Michael Faraday.
He also discovered benzene and other hydrocarbons. He is best known for his work on electricity and electrochemistry, Faraday proposed the laws of electrolysis
The discovery of benzene and other experiments
Returning to England, Faraday developed as an analytical and
practical chemist. As his chemistry skills increased, he was given more
responsibility. In 1825 he replaced the seriously ill Davy in his duties of
running the laboratory at the Royal Institution. In 1833 he was appointed to
the Fullerian Professorship of Chemistry - a special research chair was created
for him. Among other achievements, Faraday liquefied many gases, including
chlorine and carbon dioxide. His research into heating and lighting oils led to
his discovery of benzene and other hydrocarbons, and he experimented at length
with various steel alloys and optical glasses.[1]
Faraday's two laws of electrolysis
Faraday is best known for his contributions to the understanding
of electricity and electrochemistry. In this work he was guided by his belief
in the uniformity of nature and the mutual exchangeability of various forces,
which he soon understood as force fields. In 1821, he managed to create a
mechanical movement using a permanent magnet and an electric current - the
forerunner of the electric motor. Ten years later, he converted magnetic force
into electric force and thus invented the world's first electric generator. In
the course of proving that the electricity produced in different ways is
identical, Faraday discovered two laws of electrolysis: the amount of chemical
change or decomposition is exactly proportional to the amount of electricity
that passes through the solution and the amount of different substances
deposited or dissolved by the same amount of electricity are proportional to
their chemical equivalent weights.[2]
Light and magnetism
Faraday suffered a nervous breakdown in 1839, but eventually
returned to his electromagnetic investigations, this time on the relationship
between light and magnetism. Although Faraday was unable to express his
theories in mathematical terms, his ideas formed the basis for the
electromagnetic equations.[3]
Faraday changed the world with his innovative experiments
Through his innovative experiments, he discovered that placing a
wire in a changing magnetic field would create a voltage across the wire.
Simply put, he found a way to cause an electric current, and this discovery was
later applied to many of the devices we use today.
Before Faraday came on the scene, scientists knew about
electricity, although they did little to put it to practical use. Electricity
was such a mysterious force at the time that most laymen saw it more as magic
than anything else. Faraday changed everything when he discovered
electromagnetic induction.[4]
His inventions changed the home, the farm and the factory
Before the advent of energy-capable electricity, almost every
aspect of human life functioned differently than it does now. In Faraday's
time, people were limited to batteries, wooden refrigerators, and electric
stoves next to dry sinks. Faraday's discoveries also revolutionized work for
small farmers in almost every conceivable way. Electricity eliminated manual
labor such as pumping water, so rural families no longer spent hours of the day
hauling water for livestock or for the house.
And although the Industrial Revolution was already underway by the
time Faraday was born, cotton gins and power looms had become old news as
marvels like sewing machines and the telegraph changed the way people worked
and communicated. From cell phones to air conditioning, the modern conveniences
we take for granted today were once mere fantasy without Faraday's relentless
wonder and curiosity driving them.[5]
Donald Knuth
Donald Knuth is renowned for his seminal contributions to computer
science and the development of the typesetting software TeX and Metafont. He is
particularly well known for his work on the analysis of algorithms—the
mathematical study of their performance and resource needs—collected in his
book series The Art of Computer programming (1968–present). Don is the
co-creator of the Knuth-Bendix algorithm for "word problems" - the
technical term for mathematical equality.
His Tex and Metafont software and computer-modern font
family revolutionized the digital typesetting of scientific publications. They
allow anyone to create and share high-quality printed and electronic documents
using their own computers, independent of changes in technology.[6]
His contributions
Knuth made many
contributions to mathematics and computing. One particular contribution that we
should mention is the Knuth Bendix algorithm, one of the basic algorithms for
calculations with algebraic structures, especially groups and semigroups. This
important paper, published with his student Peter B Bendix in 1970, attempts to
solve the word problem in algebraic systems by deriving the consequences of
given relations so as to give, in some sense, a complete set. Another
contribution that completely changed the way mathematics is printed and
communicated is Knuth's invention of TeX, a typesetting language for
mathematical and scientific articles. Beginning in 1976, Knuth took ten years
off from his other projects to work on the development of TeX and Metafont, a
computer software system for alphabet design.
Tex has revolutionized mathematical and scientific publishing
technology by enabling mathematicians and scientists to produce the highest
quality print of mathematical articles, all done easily using a home computer.
However, not only the way mathematical and scientific articles are published,
but also the way they are communicated has changed. In the 17th century, a mathematician
would write a letter to another mathematician and they would discuss their
daily lives in, say, English, French, or German, But when they come to explain
math they use Latin. Nowadays, mathematicians communicate by e-mail, and
whenever they want to explain something in mathematics, they require
mathematical symbols, which are almost always communicated using TeX. [7]
Donald Mackay:
Donald Mackay, who died in early 1987, was Professor of
Communication and Neuroscience at the University of Keele from 1960 until his
retirement in 1982, when he became Emeritus Professor. He was brought up in
Free Church of Scotland Calvinism (his father was a minister as well as a
doctor) and studied at St Andrews University before moving to England.
Throughout his professional life, Donald sought to combine his commitment as a
scientist to devise, test, and discover hypotheses based on empirical research
and his commitment as a Christian to the God revealed in Scripture and
sovereignly in Christ. While many Christians, and especially many Christians in
academia, talk about the need to integrate faith and intellectual life, Mackay
has gone to great lengths to bring about such integration, sometimes at great
personal cost, in part as a result of occasional misrepresentation and
misunderstanding by fellow Christians.
His Christian Contributions on Modern Science
Mackay, like some others, met this position head-on, arguing that
it rested on a mistaken view of divine providence. God has no leftovers that
fall from the table of scientists. Rather, He is the Lord of all, the One who
supports the entire universe with His Word. He is therefore the God of all
scientific processes and does not merely preside over the absence of such
processes. This belief meant that Mackay was freed from the futile effort to
"box" science and faith in different departments. He enjoyed the
freedom it gave. But what is the relation of science to faith, if it is not the
relation of one container to another? Mackay's view is that they complement
each other. To illustrate this, let's give an example from his area of
expertise. What is the relationship between the brain and the mind? Does the
mind sit or float in the brain like a buoy on the sea? Such a picture is completely
wrong. References to brain and mind imply two different languages about one
multifaceted reality, the language of scientific description and testing
(brain) and the language of thought and reasoning (mind). These languages are
not arbitrary creations; they are modes of description guaranteed by God's
multifaceted creation. So they are not enemies, but friends. They cannot
contradict each other because they complement each other.[8]
At the same time, Donald Mackay railed against relativism,
especially against the view that there is no such thing as objective truth, but
only different kinds of subjective or cultural truths, different
"perspectives". Such a conclusion would be based on a complete
misunderstanding of his position. To say, for example, that the truths of
physics complement the truths of psychology does not mean that one can choose
between the truths of physics and the truths of psychology. Rather, what Mackay
emphasized is the multifaceted character of objective truth, a complexity that
comes from the hand of the Creator and must be touched and learned by the
creature in reverent submission to its author.
Mackay on the relationship between Christianity and science
Mackay's view of science and theology shows both his philosophical
views and his theory of consciousness. The position of the independent observer
in science is complementary to the position of the religious believer as a
conscious agent. Christian theology takes the stance of the religious believer
and thus provides complementary perspectives to that of the scientist.
Therefore, science is agnostic with respect to many of the theological claims
of the Judeo-Christian traditions.
McKay shows that not only does science work well with
Christianity, it can also have a mutually supportive, interactive relationship
between the two. For example, Mackay speculates that the spiritual activities
of human beings are embodied in psychological processes in a way parallel to the
embodiment of psychological processes in neurological activities. Spiritual
activities can manifest in psychological correlates such as changes in one's
patterns of values and priorities and perhaps in the way one experiences
those values priorities. The relationship between spiritual and conscious
activity that occurs in dialogue with God could involve the emergence of a new
level of spiritual activity identifiable by the feature of the flow of
information between forms of psychological activities.[9]
Francis S. Collins
In 2006, Collins published his book The Language of God, an
autobiographical account of the HGP and its scientific, historical, and social
significance, Special focus on the impact of the human era on our view of the
world and ourselves. Now, as a sequel, he wrote The Language of Life. While The
Language of God focused on the genome sequence of humanity in general and on
the HGP as a "revolution" in biomedicine, the new book, as its
subtitle suggests, is oriented towards the "revolution in personalized
medicine", the impact of the genomic revolution on the personal lives of
individuals.
His contribution to modern science
The research laboratory of Dr. Collins discovered a number of
important genes, including those responsible for cystic fibrosis,
neurofibromatosis. Huntington's disease, familial endocrine cancer syndrome,
and most recently the genes for type 2 diabetes and the gene that causes
Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome, a rare condition that causes premature
aging.
One of the lab's major projects focuses on Hutchinson-Gilford
progeria syndrome (HGPS), a rare genetic disorder characterized by premature
aging. HGPS patients usually die of cardiovascular complications in their
teens. Group Dr. Collins discovered that a point mutation in the lamin A gene
(LMNA) activates a cryptic splice donor, resulting in a 50 amino acid
truncation of the normal version of the encoded protein near the C-terminus—a
protein she named "progerin." They also found that HGPS is associated
with significant changes in nuclear shape, these structural defects exacerbate
the aging of SHGPS cells in culture, and introducing progerin into normal cells
induces the same changes. Cell biological analysis suggests that progerin
disrupts the normal process of mitosis. Research on normal human fibroblasts
has shown that small amounts of progerin are present in a population of normal
cells, the amount of which increases as the cells approach senescence. A shift
in the LMNA splicing pattern to produce progerin is apparently triggered by
shortened telomeres.[10]
Francis' faith
Francis Collins, the famous scientist who led the team that
deciphered the human genome, is a Christian. After living as an obnoxious
atheist since college, Collin saw God through the death of his parents. He
actually converted to Christianity after reading C.S. Lewis "Mere
Christianity" which is an excellent book. Collins calls scientific
discovery an opportunity for worship. The Language of God is a book he wrote himself
and aims to show that belief in God is a rational choice and that "the
principles of faith are in fact complementary to the principles of
science". The book is part personal testimony of Collins' own journey as
both a scientist and a believer, and a running commentary or argument on common
objections to belief in God. In Collins point of view, belief in God
"solve some deeply troubling question about what was before the big bang
and why the universe seems perfectly tuned for us to be here".[11]
Conclusion
Faraday was a firm believer in God as creator, but criticized the
natural theology that dominated much of early Victorian science, and did not
even look to the Bible as a source of scientific information. Faraday had a
deep understanding of God's creation. Natural laws "were established from
the beginning" and thus were "as old as creation." The notes of
one of his first lectures contain a jubilant exhortation to "Seek the
laws." The task of science is to find these laws through the empirical
research process. As Faraday said in a memoir on nature (1844): "God is
pleased to work according to the law in his creations" and "The
Creator controls his creations". "The beauty of electricity is that
it is regulated by laws". "The laws of nature, as we understand them,
are the foundation of our knowledge of natural things," he told the
audience in one of his lectures.
According to Mackay, the point is not that the narrative here
should be read literally, but because it should be read for the reason that it
is a revelation of the metaphysical origins of the world, and not as a
primitive guess or an inspirational cryptogram on a scientific question about
cosmology. last.
Collins concludes that he must be a God who cares about petersons
or the moral law argument would not make much sense Collin also notes that God
must be holy and just because the moral law calls him in that direction. There
are also important differences, each person must seek his own particular path
to the truth. After recognizing the bankruptcy of atheism and agnosticism,
Collins spent considerable time trying to discern God's attributes.
[1] https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/michael-faraday.accessed on02/06/2021,8:30a.m.
[2] https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/michael-faraday.accessed on02/06/2021,10a.m.
[3]https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/michael-faraday.accessed on02/06/2021,10:30a.m.
[4] https://www.flatironschool.com/blog/3.accessed on02/06/2021,11:15a.m.
[5] https://www.flatironschool.com/blog/3.accessed on02/06/2021,11:40a.m.
[6] https://royalsociety.org/people/donald-knuth-11764/. Accessed on 02/06/2021, 12:05 p.m.
[7] https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/biographies/Knuth/. Accessed on 02/06/2021,12:30p.m.
[8] Paul Helm's, “Historical Theology: The Contribution of Donald Mackay,” Evangel, Winter (1989): 11.
[9] Marvin McDonald, “Mind and brain, science and religion: Belief and neuroscience in Donald M. Mackay and Roger W. Sperry ,’’ Vol.3 (1996): 205-207.
Francis Collins, Medical Genomics and metabolic Genetics branch, Intramural Research Program https://irp.nih.gov/pi/francis-collins Accessed on 2/6/2021
[11] Catholicsbooksreview.org-2008-collins2. Accessed on 2/6/2021.
0 Comments