Science Breakthroughs
The messages in this area focus on scientific breakthroughs that come from unlikely sources.
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The Big Bang Theory
Arno Penzias was born in Germany in 1933 to Jewish parents. His family was rounded up and deported to Poland. They were returned to Germany, but he and his brother were sent to England. Eventually, his parents were able to get to England and sail to America. Arno...
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Fruits/Vegetables/Flowers
Luther Burbank, born in rural Massachusetts in 1849, grew up under the long shadow of the Great Famine in Ireland, a famine that killed a million people and led millions more to emigrate from Ireland. The Great Famine began with a blight that infected Ireland’s...
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Mathematics/Physics Breakthroughs
Emmy Noether was born to a Jewish family in Erlangen, Germany, in 1882. Her father was a professor of mathematics at the University of Erlangen. She passed exams in French and English, qualifying her to embark on a teaching career at girls’ schools in Germany. She...
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The Start of Wi-Fi
Hedwig Kiesler was born in Vienna, Austria. She and her father often took long walks where they would talk about the inner workings of different technologies. She also learned an appreciation of the arts from her mother who was a concert pianist. Eventually, the...
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Continental Drift
Alfred Wegener was born in 1880 in Germany. He was a versatile science student with interests in physics, meteorology, and astronomy. He earned a Ph.D. in astronomy. Alfred and his brother had an interest in the weather patterns in Polar Regions. He made frequent...
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The Discovery of Pulsars
Jocelyn (Bell) Burnell was born in Northern Ireland in 1943. Her father was an architect and one of his design projects became the stimulus for Jocelyn’s career. Her father was working on the Armagh Planetarium and Jocelyn would go with him on his visits. The...
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Biology of Hatred and Empathy
Emile Bruneau’s mother was schizophrenic. This led to a career in neuroscience. With a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Stanford and a Ph.D. from Michigan in neuroscience, he initially hoped to study his mother’s condition, but his interests changed. What fascinated...
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