GIANTS OF SCIENCE.

Shannon News, 26 February 1924, Page 4

GIANTS OF SCIENCE.

THE GREATEST TEN. WHAT HAVE THEY DONE. Professor J. Arthur Thomson, of the University of Aberdeen, has published his list of the ten greatest scientists, and he is as good a judge as could be found. "What I mean by a great scientist," he says, "is one who in his time has made the world new, one who has opened the gates and let in a flood of knowledge that has changed everything." The names and what they did are as follows: 1. Aristotle.—He was the first real scientist, the first to study animals and plants experimentally, and he wrote a book on animals which today after a lapse of 2000 years, may be studied with profit. All the information in that book was discovered by himself, for no other books on zoology then existed; and this was only a part o.f his scientific work. _ -2. Galileo.—He discovered one of the great laws of motion, and earned the title of "Father of Mechanics." Before his time people supposed that heavy weights fell faster than light weights. Galileo climbed to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and let two bodies of different weights fall to the ground, and both struck simultaneously. But his greatest discovery was that the earth revolves around the sun instead of the sun around the earth. This discovery caused him a lot of

trouble, but gave him a place among the elect. 3. Newton. —Besides his three laws of motion, he discovered the law of gravitation. 4. William Harvey.—His discovery of the circulation of blood gave rise the science of physiology, with all the benifits the human race has derived therefiom. _ - 5. Lavoisier.—A Frenchman, he discovered the law of the conservation of matter, and he demonstrated that m all changes through which matter goes nothing is ever created or lost. When coal is burned, for example, the smoke, ashes and escaping gas weigh exactly as much as the coal. Modern chemistry is founded upon Lavoisier's discoveries. 6.Helmhelst is ranked sixth on ac. count of his discovery of the law of the conservation of energy, which means that one kind of power can be changed into another kind, but that no part of the power is ever created or lost. 7. Micheal Faraday is given a place among the ten because of his practical discoveries in electricity, from which have come the telephone, telegraph and many other great utilities. 8. Claud© Bernard comes next, whose experiments on the ductless glands of the body may result in revolutionising methods of treating certain kinds of diseases. He learned that dwarfism and gaintism are diseases caused by abnormal secretions of, the pituitary glands. 9. Darwin, of course, belongs among the ten. Prior to his time mankind believed that the human race "de- , scended" from a perfect pair of par-. | ents, but Darwin taught the "ascent of man." He did not discover or. invent evolution, but by a review of the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms showed it to be the way the Guiding Hand of the universe works. In thousands of ways mankind has. benefited by Darwin's work. As the result of his showing that new species can be created out of older species. Dr. Charles E. Sanders, in 1903, crossed red fife and red Calcutta —two species of • cereals —and produced Marquis wheat from which upwards ) of 300,000,000 bushels were threshed in 1918.

10. The list would nat be complete without Pasteur, the man who saved a millioni lives. For our knowledge of disease germs and for the serums and vaccines with which their ravages are minimised: for pasteurised milk and the infants it has saved; for adding fifteen years to the average life of civilised human beings, and for giving us practical immunity from typhoid and hydrophobia mankind has Pasteur to thank. ■ ...