My Science School

Alexandre Gustave Eiffel was a French civil engineer. A graduate of École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, he made his name with various bridges for the French railway network, most famously the Garabit viaduct. He is best known for the world-famous Eiffel Tower, designed by his company and built for the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris, and his contribution to building the Statue of Liberty in New York. After his retirement from engineering, Eiffel focused on research into meteorology and aerodynamics, making significant contributions in both fields.

The basic design of the Eiffel Tower was introduced to Eiffel by Eiffel et Compagnie engineers Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier. They imagined “a great pylon, consisting of four lattice girders standing apart at the base and coming together at the top, joined together by metal trusses at regular intervals.”

Eiffel agreed to build upon their vision. He, along with a team of top engineers and architects—including Koechlin, Nouguier, and Stephen Sauvestre, who designed the tower's signature arches—envisioned a three-leveled, 1,063-foot tower made of wrought iron.

In addition to showcasing his engineering skills, Eiffel intended to commemorate the French Revolution with his tower, as the World's Fair would fall 100 years after its onset. Thus, to Eiffel, the edifice was much more than an entrance; it was “an expression of France's gratitude.”

Credit : My Modern Met

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When he was nine years old, American author Robert Lawrence Stine found a typewriter in the attic of his house. Brushing off the cobwebs, he carried it over to his room and started typing out stories and jokes. Bending over the machine, he spent hours typing till his fingers became numb. His mother begged him to go outside and play, but he did not pay heed to her. Spooked? Don't be. This is not a horror story. Stine had simply fallen in love with writing - and he has been writing ever since. Over the last four decades, he has written over 300 children's books teeming with creatures of all kinds from ghosts and ghouls to vampires and demonic ventriloquist's dummies.

The write start

Born on October 8, 1943, in Ohio, Stine enjoyed reading and writing humour stories, but not horror. In fact, Stine did not believe in ghosts or any supernatural creatures, and never even thought of writing about them. He wrote dozens of humour books for kids under the name Jovial Bob Stine and created the humour magazine "Bananas", which ran for 72 issues between 1975 and 1984.

It was only in 1989 when he penned the "Fear Street" stories, which became extremely popular among young adults, that he turned his attention to horror writing. The success of the series presented Stine with an opportunity to write scary stories for seven to 12-year-olds, something not many authors had tried before.

The first four in the "Goosebumps" series did not sell at all. According to Stine's website, the books started gathering dust on the shelves. And just when he started to think that maybe the whole endeavour was a mistake, the sales picked up. Soon, "Goosebumps" became a hit turning Stine into an international celebrity.

F for "Fear Street"

The "Fear Street" series ran for a decade from 1989 to 1999, as Stine stopped writing the series after "Fear Street Seniors". The entire series takes place in the fictitious town of Shadyside and features average teenagers who encounter malignant, sometimes paranormal, adversaries. While some of the Fear Street novels have paranormal elements, such as ghosts, others are simply murder mysteries. These books are far more frightful than the "Goosebumps books.

Sleep with your lights on!

While "Fear Street" is meant for teen readers, "Goosebumps" has been written for a preteen audience. The "Goosebumps" series consists of as many as 62 books, but they can be read in any order. These tales do not focus on adults finding ways to fight off monsters. Instead, children and teenagers are the main characters.

What makes "Goosebumps" fun is the unique mix of horror and humour. These eerie tales are not meant to be taken too seriously. Some of the stories will have you rolling on the floor laughing, while others will unleash your imagination. For instance, in "Say Cheese and Die" saga, a kid finds a family of skeletons doing mundane, everyday activities. These books also contain valuable life lessons for kids. The stories teach us the importance of standing up for what's right and facing our fears. Stories such as "Be Careful What You Wish For..." tell us to not take our lives for granted and to appreciate our flaws.

OH, REALLY?

• To create an eerie atmosphere while he is writing, Stine keeps a mask, a skeleton and a three-foot-long cockroach in his writing studio.
• The Goosebumps Movie", starring Jack Black as RL Stine, was released in 2015.
• In 2014, Stine came out with his first picture book, titled "Little Shop of Monsters Marc Brown of "Arthur fame did the illustrations.

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Neeraj Chopra’s gold medal win at the 2016 IAAF World U20 Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland, was a milestone moment in the future Olympic champion’s career.

With the win, the then 18-year-old Neeraj Chopra became the first Indian track and field athlete to become a world champion in any event and any age level. The win proved to be the platform Neeraj Chopra needed to develop into a global superstar.

Neeraj Chopra has been in possession of the Indian national record in men’s javelin throw since 2016.

The Indian ace first set the senior national record during the 2016 South Asian Games in Guwahati, where he equalled Rajinder Singh’s mark of 82.23m en route to gold.

At the U20 world championships a few months later, he took sole custody and has bettered his own record several times since.

Neeraj Chopra’s best attempt to date came at the Indian Grand Prix 3 in Patiala on March 5, 2021, where he managed his personal best of 88.07m to establish the new national record.

Credit : Olympics.com 

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Neeraj Chopra has become the toast of the nation since he clinched the gold medal in javelin throw at Tokyo 2020. He became the first Indian to win an Olympic medal in track and field.

It also made him the only second individual from India after Abhinav Bindra (Beijing 2008) to clinch gold at the Olympics.

Chopra, 23, etched his name in history books with his best effort of 87.58m in the men's javelin throw final event at Tokyo 2020. His achievement was celebrated across the country and even legends like Nadia Comaneci, legendary former gymnast, congratulated him.

The World Athletics, global governing body for track and field events, also recognised Neeraj's historic achievement at Tokyo 2020 and included the moment in their top 10 magical moments from the Games at Tokyo.

The World Athletics ranked Chopra's gold medal-winning feat at the sixth spot in the 10 magical moments listed from Tokyo 2020.

"Most keen followers of the sport had heard of Neeraj Chopra before the Olympic Games," the global governing body said on its official website.

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Anand, who first earned the nickname of the “Lightning Kid” in India, is known for quick tactical calculations, which he has displayed by winning numerous “speed chess” titles. In 1998 Anand published a collection of his games, Vishy Anand: My Best Games of Chess, which he expanded with new games in 2001.

Anand learned to play chess from his mother when he was 6 years old. By the time he was 14, Anand had won the Indian National Sub-Junior Championship with a perfect score of nine wins in nine games. At age 15 he became the youngest Indian to earn the international master title. The following year, he won the first of three consecutive national championships. At age 17 Anand became the first Asian to win a world chess title when he won the 1987 FIDE World Junior Championship, which is open to players who have not reached their 20th birthday by January 1 of the tournament year. Anand followed up that victory by earning the international grandmaster title in 1988. In 1991 Anand won his first major international chess tournament, finishing ahead of world champion Garry Kasparov and former world champion Anatoly Karpov. For the first time since the American Bobby Fischer abandoned the title in 1975, a non-Russian had emerged as a favourite to become world chess champion.

Anand defended his world champion title in 2013 against Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who won the scheduled 12-game tournament after the tenth game. The next year Anand and Carlsen had a rematch for the world championship, which ended in victory for Carlsen.

Credit : Britannica 

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Michael Fred Phelps was born on June 30, 1985, in Baltimore, Maryland. The youngest of three children, Phelps grew up in the neighborhood of Rodgers Forge. His father, Fred, an all-around athlete, was a state trooper and his mother, Debbie, was a middle-school principal. When Phelps' parents divorced in 1994, he and his sisters lived with their mother, with whom Phelps grew very close.

Phelps began swimming when his two older sisters, Whitney (born 1978) and Hilary (born 1980), joined a local swim team. Whitney tried out for the U.S. Olympic team in 1996, but injuries derailed her career. At age seven, Phelps was still "a little scared" to put his head underwater, so his instructors allowed him to float around on his back. Not surprisingly, the first stroke he mastered was the backstroke.

Phelps became a superstar at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, winning eight medals (including six gold), tying with Soviet gymnast Aleksandr Dityatin (1980) for the most medals in a single Olympic Games.

Phelps scored the first of six gold medals on August 14, when he broke his own world record in the 400-meter individual medley, shaving 0.15 seconds off of his previous mark. He also won gold in the 100-meter butterfly, 200-meter butterfly, 200-meter individual medley, 4-by-200-meter freestyle relay and 4-by-100-meter medley relay). The two events in Athens, in which Phelps took bronze medals, were 200-meter freestyle and the 4-by-100-meter freestyle relay.

Credit : Biography 

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Michael Phelps is an American swimmer who holds the record for the most Olympics medals won by any athlete at 28, including 23 gold medals and 13 individual golds. Phelps competed in his first Olympics at the age of 15, as part of the U.S. men's swim team. He was the first American male swimmer to earn a spot on five Olympic teams and also made history as the oldest individual gold medalist in Olympic swimming history at the age of 28.

Phelps followed his coach to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where Bowman coached the Wolverines' swim team, to study sports marketing and management. Meanwhile, Phelps continued to establish world records at the 2006 Pan Pacific Championships in Victoria, British Columbia, and the 2007 World Championships in Melbourne, Australia.

At the age of 15, Phelps became the youngest American male swimmer to compete at an Olympic Games in 68 years. While he didn't win a medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, he would soon become a major force in competitive swimming.

Credit : Biography 

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With a dominant performance at the 2019 FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships, American gymnast Simone Biles has won an impressive 25 medals at worlds, 19 of which are gold, making her the most decorated gymnast of all time.

Simone first claimed a share of the women's record in 2018, when she matched Russian gymnast Svetlana Khorkina with 20 world medals and surpassed her with a record 14 golds. She quickly widened that margin at the 2019 championships, with a win in the team event. She then took home medals in the all-around and on the vault, tying Belarusian gymnast Vitaly Scherbo for the all-time record with 23 medals at the world championships. She broke that mark on the final day of the competition, when she topped the podium in the balance beam and the floor exercise events, bringing her career total to 25.

Since her senior debut in 2013, Simone has won at least one medal in each of the five individual events at the world championships (balance beam, vault, uneven bars, floor exercise, and all-around), in addition to winning the team event. If you're still struggling to wrap your mind around that (same), keep reading for an event-by-event breakdown.

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After securing two medals at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Simone Biles has made history once again, joining Shannon Miller as the most decorated American in the history of Olympic gymnastics. So, just how many Olympic medals has Biles won? The answer is staggering.

Although Biles had only competed at one Olympics before, her medal count coming into Tokyo was higher than most gymnasts get in their entire career. At the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, Biles won five Olympic medals: four gold and one bronze. These included three individual gold medals for floor exercise, vault, and the all-around competition; one gold medal in the team event; and one individual bronze medal for balance beam, where she finished behind Dutch gymnast Sanne Wevers and "Final Five" teammate Laurie Hernandez. That's one medal for every event in which she competed, excluding only the uneven bars.

In winning those four gold medals, Biles set an American record for the most gold medals won by a woman gymnast in a single Olympic Games. She also joined teammate Gabby Douglas as one of only two American women to win both the individual all-around and the team gold at the same Olympics.

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At the age of 17, she won the Asian Junior Championships.

She finished as runner-up in the 2010 Iran Fajr International Badminton Challenge, and reached the quarterfinals of 2010 Junior World Badminton Championships in Mexico. At the age of 17, she won the Asian Junior Championships.

In 2013, she bagged her first Grand Prix win by defeating Singapore’s Gu Juan. At The World Championships in 2013, Sindhu won a bronze medal and repeated the feat the following year too.

After becoming the first Indian woman to win a silver medal at the Olympics and gold at the BWF World Championships, PV Sindhu added another piece of metal to her glittering cabinet by winning her second straight Olympic medal - a bronze at Tokyo 2020, thus becoming the first Indian sportswoman to win two Olympic medals.

PV Sindhu’s consistency at the highest level can somewhat be attributed to the sporting genes she inherited from her parents. Born July 5, 1995, in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh to parents who were both volleyball players at the national level, sport already coursed through PV Sindhu’s veins since she was born.

While her parents may have been volleyball players, badminton caught PV Sindhu’s fancy after watching Pullela Gopichand in action, and by the age of eight, she was a regular at the sport.

Credit : Biography 

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In April 2007, Sindhu had achieved a career high world ranking of 2. She had broken into the top 20 of the world rankings at the age of 17 in September 2012. 

Sindhu made her international debut in 2009 at The Sub-Junior Asian Badminton Championships and announced her arrival in the badminton circuit with a bronze medal in her first international competition.

She finished as runner-up in the 2010 Iran Fajr International Badminton Challenge and reached the quarterfinals of the 2010 Junior World Badminton Championships in Mexico. At the age of 17, she won the Asian Junior Championships. 

She finished as runner-up in the 2010 Iran Fajr International Badminton Challenge, and reached the quarterfinals of 2010 Junior World Badminton Championships in Mexico. At the age of 17, she won the Asian Junior Championships.

In 2013, she bagged her first Grand Prix win by defeating Singapore’s Gu Juan. At The World Championships in 2013, Sindhu won a bronze medal and repeated the feat the following year too.

In the same year, she was awarded the Arjuna Award, one of the highest honorus for any sportsperson in India.

She competed in Commonwealth Games in 2014, where she reached the semi-finals after losing to Michelle Li of Canada. She became the first Indian to win two back-to-back medals in the BWF World Badminton Championships after her bronze medal finish in 2014 BWF World Championships.

In October 2015 she reached the final of Denmark Open by defeating three seeded players, Tai Tzu-Ying, Wang Yihan, and Carolina Marin, but lost to defending champion Li Xuerui. In November, she won her third successive women's singles title at the Macau Open Grand Prix Gold.

The biggest moment of Sindhu’s career came in the year 2016 when she went on to become the youngest and the first female athlete from India to win a silver medal at Rio Olympics. She was graced with India's 4th highest civilian honour, The Padma Shri Award, later that year.

In 2017, Sindhu won The Indian Open Super Series and later added a silver medal at The BWF World Championships. After reaching the final of the 2018 World Championships, she became the first shuttler in the world to reach the finals of three successive major events.

However, the gold medal remained elusive and she had to settle for a silver each time.

Under the tutelage of coach Pullela Gopichand, the ace shuttler reached the 6th rank of the Badminton World Federation.

In 2018 Sindhu made it to the top 4 of the All England open, before losing to world No.3 Akane Yamaguchi in the semifinal

Sindhu competed at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, winning gold in the mixed team event and a silver medal in the women's singles event.

Sindhu in the 2018 World Championships won her second consecutive silver medal and her total fourth. On 16 December 2018, Sindhu made history by becoming the first Indian to win the season-ending BWF World Tour Finals tournament in Guangzhou, China.

With earnings of $8.5 million, Sindhu was ranked seventh in Forbes' list of Highest-Paid Female Athletes 2018 based on earnings from prize money and endorsements between June 2017 to June 2018.

Sindhu clinched the silver title in Asian Games 2018 after losing to world number one Tai Tzu-Ying in Jakarta. Sindhu clinched a historic silver medal in Women's Singles Badminton event as she became the first Indian to finish second on the podium in the Asian Games.

Sindhu was brought by the defending champions Hyderabad Hunters in the PBL auctions 2018 and was named as their skipper. She led the team to semi-finals, where they lost to Mumbai Rockets.

Sindhu then reached the quarterfinals of Indonesia Masters, 2019 where she lost to Carolina Marin in two consecutive games.

The biggest disappointment for Sindhu turned out to be her loss in the very first round of the All England Open 2019 to Sung Ji Hyun of Korea in a thriller match.

Credit : Business Standard

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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the philosopher and feminist activist Mary Wollstonecraft.

Shelley's mother died less than a month after giving birth to her. She was raised by her father, who provided her with a rich if informal education, encouraging her to adhere to his own anarchist political theories. When she was four, her father married a neighbour, Mary Jane Clairmont, with whom Shelley came to have a troubled relationship.

In 1814, Shelley began a romance with one of her father's political followers, Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was already married. Together with her stepsister, Claire Clairmont, she and Percy left for France and travelled through Europe. Upon their return to England, Shelley was pregnant with Percy's child. Over the next two years, she and Percy faced ostracism, constant debt and the death of their prematurely born daughter. They married in late 1816, after the suicide of Percy Shelley's first wife, Harriet.

In 1816, the couple and Mary's stepsister famously spent a summer with Lord Byron and John William Polidori near Geneva, Switzerland, where Shelley conceived the idea for her novel Frankenstein. The Shelleys left Britain in 1818 for Italy, where their second and third children died before Shelley gave birth to her last and only surviving child, Percy Florence Shelley. In 1822, her husband drowned when his sailing boat sank during a storm near Viareggio. A year later, Shelley returned to England and from then on devoted herself to the upbringing of her son and a career as a professional author. The last decade of her life was dogged by illness, most likely caused by the brain tumour which killed her at age 53.

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Anne Frank was born in the German city of Frankfurt am Main in 1929. Anne’s sister Margot was three years her senior. Unemployment was high and poverty was severe in Germany, and it was the period in which Adolf Hitler and his party were gaining more and more supporters. Hitler hated the Jews and blamed them for the problems in the country. He took advantage of the rampant antisemitic sentiments in Germany. The hatred of Jews and the poor economic situation made Anne's parents, Otto and Edith Frank, decide to move to Amsterdam. There, Otto founded a company that traded in pectin, a gelling agent for making jam.

Anne Frank was born in the German city of Frankfurt am Main in 1929. Anne’s sister Margot was three years her senior. Unemployment was high and poverty was severe in Germany, and it was the period in which Adolf Hitler and his party were gaining more and more supporters. Hitler hated the Jews and blamed them for the problems in the country. He took advantage of the rampant antisemitic sentiments in Germany. The hatred of Jews and the poor economic situation made Anne's parents, Otto and Edith Frank, decide to move to Amsterdam. There, Otto founded a company that traded in pectin, a gelling agent for making jam.

The Nazis took things further, one step at the time. Jews had to start wearing a Star of David on their clothes and there were rumours that all Jews would have to leave the Netherlands. When Margot received a call-up to report for a so-called ‘labour camp’ in Nazi Germany on 5 July 1942, her parents were suspicious. They did not believe the call-up was about work and decided to go into hiding the next day in order to escape persecution.  

In the spring of 1942, Anne’s father had started furnishing a hiding place in the annex of his business premises at Prinsengracht 263. He received help from his former colleagues. Before long, they were joined by four more people. The hiding place was cramped. Anne had to keep very quiet and was often afraid. 

Anne started rewriting her diary, but before she was done, she and the other people in hiding were discovered and arrested by police officers on 4 August 1944. The police also arrested two of the helpers. To this day, we do not know the reason for the police raid.

Despite the raid, part of Anne’s writing was preserved: two other helpers took the documents before the Secret Annex was emptied by order of the Nazis. 

Credit : Anne Frank house

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One of the most celebrated poets and storytellers of the 20th century, Kipling remains the youngest recipient of Nobel Prize in Literature (1907). He was 41 at the time.

Born to John Lockwood Kipling and Alice Kipling in Bombay, the writer spent the first few years of his life in India.

In his autobiography, Something of Myself for my Friends Known and Unknown, Kipling described his earliest memories of India.

“My first impression is of daybreak, light and colour and golden and purple fruits at the level of my shoulder. This would be the memory of early morning walks to the Bombay fruit market with my ayah and later with my sister in her perambulator, and of our returns with our purchases piled high on the bows of it,” wrote Kipling.

In 1871, Kipling’s parents sent him to England to begin his schooling. Accompanied by his sister Beatrice, he was sent to a boarding house. The siblings spent the next six years there, which they called “The Desolation House”.

After he finished his school education, Kipling returned to Bombay (now Mumbai) on 18 October 1882.

The writer described the moment thus: “So, at sixteen years and nine months, but looking four or five years older, and adorned with real whiskers which the scandalised Mother abolished within one hour of beholding, I found myself at Bombay where I was born, moving among sights and smells that made me deliver in the vernacular sentences whose meaning I knew not. Other Indian-born boys have told me how the same thing happened to them.”

Kipling started working as a journalist at the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore. He referred to the gazette as the “mistress and most true love”.

During these years, he published the Plain Tales from the Hills and Departmental Ditties, his first major collection of poems.

In 1888, Kipling moved to Allahabad to work with The Pioneer.

Several of his works like The Phantom ‘Rickshaw and Other Tales, The Story of the Gadsbys, Soldiers Three, Under the Deodars, and Wee Willie Winkie and Other Child Stories were published during this period.

He then decided to move to England to pursue writing full time.

India remained an inspiration to Kipling for his works. However, in post-colonial India, Kipling is seen as an imperialist, especially by nationalists who saw racism in much of his writing. Several other writers, including George Orwell, too disapproved of his political views.

Credit : The Print 

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Author Christopher Paolini not only writes about fantasy, he lives it. When he was a mere fifteen years old, he penned a sweeping epic called Eragon, which was eventually discovered by a New York publisher—and by thousands of readers. In 2003 the book nestled comfortably on bestseller lists, and by 2004 a movie based on the magnificent tale of a boy and a brilliant blue dragon was poised to take flight. Paolini was also hard at work writing the second and third installments in the Inheritance trilogy. In a teenreads.com interview, the author and boy wonder promised fans that future books would include the same "breathtaking locations, thrilling battles, and searching introspection as Eragon—in addition to true love."

In 1984, when Christopher Paolini was born, his mother, Talita, quit her job as a Montessori preschool teacher to devote her time to raising her new son. Montessori is a system of learning developed by Italian educator Maria Montessori (1870–1952); some of its features include a focus on individual instruction and an early development of writing skills. Talita used the Montessori method to teach Christopher at home, and two years later when sister Angela came along, she, too, became part of the Paolini classroom. Since some of the materials in a Montessori school are expensive, Talita experimented and came up with creative alternatives to inspire and educate her children. She was so successful that by the time Christopher, and later Angela, turned three years old, they were both comfortably working at a first-grade level.

When Christopher was old enough to attend public school, his parents were worried that he would be bored by a traditional curriculum, so they thought long and hard and decided to educate him at home. In fact, focusing on their children was such a top priority that the Paolinis made a deliberate choice to live simply, drawing small salaries from Kenneth Paolini's home-based publishing company. In interviews Paolini has talked about the nurturing environment his parents created for him, and he credits them for being his inspiration. He has also admitted that he was not always a receptive student. A particularly interesting note is that Paolini was a reluctant reader. When he was about three or four, he refused to learn to read, but his mother worked patiently with him until one day a door opened that would change his life.

Credit : Encyclopedia 

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