5 Amazing Inventions By Physicists We Use Every Day

Did you know that one of the first video games was invented by a physicist? Why do you have to put your bags through a machine when you enter airport? In this post, we will look at five simple or somewhat complicated inventions by physicists that are used in daily life.

Although, from Wi-Fi to smart TV - physics is everywhere around us in the form of modern technology. The following are inventions we rarely talk about, or are thankful for, despite making use of them on regular basis.

1. Lever

Archimedes said, “Give me a firm place to stand and a lever and I can move the Earth." That was never tested but a lever is put to use in many forms today: Stapler, a pair of scissors and seesaw. There are different classes of levers:

a) Class I lever is when fulcrum is between load and effort. Example: Seesaw.

b) Class II lever is when load is between fulcrum and effort. Example: Door.

c) Class III lever is when effort is between fulcrum and load. Example: Stapler.

2. Video games

Physics has had an important impact in the early development of video games. In 1958, physicist William Higinbotham created what is thought to be the first video game. It was called Tennis For Two, a very simple game that shaped the history of computer games.

3. Electric generator

Physicist Michael Faraday invented the first electric motor in 1821. Shortly after, Faraday invented the electric generator, based on electromagnetic induction discovered by him. This is used to generate electrical power - which in turn is used to run electrical appliances.

When Faraday first presented induction, he was asked by some politician or reporter: What use is it in the practical world? To this Faraday replied, What use is a newborn baby?

4. Battery

While Faraday invented a way to generate electrical power by fluctuating magnetic fields, another physicist Alessandro Volta had invented a way to store electrical power in 1800. In honor of Volta, the SI unit of electric potential is called Volt. Today, almost all the toys that children play with use batteries.

5. X-ray

Some say that Nikola Tesla discovered x-rays by accident. Others credit Wilhelm Roentgen for inventing a way to generate x-rays in 1895. Whatever the case may be, did you know that x-rays are not only used in healthcare but also in the security industry? Every time your luggage passes through a security machine, an officer can see what is inside your bags.

How Rutherford Became Father of Nuclear Physics

"It is JUST AS surprising - as if a gunner fired a shell at a single sheet of paper and for some reason or other, the projectile BOUNCED BACK."

This is how New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford described the result of alpha particle scattering experiment - conducted by his students Geiger and Marsden.

Introduction

Geiger and Marsden aimed high speed alpha particles at a very thin gold foil - it was only 1000 atoms thick. Around the gold foil was a zinc sulphide screen which glowed every time alpha particles would hit it.

If Thomson's plum pudding model of atom were correct, the fast moving and relatively heavier alpha particles would have passed straight thought the target, since electric field generated by evenly distributed charge is very minimal.

But the experiment revealed that a few alpha particles were deflected by small angles, while 1 in 20,000 particles got deviated by angle greater than 90 degrees.

Rutherford set out to explain these unusual findings by creating a new model of atom, because Thomson's model had failed.

Early life and career 

Ernest Rutherford [1871-1937] was a multi-talented student who did phenomenally well in mathematics, catching everyone's attention at his school as a consequence.

He won the scholarship to study at Canterbury College, University of New Zealand, where he participated not only in the lab but also in the debating society.

Rutherford was the head boy in college and played the rugged sport of rugby. He completed three degrees in this college - ba, ma and bsc.

Thereafter, he travelled to England in order to study under the guidance of J. J. Thomson at the Cambridge University. Rutherford worked with cathode ray tubes under Thomson's mentorship. 

In 1899, he heard about Henri Becquerel's discovery of radioactivity and became interested in exploring alpha and beta decay. Rutherford was among the first to prove that alpha particles were Helium nuclei.

"All science is either physics or stamp collecting." Rutherford used to say, but ironically he won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1908 for his pioneering work with on the chemistry of radioactive substances.

Discovery of Nucleus 

As discussed earlier, alpha particle scattering experiment was conducted by Rutherford, Geiger and Marsden in the year 1909, by passing alpha particles through a thin gold foil.

Rutherford argued that since most of the particles passed straight through the gold foil, the atom must be made up of mostly empty space - not a positive soup as Thomson had thought.

In fact, the atom is about 100,000 times the diameter of the nucleus. It is like putting a grain of sand in the middle of a soccer ground!

Positive charge must be localized, Rutherford argued, in a very small point at the center of atom, which explained bouncing back in a small fraction of alpha particles, since positive positive repel.

Negative charges in the atom must be located somewhere on the outskirts ... which explained smaller deflections.

Summing up

By creating a new improved model, Rutherford became the father of nuclear physics, as he initiated a whole new branch of physics. Scientists decided to probe further into the nucleus and many subatomic particles were discovered as a result.

Upon the discovery of atomic nucleus, Rutherford said: "I have broken the machine and touched the GHOST OF MATTER." But he regretted not being able to explain something deeper - "when we found the nucleus, we found the basis of everything, the greatest secret of all - except of life."

5 Spiritual Quotes By Erwin Schrödinger

Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961) is well known as one of the founders of quantum mechanics. Schrödinger's equation is to quantum physics what Newton's laws are to classical physics. For his pioneering work, Schrödinger won the Nobel Prize in 1933.

But there is more to Schrödinger than you know. In addition to contributions to physics, Schrödinger is equally famous for being closer to spirituality than any other contemporary scientist. He took particular inspiration from eastern philosophies, such as from India.

Following are five quotes by physicist Erwin Schrödinger on philosophy and spirituality that may be worth your time:

1. We do not belong to this material world that science constructs for us. We are not in it; we are outside. We are only spectators. The reason why we believe that we are in it, that we belong to the picture, is that our bodies are in the picture. Our bodies belong to it. Not only my own body, but those of my friends, also of my dog and cat and horse, and of all the other people and animals. And this is my only means of communicating with them.

2. The stages of human development are to strive for:

(a) Besitz [Possession]

(b) Wissen [Knowledge]

(c) Können [Ability]

(d) Sein [Being]

The goal of man is to preserve his Karma and to develop it further... when man dies his Karma lives and creates for itself another carrier. [from writings in 1918]

3. This life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of this entire existence, but in a certain sense the whole. This, as we know, is what the Brahmins express in that sacred, mystic formula which is yet really so simple and so clear; tat tvam asi, this is you. Or, again, in such words as "I am in the east and the west, I am above and below, I am this entire world." [from My View of the World 1951]

4. I am born into an environment — I know not whence I came nor whither I go nor who I am. This is my situation as yours, every single one of you. That is why we are eager to find out about it as much as we can.

And that is science, learning, knowledge; it is the true source of every spiritual endeavor of man. We try to find out as much as we can about the spatial and temporal surroundings of the place in which we find ourselves put by birth…

Although Schrodinger rejected traditional religious beliefs - Jewish, Christian, and Islamic - but he loved to indulge in religious expressions and metaphors. Schrodinger, like Heisenberg was deeply inspired by Vedantic concepts that helped him cope with the absurdity of quantum mechanics.

5. I think that life may be the result of an accident, but I do not think that of consciousness. Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else. (1931)

10 Interesting Facts About Chien-Shiung Wu

Chinese American physicist Chien Shiung Wu [1912-1997] is most well known for performing an experiment in 1956 which proved that parity or mirror image symmetry is not conserved - when it comes to the weak nuclear force.

The result was a shocker. Nobel laureate Wolfgang Pauli said on behalf of the physics community: "We are all rather shaken by the death of our beloved friend, parity."

Wu was an acclaimed experimental physicist and her expertise in the subject evoked comparisons to Marie Curie. She was nicknamed the Chinese Madame Curie, queen of nuclear research, as well as the first lady of physics.

Following are ten facts on physicist Chien Shiung Wu...

1. Wu was extremely close to her father, who was an engineer. He created an environment for children that encouraged curiosity, questioning and research from an early age. Wu's mother was a school teacher who valued gender equality.

2. Wu received her primary education at a school for girls that was founded by her father. At home, she was surrounded by books, magazines and newspapers. Her hand writing was considered outstanding by others as she was praised for her Chinese calligraphy.

3. As a high school student, Wu struggled in the subject of mathematics. Her father bought self study guides to trigonometry, algebra and geometry one summer to help. That experience created a life long habit of self learning and gave Wu sufficient confidence.

4. In 1936, Wu was accepted by the University of Michigan, but she was shocked at the sexism in the campus. She decided to study at the more liberal Berkely in California. Wu was a popular student and among the most talented. Her nick name at Berkeley was Gee Gee.

5. Wu worked closely with Robert Oppenheimer on the Manhattan project in 1944 where she helped develop the process for separating uranium into isotopes by gaseous diffusion. Years later, Wu recommended the Taiwanese president not to build a nuclear weapon due to its destructive outcome.

6. In 1949, Wu was the first to conduct a successful experiment on quantum entanglement or as Einstein called it - spooky action at a distance. Her work was the first important confirmation of quantum results relevant to a pair of entangled photons.

7. When the communists came to power in China the following year, Wu's father wrote urging her never to return. Since her passport was issued by the former government, it became invalid to travel abroad. Wu became an American citizen in 1954.

8. Physicists Lee and Yang's theoretical studies showed that parity would be violated for the weak force. Wu was an expert on beta decay experiment, which is a consequence of the weak force. In 1956, she proved that beta particles from Cobalt were emitted asymmetrically and hence parity was not conserved.

9. Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang won the Nobel Prize in 1957. However, Wu was not honored until 1978 when she won the inaugural Wolf Prize - the criteria for this award is those scientists who were thought deserving to win a Nobel Prize but did not win.

10. She spent her final years promoting STEM education for girls. Wu's dying wish was to be buried in the courtyard of the Ming De school that her father had founded and that she had attended as a little girl.

How Max Planck Discovered Quantum Theory

German physicist Max Planck (1858-1947) was born in a traditional, intellectual family. Religion played a big part in the Planck household as both his great grandfather and grandfather were theology professors.

In 1867, Planck was enrolled in the Maximilians gymnasium school, where he came under the guidance of Hermann Müller, a mathematician who immediately recognized Planck's genius.

It was from Müller that Planck first learned the principle of conservation of energy as a 10 year old - that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. This is how Planck first came in contact with the field of physics.

Planck's big problem

When Planck expressed desire to pursue a career in physics, a professor Philipp von Jolly advised him against it, saying: "In physics, almost everything is already discovered."

Planck did not intend to make a discovery of new kind... he simply wanted to study physics deeply. In 1877, aged 19, Planck came under the mentorship of such renowned German scientists as Hermann von Helmholtz and Gustav Kirchhoff.

Max Planck, 1878

Planck was a devoted student with a knack for solving problems. By 1880, he had earned two of the highest degrees offered in Europe - a PhD degree and a qualification for professorship in Universities.

In 1894, Planck started working on the problem of black body radiation as classical theory of light had failed to explain what all was happening.

What is a black body?

A hypothetical black body can absorb all the energy that comes in contact with it, and then because of the laws of thermodynamics, this ideal body must also re-emit as much light as it absorbs.

Spectrum of a near perfect black body at an arbitrary constant temperature is shown below:

All objects actually emit radiation if their temperature is greater than absolute zero. An iron horseshoe, a ceramic cup and even people. The blackbody spectrum tells what is the peak wavelength emitted by that object at that temperature.

Very hot objects will glow - like Tungsten filament in a light bulb at 3300 Kelvin. Human body would emit invisible infrared radiation at 310 Kelvin.

It is important to note that all black body distributions look alike, except that they "peak" in different wavelength regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Classical VS quantum

In 1893, Wilhelm Wien had introduced Wien's law, which correctly predicted the behavior of black body at high frequencies - smaller wavelengths, but failed at low frequencies.

The Rayleigh–Jeans law of 1900 agreed with experimental results at low frequencies (below 100 THz), but created an "ultraviolet catastrophe" at higher frequencies.

There was no single law or theory that agreed with experimental data at all the values of frequency. Planck was determined to find a solution and at the turn of the century - he did.

In 1901, by assuming that radiation cannot be emitted continuously, as taught by classical physics, but in discrete packets or quanta.

Thus, energy is quantized according to Planck's law.

Planck considered quantization as being purely a mathematical trick and didn't really believe it to be anything more - it just fit the data at hand. In Planck's own words, energy quantum was "purely a formal assumption".

After all, physics is not really about "why" something is true but more about "how" does it work part. Ultimately, by moving away from classical theory Planck was able to explain the shape of black body spectrum to a high degree of accuracy.

Few years later, when Einstein solved another phenomenon where classical theory failed - the photoelectric effect - he gave physical meaning to Planck's energy quantum. The term "photon" was coined and a whole new quantum revolution began.

5 Physicists Who Started Their Own Business

It is said that anyone can start a business - and scientists too have delved into entrepreneurship from time to time. As physics and technology are closely related, most companies by physicists are technological - but there is one exception of a fast food chain!

1. Peter Buck

Peter Buck was an American physicist who co-founded the Subway fast food chain of restaurants. He earned master's and doctoral degrees in physics at Columbia University. Buck specialized in nuclear physics and worked for General Electric company for a while.

In 1965, Buck loaned $1000 to family friend Fred DeLuca and advised him to open a sandwich shop. Initially, the company was named Pete's Super Submarines. In 1974, they started franchising out the restaurant and renamed it to Subway sandwiches.

As of June 2021, Subway sandwiches had 37,540 locations in more than 100 countries and territories. It was also the fastest growing fast food chain in 2015.

2. Akio Morita

Akio Morita was a Japanese physicist and entrepreneur who co-founded the Sony corporation - initially named Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation - with physicist Masaru Ibuka.

Morita was born into a business family and was trained to one day overtake the operations. However, Morita found his true calling in mathematics and physics. He graduated from Osaka Imperial University with a degree in physics in 1944.

Sony sold the first tape recorder in Japan in 1950. In 1957, Sony also launched pocket sized radio - a precursor to Walkman which was introduced in 1979. It is believed that Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, wanted his company to create products that Akio would love.

3. Robert Noyce

Nicknamed the "mayor" of Silicon valley, Robert Noyce was an American physicist and inventor who co-founded the Intel corporation in 1968.

As a child, Noyce would build remote controlled aircraft and radio from scratch. He was a multi-talented person who not only exhibited a talent for mathematics in high school, but also sang at college and was part of the swimming team.

He graduated with a BA in physics and mathematics in 1949 and received his doctorate in physics from MIT in 1953. Noyce was hooked when his physics professor showed in one class the very first transistors invented at Bell labs.

In 1959, Noyce invented a new type of integrated circuit made of Silicon, that triggered a personal computing revolution later on, and gave Silicon valley its name. Today, the company Intel is inseparably linked to the business of personal computers.

4. Cecil Howard Green

Cecil Howard Green was a British-born American geophysicist, electrical engineer and entrepreneur who co-founded Texas Instruments in 1951. He also set up the University of Texas at Dallas in 1969.

Green was employed at Geophysical Service Incorporated, a petroleum exploration company. He purchased the entire business with colleagues in 1941 and they started manufacturing electrical instruments during the World War.

Today, Texas Instruments company holds over 45,000 patents worldwide! The growth of his company made Green an enormously wealthy man and he turned to philanthropy, giving away $200 million to educational and medical causes.

5. Ray Dolby

Ray Dolby was an American physicist, engineer and entrepreneur who invented a noise reduction system for use in audio tape recording in 1965 - the same year he also founded his company, Dolby laboratories in London.

Dolby received a bachelor degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University (1957). He went on to complete a PhD in physics from the University of Cambridge in 1961 by winning the Marshall scholarship.

Dolby left in his will a sum of £35 million to Pembroke College of University of Cambridge. His family also donated a further £85m to the University's Cavendish Laboratory. Today, Dolby is a leading developer of audio technologies for cinema, home theatres and mobile phones.

7 Physicists Who Were Also Great Musicians

Physics and music - two wildly separate fields, both make life joyous and beautiful in their own ways. Without the laws of physics, there would be no sunset, rainbow or internet, and without music, the living couldn’t so eloquently express feelings such as, say a heartbreak.

Following is a list of 7 physicists who also played music:

Brian May:

English musician and astrophysicist Brian May is the co-founder of one of the greatest rock bands in history - Queen. He was the lead guitarist and songwriter while being the member of immensely successful musical group.

Brian graduated with a BSc (hons) degree in physics from Imperial College in London. In 1974, when he was a doctoral student, Queen became so popular that Brian abandoned his studies to focus on the band.

In 2006, Brian May re-registered for his doctorate degree and completed his thesis within a year. His revised thesis was approved and he got his PhD in 2007 from Imperial College London after over 30 years of wait.

Albert Einstein:

Einstein’s interest in music developed as a child thanks to his mother, who was a reasonably decent piano player. She wanted her son to also learn the violin and help him assimilate into the German musical culture.

Einstein began learning both the instruments from the young age of 5. By 16, he had mastered Mozart’s and Beethoven’s violin sonatas. Einstein displayed a deep love and appreciation of classical music - a quality that was and remains in short supply.

Einstein said years later, “If I were not a physicist, I would be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music… I get most joy in life out of music.”

Max Planck:

The founding father of quantum theory was gifted when it came to music. Max Planck played various musical instruments including piano, organ and cello. Moreover, he also composed his own songs and operas. Einstein and Planck played together, finding not only a shared love for physics but also music.

Brian Cox:

Popular English particle physicist Brian Cox started his career as a piano and keyboard player in the rock band Dare. They released two studio albums with Cox in 1988 and 1991 respectively. Brian then joined another group - D:Ream, with whom he had several hits including the number one song, ‘Things can only get better’ that was also used as a New Labour election song.

Richard Feynman:

Feynman took Bongo, a relatively obscure musical instrument and made it mainstream. Feynman used to organize mini concerts for his students and played along with his friend Ralph Leighton - they even sang together, while drumming. Feynman is most easily recognized by a black and white picture in the Caltech archives, donning an ordinary white shirt and tailored pants, with a big smile on his face - playing his favorite percussive instrument.

Satyendra Nath Bose:

Well known Indian physicist in whose honor Bosons are named, was a person of varied interests. Bose was well versed in several languages such as Bengali, English, French, German and Sanskrit. He played an Indian stringed musical instrument similar to violin, called the Esraj, like a master. He was trained in Indian classical music and occasionally sang poems of Rabindranath Tagore and Kalidasa.

Werner Heisenberg:

Heisenberg is famous for laying the foundations of quantum mechanics. But very few are aware of his other interest - music. Like Einstein, Werner Heisenberg too came in contact with music from an early age.

Heisenberg could read sheet music when only 4 years old, so it is said that he was a prodigy. Heisenberg’s parents wanted him to become a concert pianist - however - his love of physics outgrew his love of music. Heisenberg's work in physics irked Einstein to such an extent that he commented, “God does not play dice with the Universe”.

Who Proposed The Idea of Black Hole?

The black hole is a great source of mystery and inspiration for scientists and writers alike. These are abnormalities in space where the gravity is so strong that not even light, traveling at an enormous speed of 300,000 km/sec, can escape.

How did the idea of black hole come about?

In 1915, more than a hundred years ago, Albert Einstein published a theory of space and time or "spacetime" in which one of the crucial predictions was the bending of light as it approached a massy body, like the sun or a black hole.

That light bent in the presence of mass was confirmed in an experiment led by English astronomer Arthur Eddington in 1919. After this observation, Einstein's general relativity was taken more seriously, as it resurrected the original idea of black hole – which was published way back in 1784!

It was English astronomer John Michell who suggested the existence of a body so big that even light could not escape. As a result, such an object could not be seen directly but its gravitational effects on nearby bodies could be measured.

At that time, the term black hole did not exist. Astronomers instead used the term "dark stars" which is a pretty cool name to describe a stellar body hiding in plain sight.

In 1916, Karl Schwarzschild used Einstein's field equations of general relativity to calculate the radius up to which any object of mass must be "cramped" to make it a black hole. This is called the Schwarzschild radius.

For example: Earth crushed to the size of a pea would turn into a black hole.

Although the theory of general relativity implied the existence of a monstrous space object capable of trapping light in its grasp, Einstein wrote in a paper that a star would "never shrink" to zero size.

When will black hole form

A new development occurred in 1930. Indian physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar calculated how a star could actually shrink or collapse if it "ran out of hydrogen" or other nuclear fuels to burn.

Consequently, there come various stages in the star's life cycle. Upon collapse, the star may become a white dwarf - like our sun will - too feeble to burn bright in our skies.

Chandrasekhar predicted that a white dwarf with mass greater than "a limit" will be subject to further gravitational collapse, evolving into a different type of stellar remnant - a denser neutron star.

What would it take to form a black hole then? In 1939, American physicist Robert Oppenheimer produced a paper titled, "On Continued Gravitational Attraction" and in it calculated that a star would have to be at least three times as massive as the sun to become black hole.

Birth of black hole

The paper by Oppenheimer was the key factor in the rejuvenation of astrophysical research in the United States in the 1950s - mainly by John Archibald Wheeler.

In fact, the term black hole was coined in 1967 by Wheeler during a talk he gave at the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies. Not even light could escape from it, it was undetectable - hence, "black" hole.

One also could not tell from the outside what was inside the black hole. This means that the black hole contains a lot of information which is hidden from the outside world and Wheeler called this, "A Black Hole Has No Hair".

But in 1971, English mathematical physicist Roger Penrose described a way for information to be transferred from rotating black hole to an outside particle. Three years later, another method for the same was provided by cosmologist Stephen Hawking, as in Hawking radiation.

At around the same time in America, physicist Kip Thorne, one of Wheeler's doctoral students, developed the general relativistic theory of thin accretion disks around black holes, a flattened band of spinning matter around the event horizon.

Something you may have already seen in artist's impressions of the black hole:

Thorne compiled many theoretical results about the black holes in a 1994 book for non-scientists, titled Black Holes and Time Warps. It was a widely recognized book on the subject and translated into six languages.

Cut to present

The phenomenon of black hole captured the attention of some of the greatest minds in history and continues to surprise us even more in mainstream media.

Most recently, in the 2014 film "Interstellar" by director Christopher Nolan. Physicist Kip Thorne was also closely involved in the making and acted as executive producer.

Interstellar was a huge success - the science fiction movie project not only generated a fortune at the box office but also a new public interest regarding the black holes.

In 2019, the first picture of a black hole in Messier 87 was released based on data from 2017. It was compiled by the event horizon telescope - a collective effort of scientists from over 20 countries made it possible to see the distant space object by converting the entire planet Earth into a giant virtual telescope!

The image of black hole confirmed how lucky we are as a species at this particular time, with the capacity of the human mind to comprehend the universe, to have built all the science and technology to see it in glorious action.

On a fun ending note, black holes have come a long way - from gigantic mass eating monsters in space to the shape of a doughnut!

5 Science Quotes By Robert Oppenheimer

Robert Oppenheimer was an American physicist who is often called the father of the atomic bomb. Despite making significant contributions to the fields of quantum mechanics and astrophysics, Oppenheimer is famously remembered for his role in the Manhattan project.

From an early age, Oppenheimer was interested in arts and sciences. He wrote poetry and enjoyed solving physics problems. In a letter to his bother, dated 14 October 1929 Oppenheimer admitted: "It is occasionally true, that I need physics more than friends."

Oppenheimer is also known as a defender and promoter of science in the post war world. He toured Europe and Asia, giving lectures on the history of science, the role of science in society and the nature of the universe.

Regarding his part in the Los Alamos laboratory, Oppenheimer said: "You cannot stop such a thing if you are a scientist. It is good to find out how the world works. It is good to turn over to mankind the greatest possible power to control the world, and to deal with it according to its lights and its values."

At the same time, Oppenheimer was aware of the increasing political misuse of scientific discoveries, which is why, he joined Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell in establishing the World Academy of Art and Science. It was started to discuss the major concerns of humanity.

Following are five quotes by J. Robert Oppenheimer on science:

1. Science is not everything, but science is very beautiful. (last published words, 1966)

2. There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. (1949)

3. Science is the basis for radically new technological developments. Most people, when they think of science as a good thing, when they think of it as worthy of encouragement, have in mind that the conditions of their life have been altered just by such technology, of which they may be reluctant to be deprived. (1948)

4. It is a profound and necessary truth that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they are found because it was possible to find them.

5. Science starts with a preconception, with common sense. It moves on to observation, is marked by the discovery of paradox, and is then concerned with the correction of preconception. It moves then to further observation and for more refined experiment. (1958)

Oppenheimer was a polymath who obtained a PhD degree aged only 23, under the guidance of physicist Max Born. He served as the director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where Einstein was a resident scholar.

Under his directorship, Oppenheimer brought together the most brilliant minds of his time such as Bohr, Fermi, Dirac, Bethe and Feynman. In 1963, Oppenheimer was recognized by the president of United States with Enrico Fermi award.

A biographical film by Christopher Nolan is scheduled to be released this year, starring actor Cillian Murphy as Robert Oppenheimer. It is based on the book, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Five Quotes By Stephen Hawking On Religion

Stephen Hawking was one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century who made fundamental contributions to the theory of black holes. Hawking is well known to the general public by his record-breaking book A brief history of time, which sold over 25 million copies.

Hawking (1942–2018) was given just a few years to live in his twenties, as he was struck by the paralyzing motor neuron disease in 1963. Not only did he beat the odds, but also revolutionized physics for next half a century.

When Hawking ended his bestselling book with the sentence: If we discover the theory of everything... it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason, for then we would know the mind of God, he raised quite a few eyebrows. Hawking later explained that he had used the word "God" figuratively.

On numerous occasions, Hawking had commented that even if God were to be real, he would be bound by the rules of physics. Therefore, is the idea of an all powerful creator even necessary, Hawking wondered often.

For example, Hawking told New Scientist in 2007: (1) I'm not religious in the normal sense. I believe that the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws.

In 2011, Hawking would go on to say: (2) We are each free to believe what we want and it is my view that the simplest explanation is there is no God. There is probably no heaven, and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that, I am extremely grateful.

And it is true that Hawking lived life to the fullest. His life threatening disease did not hinder his goals and aspirations. Hawking said, I believe that disabled people should concentrate on things that their handicap doesn’t prevent them from doing and not regret those they can’t do.

In an interview to The Guardian, Hawking remarked on the question of death: (3) I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers. That is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.

On the question of creation, Hawking is clear: (4) Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.

It may be a coincidence but Stephen Hawking was born on the same day that Galileo Galilei died in 1642. It was Galileo, the father of modern physics, who laid the foundations of science and religion debate, building upon his inner contradictions as a deeply religious man.

Hawking continued the great legacy more than 300 years later. According to him, there is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority and science, which is based on observation and reason. This is also the view held by such greats as Dirac and Feynman. 

(5) We are just an advanced breed of monkeys—Hawking adds—on a minor planet of a very average star. We are so insignificant that I cannot believe the whole universe exists for our benefit (which is the view that religion has). But we can understand the Universe, and that makes us something very special.