Great inventors and scientists
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton was a famous physicist, mathematician and astronomer.
He was born in a small village near Cambridge in 1642. His father died before Isaac’s birth. His first inventions were a sundial and a clepsydra. Newton made them when he was a child. People say the sundial is still in the house, where Isaac Newton was born.
At the age of 14 he had to leave school, because his mother needed his help on the farm.
Isaac was a student at the University of Cambridge. Newton studied mathematics there. During those years Isaac Newton made such discoveries as the law of gravitation, decomposition of light and the method of fluxions.
Later he became a professor of mathematics and optics.
Newton is also known as one of the authors of the theory of differential calculus.
Isaac Newton died at 85, in 1727.
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin was born on February 12, 1809 in Shrewsbury, England. Darwin was the British naturalist who became famous for his theories of evolution and natural selection. Like several scientists before him, Darwin believed all the life on earth evolved (developed gradually) over millions of years from a few common ancestors.
Darwin's theory of evolutionary selection holds that variation within species occurs randomly and that the survival or extinction of each organism is determined by that organism's ability to adapt to its environment. He set these theories forth in his book called, "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" (1859) or "The Origin of Species" for short. After publication of Origin of Species, Darwin continued to write on botany, geology, and zoology until his death in 1882. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.
Mikhail Lomonosov
Mikhail Lomonosov was born in 1711 in Archangelsk province. His father was a fisher and young Mikhail liked to help him. He always strove for knowledge and liked reading books.
As he was 19 years old, he decided to study in Moscow. He went there on foot. In Moscow he entered the Slavic- Greek-latin Academy. After his graduation from Academy he was sent abroad to complete his knowledge in chemistry and mining. After he had returned from abroad, he became the first Russian professor of chemistry in 1745.
At first he was engaged in research in physics and chemistry. Since 1748 he had conducted works in the first Russian chemical research laboratory, which was built at his request.
Since 1753 he was engaged in research in many fields of natural and applied sciences. He wrote works on physics, astronomy, geography, history. Besides scientific works, he wrote poems as well. He is the author of the first scientifical grammar of the Russian language.
