Born between peace and terror

Eminent physicist Albert Einstein was born in the year 1879. Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of peace, was born in 1869 and Adolf Hitler, the epitome of terror, in 1889. Hence the expression that Einstein was born between peace and terror.

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The German physicist who discovered X-rays

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was a German physicist. In 1895 he was working with cathode rays when he discovered a different kind of electromagnetic radiation. Since the radiation was unknown at that time, he called it the X-rays. He received the first Nobel Prize in physics in 1901 for this discovery.

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When Galileo measured time by his own pulse beat

It is said that Galileo Galilei determined the time taken by a pendulum to swing and complete one cycle by comparing its swing to his own pulse beat. He did this one day by observing the bronze chandelier in the Cathedral of Pizza when it started swinging due to a storm. He found that his pulse beat did not reduce even if the swing of the pendulum reduced.

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Concomitance between the life of Newton and Galileo

Both in respect of his laws of motion and law of gravitation, Newton got a platform which was already built by many stalwarts, the most conspicuous among them being Galileo. Thus, it is an interesting coincidence that Newton was born in the same year 1642 in which Galileo died. Galileo died on 8 January and Newton was born on 25 December.

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On whose memorial tomb is the famous equation ‘S=klnΩ’ written?

Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann was an Austrian physicist and philosopher whose greatest achievement was the development of statistical thermodynamics. The formula S=klnΩ engraved on his memorial tombstone connects entropy with the natural logarithm of thermodynamic probability. The proportionality constant k is called the Boltzmann’s constant. He committed suicide on 5 September 1906.

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