Physicist / Astronomer Stamps

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    Daguerre Louis Jacques Mande (1787-1851) France


French physicist, author, painter, inventor. Born November 18, 1787 in Cormeilles en Paris, France, he invented the daguerrotype photograph, 1839. He died July 12, 1851 in Paris, France. - France 374 Grenada-Grenadines 8748




    1912 Nobel Physics prize for his invention of automatic regulators for use in conjunction with gas accumulators for illuminating lighthouses and buoys


  • Davis Raymond Jr. (1914-) USA


    2002 Nobel Physics for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos




    1937 Nobel Physics prize for the experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals



  • Debye Peter Josephus Wilhelmus

(in Dutch: Petrus Josephus Wilhelmus Debije)

b. March 24, 1884, Maastricht, The Netherlands

d. November 2, 1966, Ithaka, NY, U.S.A.




Known as the "Master of the Molecule" because of his pioneering work in molecular structure, Peter J.W. Debye was born in Maastricht, Holland, March 24, 1884, son of Wilhelmus and Maria Reumkens Dibje. Debye was an Dutch-American physicist greatly contributed to the theory of electrolyte solutions. He also studied dipole moments of molecules, advanced knowledge of the arrangement of atoms in molecules and of the distances between the atoms. In 1916 he showed that solid substances could be used in powdered form for X-ray study of their crystal structures, thus eliminating the difficult step of first preparing good crystals. In 1935 Debye became professor of physics at University of Berlin and director of the Kaiser Wilhelm (now Max Planck) Institute for Physics in Berlin-Dahlem. Debye won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1936, "for his contributions to our knowledge of molecular structure through his investigations on dipole moments and on the diffraction of X-rays and electrons in gases". In 1938 the Nazi government began to insist that Debye give up his Dutch citizenship and become a German citizen to continue as director of the Institute of Physics. He refused and left Germany for Italy, shortly afterwards finally taking up residence in the United States. He came to the U.S.A. two months before the German invasion of his native country (1940), and went to Ithaca, N.Y., U.S.A., where he had been invited to deliver the Baker Lectures at Cornell UniversityIn April 1966 he suffered a heart attack, and in November of that year a second, which proved fatal. Debye died on November 2, 1966, and was buried on Pleasant Grove Cemetery, Cayuga Heights, Tompkins County, New York, U.S.A.


    1937 Chemistry prize





    1989 Nobel Physics prize for the invention of the separated oscillatory fields method and its use in the hydrogen maser and other atomic clocks



  • Democritus of Abdera


Born: about 460 BC in Abdera, Thrace, Greece

Died: about 370 BC



  • Descartes Rene (1596 – 1650)


Born: 8 Aug 1902 in Bristol, Gloucestershire, England
Died: 20 Oct 1984 in Tallahassee, Florida, USA




1933 Nobel Physics prize for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory: His theory of quantum mechanics was broad enough to encompass both wave and matrix mechanics. From purely mathematical considerations, he concluded that the electron could exist in two energy states, positive or negative, and hence that there should exist its antiparticle with a positive charge. Such a particle, the positron, was discovered in 1932 from cloud chamber photographs, where in a magnetic field the tracks of particles of opposite charges curve in opposite directions, as on this Swedish stamp. Since then other particles of antimatter have been observed, each having its corresponding mirror particle. By combining quantum mechanics with the special theory of relativity, Dirac was also able to explain the spin of the electron

Bioghraphy


  • Divis Vaclac Prokop (1698-1765) Czech natural scientist



In Europe, the original lightning rod was invented contemporaneously with but independently of Benjamin Franklin by the Czech theologian and natural scientist Vaclav Prokop Divis (1698-1765). Divis studied and experimented with atmospheric electricity. He attempted to draw electricity from clouds and built a working lightning conductor, the first to offer actual protection, in 1753.




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Biographies of Physicists and Astronomers