Science is an ever-evolving field that has seen several innovators and proponents of life-changing contributions and ideas. However, as much as we sing the names of Newton and Einstein, several great scientists changed the world whose names are rarely mentioned. This article is dedicated to these lesser-known scientists who made significant and unforgettable contributions to modern science.
Karl Landsteiner: Explaining the mystery of blood groups
Born in 1868, Karl Landsteiner was a trained Australian physician, but he was anything but a regular physician. He was a major contributor to the identification of different blood groups and also the identification of poliovirus.
Karl explained the huge dangers of transfusing the wrong blood group. Now we know how this avoided several catastrophic deaths. Furthermore, this brilliant physician analyzed the hereditary nature of different blood types.
Dr. Mansukh Wani: Giving hope to cancer patients
Dr. Mansukh was born in Maharashtra, India in 1920. He is a famous doctor who has received many awards and recognitions for his incredible work in the health sector. However, despite these awards, he is still not as famous as he should be.
He was partly responsible for developing the famous cancer drugs Comptothecine and Taxol, for which he received a few awards. We can’t help but imagine how much cancer patients would have gone through without these drugs.
Émilie du Châtelet: Making the greatest work of physics more accessible
Émilie du Châtelet was a French mathematician and physicist. She translated the Principia, which was published by Newton in 1687 and further clarified by other scientists like Leonhard Euler and Simeon Denis Poisson.
She didn’t just translate this work into French. She added contributions that go beyond Newton’s explanations. She completed the translated and expanded manuscript in 1749 and died in the same year.
Satyendra Nath Bose: Finding the details that evaded Einstein
Born in 1894, Satyendra Nath Bose was a scientist who became the father of quantum statistics. After proposing the famous idea of light quantum, Einstein couldn’t get what determined the physical behavior of light particles.
However, in 1924, Satyendra discovered that two light photons of the same frequency are indistinguishable- a fact that Einstein didn’t even realize. Surprisingly enough, Satya died in 1974 without a Nobel Prize.
Rosalind Franklin: Another scientist whose work was overshadowed
It won’t be the first time we’ll hear about a scientist who made a discovery and lost the recognition to someone else. However, that doesn’t make the story of Rosalind Franklin, a scientist born in 1920, less unfortunate.
Rosalind discovered the double helix structure of DNA before Watson and Crick made the discovery. However, theirs overshadowed her work, and she didn’t get due recognition. She also made other discoveries before she died in 1958.
