My Science School

Pablo Picasso has been called the greatest artist of the 20th Century. He was born on October 25, 1881 in Malaga, Spain to a respectable, middle-class family. His father Don Jose Blasco was a museum curator and painter who introduced Pablo to the world of art. He got Pablo enrolled in Madrid’s Royal Academy of San Fernando at the age of 16. At the age of 20, Pablo had his first major exhibition in Paris on June 24, 1901.

The exhibition kick-started Picasso’s career. He put in all his efforts to make it a success. He is believed to have produced as many as two canvases per day for the exhibition in a bid to display his full range and diversity as an artist. The exhibition included around 75 works, which touched on many of the subjects and themes he would explore in his later works - landscapes, street scenes, self-portraits and also portraits of society.

One of the most notable pieces on display was a self-portrait titled ‘Yo, Picasso’ or ‘I, Picasso’. It is an oil painting depicting Picasso at the age of 19 and appeared first in the exhibition catalogue. It was sold at a price of 47.9 million dollars in 1989 making it the most expensive painting ever to be sold!

Picasso dominated modern European art for nearly 50 years. He is the co-inventor of the modern art movement called cubism. Cubism depicts radically fragmented objects in a two-dimensional plane, rejecting the traditional techniques of perspective. Picasso produced more than 1, 47,800 pieces of art during his lifetime. When he died at the age of 91 on April 8, 1973, he was the richest artist in the world!

Before the era of forensics, one could (theoretically) only rely on detectives like Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot to solve murders. However, modern forensics has replaced conjecture and scientific evidence, when produced in a court of law, can prove any crime with very little room left for doubt.

The first time a crime was solved using forensic evidence was in New Zealand, in the case of William Bayly who was charged with the murder of Samuel Lakey on January 10, 1934.

On 16 October 1933 neighbours alerted the police of the disappearance of dairy farmers Sam and Christabel Lakey. Upon arrival at the farm, the police discovered Christabel’s body in a duck pond and Samuel still missing. Blood stains found on the property led the police to believe that Samuel must have been shot and disposed of. Soon William Bayly, another dairy farmer who lived nearby was picked up for questioning. Although Bayly protested that he was innocent right till the end, evidence found at his farm proved otherwise.

Police found fragments of Lakey’s bone and hair in a drum containing charred remains, on Bayly’s property. The police suspected that he had killed Christabel by drowning her in the pond and disposed of Samuel’s body by burning it. Upon arrest, Bayly insisted that the remains found in the drum were animal remains but forensic scientists went to great lengths to establish the body as Sam Lakey’s. They cremated a calf in a similar drum and conducted tests on the original hair and bone fragments which proved that they were human in origin.

On June 23 in 1934, Bayly was convicted and sentenced to death. The police forensics involved in the Bayly case set new standards and the verdict which was based on forensic evidence alone, set a new precedent in crime detection thereafter.

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International Business Machines (IBM) is a multinational computer technology and IT consulting corporation based in New York, USA. IBM resulted from the amalgamation of several companies that previously worked to automate routine business transactions, including the first companies to build punched card-based data tabulating machines. These companies amalgamated into the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) and began operations on June 16, 1911.

In 1924 the company changed its name to ‘International Business Machines’ or IBM. Nicknamed ‘Big Blue’, IBM began exploring electric typewriters and other office machines. Its first experiments with computers began in the 1940s and 1950s and were modest advances on the card-based system.

Its leap forward came in the 1960s with its System/360 family of mainframe Computers. However, by the late 1980s and early 1990s IBM losses exceeded $8 billion.

After a series of reorganizations, IBM has reinvented itself as one of the world’s largest computer companies and systems integrators. IBM holds more patents than any other US based Technology Company and has twelve research laboratories world-wide.

It has scientists, engineers, consultants, and sales professionals in over 175 countries and its employees have earned 5 Nobel Prizes, 4 Turing Awards, 5 National Medals of Technology and 5 National Medals of Science.

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The Pioneer 10 spacecraft holds a unique place in space history. It has a series of firsts to its credit unmatched by any other spacecraft in the space era. Launched on March 3, 1972, its mission was to study the asteroid belt and Jupiter. Initially planned for only 21 months of operations (which is the time it would take to reach Jupiter and study it) the Pioneer continued to send signals to earth for 31 years!

Among its remarkable feats is the speed it achieved following lift-off. Pioneer 10 achieved a breakaway speed of 52,142.7 kmph, making it the fastest human-made object ever to leave the Earth. It passed the moon in 11 hours and crossed Mars’ orbit in 12 weeks. When it reached Jupiter on December 3, 1973, it was moving at an incredible speed of 1, 31,966 kmph.

It became the first spacecraft to pass through the asteroid belt on July 15, 1972, which was described as a ‘spectacular achievement’ by NASA. Upon reaching Jupiter, Pioneer 10 sent back the first direct observations and close-up images of the solar system’s largest planet. It became the first human-made object to leave the central Solar System on June 13, 1983.

It continued to send back valuable data until 1997. The spacecraft’s last transmission was on April 27, 2002 and NASA’s Deep Space Network received a final, faint signal January 23, 2003.

According to NASA engineers its radioisotope power source had decayed, leaving it without the required power to send additional transmissions to Earth.

Even though we lost contact with Pioneer 10, it continues its endless journey through interstellar space. It’s headed in the general direction of Aldebaran, the brightest star in constellation Taurus.

According to NASA, it will take about 2 million years for Pioneer 10 to reach Taurus.

Should an advanced alien civilization find the Pioneer 10 spacecraft, it carries a plaque providing information about its creators and where it originated. This plaque also pinpoints its year of launch.

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The mechanical computer or ‘difference engine’ was first proposed on June 14, 1882 by Charles Babbage at a lecture in the Royal Astronomical Society of London.

Babbage’s difference engine is a mechanical calculator that evaluates polynomial functions and is the forerunner of the modern-day computer. The name ‘difference engine’ comes from the method of divided differences, a way to interpolate functions by using a small set of polynomial coefficients. Most mathematical functions commonly used by engineers, scientists and navigators can be approximated by polynomials. A difference engine is able to compute many useful tables of numbers.

Babbage envisioned the concept of a digital, programmable computer and is regarded as one of the creators of ideas that are fundamental to the principles of computing. He is considered by many to be the father of computers.

Although the difference engine could not be completed by Babbage, in 1991 a working difference engine was constructed using Babbage’s plans, proving that his designs would have worked. Babbage’s design for the difference engine and his later analytical engine inspired future designs of working mechanical computers.

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Many things have changed on earth-coastlines have disappeared, rainforests have been razed, rivers have been re-channelled and mountains have been dynamited. The one feature that has withstood the test of time is Mount Everest, the highest mountain on the planet.

Ever since Everest was confirmed to be the highest point on earth, climbers have dreamt of conquering it. The British were the first to attempt to climb it. After several unsuccessful missions, on May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first mountaineers to successfully reach the summit of Mount Everest.

At 8,849 m above sea level, Everest is situated in the Himalayas and lies at the border between Nepal and Tibet. Both Hillary and Norgay were part of British army officer John Hunt’s expedition and reached the highest point on Earth in the morning at 11:30 am on May 29. Norgay was one of the most experienced climbers in Hunt’s team as he had attempted to reach the summit before with a Swiss team. They spent only 15 minutes atop Everest and Hilary clicked some of the most iconic pictures taken atop the peak.

Edmund Hillary and John Hunt were both knighted by Queen Elizabeth and Norgay was awarded the George Medal for the remarkable feat.

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Raja Ram Mohan Roy is considered one of the pioneers of the Indian Renaissance Movement which took place in the 18th and 19th centuries. At that time Indian society had a number of practices that went against the welfare of women and backward classes, such as the practice of sati (immolation of the widow at the death of her husband), child marriage and the caste system.

Roy was born in Radhanagar, Hooghly, and Bengal Presidency on May 22, 1772 to an orthodox Bengali Hindu family. He learned Sanskrit, Persian, English, Arabic, Latin and Greek and wished to become a monk at a young age. However, his parents strongly opposed this idea and he was married at the age of 9. He grew up to become a great scholar, administrator, politician and author, but is remembered primarily as a great social reformer.

2022 marks 250 years since the birth of Raja Ram Mohan Roy. His extensive study of the major religions of the world and his observations helped him to develop a rational and logical outlook to life. He was against superstitions, blind faith and black magic. He criticized idol worship and devoted his life to religious, political and social reforms. He is the founder of the Brahmo Samaj (1823), which promoted the brotherhood of man and condemned social evils prevalent at that time.

Roy was bestowed with the title of Raja by Akbar Il, the Mughal emperor. At the request of the emperor, Roy went to England to promote the ban of sati system in India. After campaigning against sati, Roy launched campaigns against child marriage, the dowry system and polygamy. He encouraged inter-caste marriages, women’s education and widow re-marriage. As a result of his efforts sati was abolished in 1833.

He started India’s first English medium school in 1816 and launched the first newspaper in an Indian language – Sambad Kaumudi. He published the journal Mirat-ul-Akbar in Persian in 1822. He died of meningitis in Stapleton near Bristol, England on September 27, 1833. He was buried at Stapleton Groves and in 1843 was re-buried at the Arnos Vale Cemetery in Bristol, where his mausoleum still stands.

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Amidst the COVID pandemic, the COVID vaccine has become mandatory for citizens in many countries. Vaccination drives have saved countless lives so far and will continue to do so. Did you ever wonder who invented the first vaccine?

It was a physician named Edward Jenner who was born on May 17, 1749 in Berkeley, England. In Jenner’s time smallpox killed nearly 20 per cent of the population.

Jenner knew that if a person who had already been infected by smallpox survived, that person could not be re-infected. At that time some physicians were deliberately introducing the smallpox virus in healthy candidates for them to contract a milder form of the disease and thus be protected. This practice was called variolation. The problem with this practice was that there was a chance that the candidate could get a severe form of the disease and die from variolation.

At this time Jenner was studying to be a surgeon in Sodbury, Bristol. He overheard a dairymaid say to her friend that she could not get smallpox as she had recovered from cowpox. Cowpox is a viral disease contracted from cattle. This set Jenner thinking. In May, 1796, he found a dairymaid with fresh cowpox lesions on her hand and introduced some of the matter from her lesions into the hand of a healthy 8-year-old boy - James Phipps. The boy developed mild symptoms and later showed immunity to smallpox.

Jenner decided to call this new procedure vaccination because ‘vacca’ means cow in Latin and cowpox is vaccinia in Latin. With the discovery of this new procedure scientists began developing vaccines for many other diseases like diphtheria, tetanus and rabies.

Jenner is regarded as the father of immunology and it is believed that his work has saved more lives than the work of any other human. Almost two centuries after Jenner invented the first vaccine, the 33rd World Health Assembly declared the world free of smallpox on May 8, 1980. This year we celebrate the 42nd anniversary of this medical milestone.

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World War II began in 1939 with the German invasion of Poland. It was a global war that lasted for 5 years till 1945. It was fought by Allied powers - mainly Great Britain, the United States, France and the Soviet Union; and Axis powers - mainly Germany, Italy and Japan.

It involved more than 1000 million people from 30 countries and is regarded as one of the deadliest conflicts in human history. It resulted in 85 million deaths due to genocide, deprivation, armed conflict and disease.

Germany was a pivotal player in World War II and began its sinister agenda of world domination by invading Poland on September 1, 1939. In response Great Britain and France declared war on Germany. The German armed forces were the best in the world in 1939 and due to advanced mechanization and their strategy of blitzkrieg or “lightning war” they were able to launch a systematic attack against the Allies.

On 22 June 1941, Germany led an invasion of the Soviet Union. In the meantime Japan was at war with China and attacked American and British territories including an attack on Pearl Harbour. This forced the US to declare war against Japan. Germany however, underestimated the Soviet Union which strategically retreated into their vast terrain and wore out the German army. The battle of Stalingrad sealed the fate of the Germans and the destruction of their 6th Army.

This defeat at the hands of the Soviets, along with the opening up of a western front by the Allies in 1944, eventually forced Germany to surrender on May 7, 1945.

However, due to the vast scale of the war which involved troops from every part of the world, the war ended in two stages. The second stage involved the surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945 after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The official surrender of Japan is generally recognised as the final, official end of the Second World War.

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