launched into a beam of very low divergence in order to concentrate their power at large distances.

Chemical Bonding

The discovery of Chemical Bonding is linked to two scientists, Linus Pauling and Robert Mulliken.

The significance of the chemical bonding as a discovery is that it demonstrated how the new physics of quantum mechanics could explain the basis and fundamentals of a chemical interaction.


In the early 20th century, the nature of the atom has been developed and explained by chemistry and physics. However, in terms of quantum mechanics, these two science disciplines provided different perspectives. One point of contention was the chemical bonding of the element carbon. Whilst physicists and chemists agree on carbon's structure, that is, 6 electrons, 2 in an inner shell and 4 in an outer shell, its bonding issue in terms of the outer reaction of the 4 electrons was more complicated than normally met the eye of the chemists and physicists.

John Graham Kerr

Scottish embryologist of lungfishes

Sir John Graham Kerr (18 September 1869 – 21 April 1957) was a Scottish embryologist best known for his studies of the embryology of lungfishes. He was also a Unionist Member of Parliament (MP).

Kerr was born in Hertfordshire of Scottish parents. He was educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh, and at the University of Edinburgh, but interrupted his medical studies to join an expedition in Argentina to study the natural history of the Pilcomayo River. Upon his return, he studied natural sciences at Christ's College, Cambridge, graduating with first class honours in 1896.

First Oral Contraceptive Pill

The pill for birth control, a single pill for drugs and sex.

On May 9, 1960, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA ) approved the birth control pill for use. Two days later, Enovid, the first oral contraceptive went on sale.

No one can fully say that the approval of this birth control pill could have prompted the sexual revolution.

Halley's Comet

Science / Astronomy

    Halley's Comet

Edmond Halley produced the first atlas stars in the Southern Hemisphere.

Edmond Halley (1656-1742), was an English astronomer. In 1705, he discovered the "Halley's Comet" suppose to take 76 years to complete one orbit around the sun. An expert on comets, he realized that they orbited the Sun and calculated the orbits of 24. He claimed that comets observed in 1531, 1607, and 1682 were one and the same. He also said that the comet appeared at 76-year intervals.

MDMA Ecstacy Drug Invention

The love drug MDMA known as "Ecstacy"

MDMA is an entactogenic drug of the phenethylamine and amphetamine class of drugs.  It is a colorless oil that boils at around 155 degrees Celsius or 311 degrees Fahrenheit. In chemical parlance, MDMA is referred to as MDMA (3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine) or Methylenedioxymethamphetamine.

MDMS / Ecstacy

In popular culture, MDMA has become widely known as "ecstasy" ("E" or "X"), usually referring to its street pill form.   The terms "molly" or "mandy" ("M") can colloquially refer to MDMA in crystalline or powder form.

Arthur Kornberg

Nobel laureate for DNA and RNA discoveries

Biochemist Arthur Kornberg specialized in molecular biology. His primary research interests were in biochemistry, especially enzyme chemistry, deoxyribonucleic acid synthesis (DNA replication) and studying the nucleic acids which control heredity in animals, plants, bacteria and viruses.

He was co-awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1959 for "discovery of the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of ribonucleic acid (RNA) and deoxyribonucleic acid together with Dr. Severo Ochoa of New York University.